How D’ya Like These Apples?

One of the slips in my pocket while I was walking away from the horrid room in Willesden Green (2 April) was for a room that was going to be available Wednesday. Stephanie at Flatland hadn’t been able to secure an appointment for me, but I called the landlady Monday morning, and she said I could come down and look at it. So I returned to my new home away from home, the Earl’s Court tube station, and headed for Kennington, which is a bit south of Central London, but less removed than any of the places I had looked previously.

The room, Stephanie had told me, was over the Little Apple Pub. "It won’t be a noisy place,” said Stephanie, who used to live down this way. “It’s a sort of old man’s pub.” Because she told me the pub was in Kennington Road I got in quite a bit of extra exercise while not finding it where it has presumably always been, in Kennington Lane.

The Little Apple is in a very old corner building. Jill, a formidable, tattooed working class woman, runs the pub with the help of Gerry, a genial Irish bartender, Sharon, and Peter. It’s clean and attractive and nicely painted, and the large rainbow flag over the bar and a photo print of an American street sign for Gay St. makes me wonder if the clientele mightn’t have changed a bit since Stephanie was there last. Upstairs are six tenants sharing three bathrooms or fractions thereof totalling three toilets, one bathtub, and one shower. A little side hall holds a gas cooker and work surface; not exactly a kitchen, but clean and neat. I was shown two available rooms which were light and airy and pretty and architecturally interesting, with crown moulding, new paint, and new wood floors. I haven’t seen two of these things combined in any place I’ve viewed so far in more remote neighborhoods for 20-30% more money. I offered to pay rent and deposit on the spot, and the deal was made. I’m paying far less rent than I feared I’d have to, and will have a far nicer place than I feared I’d have to settle for.

Thanks to the Cosmos as always, and to Jessie, the Goddess of Finding Houses, and the Chesire Cat, for divine intercession. I move in tomorrow (Wednesday 5 April). I’ll post the address then, as there’s still a bit of confusion about which room I’ll have. Jill says one thing, and some bloke upstairs who wants to change rooms says another. My money’s on Jill.