Cam & Nat Living the London Life - A Housing Special

Hey all,

We thought since we have moved into another new place that we would show you the places that we have lived in since we have been in London. It has been a long time coming, as we have been waiting for internet to be connected at home to allow us to get this blog up! Finally after 6 weeks it is connected, so lots more blog entries coming your way!

Monday 12/02/07, Aaron and Emma have moved in with us, as they begin their London / Europe journey. We have signed up for a 12 month lease here, so we finally have somewhere that we can call home! No moving out in a couple of months etc. So onto our places that we have called home.

DOLLIS HILL

This was our first taste of London living. Dollis Hill is in North West London, about 25 minutes from the city centre. This area used to be a huge antipodean’s area, but a lot of Eastern Europeans are now moving into this area. This is not far from Wembley Stadium where the famous arena once stood, and has just been reopened after a huge makeover. We were able to stay in Lynsey’s room whilst she was away in South America on a 3 month tour. It is a great little 4 bedroom house, living with all girls. It had a tiny kitchen, but we still managed to cook up a few feasts while we were there! Quite a decent size lounge room downstairs, with a great legacy of many ex-housemates leaving their mark (stuff) behind. An awesome collection of videos, books, etc to be sure. We were here for a couple of weeks before we headed off to Turkey for Anzac day celebrations. Even Brooke was staying on our floor here for about a week before our departure.

We then returned to Dollis Hill for a couple more weeks. In that time we went out a couple of times with the girls, farewell dinners etc. There really was a great house-share spirit here. Thanks to Majyka, Mel, Steph and Erin for a great time! Before we headed off on our 3 month Europe tour, we had to pack up the stuff but we were able to leave the excess baggage in Lynsey’s room before we returned to London.

HOSTEL LIVING AFTER EUROPEAN ADVENTURES

Once we had returned from our huge Europe tour, we were now homeless! There was no room for a couple at Dollis Hill, so house hunting we went! But before we could find something suitable, we stayed in a couple of different backpackers hostels. Our first hostel was at Globetrotters Inn, Hammersmith. Hammersmith is in West London not too far away from the city either. This hostel is huuuuuuuuugggeeee!!! There is accommodation for 500+ people there and as it was peak season, it was full most nights. Pretty much every night that we were there we had to shift rooms. We had our own room (bunks of course) and shared rooms.

One afternoon we bumped into one of our fellow Kumuka travellers’ (Carleen, Hi!) on the tube, she had just finished a heap more touring and missed her stop. She ran into us getting on the tube and needed somewhere to stay as there was nothing available anywhere, so we got a mattress from reception and crashed out on our floor. It was so spooky the way we ran into each other and she needed a place to stay and we had a room to ourselves that night.

Nat managed to find a job whilst we were there and it was dress up in the suit and off to work from the hostel! Cam was out during the day trying hard to find some work, but to no avail. Our time came to move out as there was nowhere left to stay. The hostel was totally booked out, not surprising because this was the middle of peak season! Our next place of residence for a couple of weeks was Finsbury Park. This is in the North of the city, right next to Arsenal, home of the Gunners! A very large London soccer club who are always doing pretty well in Premiership over here. But you wouldn’t want to live here.

It is a pretty crap suburb with lots of seedy characters from all over the world living here. But the rent is cheap! After lots of desperate searching on the internet for another hostel, there was nothing available, and all of a sudden this place became available?! We were very confused but booked it anyway. Look at Nat tucking into that JUMBO home delivered kebab! They certainly make them differently over here...

Our hostel web site of choice is www.hostelworld.com. This website has hostels in pretty much all countries around the world and the user reviews are very helpful in deciding where to go! They always look good in the pictures but unless someone has stayed there you really don’t know what you are getting yourself into! The reviews have been very helpful, and are usually quite accurate.

The place that we were looking at was not reviewed yet, but we thought “blow it, we need somewhere to stay.” It had free internet and breakfast. It was a pretty dodgy hotel, that they had done up a floor for the hostel. The thing was that they hadn’t finished off the hostel part, so we had to stay in the hotel rooms! They were nearly twice the price but we managed to screw them because the hostel rooms were not ready. It was not very flash at all… There was a noisy restaurant next door and an outdoor alfresco right outside our window! The noisy patrons sounded like they were in our hotel room when they were actually outside the window. And poor Nat was working the next day and they kept her awake all night. Damn! We really needed a house to live in! So after a lot of looking on Gumtree (another great site – www.gumtree.com) we found a few places and were out looking.

The third place that we looked at was in an area called West Hampstead. This is in the North West of London, not far from Dollis Hill but a bit closer to the city. A much nicer area! Hampstead just up the road is one of the ritziest suburbs in London with some massive manors, and some very famous Brits’ live out there. But we weren’t quite that close. We had a look at this house and thought it was ok, but a bit isolated from the shops. Ainslee, one of the girls who showed us the room, mentioned to walk to the station a different way and look at the ‘high street’. Once we turned the corner and saw the ‘high street’ with all the shops, we looked at each other and made the decision that we would take the room. We called Ainslee back and said “We’ll take it!” It was renting a room from a couple of Aussie teacher girls who where going on holiday. So we met them down at the local pub for a meal and a couple of drinks to celebrate. Unfortunately the room was only available for a few months but that is pretty much all we were looking for at that stage.

Cam was off to find a pub job over the next week in this area. It was work at the Spotted Dog! Life in Finsbury Park was looking a lot worse. We realised then how crap this suburb really was, and was glad to be moving out soon… But it was a couple of weekends travelling over an hour by bus at 3am for Cam after work at the pub to get home!

WEST HAMPSTEAD

Finally it was time to move in. We had to stay on the couch for the first week, but didn’t care as we finally had a place to call home! After the girls moved out, it was straight into their room and finally got to unpack! Cam still hadn’t found a daytime job, so time was spent getting the house stuff and looking for work! This house was great, nice and tidy with a recent refurbishment, all bills included, a great kitchen and really nice housemates. Yet again it was all girls! Yep 5-6 girls and Cam. Life is tough…

We were living with two Lithuanians (very quiet and not very sociable), a Spanish girl (Pamela, so cool), Brazilian (smiley Mariana), and a Kiwi (sort of, she was off on the same holiday with the Aussies). What a mix! We really became good friends with Mariana and Pamela and would socialise with them most nights. We re-named the house afterwards “Hostel Pamela” because she would always have friends coming from overseas and staying with us.

We had many a good time here with dinners together, going out for beers and general good times. Trying to find free wi-fi was always a challenge, and no television in the house was really good for the house. Yes you can live without TV if you try, (but it is hard). Cam would be working most weekends, and finally picked up work during the week also, so would be working 60+ hours per week which was a little tough on our relationship. But we managed. A big thanks to Mariana and Pamela who became excellent friends with Nat. They kept her company and got her out of the house when Cam was working at nights and weekends.

Well the Aussie girls (Alicia and Ainslee) were heading back, and we had made plans to go to Germany and back to Oz for our friends’ weddings. It was time to pack up our stuff and bid this wonderful house goodbye. :-( We were allowed to leave the excess baggage here while we were gone which was very handy.

Nat had made good friends with an English girl, Caroline whilst she was working at Anglo-Irish bank. Caroline had her room up for a few weeks rent, while she was away. So we took that so we had some time to find a new place to live. We were getting good at packing up our stuff by now!

LONDON VICTORIA

After returning from Germany and Australia, we were off to a flat in the centre of London (sort of). It is about 5-10 minutes from the city centre, right near Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and New Scotland Yard. Yep we were really in the thick of it. It was a 3 bedroom flat, sharing with 2 other girls.

That’s right another place full of girls! We had Sarah 1 (Canadian Sarah), and Sarah 2 (English Sarah). They were both very friendly girls. Sarah 1 was probably our closest homie because she was home most of the time. Sarah 2 was probably only home 1-2 nights per week, so we really didn’t get to know her all that well. It was a cosy flat with a decent lounge, heaps of cooking stuff, because Caroline loves to cook like Cam.

As a bonus we got free 8Mbps broadband and International calls! We have discovered Talk Talk.

They are a mobile phone company set up through a mobile phone shop over here. All you have to do is sign up for a home phone contract and the internet is free (up to 40GB). And the free International calls were a great bonus too. Needless to say that we have just signed up for this in our new flat!

Check out the pigeon on the balcony. He landed there whilst I was taking pictures of the tree behind...

We were only here for a few weeks but it was really nice chilling out with the girls having a great chat about everything and surfing the net when you feel like it. Cam cooked up plenty of storms here! But knowing that we were only there for about 4 weeks was always playing in our minds and Nat was getting worried that we would not have anywhere to live soon! So back on the Gumtree site and a couple of others to try and find somewhere to live. We also sent out a mass email to everyone we knew in London, to see if anyone knew anyone who may have a room available for rent.

Just when we had given up hope, a forwarded e-mail arrived from Craig, Nat’s cousin. There was a house available in Clapham North for a couple of months. We couldn’t believe our luck!

CLAPHAM NORTH

Although the landlord didn’t give a very good impression of the house on the phone, once there we were well impressed! It is great when you see something that is better than it’s described! It wasn’t very clean but a huuuge house with 5 bedrooms, and we had the choice of rooms because we got in first. There was a huge master bedroom at the front/top of the house with our names on it. It was about 6 x 5 metres! Bigger than our room at home!

What was even better about the house was all bills included! It was a bit of a bare shell with no real house essentials other than some basic furniture. We were not too bothered as we had most of our stuff anyway. Just needed to get a few more bits to make the house a little more comfortable. Cam was very happy to know that there were 3 guys moving in! Finally a bit of male balance! We had Wally, a South African guy that manages a pub. Mark an Aussie who loves getting on it on the weekend. Rod is from Argentina, works too hard but is down the pub most nights. Cam gets on well with all of these guys in their own way. Wally brings an Xbox and 2 TV’s. Couldn’t be better! Wally and I were playing heaps of Ghost Recon, which is a very addictive game. Cam really got into the snooker and golf on the Xbox. Not quite as good as the real thing, but a good way to waste several hours!

We set up here pretty well, Cam played some poker with the boys from time to time. Over Christmas we were off to France for Christmas on our ski trip which was awesome, as you probably read already! Zavia stayed with us before and after the ski trip, which was interesting. Unfortunately she didn’t have much luck finding work in London, so she headed off back to Leeds to live with her aunty and get some work up there. We hear that she picked up some work at a pub called “Tiger Tiger”. This is a very fancy pub down here in London, so I am sure that she is enjoying herself up there also.

Well it had to come to an end. We had to move out by beginning of February. (Cam was doing his gardening job at this time) Nat had been busy at work surfing all the web sites trying to find somewhere to live. On this particular day, she found two places worth a look. Tooting and Clapham Common. After a quick call to Cam who was on a day off, Cam made appointments to look at the two places. Unfortunately he could only get to see the Clapham flat at 4pm at the latest, when Nat was still at work.

Well the Clapham flat really stood out. Cam wouldn’t stop raving about it. Its a fourth floor 2 bedroom flat in Clapham Common. This is about 3 kilometres from where we had been living as we really like the Clapham are. This is South West of the city. Clapham Common is huuuuge park in the middle of the borough that is shaped like a big pizza slice. Our place is where the green arrow is:

It had been recently renovated with new floors, kitchen etc. Once Nat took a look at it a day or two later, well it was a done deal. The views of the city was a sealer! Awesome views from a day bed in the lounge to be sure, views of the city at night is really spectacular, but photos do not do it justice.

CLAPHAM COMMON

Packed up our life yet again, and on a lovely Saturday morning, got all our stuff over to the new flat. The last couple of weekends we have been out shopping for house stuff,

as there was not much here other than the basic furniture and a kettle. But it is all setup now.

We have been kindly donated a TV, DVD and a Surround sound stereo, from Nat’s friend Prabashini. And she wouldn’t take any money for it! But in return we cooked up a lovely Lamb roast for them last Sunday as payment. Thoroughly enjoyable. We have discovered our new meat supplier, the markets in Brixton. It is madness down there, but so much meat to choose from, vegetables and all the basic supplies are available. We have even found a shop that sells all the Asian food supplies that you could want and more. They have been really hard to find over here.

The meat is lovely from these shops and is really well priced. For example a kilo of skinless chicken breasts is £3.50, and they are really tasty! We have made some great Risottos and Thai green curries from our Brixton supplies. There are some dodgy characters around Brixton and some pick-pocketing going on, but just have to have your wits about you and you are fine. But that is what makes Brixton so great, the characters that you see on the streets and in the markets make you feel the cultural diversity with influences from all over the world. This is reflected in the wide range of foods available. This really adds to the experience of Brixton.

Well we were fortunate enough to have a day of huge snow in London! It was the first day in Cam's new job working for his recruitment company - Crone Corkill. What an awesome way to start the day! It was a real shame that we didn't have longer to enjoy it. But we still got to throw snowballs at each other on the way! And of course enough time to take a few great pictures. Check them out!

Snowy Citroen

Snowman!

View from Our Lounge Room

Our Front Yard, Let it Snow!

After our first week with Aaron and Emma, things are working out pretty well. We have had a couple of small problems with the flat, but think we have got on top of them now. Hopefully full steam ahead! As of Sunday 18 February we have gone halves in a car with Aaron and Emma. A Peugeot 406 sedan, with all the fruit. It has been well maintained with a full service history and goes pretty good as well. It is a diesel which is quite economical to run. In fact a lot of cars over here are diesel as it is a lot more efficient. The price of diesel is a bit cheaper over here, I guess because there is a lot more demand. We are looking forward to hitting the road soon, going to Wales and Oxford and stuff for weekend trips. Then in June our big road trip around Ireland and Scotland!

That’s about it for the moment. But we have coming up our day trip to Brighton Beach, Chinese New Year and our Photography contest.

Take care guys, enjoy summer while it lasts! (If you are Down Under!)

Cam & Nat