Last of the London House?

This is just a quickie to keep you updated. Sorry I have been a bit quiet the last two days, but I have had to finish off the details with regards renting out my London house. That meant driving down to London first thing this morning, making sure everything was empty and clean, and doing loads of paperwork - YUK. That meant contracts, inventories, schedule of condition, and working out the whole key situation. Plus I had to take photographs of EVERYTHING which took me just ages. By the time I was ready to leave at 8pm, the whole house 'echoed' which was really weird. Look! it is completely empty.............


Actually, I accidentally lied above, because the new tenants did say that they wanted to keep my triple mahogany wardrobe, so the house isn't completely empty. At first I was a bit gutted because I think that the wardrobe is marvellous, but then I remembered what it was like getting it up the stairs (with MUCH neighbourly help), after which I became much more philosophical about leaving it there. One other thing - is it me, or do houses look a lot smaller when they are empty? Surely it should work the opposite way round?

Before I left, I had a tender moment with one of my favourite fireplaces (yep, I know I am sad). It is a stunning, genuine art deco fireplace which was rescued from a skip when it was painted in white gloss and looked pretty grim. I had it 'linished' (which is like electric wire-brushing), and discovered an original engraved back-mirror. Perfect.

As I was making my way out to leave, I went downstairs to turn off the lights in the kitchen, and encountered the wood panelling in the hallway. I stripped the paint off that. I will never forget that job - it took me ages because it appeared that the paint was mixed with some form of glue. I probably spent 6 weeks with a 'paint stripping gun' and scraper removing one tiny sticky ball after another, each resembling gooey blue tac. Plus I had to wear a mask the whole time because of the paint lead content. Rock and roll baby!


Enough of nostalgia, I was properly tired by this time, so I leapt into the car (which was stuffed to the gills with the dying remains of my house) and booted it back up theM40 motorway to Oxford. I arrived back at 10pm and went round to Phil, Becky and Joe's apartment. At this point I was dead on my feet, so I could have kissed Juan when he said that he had saved me some REALLY nice pasta for dinner.

Here we go - Juan's pasta - delivered to my door by the Becks! What a pair of gemsters...........