The grooviest curtains you ever did see. Or not.

It was perfectly obvious to me what had happened. The landlords (who are abroad) had suddenly decided that they didn’t want to rent their flat at all- they were coming back to London forthwith, and wanted to live there.

No – worse – the pitifully small amount of money per week that we offered gave the landlords such a shock that they had to review their entire financial situation, couldn’t afford to stay abroad, and so had to come back.

No no no! They laughed and laughed for days at the amount per week that we offered, then stopped laughing, got online and placed a free ad at Loot and found a tenant willing to pay twice as much within 24 hours.

See? After making an offer on firstflat, and then not hearing anything for almost a week, all these thoughts and worse were swilling around my mind. I became convinced we’d have to go back and tramp around London some more (see previous entry for the gory details).

Jack and my Mum tried to comfort me,
“I still think you’ll get it…”
“We still have a chance?”
But I was determined in my despondancy,”No! It’s too late. We’ll never live in it. We should just get on the phone to the agents who are managing no. 22 Grim Court (again, see previous entry) and tell them we’ll live there.”

Hence, when the phone finally rang and it was Keeley from Lettings Inc I didn’t hold my breath.

Firstflat has no understair cupboard. Hence the hoover and mop are rather incongruously half-hidden behind the door to the spare room.

But yes! You heard me. I did say ‘spare room’. Apart from the small main bedroom, there is a second room which doubles as a spare room and study, with a futon, desk, and shelving.

Firstflat is up on the second floor, above another flat, which is itself above a shop selling fabric.

Firstflat has a main door, shared with flatbelow, with a lock that is so stiff and clunky it foxed the agent who showed us round for several minutes.

Firstflat has wooden laminate flooring, obviously recently installed, that feels quite bouncy underfoot.

It is in ‘District’ (an area of North London in Zone 2 of the Underground). It’s on the London line, which whilst admittedly not being an underground line which scales the shiny new heights of the Jubilee line, or the whipping across London speediness of the Victoria Line… at least isn’t the Circle Line (officially the slowest and least reliable way to get anywhere TM).

There is a pub down the road, which sells rather expensive but incredibly nice-sounding food with ingredients in like sun-dried tomatoes and garlic.

Firstflat has a working chimney, and a tiny kitchen. It doesn’t have the power shower that Jack wanted so much, but it does have a shower mixer over the bath.

Firstflat has a washing machine! A washing machine! Dunroamin (the house I shared with friends last year) didn’t, and I have to say it nearly killed me. Rather than find a local laundrette and spend every Sunday afternoon in there, I ended up spending the whole year on the bus over to Jack’s Hall of Residence, where I used his laundry room and then hung all my clothes up in his room to dry. It was fine, but tiring, and also meant that wherever I was, for some reason clean clothes usually were not.

Firstflat is on a quiet road set off a main road, with at least two supermarkets within walking distance…. incidentally, did you know that the scientific measure of distance between supermarket and house is ‘fingers’? I reckon firstflat is about two fingers away from the nearest supermarket, meaning that after Jack and I have been there and spent too much money on food on a Sunday, by the time we get home the weight of the shopping and the razor sharpness of the bag handles will have cut off the blood supply to, and therefore amputated, two fingers each. But I digress…

But more important than all these things, is the news that Keeley from Lettings Inc told me on the phone, which made me squeal and rendered me almost incoherent with excitement. And that’s that first flat is going to be ours. Well, on a rental basis. But still. The fact is that very soon (perhaps in a week?) Jack and I will live there. Together. And even the Open Diary plus extended character allowance per entry is just not enough space to convey how excited I am.

With love
therumtumtugger
xxx

P.S. Incidentally, for those still pondering over the title of this entry… after we’d visited it the first time I was immediately struck by the curtains in the front room. They are double layer, with an opaque dark red background material, and a sheer dark red over the top, with gold edges and little mirrors sewn on. They are, without a doubt, quite the grooviest set of curtains I’ve ever seen, and frankly just on their own would probably be reason enough to rent the place for whatever price they wanted. When we walked away from the flat, talking slightly confusedly because it was the first one we’d seen, mid-conversation I turned to Jack and said,
“And did you see those beautiful curtains?”
“Nope.” He replied.

And that was the end of that.
RTT xx