Finding a new flat

 my lovely mantle

I promised myself that I wouldn't start out this blog post apologising that I haven't posted anything for a long time......but of course I still want to. I am actually a bit surprised that it's only been just over a month since my last post, I thought it would be longer!

So, what have I been up to? Well lots of new and exciting things. I've started a new job! I am now a social media strategist at a lovely agency called Wax. I started there on the 19th of April. It's been going very well and I am happy with my new role. I've also been wrapped up in location based social media apps and blogging about that over on Foursquaregames. The main thing that's been on my mind is the fact that Matthew and I are moving out of our flat.

Our lease is up on June 19th and we've decided that we are going to live on our own. At the moment we are sharing a two bedroom flat with another couple. They've been easy to live with, but I am just ready have our own place. I am tired of just living in my bedroom and having to do the washing up immediately after I am done eating :)

When I first moved in with Matthew he was living with his mate Wayland, that was in Chiswick. When we moved to the flat we're in now, Shepherds Bush, Wayland came with us. I didn't mind living with Wayland. I was still pretty new to London and it was nice to have him as a friend. He started his own business and needed to move to another part of England for a while, so we were left with the choice of either paying all the rent or getting in flatmates.

Of course at the time I was way too cheap to have ever done that. I still have a hard time getting my head around how expensive London rent is, but I am now ready to bite the bullet.

I tell you looking for a flat isn't a walk in the park. Matthew and I have been looking online. Most flats are rented through estate agencies or on Gumtree. Gumtree is what we use over here instead of Craigslist. The main problem is that the estate agencies like to advertise flats that either don't have to let or have been let already! 

What should happen is that if the flat is under offer to be let they should flag it as under offer and most websites will do that. I was on the phone to one estate agency because I was interested in a flat and they told me that it had been let. I then asked about some others that were on their site and they said that they weren't available. I was like, why do you still have them up? So you don't have any flats to rent, but you have them all still on the site? He answered that they keep them up until the people move in. Nice. They keep them up so it looks like they have all these flats. How lovely.

It's really a pain. You call these people and you're lucky if they ever get back to you. I can't wait until we just find a flat and can move in.

We've finally decided on an area, sorry Becky we aren't moving to the East End. Although I really wanted to, it's just too expensive at the moment. Matthew and I are trying to save as much money as we can, so although we could afford a more expensive flat closer in town we've decided to save a bit of cash and go......gasp! south of the river. 

We've been looking in Brixton. My friend Mary is living there and it's closer to where Matthew's sister lives. I like it over there and hopefully we can find a flat. Matthew and I spent the afternoon there yesterday and we liked it. I love the Ritzy theater and we found some good pubs. I really want to be somewhere new and have a decent sized flat.  So fingers crossed we find something good!