Goodbye Baydon Drive

So it’s goodbye Baydon Drive on Saturday.

It is without doubt the house I have enjoyed living in most and the nicest house I have lived in.  It may well be the nicest house that I ever live in.

I had to move out of the grotty flat that was consuming far too much of my money.  I didn’t want to go back into a house-share but it was a great decision, helped by living with a champagne socialist.

The house had its imperfections, but there was lots of space to store all my stuff and the neighbours never complained about the noise.  I didn’t utilize the garden for BBQs like I planned to – we had one and invited 2 people.  So much for £80 worth of BBQ.  That’s what you get when your Labour-voting housemate talks you into spending money.

Within a few days of moving in, I broke the washing machine.  I put it on, walked away, wondered what the smell was to find the washing machine starting to smoke.  Things did used to break quite regularly, especially the heating, but luckily we had attentive landlords who always fixed things quicker.

Shame we had to put up with the incompetence of Atlantis, Reading’s worst estate agents.  Every year they would make out the contract to the wrong people, try to charge us late payment fees for not signing an incorrect contract, etc, etc.  Somehow they seem to have forgot to charge us for last year’s rip-off charges for doing nothing.  Well…they charged us but we didn’t pay.

What always makes a house though is the people, and I have made at least one life-long friend.  We don’t agree on anything, we are diametrically opposed in all facets of life but we’ll never lose touch.  The other three housemates, one I won’t keep in touch with – nice guy but no kind of connection, the other two maybe – we’ll see.  I have had generally decent housemates throughout, at least as tolerable as I am.

In a way I’m kind of feeling that I am getting to the point of life where I would not begrudge owning a house rather than the ballache of renting, and dealing with landlords and agencies – especially the extortionate fees – one agency tried to suggest £360 for credit checks, etc.  Fuck right off.  And moving costs a lot of money.

Then again, I highly doubt buying a house is any easier, and besides, they are vastly over-priced compared to their intrinsic worth.  I wouldn’t spend twice as much on a roast dinner because the restaurant hadn’t made enough.

I am going to miss the house and I cannot stand the process of moving.  I am still waiting to find out what will go wrong.

Margaret was also very happy in her window.

Thanks for the good times, Baydon Drive.