I’ve now been living in London for exactly a month! I’m starting writing this blog post on the London Underground, just coming in to Edgware Road on the Hammersmith and City line. I’m on my way back from work, so it’s pretty busy right now but I’ve managed to grab a seat and start tapping out a blog post on my iPad mini.
So how am I taking to life as a Londoner?
Well, for one thing, I don’t really consider myself a Londoner yet, just someone living in London. Maybe after a couple of years, but we’ll see. One of the most striking things is just how much bigger and busier London is. It sounds obvious, but it really is a very different scale of things, from the buildings to the crowds to the roads. Sometimes it’s just overwhelming, like trying to get onto a train at Oxford Circus in rush hour, with the doors unable to close with the crush of people.
But it’s also exciting. There’s a real buzz to being in the capital, to being so connected and close to so many famous places. I work on Euston Road, just across from Regent’s Park, down the road from the British Library. Oxford Street is just a walk away. I stumbled across BBC Broadcasting House nearby. It’s easy to catch the Tube to Trafalgar Square or the Houses of Parliament. So much history and fame and influence, jumbled on top of itself.
So much going on, too… Next week I’m going to see Neil Gaiman at an event at the Apple Store on Regent’s Street ahead of the launch of his new novel. Coming up around the city just this month are events with top young adult authors Malorie Blackman and Melvin Burgess, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter talking about The Long War, a signing with Alastair Reynolds, and no doubt much more.
Finding a place to live
I’m continuing this later, at home. So how did we make the move from Cardiff to London, less than a month after I was offered my new job? It meant my wife leaving her job without something else lined up yet, so our budget would be tight. Our most pressing concern was finding a place to live. We needed to begin with somewhere we could afford just on my salary – once she has found a job, we will be able consider finding somewhere that would be convenient for us both for work, and affordable on our joint income.
So we hit the Internet to search for somewhere to live, arranged a bunch of viewings, and came over for the weekend to find a place to live. We stayed over with a friend’s parents in South London, and spent all day travelling all over London, from 9am through to 10pm. We certainly got a good flavour of London transport, using bus, overground, underground and National Rail, all with our new Oyster cards!
I can’t imagine trying to do a day like that without a smartphone. Having Google Maps and live transport times made what could have been a logistical nightmare fairly easy. We viewed 5 places in the end, one through Rightmove, the rest through Christian Flatshare. The Rightmove property was pretty grotty and the letting agent had lost all record of our viewing appointment. The rest were all decent, and two in east London in particular would have presented a difficult choice.
But there was one clear frontrunner, in Acton. We made contact through the Christian Flatshare website, but also had a connection through our church from Cardiff. A family were looking for lodgers, and the father grew up in our church, where his parents still attend. It’s a small world, especially among Christians.
The dad is a vicar, and so we are living in a large attic room at the top of the vicarage. The family are really nice and the house is great. It’s much more pleasant and affordable than anything we were expecting at the outset. It’s made making the initial move to London much easier, though we hope to find our own place before too long.
Making the move
Packing up all our belongings was no mean feat, especially all my books! Sadly I had to bid goodbye to many volumes, donating them to friends or charity shops, and I sold on 10 years worth of Doctor Who Magazines. But since I’m unlikely to really ever get round to reading them, it isn’t so much of a hardship.
Ebook editions also make it easier to part company with some books that I might like to be able to refer to, but aren’t really important enough for me to keep hold of a physical copy. But for all my rationalisations, getting rid of books is still painful!
The move itself went pretty smoothly. We arrived on the Bank Holiday weekend, which gave a bit of extra time to get ourselves sorted before I started my new job. We’ve still got plenty of boxes around us waiting to be unpacked, but we’ve made ourselves comfortable in our new home.
We have been surprised just how much we’re actually enjoying London. After having mixed feelings about moving to the Big Smoke, it’s actually surprisingly fun!
Coming up soon, I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned about publishing since starting my new job, such as how cake makes the publishing world go round. Stay tuned!