Just sat down after a lazy Sunday, the first in a long series, in the new house. Last weekend (as you know) was hard, moving boxes/furniture for 48 hours, and yesterday was much the same (possibly even longer) after a trek to the rubbish tip, a trip to Ikea (in Essex of all places), and 6+ hours of moving & driving, and of course another trip to McDonalds (my second in two weeks, and also in almost a year). However, today has been laid back, all we’ve done is eat, drink (lots), do the shopping and pick up the rent deposit checkcheque (damnit, I’m oozing American) from the old house.

It’s the best feeling, sitting here with a cheque in my wallet for the full amount of the initial security bond, a huge relief too as it covers almost two thirds of this months rent at the new house which is awesome, as I wasn’t looking forward to having to raise the money for rent from my pay alone. This was a good thing, as there was a fair few marks on the walls that definitely weren’t there when we first moved in. But it got me thinking, who gives the full security bond amount back before properly checking state of said apartment? But really, it wasn’t all that bad, but I had expected to lose £150 or so for painting!

We’ve been in Twickenham for over a week now, and its been great so far, though I’m still getting used to having so many locals and not having to travel or walk more than 10 minutes to get to one. I know it hasn’t been long and we can’t expect to know the area back to front just yet, but I’m still finding little chestnuts around the place that make the new hood even more excellent, like this:

The Ingenuity of some astounds me

Now I’ve just got to try and make sure the house is presentable so we can get as much of the deposit back as possible.  There’s a couple of patches on the walls that are looking a little bit off which may cause us problems though (shoddy paint, I’m sure of it),  but I’ll do best with a can of touch up paint.

But its all for a good cause, and that’s the new house!  Bring it on!

Twickenham

It’s semi official, we’re moving! We found this great little place almost in the center of Twickenham, about 5 minutes walk (if that) from the train station and bus stops, and about 15 minute walk to Richmond. So yes, my only worry about moving to Twickenham, that which I’d be way too far away from the Train station is soon to be err…. quashed. The place is a 3-storey attached town house with about 10 pubs (including one 50m away which sells Cornish Tribute Ale), at least 10 restaurants, a hospital, and supermarket all within the radius of about 150 metres. It has two large double/king size bedrooms, a smaller double guest room, huge bathroom, great kitchen and biggish living & dining rooms. Then a great big outdoor area as well, with decking which should be good for sunny afternoons and the occasional shindig.

A tribute to a fantastic ale

This is great, as I firstly hated the thought of a 20-30 minute walk to the train station in the wet/hail/snow/etc, and didn’t want to be further than a short walking distance away from food, people, ameneties, etc. As I’ve said before, I didn’t move to London to not be 100m away from the nearest pub, and as long as we get the place, this will be a perfect compromise between those who love built up, close to city living (me), and outer, less noise living (them).

We looked at another place on Saturday morning which was cheap as hell (cheaper than the place we’re putting the deposit on), and fantastic inside, huge decked out kitchen, nice rooms upstairs, lovely big back yard, but it was just too damn far away from town. To walk from where we are moving (1min from Twickenham High St) to the place we looked at on Saturday would have been close to 30-40 minutes walk. Not good enough, without horses, cars or a swift segway.

Back on the topic of beer again (I know, I know), the BEST thing about Twickenham is that all the pubs appear to have a wide range of beers on sale, I’ve been into 5 pubs, and so far they’ve all had 10+ tap beers/ciders each all with different beers in each. Compare that to the pubs in Hounslow, as well as the few pubs I’ve been to in Mayfair/Piccadilly Circus where they’ve only got two ales and the usual Guiness, Stella and Carling or similar and its a huge change.

Bring on the new house, new area, new beer, shall we drink to it on many occasion.

Hounslow to Twickenham

But why Twickenham? After all, our new house is going to be at most 4 or 5 miles away from our current house, which seems like a bit of a waste when you consider the need to buy furniture, pay bond, pay 6 weeks rent, get Sky/Interent & Phone line installed, and the list goes on. It’s all about the location though, Twickenham has pubs, restaurants, and upmarket food supermarkets, Hounslow has a discount mall, and a shed load of transport links to London. This is London though, there’s supposed to be a pub (a good pub, that is) on every street corner. Thus the move to Twickenham must happen, ideally though, I’d like to be closer to the city, and somewhere on the tube line, but I’ll go with the flow.

Bring it on!