Online at last – in our own home
Wednesday, 1st August 2001 by JulieHi
We’ve been living here for 4 days now and it certainly feels good to have a place to call home. We contacted British Telecom (BT) yesterday and by the time we got home with our £4.99 telephone, the line was already available.
We ran into some problems with the modem though; no. 1 being that it has a 3-pin SA plug coming out of its power supply transformer. A trip into London Central eventually produced a rare 3-pin SA-to-UK adaptor for £4.99 and for a further £4.65 (ouch), a converter from SA-phonejack to UK-phonejack. Needless to say, it was all cheaper than buying a new modem. Back at home, there was the extreme disappointment of discovering that the phone connection in the study has been disconnected… but Tom to the rescue. Tinker-tinker-tinker and off we go again potentially at the expense of our BT security system should we ever want it re-commissioned.
I didn’t mention before that Tom actually only starts work on Monday the 6th of August, this gives us a good chance to get settled down before he disappears and I’ll start in seriously on the job hunt from next week too. Meanwhile, there’s lots to be done around the flat. I thought I’d give a quick verbal walking tour of it for all of you who will never get to see it…
Coming down the street (Westwick Gardens, a quiet suburban road) you stop at number 31, a 4-storey, terraced (i.e. joined to each of its neighbours) house. To the left of the stairs up to the main door, you come down some concrete stairs which curve slightly to the right. On your left in a piece of garden at street level, there are some large overgrown green shrubs – due to be pruned at some stage. At the bottom of the stairs, sheltered by the stairs to the upstairs flat, is number 31A (a “lower-ground-floor” flat) with a bright red door. Welcome.
There’s a several meter long entrance hallway and then to your left is the main bedroom. 
It has an attractive bay window and gets lots of light in the morning (potentially more once the aforementioned overgrown bushes are trimmed back). One double-bed against the wall opposite the window, fair-sized fitted cupboard with doors completed covered by mirrors (a tad unusual) against the left wall. Nice pine-veneer bookshelf against the far wall, already collecting books, Julie’s travelling teddy bear and other clutter. Another “feature” of this flat is a ‘dado’ rail running round the walls of most of the rooms… and below this rail the walls are painted a bright pastel blue. Quite nice.
Next door to the bedroom is the bathroom. Quite a long narrow room, basin & cupboard (with large white-tiled surface) then the bath on the right, and toilet on the left. Dado rail and pastel blue theme repeated, this time blue above the rail.
Next door down is the lounge. Major feature here is the fireplace straight across from the door. The bricks that surround the actual fire-making area are a rough grey & tan and the structure goes from floor to ceiling with a big flat wooden plank embedded in the bricks above the hearth. No gas to it unfortunately but we can have a real fire if we can find a log somewhere! 
On the right wall is another large mirror. The lounge suite is neat but uninspiring. A three-seater that converts into a single bed (anyone want to sleepover?) and a single seater, all covered in a rough beige weave except for the wooden arms and legs. New coffee table, pine-lookalike, in the middle.
The lounge leads on to the kitchen with the dining table sitting on the boundary against the left wall; same flavour as the coffee table, with four solid but elegant looking chairs. The largish fridge-freezer stands behind it.
Cream-colour surfaces on the left side with gas hob and under the counter electric oven in the middle. Rather sticky black extractor-thingy over the hob – nice light in it though.
Single sink (in brown – odd!) set in the surface against the far wall (actually just one big window above the sink, which lets in a lot of light). Fairly attractive wooden cupboards, under all the surfaces and above the working surface on the right, all of which (less the three already done) need a good wash inside and out!! Cream-coloured stone tiles on the floor.
To the left of the sink is the heavy wooden stable door leading to the “utility room” (glassed-in laundry as I think of it). Out here lives the (new) washing machine and some low shelves for storage. Even the roof of this room is clear perspex – good place for plants I reckon. The glass-door to the “garden” is opposite the kitchen door up some mossy damp stairs.
The patio is probably about 4x5m and has its own set of 4 white garden chairs + table complete with faded cushions & umbrella, a dinky shed in one corner and raised flower beds on three sides, all completely overgrown. I had a good go at it yesterday, ripping down an insidious creeper that was smothering our only rose and the pretty ivy growing up the wall. Unfortunately I had to be content with what I could rip off, as the roots require far more solid garden tools than I have available.
The only rooms left inside the house are on the left of the lounge as you walk out of it. Almost opposite the lounge is the door to the shower room, home to our electric “power-shower” and its undersized shower cubicle. It has a few idiosyncrasies around the controlling of flow and temperature but it does the trick. Not a match for the real thing sadly, but it does beat the over-the-bath types.
Turning left as you come out the lounge you come into the last room, the study / spare room. It is a long narrow-ish room, painted cream (no rail here) and nice & bright from the windows on the far end. One day soon we will have 2 desks – only one at present – and a single bed is also on its way (both from the landlord) for additional prospective guests. Needless to say our 2 PC’s will be living here. Minor inconvenience in this room is the running of a power cable across the room (short distance though) due to the substantial design flaw which placed the power point on the wall opposite to the phone connection.
The ubiquitous central heating radiators in white enamel paint abide in every room, and all rooms except the bathroom, shower and kitchen have fitted carpets in neutral blue / green shades. None of the rooms is what I would call large (well perhaps they are if you take London standards) but it’s more than enough space for us to be comfortable. One might wish for fewer neighbours but at least the house rules keep them quiet after 11pm.
That’s pretty much it…. Of course the furnishings came with the flat but that was about where it ended as far as provisions (kitchen and otherwise) went. We found some odd bits and pieces, like an egg-slicer and a garlic press, but nothing as useful as crockery would have been. Smatterings of cutlery included only a teaspoon in the spoon-department so Tom’s been eating his cereal with a fork for the last 3 days (Tip: spoons work much better).
Today we went out to the massive IKEA (home / furniture hyperstore) in NW London with Gordon and bought some dinner plates, glasses and a cutlery set. They were cheap for London but paying in pounds still hurts. Tom only gets paid on the last Friday of any given month and next month that *would* end up being the 31st!!
Sunday morning 10:30 found us at St Simons, the church about 60m up the road. Smallish congregation but quite lively and very friendly to us newcomers. We even got invited to a picnic lunch at someone’s house afterwards and spent an enjoyable afternoon lazing on their piece of lawn in the shade and making some new friends. The weather has only started to cool down this afternoon – it has been exceedingly hot here this last week… hard to remember that we’re not in South Africa at times!
Guess that’s more than enough details for one letter 
… Hope you’re all doing well.
Love
Julie & Tom
