I'M NOT HOMELESS

I found a great place on Friday and moved in on Sunday. It's in Queen's Park (W10) which is a short walk or bus ride from lots of cool things including Portobello Road. Everytime I write or say that I start singing the song from Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks: "Portobello Road, Portobello Road..." I love that movie!

I'm living in a townhouse-type place with one other guy. The room is bigger than anything else I looked at, there's a big kitchen and lounge, a garden and the house is clean which I discovered is surprisingly rare in my price range! I looked at so many dumps last week. You'd be surprised at how many places don't have living rooms. In fact, if the ad doesn't specifically mention a living room, you should assume that it's been built in, turned into a bedroom, and stuffed with a smelly French guy who leaves the remains of his breakfast growing bacteria in the kitchen for three days. Five people, one bathroom/toilet, shared kitchen, no lounge seemed to be the norm. Yuck.

So when I found this place I took it right away, even though it's 20 pounds a week over my self-imposed limit. I did check out another place afterwards that was even more expensive and it was the dumpiest dump of all! The kitchen was the size of an Australian toilet, the room was furnished with a double-sized bunk bed that left less than 50cm between the bunk and the ceiling (if I had one of my midnight coughing fits and sat up in bed I'd be knocked unconscious), and there was unsurprisingly no lounge room, one toilet and four flatmates.

So I'm stoked about the new place. The owner is connecting up some Sky tv/phone/broadband package in the next few weeks, so until then I'm still in internet cafes looking for jobs.

Oh crap, it just started belting down with rain outside. I bought a Marie Claire magazine yesterday because it came with a free umbrella. That rain is seriously coming down at a 45 degree angle. Looks a bit scary, but I'm sure it will clear up in a minute.

I'd best head off into the lovely English weather to seek my fortune now, or at least a crappy temp office job.