Room with a View

So I think it's time to start blogging again.

I had set this blog up a few months after I moved to London, but then I was living well out in Zone 3. In Walthamstow, a place where -- if people have heard of it -- they've never been. I shared a decent-sized house with a nice couple, but it was a good 12 minute walk to the Tube station (Blackhorse Road, Victoria line), and then a solid 30 minutes into town (changing at Finsbury Park).

I work in the West End, which is usually where I go to play (well, there or Vauxhall), so that was a lot of time spent commuting.

A couple weeks back, I moved into a new flat. It's a maisonette which means it is a flat split over multiple levels, but it's not its own house -- in our case, there's a separate flat on the first floor, and a very hip modern furniture store on the ground level. My gigantic room is on the 2nd floor, along with the kitchen and bathroom. The couple I live with now have their bedroom and lounge on the 3rd floor.

How nice is it here? Well, in no particular order:

1) There is not only a washing machine, but also a tumble dryer.
2) There's a dishwasher (not me, but an actual machine!)
3) Everything is well kitted out, and lots of it is from Ikea. As in, the nice stuff from Ikea. (The phrase "Ikea heaven" has been used.)
4) You can see the London Eye from the kitchen window.
5) You can see the edge of London, to the north, from my bedroom window.
6) We are on Crouch Hill, which is why you can see everything in every direction (and thus vertically justifying the term "heaven").
7) There is enough storage space so I don't have to have any suitcases in my room.
8) I have my own TV and landline phone.
9) We are one minute's walk to the platform at the train station, which is a one-minute ride to Finsbury Park, from which it takes about 12 minutes to get to the West End, about 15 minutes to Vauxhall. So most days, I get to work in under 20 minutes.
10) And did I mention the cleaner comes every Monday?

Such a sweet set-up now -- I have loads of extra time, it's a much nicer area and then there are all the amazing vistas. No wonder my flatmate decided to call our wireless network "Room with a View."

So I'll have a lot more time to write now. And, I figure, at least a bit for blogging.