Mark Forrester

Flat Hunting

The last few days I have been frantically flat/house hunting around London. Might I add it is not a pleasant experience.

I’ve been sifting through Gumtree, and in the Loot newspaper, and there’s loads of rentals out there, but only 1 in 20 is ever worth visiting. Obviously, you only find that out after spending a couple quid on a tube ticket, and an hour’s worth of time to get there.

The classifieds don’t help much either. They are advertised as follows:

“Beautiful, huge double bedroom, with TV, in a mod and clean flat, perfectly situated, a stone’s throw from the tube station”

Which actually means:

“Crusty flat, above a dodgy kebab/pizza shop on noisy Wandsworth High street. A 10 minute walk from the tube station.

I’m learning pretty quickly how to decipher these adverts.

To cheer me up a little, I snapped this picture. At least London trains and buses come on time. Well most of the time. See below for proof:

London trains always on time
Expected arrival time: 10:41
Actual arrival time: 10:41:00

In

10 responses

  1. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    Haha mate, good luck, been there done that, got the t-shirt and now I’m doing it all again in the next few months, really sucks, the right one will come along soon enough, and then you wonder how they hell the others can charge what they do!

    Reply
  2. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Thanks for the sympathy Dave.

    Hopefully the right one comes along sooner rather than later.

    Reply
  3. Bryce Lloyd Avatar
    Bryce Lloyd

    Ha Ha ! Nice one Mark, so true, keep hunting and don’t give up they are out there you just have to spend a lot of time looking! Try get the advertisers to email you pics before you venture out it always helps !

    Reply
  4. Meri Avatar
    Meri

    Standard of housing’s a little different, isn’t it? 😉

    Reply
  5. Jammin Avatar
    Jammin

    Hey dude, i could not help noticing your sudden surge of hits, what the secret? come on share.

    Reply
  6. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Hey Jammin, was wondering if anyone was going to ask that. How observant of you.

    I actually submitted the photoshop tutorial to a tutorial search engine. The hits are coming from there. I’m not sure how long it will last, but definitely makes me think should I post more?

    Reply
  7. Pienk Zuit Avatar
    Pienk Zuit

    “At least London trains and buses come on time. Well most of the time.” – Good luck when reality sets in dude. Some of the most frustrating time in my life was spent waiting for transport in the UK.

    Reply
  8. Colin Avatar
    Colin

    heh heh heh. Good luck. My first and only experience of looking for a room was pretty much the same, except I was paying to get from Dorset to High Wycome/Marlow (bloddy expensive when you’re still converting everything back into Rands and not earning a penny) only to find the place was a shit hole with a window the size of an ipod, of which most of it was covered by someone else’s washing. Good luck. Oh, and watch out for the damp… one damp flat ruined a lot of my books and clothes.

    Reply
  9. Mark’s Digital Farm » Blog Archive » I Miss My Pillows

    […] What phases me is the pillows. When I buy new pillows they take a certain amount of time to mould to the correct puffiness. Once they have achieved perfect puffiness sleeping is wonderful. Until then though I toss and turn all night. Sleeping on other people’s beds means using their pillows, which have each been moulded by other people’s heads. Being on so many different beds over the last few weeks, with so many different pillows, all slightly different in puffiness has been difficult. They all make me tilt my neck slightly differently when in the sleeping position. Making my sleep patterns on each bed different. Friday hopefully marks the end of all this. Not the pillow issue (that will take another couple weeks to rectify, ie. the new pillow moulding phase), but the “living out of a suitcase” saga. I’ve finally found somewhere to stay. After a lot of visits to the Gumtree I finally found somewhere that’s clean, modern and large at an affordable price. The flat is in Raynes Park, next to Wimbledon. Unfortunately, I cannot go into more detail as to my whereabouts as the bus load of beautiful supermodel stalkers might catch me again. But I can share my excitement with you. […]

    Reply
  10. André Avatar
    André

    You have been lucky Mark! The tubes and trains in London are, as a rule, never on time. EVER! Good luck in Londinium. I’ve just started checking out your site and find it really easy to read and hence have kind of a connection to you – but not in a weird way?!?! I’m also from Cape Town and have had my time in the UK.

    Reply

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