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Sometimes London is  hard work. Especially getting about. You get up and think, how about going to the V&A or Regents Park, or the River  and then you imagine all the people on the tube and the crowds everywhere, and the  loud European students and the  blocks of tourists who don’t know where they are going, standing still at  all the entrances and just by the doors, and the school trips in the museums and at the zoo, so if you are feeling a bit tired, you think, actually I would rather just stay local and have a cuppa in my manor, my village… I’ll go to Holloway instead. I have just started reading a book that a dear friend gave me called….wait for it. The Days and Nights of London Now – As Told by Those Who Love it, Hate it, Live it, Left it and Long for it. LONDONERS – by a Canadian Londoner called Craig Taylor (Granta).  The book is full of interviews, I read the first 50 pages yesterday, but am finding it a really inspiring and poignant read. Whether I will be able to sit still long enough to read it all….let’s see.

Today I woke up and felt the need to live in a small community by the sea with a good health food shop, fruit and veg shop, butchers, charity shop, book shop and tea shop.  It usually  happens when I have a little window to think in between working mostly all the time. Ah well. You never know what will be just around the corner if you write what you are thinking , then say aloud what you are writing , then act…..Right oh. Back to the clutter clearing.

SONG OF THE DAY – Our House – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Gulp, little lump in the throat when I hear this song.

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Every time I am having an internal crisis, do I  hit the bottle? Go to the gym and pound the treadmill?  No!!!! I google rightmove and try and find a new place to live that is usually out of my budget and in a place where I know nobody and I have no work. Something with a long garden so MR. P can give up breaking his back everyday, and can  stay home with the imaginary dog   growing vegetables ( not the dog!)- something with more that a bedroom and a half, so people can stay/live with us without us having to resort to sleeping on a blow up in the kitchen, with the mice and the buses, and a big space so  I can write.   I waste more time on rightmove than I do on almost any other activity in my life.

Reeds Rains is another really nice site where you can put in your imaginary deposit and find out how much you would have to pay a month on your imaginary morgage.

So I have got really good at noticing things people do to try and make their properties more appealing …like the WIDE ANGLE LENSE SHOTS. What is with the wide angled lenses? You look at photos of houses and just think…why is everything so wide..that’s daft. Neeeeeeeeext! It is a cheap stunt and anyone with half a brain cell will know that the rooms are all half the size, and then people who do not will get to the viewing and be really disappointed. There are people who ‘dress’ their houses  for the photos and people who seem not to give a flying fudge about the state of their places when the photos are taken. Then there are gardens. It amazes me how anyone can think a garden that has been completely paved and concreted over is attractive…I will never know. For me the garden is almost the most important aspect of the attractiveness of a property. Concrete just ‘aint gonna make you happy. Attractive features are now things like ‘space for three cars in drive’. mmmmm. I am not sure how therapeutic this pass time is of looking at houses I cannot afford, and you never know if you see the picture…blow it up…. say the words “i am moving up and moving on”.you are half way along thejourney.

I am lucky to have  shelter and a little beautiful garden and bless it regularly, and curse it almost as often, when the walls seem to be made of thinly buttered toast – a very common building material in the Victorian times I hear..and my housing co-op seems to be not a co-op at all but some sort of peculiar patriarchy.  So I continue with the aid of rightmove to plan for that miracle of living  somewhere other than  what often feels like a long   glorified ground floor corridor, but to someone else might feel like a mansion….. another deep sigh…..the grass is always greener….let’s have a cup of tea.

SONG OF THE DAY -OUR HOUSE -Crosby Stills Nash & Young

I think this is from an album as it jumps a couple of times…sweet…I must be very hormonal today as this made me cry…again….