LIVE-IN TOURIST IN LONDON: in 2011 Bob was appointed to be the Australian Director at the European Bank of Reconciliation and Construction. I became a ‘live in tourist’ , completing my PhD; organising travel for our weekends (when they were what we would call a ‘long weekend’ we became accustomed to the term ‘bank holiday’ for the additional day’s leave) and his holidays from work; joining the Women’s History Network committee and becoming the Blog Administrator; attending several Guardian courses and various conferences; visiting galleries and going to the theatre; canvassing (sometimes in the snow – what fun) for the Cambridge Labour Party and in by-elections; and doing many boring things as well. The latter included liaising with the agencies and tradespeople who dealt with the properties we rented – at times raising quite extraordinary issues! But then, the whole journey began in a somewhat extraordinary way.
Istanbul to Canberra to London in 28 days
We were staying at the Grand Hyatt in Istanbul. This is a wonderful hotel, with its lounge, lovely staff, comfortable bedroom, pleasant public areas and close proximity to shopping and colourful Taksim Square. It was to become associated with even more pleasure when we received a phone call from Australia. Quiet jubilation followed until the new job became public. My leather coat, bought in Istanbul and complete with hood and scarf, became essential for a more exciting purpose than a Canberra winter. It was just right for my live-in life as a tourist in London which was about to begin.
We have travelled to Istanbul on several occasions. As wonderful as past and more recent trips have been, none have been life changing. This one was. The phone call meant that we would be living in London, perhaps for several years. On our homecoming a few days later we had to organise accommodation for our precious dogs; arrange four different ways of managing our belongings: storage, sea freight, air freight and plane luggage; rent our flat; complete the paperwork for our work visas; and plan and enjoy our farewell party. This all happened in 28 days and we arrived in London on 10th June 2011.
While we were still in Australia a relocation agent was employed to help us find accommodation – somewhere to stay after we landed from Australia, and then long term. Initially this entailed contact with the agency in London and, as useful as such agents can be, there were some frustrations. How do you deal with a person who does not understand that time differences need to be accommodated to answer phone calls? Should you be prepared to receive calls when it suits the relocator, or should you insist that calls are made to accommodate, if not the hours you are normally asleep, but working hours? How do you ensure that your accommodation requirements are really understood? In our case, how could we get around the belief that we would not arrive when we stipulated? Impossible, they thought, for all we had to do to be completed in 28 days. Slowly the relocator realised that phone calls to Australia at a reasonable time are really quite easy to arrange. Possibly even more slowly they recognised that our plans to be in London in 28 days would be fulfilled. So, although it would be unwise to reject the services of a relocator, it became clear that establishing a working arrangement that makes the relationship useful instead of frustrating is essential. After all, there will be enough obstructions without the people who are supposed to be assistants to a relatively stress free move adding to them. We found that it was important to follow up a phone call with an email detailing what was agreed in the phone call.
Relocator services included organising a serviced apartment for the first weeks we were in London while we searched for our new home; provision of two days’ viewings of prospective rental properties with an experienced agent; a hand book detailing the information we needed regarding services: health, water and electricity, insurance, transport, schools; and a pickup service from the airport. Each of these services was of great assistance in ensuring our arrival and first few weeks went smoothly.
Our first home was a serviced apartment in Borough.
We moved into an apartment in Westbourne Terrace a fortnight later.
Two years later we moved to Sheldon Square.
And, after the job was supposed to be over, but was to be another six months, we moved to Cambridge.
As is clear from the number of moves we had to make over only four and a half years that renting in London is fraught. Each of the moves was a combination of positives and negatives.
However, first things first – we began our journey when we arrived home from Istanbul.
If you want to bankrupt yourself live in Central London
Advice from friends already living in the UK was simple: If you want to bankrupt yourself live in central London. We decided to bankrupt ourselves. After all, in the limited time we had available we wanted to visit every theatrical offering available, ensure that we had easy access to galleries and eat in a range of restaurants. We wanted to have somewhere for family and friends to stay that did not take them out of the city – their own travels could do that. More prosaically, being close to the Heathrow Express seemed a good idea – at the time and throughout our sojourn in London. We could even offer a breakfast and shower for Australians who land at 6.30 in the morning and are unable to get into their hotel until the afternoon. Being in a location that offered two or more different tube lines was important for Bob to get to work, even when there were delays on one line. The line that he would have used from relevant villages or towns outside the tube system often recorded delays. We were to learn that London stations are often the hub for access to the villages and cities that we wanted to visit and that train fares are expensive. Across country train journeys are onerous and expensive. London made an excellent choice, although rents seem prohibitive in comparison with Australian rents.
Our first ‘home’ was in Borough, the other side of the Thames from our eventual homes. We were close to the Borough Markets and could cross the Thames on London Bridge. The location of the serviced flat was a great place to begin our search for a more permanent home. We had a penchant for the areas around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, High Street Kensington having connections with our first trip to London as a family. That time, in the early 1980s we stayed in a large room in a shabby building in Princes Gate, a couple, teenager and 3 month old baby being well suited in a friendly B&B that offered babysitting. After that visit, we tended to choose hotels in that general area. Pimlico also had connections for me, through literature and a delightful few days we spent at Dolphin Square in Westminster. I stayed with a friend in Paddington, and although I had an unfortunate experience at a buffet restaurant there, it still held a certain charm. Victoria Station, Paddington and Kensington High Street and Pimlico tube stations were familiar. All the more important to make the other side of the Thames a familiar area too so we were restrained only by the need for easy access to Bob’s work in seeking our new accommodation.
Although the internet information about rentals is useful, it cannot do the whole job. Photos are often so much more appealing that the reality; areas can be less attractive than appear from the map or street information; distances to tube stations can be deceptive. However, we used the internet to gauge the options and friends drove us through them: Marylebone, Maida Vale, Paddington and Little Venice. With this information, our research on the net and two days with the location agent we were able to find a really pleasant home that suited us until it was sold. The location agent was well worth the expense and the whirlwind nature of the two days search. We probably looked at 20 flats and houses options in that time, were planning to revisit three of them it, found it all too much and opted for the last apartment we looked at. This was a combination of new and old – exactly what we wanted, the atmosphere of living in London with all the benefits that refurbishment can give an old home (and some of the amusing downsides too). With its white stucco and black wrought iron balcony it was typical London. The front door was like something from a film set, perhaps for Mary Poppins. However, the keys would never have been suitable – the amount of time it took to open the door would have added disastrously to the length of the film. We loved the long French doors that opened out onto the balcony – and the cacophony of traffic that moved down Westbourne Terrace. The noise was sometimes too much and the doors remained closed. On the other hand, London sounds were bliss – what a city to be a live in tourist, and it was only just beginning.
Westbourne Terrace in Paddington is a short distance from the station, on several bus routes, walking distance to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, Oxford Street, Kensington High Street and even Harrods on a good day and a short distance to shops and restaurants. What more could a live-in tourist want?
A cruise down the Nile
I am darting ahead to this cruise as I have been enthused by my reading of Terje Tvedt’s The Nile History’s Greatest River I.B.Taurus Bloomsbury Press 2021. This is an immense book, both in scope and aspiration. Coming to my interest in reading The Nile from a mixture of dim recall from school history; Agatha Christie’s evocative Death Comes as the End, and the less inspiring, Death on the Nile; and a cruise from Luxor to Aswan I have mixed responses. They are those of an academic with a political and historical focus, and the general interest of a person who wants to read an accessible book on an area about which I know little, apart from the mentioned fiction and travel treatments.
So, this is how I began the review, more of which is at Books: Reviews on 18 August 2021.
Now for the cruise. We are not great cruise lovers. However, earlier I had managed to persuade Bob that a river cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg would be a magnificent way to spend a few days – and it was. More of that later. The Nile cruise was another success. Not least because of the political situation that had diminished the numbers of tourists on cruise ships and at locations we visited. This has its extremely distressing side too, and if I ever visit Egypt again I shall impress upon myself over and over that the Egyptian pound is worth so little in comparison with the English pound, and I shall be more generous. I cannot recall what the lovely bird below cost, I do recall having been persuaded into purchasing it. Now I wish I had bought several and paid more for each.
Robin's Room 