The mission for the last couple of days has been to find somewhere to live while I’m working in Milton, just outside Cambridge.
Yesterday I headed up to have a drive around the area and get some idea of good and bad places to be. How convenient they all are, how well they link up, etc.
Ely was the first port of call, where I went to the library to ask where I could find a bookshop (is this something they get asked often, I wonder?), and they gave me a bumper ‘Welcome to Ely’ pack containing enough paper to give someone quite a decent whack around the head….not been brave enough to try to tackle exploring that pack yet, I’m a little afraid of what I’ll find inside.
After a little difficulty finding the map section in the local WHSmith I retired to a coffee shop to contemplate the prospect of moving to the kind of area that felt it needed to welcome you so…and found out what the purpose of the weighty package was, it must be to fight off the mullets, there are some exquisite examples in the town. Not the audacious highlight mullets of Shinjuku, these are more wholesome farming mullets, maybe as exotic as Hasselhofs germanic thatch, but nothing more gregarious.
Pretending to be a stray hiker sprawling an OS map of the area across my table I hurriedly down my coffee and bacon roll before making my escape. Over the road Hedgehog records looks like it should have been one of those great little record shops you get in small towns – but it was just empty shelves and closed sign. Sad. Finally I hit the estate agents and arrange a few viewings. Braindump follows.
The first is in Littleport, yesterday afternoon. A converted school. Cheap rent. Long drive (to the office, not places to park cars, although it does have a garage). Nice village location. Horrible village. Impressive living room and large kitchen/games room. Available now.
The second is in Milton, this morning. Three storey town house. Expensive rent. Close to office – walkable. Nice enough estate. Slightly dodgy road next door (something wrong, not sure what). Too big. Nice space inside. Available early Oct.
The next is another place in Milton, a flat. Bad bad bad bad bad. Convenient, cheap. Bad. Owners live in ‘hog heaven’.
The fourth place is in Cottenham, a cottage down a strange alleyway (not bad alleyway) in nice village. Irritating journey to office, not bad journey but annoying. Nice house, quirky, character, but pleasantly so. Area a problem – too many nice people who probably wouldn’t deal with me well. Available now.
The final place phoned up and cancelled because the landlord had absconded to France with the keys. Sounded suboptimal when the directions were, “keep driving until you get to the asbestos shed, then its behind them”.
Basically I want the space of the townhouse, with the style of the cottage for the rent of the school, with the convenience of the flat. But thats not going to happen.
During this time, of course, my exhaust decide to fall off, I thought it was blowing a little at the begining of the trip, but by the end it was making a godawful racket….still, good job they cancelled the last place since I wouldn’t have been able to pick up the car early enough to get there.
We went to the antique market in Huntingdon while the car was being fixed, a great little place, a warehouse full of quirky little stalls, nicely laid out with all kinds of furniture, niknaks and things. Nearly everything on sale was awful but the place as a whole was quite pleasing (though I was tempted by the Spike Milligan record…not sure where my record player is now…).
Now, back in Kent, gotta sort some accomodation in Cambridge-ish for next week, anyone got a spare room, (hopefully) just for a little while?
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