London Diary – part one

I don't know if there'll ever be a part two – I have a habit of starting things I don't finish on this blog. I also don't know if this is a good idea. I tend not to write about the events of my actual life here, for various reasons. Partly this is because my life involves other people, and I never know if they want to be written about. Anyway, I will keep mention of other people to a minimum, and will not use real names. If you are one of the other people, I hope you realise that I do this out of discretion rather than ingratitude for whatever help etc. I may currently be receiving. Anyway, I'll start now. This is a diary intended to chart my search for a place to live in London.

I arrived on Wednesday. I decided I really needed some new reading matter, not work-related for once, so, as well as proofreading a galley, I also started Clock Without Hands on the train. It begins with Malone being diagnosed with leukemia. I think I'm finding books that 'confront death' more and more congenial.

I always forget about rush hour. I had foolishly timed my journey so that I hit the crowds in the underground. I also failed to change at… Edgeware, I think, and was taken back to Paddington and had to repeat that leg of my journey. There was no phone at the train station where I got off – because 'public' doesn't exist anymore, of course – and my mobile phone had not been working for some time. So, I looked at the map that had been printed off for me, and tried to find the right street. Actually, I had very little trouble. I had not known what the scale was, and had anticipated a longish walk, but it wasn't far. I'd been invited by Carl Sagan to stay at the house he'd recently settled in with friends, as a base for me to use in my search for flats. Another housemate is currently away in America, and I would be (am) staying in the room of the absent housemate. Since he would be (will be) back from America, that gave me two or three weeks to find a flat, or find another temporary bed/couch etc.

Carl Sagan, and housemate Nigel Havers, were actually waiting outside when I arrived in the little enclosed court of buildings, and they waved to me. They took some of my bags.

The first thing I wanted to do, which I believe I did, was flop down in a chair for a bit, and have a cup of tea. I was also shown around the house a bit, and put my things in the room I would be occupying. There is no internet connection in the house, and, since internet is unfortunately vital to me, one of my main concerns was to check that my dongle was working. After Carl and I had gone to the local supermarket to buy some food, and Carl had started cooking, I went upstairs to see if I could get my dongle working. It looked, at first, as if it wasn't going to happen, but, to cut the suspense – I did eventually get it working.

There was a lot to do, but it would have to wait till after dinner. I got downstairs in time to help with stirring things. It was a pasta dish. Carl also gave me a beer to be getting on with.

At some point I must have asked if there were spare towels. I had foolishly neglected to pack one. There were no spare towels. I could share one… the offer was made. But I did not really know if it would be an imposition to accept this offer. When I was young, no one thought twice about sharing towels. Within the last ten or twenty years, however, the consciousness of hygeine in this country has increased considerably. Partly because of this, and partly because the the time I have spent in Japan – where chopsticks are as personal as toothbrushes – I have become more conscious myself of hygeine boundaries and so on. I said I would try and buy my own towel and asked where the nearest shops were (this must have been before the food shopping, come to think of it).

What I had not neglected to bring was bedclothes – as I had been instructed. But I hadn't thought to check whether the bed was the same size. The undersheet I'd brought was one of those that is cinched to fit around the corners of a mattress. But this was a double bed (or something very much like one), and I had been sleeping in a single bad. My undersheet was too small. I just about managed to get it to stretch to the two bottom corners of the bed, but then had to extend it in a kind of irregular triangle to my pillow. I would just – for courtesy's sake – have to ensure that I didn't roll off the undersheeted area in the night.

The next morning, after Carl and Nigel had gone to work, I decided to look around the area myself. I noted that we were out of toilet roll, so that gave me a purpose. Also, I would see if anywhere sold towels. I'd been told there was a Lidl around in the opposite direction to the supermarket we had used the night before. That was the direction I took. However, walking and walking, I saw no sign of the Lidl. I went into a Costcutter, and purchased some toilet roll, asking at the counter, "Is there anywhere round here that sells bathroom towels?" I had to repeat myself to be understood. "No." The shopkeeper looked at me as if I'd asked if anywhere sold methadone.

The street ahead looked bare of shops, so I doubled back, towel-less.

Somehow, I managed to get a charge on my mobile phone for the first time in weeks. This would make the search for flats easier, of course. Just to jump out of the chronological narration a bit, so far I have been unable to get a viewing. Looking on Gumtree, I find most of the flats to be too expensive, and the ones that aren't, all to have in their notice, "Sorry, no housing benefit", or "Sorry, no DSS". Unfortunately, it has to be housing benefit for me. I sent some e-mails out, anyway, but have received no reply. On Friday, I managed to find a notice for a place within my price range that didn't have a notice saying, "Sorry, no housing benefit." I phoned. "Is the flat still available?" It was. "Do you accept housing benefit?" "No," he said, and hung up immediately.

Clearly this housing benefit thing is going to be a major problem.

Well, I think I should go downstairs and struggle with porridge, and perhaps write more later.