Moving temporarily to East Dulwich (south of the Thames, somewhat centralish, for those of you not in London) in order to leave house owned and lived in by landlord we were forced to have arrested, who is now embraced by the long arm of the law. We have been offered a garret room of romantically small proportions (and a slanting roof and a window cut into the slanting roof) free of charge for two months in exchange for house and back garden DIY. These past three days of semi-squatting have been mentally taxing. I say “semi-squat” because we have paid and are thus allowed to be here but feel weird and want out ASAP. Today we meet up with the guy whose house we’ll be moving into for the handover of keys. This all comes at a fortuitous time, he’s about to go on holiday tomorrow and we need to save money. Tomorrow another friend with access to a work van has agreed to shuttle our stuff from Point A to Point B.
The flat is an utter wreck and I feel somewhat crap about that. I’ll be forced by my own conscience, despite our landlord’s actions, to vacuum the hallway and to put the kitchen to rights. That’s not a big deal. Then we’ll have to leave a note for the back tenant to take the trash and recycling out on Tuesday night since we (God in Heaven) won’t be here.
East Dulwich is a working class neighborhood with a more racially diverse population than Ealing. It feels a bit like Brooklyn and is as cut off from the rest of London as Red Hook is. There are no Underground lines, hardly any bus lines and only London Overground and National Rail. That’s fine, because it’s not permanent. And it’s about 6 miles to London Bridge and quite a bit closer to O & K than Ealing so we can visit more regularly (I hope). Also will be one n’hood over from my new friend A, an American girl from Tennessee who is baking my birthday cake. We trade pilates for massage, it’s awesome. Don’t think we’ll be able to do that for a while as I would feel really bad to take over the living room of the temporary lodgings unless I knew no one else was in the house.
Also, through some quirk or other, we’ve had no hot water for the past few days. Cold water showers in England are bitingly cold. I think we had summer, it was like a week long, in the 80s, and they called it a “heat wave”. Last night I was shivering and had to wear my hoodie. Today is the Bright Times vol. III BBQ at South drinks (The Coach and Horses). The boyfriend is making Mexican rice & beans. I wanted to make the luscious mac & cheese with pickled chiles that A made last week but gave in when the boyfriend made an oh-please-can-I? face.
I hope to have photos of charmingly tiny room soon. Finally found the battery charger for the digital camera.
Read Full Post »