Our flat

Things I have discovered about the London rental market:

• it is basically insane
• the general rule of not spending more than 1/3 of your salary on rent/mortgages do not apply
• you will be hard pressed to find a place that doesn't have molding carpet, cracked walls, isn't opposite a youth rehabilitation centre or above a take away curry place
• if you are able to find this 'dream' apartment, it will be so small you and your partner will have to time share the single bed that touches all the walls in your 'bedroom'.

 With this in mind, we were very lucky to find a flat that had been on the market just a few hours and fit all of our basic criteria (would not bankrupt us, would not give us lice etc). Maybe not so much luck as it was... paying the real estate agent a 400 pound 'finders fee'.

It is actually cheaper to buy an apartment in London than it is to rent - interest rates are around 3% - but you need to have a 40% deposit for first home buyers, thanks to the credit crunch.

Rental market aside, we found a flat, and on Monday, we moved in.

Our lounge

Booba cooking in a proper sized kitchen (in his jim jams)

Tuesday morning we woke up to a police barricade on our front doorstep, blocking off our street. Turns out one of the occupy London groups had a camp set up right next door, and they had been evicted overnight. Loudly and unhappily it would seem.

Protests as to the unstable nature of capitalism aside, we are about a 30 second walk from the tube station, which is 2 stops to the 'flinders street station' of tube stops (ie central london).  I have taken to walking to work to avoid the manic crowds at peak hour, and it is 20 mins door to door.

Our bedroom

We literally have a heater in every room (including the kitchen), with 2 in the lounge room. Our landlord is clearly a fan of artwork, with there being over a 15 pieces throughout the place, including two random statues of people unknown.

Its quite secure, and we have a concierge who kindly accepts my amazon.co.uk deliveries. There are several supermarkets nearby (although supermarket is overselling where Londoners buy food - more 7/11s than anything else. I tried to buy bicarb soda at 3 separate supermarkets the other day to no avail).

Its also near 2 gyms which is tres important as you need to be hardcore to go running on the streets of London and there are no parks whatsoever near us. There is a canal which Michael has run along once and says is quite nice, but the gyms are all heated to 23degrees so thats my choice dujour anytime.