…constantly spending time looking for a place to rent. I might like to add in my defence to one of Ian’s comments, that I did say “it would be nice to live in Notting Hill but it wasn’t a must” :P

In a way I think it’s actually a blessing that we have not yet started working and can spend full time looking for a place to rent. As Ian mentioned in his earlier post, we have seen quite a few already. 61 apartments to be exact. Not all of them were what we expected even though we gave our requirements to the agents and only a few stood out. One in South Kensington was newly refurbished with really nice fittings but so small we couldn’t justify to ourselves that it was worth paying the required price. Others had more space with what I called quaint fittings but Ian reckons they just looked old. A few made us uncomfortable the moment we stepped in, one in particular had some structural issues where the floorboards were slanted! Then we saw one which was close to what we wanted. It was a 2-bedder so it certainly had the space and was refurbished with newer fittings but it was 20 minutes walk from Notting Hill Gate tube station. We were convinced that we could do with the exercise :) so on the Tuesday before Easter we put in an offer for it. As we went through the negotiations with the landlord, it was apparent our offer was too low but we weren’t prepared to increase our budget for an apartment that was comparatively inconvenient so that offer fell through.

On the Thursday before Easter, another apartment in Notting Hill came up and we went to have a look. It was on the top floor of a terraced flat so around 7-8 flights of stairs (great for toning!). We were aesthetically amused with unusual sculptures in the hallways. We guessed that there must have been an artist living in the building. The apartment itself was nice, spacious with acceptable fittings and it was 3 minutes walk from Notting Hill Gate tube station so we put an offer in that afternoon which was verbally accepted by the landlord. Unfortunately, we couldn’t sign the contract until the following Tuesday because apparently this is not allowed on weekends and public holidays.

On a side note, we had a lovely Easter weekend. We caught a 30-minute train ride to meet up with Ian’s relatives (Uncle Chen & Auntie Siew Har, Auntie Chen & Richard) who were in Surrey. As there were 6 of us, we drove 2 cars to see the picturesque Box Hill summit of the North Downs. For those who love Jane Austen, Box Hill was also mentioned in her book Emma. After driving through some very poorly signed roads, we found our next stop – Denbies Vineyard, Britain’s largest privately-owned vineyard. Uncle Chen bought us tickets to the “Wine Experience Tour” where we learned the vineyards are grown on a layer of porous chalky soil, in a protected valley facing south where there’s more sun but sheltered from the winds. The whole valley is ecologically and topologically similar to that of the Champagne region in France. The tour ended at the cellar where we did some wine tasting. We have heard English wine has for a long time suffered from being a bit of a novelty item so we were pleasantly surprised to find their Surrey Gold 2004 was quite nice & refreshing.

Our friend Derek (who is enjoying the Caribbean at the moment) was in town at the time. Aarti and her husband Sethu had also driven to London all the way from Bradford. So we rushed back from Surrey to meet them for dinner in a Malaysian restaurant called Awana in South Kensington. Food was nice. Service was great. Bill was a bit of a shock. Company was excellent nevertheless.

On Sunday, we met up with Grace, Jackie, Peggy, Michael, Kylie and her cousin to attend the Easter service at St Paul’s Cathedral. The choir sounded amazing. For those from CGHS, it really reminded me of those harmonic moments we had to produce at the Opera House on Presentation Day. After a very fulfilling lunch, we walked across the Millennium Bridge and wandered into the Tate Modern for the afternoon and saw some interesting contemporary art. I thought the outside looked quite ugly but apparently this building was a disused power station before it was transformed into the art gallery in 2000.

Back to our offer for the Notting Hill apartment. On the Tuesday following Easter, we were still waiting for the landlord to finalise our contract. On Wednesday we found out the landlord didn’t actually take the property off the market for the long weekend when the agent called saying that landlord was now asking us to increase our offer because someone else had made a higher offer via another agent?! When we told him that was our final offer, the landlord decided to take the higher offer! And all this was happening while the landlord was already drafting out the contract for us?! I can now believe how unregulated the rental market is here. Landlords and agents can pretty much do whatever they like and get away with it. There are no standards nor ethics. Consider yourself lucky if you are dealing with a good agent/landlord. We started our search for properties again and saw a few on Thursday. We found a nice split-level, terraced flat in Earls Court. We’d only been to Earls Court twice, but found it really convenient with supermarkets, doctors, dentists, a post office, Internet cafes and restaurants. It is only 10 minutes walk to Holland Park and High Street Kensington. We put an offer that afternoon and we were so ecstatic when the landlord accepted!! This time the agent was very efficient and professional. I think we were both really exhausted by the whole experience. It was mentally tiring. We met the landlord, signed the contract and got the keys on the following Tuesday :)

For those of you who are looking, we found agents from Direct Residential, Sinclairs and Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward were quite good and professional.

I would mention we did spend 7 hours cleaning the whole apartment on Saturday! We have postponed moving in though and will probably not move yet until there is a TV and internet connection at Ian’s request. Apparently Ian can’t live without either :P

I’m starting my new job tomorrow so I think I’ll stop here and time to zzzzz!