#Castle Lampern

Took me two and a half months to find my home away from home in London called ‘Castle Lampern’….. I spent endless hours a day scrolling through the rental websites… spare room.com, move flat.com, gum tree, Face Book, Google mapping where places are….. It becomes a serious addiction….. Kind of like when you just go to ‘quickly’ browse the home page of Face Book to see what’s happening…and 2 hours later you find yourself still ‘quickly’ browsing…..

Once you find places you like the sound of; they are in a decent area where you are not likely to get mugged in the Tesco’s at midday, the room can fit more than your suitcase, the pictures look decent, they don’t have any odd rules Eg: you must be this age, you must be a vegetarian, you must be this religion, you must be employed, you must like my cat….. And if it sounds too good to be true in this case it probably is or it’s a scam!……Oh and watch out if it is insanely cheap because then you are sleeping on Ahmed’s pink massage table in the pink room!….. (I kid you not, he wasn’t lying either the pictures showed said pink table)

You need to then apply to view the rooms and it feels as though you’re on some kind of dating website trying to sell your personality in a few short lines….. Make your message stand out from the rest it says in the guidelines, not just ‘I’m a nice, neat person’…. Yes of course you are, like the thousands of other people vying for the room …… But most adverts/land lords will ask for your age and tell me a bit about yourself….. Or be more specific…. ‘If you were a fruit what fruit would you be?’…. Seriously what fruit would you be?…. I said ‘Mango’….Nailed it, got an interview!…….. That feeling of being asked ‘What time can you come?’ is the same as when you get that job you always wanted…. It can also feel equally as lousy when you either get no response (Expect that to happen a lot) or ‘Sorry we don’t think you are the right fit’….. but….. but…. but you don’t even know me, as though you have been rejected from the cool group at school (insert sad face). Do not let this get to you, it’s not personal it just wasn’t the right one for you!

The first place I viewed they basically said if you want the room, who ever has the deposit now, in cash, can have it…. Out of nowhere this guy breaks through the crowd and just launches himself into the room onto the bed yelling ‘It’s mine!’…. Is this what I’m in for? I thought…. Wrestling people for a single bed in what smelt like a curry house in down town Bombay?…… You name it you will see it, hear it and be amazed at the places you will view and how much it will cost….The double room that over looks a cement wall, in the 3 bedroom flat where the kitchen is smaller than the bathroom, no communal area so you hang out in your door way, will set you back 500 pounds a month…. And don’t even think that going through a real estate agent will be better, it’s worse! They are either 2 hours late or just never show up because they are ’stuck in traffic’ yet you can hear typing and phones ringing in the background or they will show you the ‘large’ (meaning even a small dog would feel claustrophobic) double room with the bed that is in pieces (Don’t worry it will be fixed when you move in…hmmm sure it will)… in the hope you don’t mind smoking because the tenants smoke everywhere including the shower…. Real estate agents are as good as recruitment agents here – useless!

In saying all of this, it is the reality of looking for a flat in London, but when you find a place that stands out from the rest, feels homely, is clean, the tenants seem cool and the Tesco’s is well lit armed with security guards. It makes you realize that you had to experience all those dumps just so that when this one came along…..you would know….. That this is ‘The One!’

4 months later I now live in East London with the two most unreal guys, Tom and Ed at a cosy place we call ‘Castle Lampern’…. At first I thought maybe living with two guys was not a good idea, that I would miss female company, two boys might be a bit messy, loud and dirty and messy…. Nope I absolutely love it!!

Especially when you are living far away from a place you called home for the last 30+ years, it can be hard to find somewhere that is homely, you all get along, you stay up till 2am watching TV shows together, have your own Netflix profile, your own toilet, cupboard and shelf in the fridge, there’s a secret porn stash under the stairs, you have a thing called ‘ the list’ (will explain that later), you all care about each other, can get drunk together and be hung over together, you feel comfortable and can be you…. I have found my home away from home ……and I couldn’t be happier that we all eat meat!