Home Search, Day 1

Looking for housing in London is a bit like the birth of the first child. Yes, it's unbelievably painful, but that's not what I mean. Before you have your first child, all of your friends who already have children tell you that it's going to change your life. And you, of course, not wishing to appear to not have fully considered the step beforehand, tell yourself that you have prepared for the absolute worst that a small, noisy, hungry, leaky human can throw at you.

And then you have a child.

The analogy here, in case you haven't figured it out already, is that everyone told us how expensive London is, housing-wise (hell, they told us how expensive it is everything-else-wise, too), but we'd convinced ourselves that we knew what we were in for, have what seems a generous-without-being-onerous budget, and how bad can it be, really.

And then you start looking for houses.

When we considered the move, we had a number in mind for housing. This was based on some research we'd done on various areas, on our current mortgage payment, and on the realization that we'd have to make some lifestyle changes. After talking to the relocation folks, we'd upped that by 20% before we arrived. And today, we've upped THAT by 25%. So we're now looking at places that cost almost 50% more than we were prepared to pay initially, with only limited success.

Now mind you, some of these are really very nice. One had a gate in the back garden which literally opens onto Richmond Park, which is something like 1000 acres of nature preserve, complete with footpaths, a minor royal manor or two, and several herds of wild deer. I expect we'd have to pay the deer off, too. Oh, speaking of paying people off, did I mention that here, the tenant pays the real estate tax? So tack on another 10% on top of the house payment for that.

Of course, we looked at places in our original price range, too. These were livable, but mostly in 1950's and 1960's high rises which were, in a word, depressing. No real place for the children to play, and completely devoid of any character or charm or closets. On the upside, one came with a velvet Elvis. Seriously.

Right. Off to bed. Maybe we can afford to live here if we only eat dinner on alternate days of the week. Gruel, anyone?