11 March 2012

Soon we'll be living high and wide

We almost made it two years with one address in London. But this has been a March of inconvenience. First, my beloved's hard drive failed on the day that two important submissions were due. Second, our landlord is selling our flat. Third, we discovered that the backup of one chapter of my honey's PhD was corrupted. March came in like a lion.

A new hard drive is on order but parts for the first generation MacBookAir are getting harder and harder to come by. So she is using my computer in the meantime, which is an inconvenience all the way around. But the quality of our inconveniences shows how far we've come. Remember when the inconveniences were rats, bedbugs, raining light fixtures, lack of heat, & nightly fire alarms? We do.

So moving is on the cards. Without academic loans to help pay for accommodation, our budget has narrowed the selection. There is an inverse relationship between the price of housing and the cost of commuting based on distance from central London. I work in Putney, a relatively expensive area. Although we may luck out and find a place in Southfields, which is walking distance, but pickings are thin on our budget. We're feeling hopeful at the moment about Surbiton. I visited there yesterday morning and it seems quite nice. The prices seem to be in range and it is close enough to Putney to not put the combination of housing and travel beyond the budget. Now we just have to see what the places actually look like.

Looking at flats unfortunately brings a feeling of impending doom. In the past, we were either in a situation where we had to take the first thing that came along or we went in with high hopes only to have them dashed. Our current place was the first time that didn't happen... well, until they sold it out from under us... but even so, it's been a good run.

But all this is just inconvenient. March, so far, has also brought relative good health and good fortune for us and our loved ones. But the thing about inconvenience is that it's just ... inconvenient.

Photo Credit

Pictures of Surbiton from Wikipedia

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