Go East

We’ve been especially quiet through April. Why? Because we’ve had no frigging Internet! The reason being we moved in April to a newish place in Canary Wharf and made the mistake of staying with Orange as our service provider. More on that in a little bit…

Those reading our blog regularly since we first moved to the UK may remember my post about our search for a place to rent last year followed by Mimi’s post when we finally found a place in Earls Court. If you read those entries again, you’ll remember I wanted to live in or around Canary Wharf while Mimi wanted West London. As always, women usually win these “discussions” and get their way. So after an excruciatingly long search, we ended up in an old but redecorated flat in Earls Court. I say “redecorated” because calling it “refurbished” would be over stating what has been done to it. Sure, it had a newish kitchen and a remodelled bathroom, but other than that it just had a fresh coat of paint. We knew this so I’m by no means saying we were duped.

Our initial lease was 6 months paid up front. I think we mentioned that without a credit rating (which is the problem for anyone who moves to the UK and doesn’t yet have a job), you cannot pass any reference checks. So you either need a local guarantor or you pay your 6 months rent up front. We had no choice but to go with the 2nd option. That also meant that we had to renew our lease in October 2007. At that point, we both had jobs so we passed reference checks and could then pay rent on a monthly basis. The standard one year lease usually has a 6 month break clause, which means you can move out after 6 months if you give 2 months notice…which we did in February to break the lease in April.

It’s not that we didn’t enjoy living in West London. We loved the location. Even I admit to that…and I miss that convenience even now. The problem was the fact that anything you want to rent at a reasonable price in West London will be old. That’s just a fact. And very rarely does it get refurbished properly because that essentially means gutting the whole building…hence my “redecorated” comment. So even before moving in, I expected there to be problems around the things you cannot see like the plumbing, heating, insulation etc. I also made sure Mimi understood these things and she didn’t seem to mind because she got her West London address! Sure enough we encountered quite a few things along the way, hence the decision to break the lease at 6 months and move to a MUCH MUCH MUCH newer place.

Here are the main ones (I’ve omitted all the little annoying things because they pale in comparison and also had more to do with our neighbours and not the actual apartment):

• Bitterly cold except in summer – Old buildings usually mean the insulation is almost non-existent. So that building itself without heating will be almost the same temperature as the air outside. There are also gaps in all the window fittings and frames so heat escapes and cold air comes in. Add to that the fact that the so called heaters are the old ones fitted into the wall which basically use hot water as the heating mechanism. Essentially, it heats up by running the hot water through a metal frame pretending it’s a heater. Doesn’t really work that well. I could put my hand on it directly and leave it there as long as I felt like doing so. To be fair, it did heat up the apartment slightly, but only because without it turned on, we needed to wear the same clothes we would wear to go out. Put simply it was just F*$&ing cold!
• Bed bugs – When we first moved in, we noticed some reddish brown stains on the bed frame but didn’t think anything of it. We just cleaned it up and left it at that. When the temperature started to get warmer, we started to get red itchy spots all over our legs and arms. We told the landlord who then called the pest controller in. They said it was a beetle of some sort and that the larvae irritates skin and leave itchy spots. So they treated the apartment for the beetles (3 times over the space of 3 weeks) and we thought the problem was solved. Incidentally, at the end of the treatment, we left to go on our trip to China and also back home to Oz. When I got back (I arrived back in the UK a few weeks before Mimi), I woke up the next morning with the same red spots all over my legs and arms! Worse than that, I noticed red blood spots all over the mattress. I think it was when I squished the bugs through the night as I moved around. I lifted up the bed and to my horror saw the actual bugs on the frame and the mattress! I took pictures but I don’t want to post them on here in case anyone reading is squeamish. The landlord got the pest controllers back who upon inspection of the bed confirmed the bed bugs and also pointed out the reddish stains on the bed frame (which we noticed upon moving in) were sure signs on the bed bugs. In other words, they were already there before we moved in…although our landlord assured us that she had NEVER had bed bug issues before. Anyway, the bed frame now had to be treated and we had to sleep in the living room on the air mattress for a whole month! My back is still “thanking” me for that month on the air mattress. Thankfully after the treatment, they bugs were gone…at least for now. I don’t know if they’ll be back but it doesn’t matter because we don’t live there anymore!
• Dust dust dust everywhere – When the place was redecorated, we think they basically ripped up the carpet and just polished the original wooden floor boards and then treated them. Problem with that was the fact the original floor boards had half centimetre gaps between each long plank. So there was no way we could see what lay underneath the boards nor could we clean them properly. They were just permanently dirty and that meant we could never clean up all the dust as a lot of it was under the boards.
• Plumbing – Apparently, the basement flat in the building had a water leakage problem that had been going on for 6 months. They had essentially moved out of their bedroom because the wall was “growing mushrooms”. Their words, not mine. They eventually complained enough to building management that plumbers had to come in. It came down to the point where they isolated a pipe that was the cause of the leak and it happened to run through the middle of our flat! So they had to cut a hole in the wall to get at the pipe and the just seal back the hole with a board…which still had not been fixed up properly on the day we moved out. Luckily the plumber that did the work was smart enough to know he could get at the pipe through the wall or else they had to rip our kitchen sink out!
• Tricky boiler – Our hot water boiler took us some time to figure out how to use. It was temperamental and sometimes refused to produce any hot water…or so we thought. This was until we figured out that the “magic switch” was the kitchen tap. Turning on the hot water via the kitchen tap somehow forced the boiler to generate hot water. It was still annoying however because one of us yelling out to the other in “mid shower” to “turn on the kitchen tap” was quite a common occurrence.
• Leak in the ceiling – 2 weeks before we moved out, the ceiling started leaking. We’re guessing it was a pipe running through the building, but we’re not sure. The landlord was still trying to get it sorted when we moved out.
• Boiler broke – 1 week before we moved out, the boiler stopped working. That meant we had NO HOT WATER. Luckily we still had our gym membership (which we had cancelled but ran through until the end of April) so we had to go to the gym EVERYDAY simply to take a shower. Lots of fun! Incidentally, that was the most we had ever used our gym in the space of a month. Pretty bad on our part.

The boiler breaking and ceiling leaking in the last 2 weeks of our tenancy were a sure sign we made the right decision to move out. Even Mimi finally agreed that she was happy to be moving to a much newer place. I’m going to get in trouble for this next statement, but I’ve learned that the only way to get her to agree to something is to let her try things out her way first…unfortunately that meant living in that Earls Court flat for a whole year! That’s not to say I didn’t come around to the whole “West London” thing. Like I’ve already said, you CANNOT beat the convenience and location…if you can put up with everything else. The only way we both would have been 100% happy in West London was to pay 40% more rent for a properly refurbished place…and that certainly wasn’t going to work within our budget!

Now on to the new place. Remember how we saw over 60 places before we found our place in Earls Court? The best thing about that was we were VERY well researched and educated about what presented good value. Fortunately we had also seen some places in Canary Wharf last year. This time around, we only saw 1 place and took it. In other words, we went from one extreme to the other. Mimi didn’t even physically see our new place. I had a business meeting in Canary Wharf and simply arranged a viewing for myself to fit in with my meeting. I took some pictures so Mimi could have a look and decide if she wanted to have a look herself. In the end she decided that she liked what she saw in the photos and we agreed to make an offer without her even taking a look because we thought £300 per week was good value (it wasn’t listed at this price so it’s not like we offered the advertised price). We basically agreed that if they would take the offer we’d be happy to go for it. They did. Oh, did I mention the new place has a gym and pool for residents? Add to that the fact that our rent is now lower than what we paid in Earls Court and we’re in an even better position. Sure the council taxes here are 50% more (council taxes in the Tower Hamlets are generally more than in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea), but we don’t have to pay for water and gas (included in the maintenance costs paid by the landlord), so the bills balance out (we did our sums to verify this).

To add to all the positives, I’m changing jobs and my new role happens to be based in Canary Wharf! That wasn’t planned. It just worked out that way.

In summary, we’re happy with the new place for the following reasons:

• Monthly costs go down.
• MUCH newer.
• MUCH warmer.
• MUCH cleaner.
• Gym + Pool

On the negative side:

• Not as convenient.
• We’re still working out the heater timer – we need to have a gap of an hour between showers otherwise the 2nd person will run out of hot water halfway through.

Overall, we’re still ahead in this new place I think…I’m not going to speak for Mimi but I think she agrees

As for the whole issue with our Internet…

I complained last year (here and here) about how difficult it was to get our Internet in Earls Court set up mainly because of Orange’s incompetence. This time around was no different. Customer service is still non-existent and they refused to take any responsibility for the fact it took 3 whole weeks to get the service enabled in our new place. I gave them advance notice before we even moved in and all they could do was blame BT (because they own all the lines) and keep saying “I understand your frustration sir”. Well if you understand my frustration, then do something about it!!!!!! They were also still charging us for the 3 weeks of non-existent service. When I asked them why, they blamed BT again. If I could do this again, I would have cancelled the service with Orange upon moving and just changed service providers. At least they wouldn’t have charged me for the non-service and I would have been rid of Orange! The only disadvantage of doing so would have been that we would be stuck with another 12 month contract, which is not that big a deal because we’re planning to stay here for the next 12 months anyway.

The whole Internet service thing doesn’t seem to be limited to Orange however. I’ve spoken to other people and looked in forums and it seems to be the case across the UK. For a first world, technologically advanced country, the UK does an APPALLING job when it comes to telecommunication matters. I would take Telstra or Optus any day!

That’s enough complaining from me for today. I’m going to go relax on our balcony and look out at the river…oh forgot to mention, we have a balcony with a partial view of the Thames.

 

If you are wondering what we’ve been doing for the last month…

…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”

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

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

 

Ian is really fussy

Or so Mimi says, but that’s just her way of blaming everything on me

I’m talking about our search for a place to rent. Apparently, less fussy people find a place to rent in a day or so. We’ve been looking for 2 weeks and still haven’t found a place. Before anyone accuses me of being overly fussy (maybe I am a little) let me explain.

When we got here, we had the following requirements:

1. New fittings (obvious option is to look at new apartments)
2. Budget of 250 pounds per week (That’s cheap by UK standards if you want to live in and around London…although it’s almost $700 AUD)
3. Close to public transport
4. 1 bedroom
5. Furnished (quite common in London)

Not too difficult right? We had a look on a few UK property sites before we came over to get an indication of whether our requirements were realistic. They were…or so we thought. The sites we’ve been using are www.findaproperty.com and www.hotproperty.co.uk and http://www.gumtree.com for those that are reading this and are thinking of moving here.

Our conclusion before arriving was that we would rent in the Canary Wharf area. Mimi has a few friends that live in Canary Wharf and they seem to like it. Mimi’s also seen the area on her previous trip here so she sort of knew what we were in for. You should already know we’re staying with our friend Lawrence (aka Lommy) in Limehouse so it worked out nicely. Why? Because it’s literally next door and very convenient to view apartments.

So for the first week, we looked in Canary Wharf. Actually, if you tell the agents Canary Wharf, they’ll assume you mean the Docklands, which actually covers a wider area. It’s essentially a huge re-modernisation effort of a once industrial area into modern apartment blocks. Every major city in the world seems to do this (e.g. Melbourne’s own Docklands or even Pyrmont in Sydney).

We found there was a REAL shortage of 1 bedroom apartments that were reasonably priced and that were convenient, especially in the time frame we wanted. The common thing we’ve been getting from agents is that they have things coming up in May, but that’s not soon enough for us. Unfortunately, we need to move in ASAP because our good friend Lommy needs the space for his family members that are visiting in early April. The problem is that we really couldn’t look before we arrived because few people in their right mind would rent a place without physically inspecting it.

Given this, we upped our budget to 300 pounds a week. That gave us the leverage to get something we liked within the time frame. I won’t bore you with the details of our first week of searching, but we viewed about 10-15 apartments all over the Docklands. Their prices ranged from 250 pounds a week to 350 pounds a week and we literally spent 4 days looking. On Friday 23rd March at 12:45pm, we eventually made an offer of 280 pounds per week for a 1 bedroom apartment in a development called 41 Millharbour, which is about a 3 minute walk to South Quay DLR station (DLR stands for Docklands Light Rail by the way. Follow this link if you want to read up on it). It fell through because someone else beat us to the punch and it got let out to them. We found out on Monday 26 March.

Before I move on, I’ll give you a bit about what happened over the weekend (24, 25 March). It’ll make the next part of the story more credible, otherwise we’ll look like 2 people who can’t make a decision because we’re too fussy…oops I mean because I’m too fussy. If I start to ramble and go off topic, please bear with me. I’ll get to my point in the next paragraph.

On Saturday, Lommy took us to a chinese restaurant in Soho for Yum Cha. It had already been arranged with some lawyer and banker friends of his and we just tagged along (we spent the whole first week basically tagging along to Lommy’s dinners with his friends – thanks Lommy). Quite nice actually. I was surprised because everyone’s been telling me London’s chinese food is crap (understandable because London Chinatown sucks compared to San Francisco or even Sydney). Anyway, we were going to meet up with a few of Mimi’s friends after lunch. Unfortunately, we were over an hour late because one of Lommy’s friends showed up an hour and a half late to lunch and we spent the whole last hour watching them eat. So if you’re reading this Jackie, Grace, Michael, Peggy and Jennifer…we’re still really sorry we were so late. We had afternoon tea at a really nice place…I can’t remember the name now (Grace or Jackie if you’re reading this please comment and tell me) but I remember getting off at Green Park tube station. I mention this because we arranged to meet up with Grace and Jackie on Sunday too. They wanted to show us the area they live in to give us more options and to open our eyes to more than just Canary Wharf (we also had a look at Michael and Peggy’s place – thanks guys). In case you’re wondering, they live a stone’s throw from Emirates Stadium, home of the Arsenal Football Club for those that follow football (the soccer kind). You can see the ticket window from the apartment entrance. It’s actually quite convenient to get to central London from where they live. The key word here is convenience. This got Mimi thinking…and that’s how we got to…

“Ian, let’s forget Canary Wharf for now and look in and around the West End“. Most of you should know that the West End is famous for musicals and plays. I should be specific and say that she really meant West London. The West End is a little closer to central London and hence costs a fair bit more. West London is also very convenient and a very “happening” and vibrant area, compared to Canary Wharf which Londoners keep telling us is really “dead” at night because it’s filled with offices and people go home after work. For those still wondering, surely you’ve heard of Notting Hill? For every girl (and sensitive guy) who watched Hugh Grant sweep Julia Roberts off her feet in the movie of the same name, I bet the following thought has crossed your mind: “Ohhhh…I’d LOVE to live in Notting Hill”.

This week we started our search for the perfect place in and around West London. To do this, we had to up our budget to 350 pounds a week (yes mums, we know we should not go too high because we need to save) and changed our “new apartment” requirement to “refurbished or well kept”. We’ve looked in Notting Hill, Paddington, North Kensington, South Kensington, Chelsea, Maida Vale, St John’s Wood and even Fulham. We’ve been VERY busy each morning lining up property viewings with rental agents and we’ve filled up this whole week with the quest for the perfect apartment in West London. Fulham is a bit farther out and we’ve decided against it due to its sole reliance on the London Tube’s District line…which is apparently a little unreliable.

Where does that leave us? We still like Notting Hill (damn that movie!). We’re also very fond of St John’s Wood. You get more for your money and it’s still very convenient (2 stops from central London). It’s in the North West of London and is really the first (closest) “suburb” that’s not technically part of the affluent West London area (like Notting Hill is). For trivia buffs, Lords (the home of Cricket) is in St John’s Wood. More importantly, one of the most famous streets in the world is in St John’s Wood. What street you ask? Abbey Road. Still puzzled? Does this picture ring a bell?

That is of course the picture associated with the Beatles‘ album of the same name. Their recording studio (Abbey Road Studios) is actually just next to the famous cross-walk.

We’ve devoted today and tomorrow to looking at places in St John’s Wood. We’ve seen a handful we like, but we’re having to weigh up price, proximity to public transport (specifically the London Tube), fittings and just generally how we feel about the place. In case you’re wondering how many we’ve seen so far in West London…we don’t really know. We lost count awhile back. Our record was about 14 in a single day. Today’s Thursday so if I’m conservative and average it out at 7 or 8 per day, that’s around 30. Frightening isn’t it!

Here’s the part for those of you reading this for informational purposes. Lessons learnt:

1. Get a job before trying to rent if possible. Otherwise, you need a UK based guarantor to “vouch for you” and undergo a reference check along with you (we don’t have someone to do this for us) or you need to pay 6 months rent in advance. Yeah that’s right. 6 MONTHS. Neither of us has a job because we don’t want to rush into taking the first available one, so we’ve decided to bite the bullet and just pay 6 months up front. The positive side of this is that it gives you bargaining power with the landlord to get a better rental price because they love having that sort of money in their bank account up front. The negative is that you need to have the 6 months rent available in cash. At 350 per week, that’s 9100 pounds…roughly $23,000 AUD. A lot of cash I know. If you have this, you really only lose the interest. At 4% interest PA, that’s about $500 AUD. Not a lot if you consider that it’ll cost you that much for 2-3 nights in a hotel if you don’t rent something as soon as you get here. We have this in savings because we knew that we’d probably be up for this before we came over. If we didn’t, I would have passed out from the shock.
2. Do your research before arriving so you know which rental agents to hit up. Send some preliminary emails so they know you’re going to be in the market. They will probably tell you to contact them once you get here and not want to bother with you beforehand, but that’s better than hitting the ground cold. I’ve dealt with enough rental agents to know what they’re all like. Some are very pushy, some are very nonchalant and stand-offish (same all over the world I suppose). They are generally all young (early 20s – makes me feel old) and some are very quiet. It’s especially apparent with those without the “gift of the gab”. You feel a little awkward when you’re with them because there are frequent, awkward silences. They’re not all like this, but quite a few are. And if you want to deal with one of the big agencies, be prepared to deal with lots of unwarranted calls. We’ve been dealing with Foxtons a fair bit and they are VERY aggressive. I registered my details with Foxtons St John’s Wood and also their Notting Hill branch for obvious reasons. Next thing I know, I’m getting calls from Foxtons South Kensington, Foxtons Battersea, Foxtons Park Lane/Mayfair (yes the dark blue squares on the Monopoly board) and Foxtons Fulham…all asking if we’re interested in their area. In the case of South Kensington and Fulham, we were. But it was still annoying after awhile. They also don’t think twice about treading on each other’s toes. I had a guy from Foxtons Battersea try to show me places in St John’s Wood even after having dealt with Foxtons St John’s Wood themselves. Very confusing. Foxtons has a reputation for doing this with other agents by the way. Some people like it, others don’t. I didn’t mind it at first…now it’s starting to annoy me. I was even trying to work out how they were being efficient and quizzing the agents on their central system for managing potential clients.
3. The properties listed on the online rental websites (and even the agent window displays) are NEVER up to date. They don’t do a good job of cleaning up the properties that are no longer available. What we’ve had to do is use the online sites as a guide to which agents have stock. From this, you can get a list of agents to call. Then the tedious task of repeating yourself over and over again begins when they ask for your personal details and requirements for renting. An alternative is to come up with a template email to send out and email agents individually. I’ve used a mixture of both approaches and it’s worked well. Some agents don’t mail back, so if you want to be sure of getting a response, use the phone.
4. Start physically looking for a place to rent as soon as you get here. It takes awhile if you’re as fussy as we are. If not, maybe you’ll take the first one available (don’t…at least see a handful before taking one). As I said before, 1 bedroom apartments to rent are a scarce resource, especially if you need to move in ASAP. The reason is because tenants usually give 1 months notice. That means the agents usually get the property listing a month ahead of when it really becomes available. If you can afford to, short let for a month (or find a friend who can put up with your annoying habits for a month). That gives you some breathing room to find a place you really like and also more places to choose from. There are more studios and 2-3 bedroom places around. If you don’t mind sharing, a 2-3 bedroom place is better value for money.
5. West London is a very nice area to live in. Lots happening and it’s very convenient…but very expensive.
6. Canary Wharf has new apartments and don’t cost as much…but be prepared for nothing to do at night. Good if you like to stay in at night and don’t mind travelling a bit to get to places. As a point of reference, it takes about half an hour on the tube to get from Canary Wharf to central London. It takes half that time from West London.
7. We’ve seen most of West London during our search for a place to rent (both walking around and riding in cars with agents). It occurred to me that if you want a free tour of a particular area of London, you could ring a few agents and say you want to rent in a few areas. Of course, I’m not condoning fraudulent behaviour, but if you’re on a tight budget while on tour, it’s an option to consider

It’s dinner time and I’m getting hungry so I think that’s enough for now. If you’ve been wondering what we’ve been doing, hopefully I’ve answered that question.

I REALLY hope we find something in the next few days. Fingers crossed.