Category: Renting

Bath Time Blues

One thing I won’t miss about the Weaver’s Cottage is the bath. It’s enormous. I’m not the mightiest of men (at 5’ 5.5” and shrinking in my socked feet) so it’s like lying in a flotation tank. I have to grip the tap with my toes to stop myself from going under. At 6′, Liam fares a little better, but not much. Thankfully, our new gaff has a bath of standard dimensions. I’m looking forward to giving the shower a miss messing about in the bubbly hot tub, glass of chilled white in one hand and a copy of ‘The Week’ in the other. Fabulous.

Mind you, I didn’t always covet bath time with such decadent relish. As a child of the Sixties and the youngest of four (until my sister accidentally came along and usurped my position as baby of the family), I was last in line for the soak and sponge. Back in the day, we lived in the married quarters of the former Royal Army Medical College along Millbank next to Tate Britain in central London. Accommodation was strictly army-issue utilitarian, no central heating and only rudimentary hot water. Like families up and down the realm, Sunday night was bath night in the Scott household and we all took turns for a scrub. It was done in chronological order so by the time I climbed into the bath, the water was tepid and covered in an oil slick. Disgusting really. These days it would be considered child abuse. But then we’re talking about the era before deodorant, when men were men and pits were ripe. The Sixties stank as well as swung.

The Medical College closed in the Seventies and the buildings now form part of the London University of the Arts. It’s a sign of the times and one I rather approve of.  This was our billet:

Chelsea Schoolof Art

The parade ground once had a small children’s playground on the right of the image and that’s where I did my swinging while my father counted beans in the offices on the far side. I’ve passed the building many times in recent years. In fact, Liam and I got hitched just round the corner in the Sky Lounge in what was the City Inn Hotel.  It’s the Hilton now. You see, nothing stands still and in my book that’s a good thing.

Itchy Feet

In the summer of 2012, we parachuted into Norwich on a wing and a prayer. We hadn’t the slightest inkling whether this golden-oldie city of medieval steeples would suit us or not. It was a difficult ask: somewhere we could replant our off-peak life but avoid the workhouse and somewhere within a bearable commute of London so we could keep tabs on our folks.

When we first paddled up the Wensum, we somehow ended up living in a Grade II listed Seventeenth Century brick and flint weaver’s cottage. The place had been through the wars and oozed history. By the Nineteenth Century, weaving had gone the way of the dodo and the cottage was reincarnated as a public house. In the Thirties, the Great Depression depressed ale sales along with everything else and time was called on the Devil’s brew. After that, the building gradually fell into miserable dereliction, boarded up and unloved. The final insult came when the building was gutted by fire; demolition seemed likely. Cue the city elders who stepped in with their compulsory purchase powers, repaired the structure, modernised the fabric and flogged it off. In 1986 the Weaver’s Cottage was reborn as two comfortable maisonettes with all mod-cons. The partially charred beams above our marital bed are the one remaining sign of that near-death experience.

A year and a bit on, those itchy feet are back but this time we’re moving across town, not continents. We’re rather taken with Norwich and have decided to put down roots by buying a small piece of it (while we can still afford to). So it’s goodbye to our pretty weaver’s cottage with its olde worlde beams, toffee-coloured fireplace and drafty halls and hello to our handsome warehouse conversion just beyond the old city walls with big picture windows, views across the burbs and proper insulation. We’re expecting our bills to plummet. Otherwise, that workhouse beckons.

Beamed Back to Bodrum

TSDSTTR PA062The beauty of renting is that we’re not responsible for all those annoying little things that inevitably go wrong around the home. We had a dodgy boiler that refused to heat water (though it was more than happy to heat the radiators, even when not asked). Our friendly landlady despatched a boiler-suited chatty man with cute dimples. He installed a brand new heat exchanger (No idea? Me neither). I provided tea for his labours and listened intently to my boiler man recall his boiler tales. A dull date on a Saturday night, I thought. Despite the cute dimples.

Then we became undone by a temperamental washing machine that only spun when it could be arsed. The reluctant spin went on for weeks. We were seriously in danger of being buried under sopping piles of dripping undies. Our landlady dispatched a smiley man in baggy bottoms and a corporate polo top. I provided tea for his labours as he tried to wring a final spin out of the moody machine. “It’s knackered,” he concluded. His home-spun words were music to my ears. I almost invited him out for dinner.

A week later, our landlady despatched a replacement appliance escorted by a thick-set older man with an even thicker-set accent. He was accompanied by a spotty young apprentice. “Where’s it plugged in?” asked the old man. “Absolutely no idea,” I replied. After a lot of huffing and puffing, hauling and heaving, he found the socket behind the fridge. Then I watched him slice the live wire with a Stanley knife. The loud bang almost gave me a seizure. Unlike me, he wasn’t the least bit perturbed by the black flume and strong whiff of electrical burn or the fact that he’d blown all the sockets in the kitchen. The young spotty thing was shocked into silence. For one brief moment, I thought I’d been beamed back to Bodrum where all workers are fully qualified electricians/plumbers/carpenters/roofers/rocket scientists (delete as appropriate).

Laurel and Hardy didn’t get tea for their trouble, I can tell you. Well, the kettle wasn’t working.

Windy City

The minor inconvenience of existing tenants meant that we had to wait a while for our medieval Weaver’s cottage in Norwich. To avoid continual sofa-hopping, we decided on a budget tour of east East Anglia. Our first stop was Lowestoft, England’s most easterly town. We were greeted by blustery squalls blowing in from the North Sea and a large ugly concrete water tower (can someone tell me what they’re for?). Lowestoft itself is a neat but empty little place. The population seemed to have died off from terminal boredom. The only person we noticed strolling along the prom was a bottle-blond Norfolk broad, subtly bedecked in hoop ear-rings, stars-and-stripes lycra leggings and a bubble jacket. We booked a cheap night in a Winelodge. The solitary person on duty was a thin, tattooed boy with retreating hair. He acted as concierge, waiter and barman. It was just as well there was nobody to serve. Our room was a designer postage stamp overlooking the bins. Making a cuppa was a delicate operation: the mini-kettle was so close to the mini-flat screen TV, I thought the steam might blow it up. The only excitement was a power cut at 7am. I had to dump and douche in the dark. The first person on duty fed the meter and lo, let there be light.

We took a drive through Great Yarmouth, a sad and rusty little place with a magnificent beach but its greatness firmly behind it. Despite being Liam’s playground of choice as a slip of a lad, we decided against stopping for a windy trip down memory lane. Apparently, Yarmouth is one of the most deprived areas of East Anglia. The great and good of the county have decided that granting a licence for a super casino will provide the answer to a fed-up seaside resort on its knees. Las Vegas-on-Sea? The entire concept reminded me of Edmonton Green Shopping Centre near Liam’s folks, a tired little enclave where the betting shop is next to the pawnbrokers.

Next…

Pontin’s Happy Campers

Off With Their Heads!

Off With Their Heads!
Circa 1640

Our loft aspirations turned to dust. Someone else reached the finishing line before us and we were back to square one. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. This is what happens when dreamy loft lodgings are offered to several letting agents simultaneously: chaos and disappointment run amok. Still, at least our reservation fee was promptly refunded. Decent billets were flying off the shelves at a rate of knots so we rose early to catch the elusive worm, zipping back up the A11 in our borrowed Renault Megane at the crack of dawn. It was a fruitful tour. On our first viewing we bagged ourselves a genuine 17th Century weaver’s cottage at the edge of Norwich’s medieval quarter just a short sashay from the action. So, instead of a writer’s garret, I shall be weaving my words in a converted artisan’s flint and brick dwelling dating from the 1640s. Just think, the original weaver first moved into his brand new designer hovel (no mod-cons at the time) when the humourless Protestant Taliban chopped off Charlie Stuart’s head, established the English republic, banned music, closed down the play houses and outlawed Christmas (and let’s not even talk of the unspeakable things they did to the Irish). It’s no wonder the Commonwealth didn’t last; it was so boring. I wonder what Killjoy Cromwell would have made of us? Off with their heads?

Lofty Pretentions

After viewings that ranged from the dreary to the dreadful, we found our Norwich city centre loft in appropriately named Queen’s Street. It’s a newly converted top-floor, top drawer flat with skylights, down lights and grey appliances with real feel-appeal. Yes, we are that shallow. The apartment is above a trendy bar with a student clientele. We’d rather hoped it would be a seedy clip joint to cement the sanitised neo-Bohemian garret theme we were looking for. Back at the letting agents, we paid our fee for our credit assessment. Without being prompted, the nice young man processed our application as a married couple which gave us a bit of a discount.

On the last evening of our exploratory week, we celebrated our continued good fortune at the Premier Inn restaurant where the fare was surprisingly good and wine surprisingly fine. As we raised our glasses, we watched the smart suits with smart phones file in two by two. It sent a visible shudder down Liam’s spine as he was rudely reminded of his old laboured life. “Never again,” he muttered. Our young waiter was a busy walker who darted about dispensing friendly but unobtrusive service to his charges. Now we’ve left Turkish airspace, my gaydar is fully-functional and we exchanged sly we-both-know-what-we-are glances. At the end of his shift, he joined us for a large glass of red and a little casual conversation. He’d recently moved from Devon to Norwich to be with his new partner and gave us the low down on the low life of the Norwich gay scene. Apparently, times were tough when he first got off the bus. It took him three months to find a job. He said:

“I was the assistant manager of a motorway service station. It had a Burger King and a Costa Coffee. I was trained in both. They said I was over-qualified.”

Every Little Helps

The Bodrum Bulletin has just updated its annual grocery price check, comparing Britain with Turkey. This exercise was first started in 2009 using the same basket of goods from Sainsbury’s (in the UK) and Migros (in Turkey). The headline is that the price differential between the two countries has been gradually eroded since the survey started. In 2009 the British basket cost 26% more, whereas today the difference is less that 10%.

As with all things, the devil is in the detail. Buying habits vary from person to person and the comparison is affected by the prevailing lira to pound exchange rate. Nevertheless, it does indicate a direction of travel during these recessionary times. We residents all know that booming Turkey is no longer the low cost paradise it used to be. To add to the depressing trend, the Turkish Government has just hiked the price of gas by nearly 19% and the price of electricity by just over 9%.

A year ago, I set Liam a challenge. I wanted to know the cost of living for our kind of life in Britain, Spain and Turkey. He calculated  our average monthly spend on the typical stuff we consume –  food, booze, fags, essential trips back to London, rent, bills, healthcare, insurances, etc. He also used Migros for the Turkish grocery shop, comparing it to Tesco’s in Britain and a major Spanish chain. At the time, the results showed that living in Spain would cost a fifth less overall whereas living in Britain (outside London) would cost a third more.

The same analysis today (excluding Spain) paints a completely different picture. Our British living costs will be on par with our Turkish expenses. This is almost entirely due to the low rent we expect to pay in Norwich and the fact that we’re (almost) a smoking-free family. This isn’t the reason we’ve decided to leave our foster home but, as they say at Tesco’s, every little helps.

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From Local to Yokel

It’s Sod’s Law. As soon we decide to paddle back to Blighty on the evening tide to become country yokels, two things happen to make life in battered Bodrum just that little bit easier and that little bit cheaper.

First off, the Town’s highways and byways are being laid with fibre optic cables. A battalion of dusky, sweaty vested navvies is carving out mini-trenches along every street. The deep furrows are being backfilled badly and dribbled with lumpy tarmac. In some of the crazy paving alleys, zigzagging troughs look like hastily repaired earthquake cracks.

The project is a joint venture between Super Online (internet) and Turkcell (mobile phone). Fibre optic cables provide a much faster and more reliable internet experience and the new service will give the current whore’s drawers service from TTNET (Turk Telekom) a run for its money. Who knows, it may even drive down prices. I hear there are also plans for cable TV in the pipeline. Oh, what joy: the chance to tell Digiturk (Satellite broadcaster) where to shove their overpriced packages.

And so to the second piece of good news. Dolly drivers on the flat fare blue-liveried bus routes now charge us the tariff usually reserved for locals (2 lira instead of 2.75 as advertised in English). It’s only taken two years. Sadly, we’ve yet to get the local rate at cute Ali’s barbers for our one-round-the-side-two-on-the-top crops. He’s worth it though. Even without the ‘extras’.

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Old Bodrum Renewed

Old Bodrum Renewed

There is an authentic stone cottage in the heart of Bodrum Town sitting prettily in a well-stocked walled garden dominated by an ancient double-trunked olive tree. It is the original homestead of an old Bodrum family. As the family grew wealthy they moved on to larger premises and left their family home to slowly fall into quaint dilapidation. The house has an open-plan biblical feel, with a semi-basement – where I presume animals were once kept – a small mezzanine level and a larger first floor. One day the family had a bright idea. Selling off the family silver was unthinkable but maybe there was a little money to be made from the estate. They decided to renovate: extend the old house and build a brand new cottage in traditional style on the adjacent land where a small barn once stood. It took time, dedication and a few wrangles with the planners but they did it. It is a quality job. The family house now looks superb, sympathetically redressed in recycled stone finery. We seriously considered renting this bijou piece of local history but the cramped and quirky arrangement didn’t quite fit the way we live (no, I don’t mean camp discos, glitter balls and a blacked out sauna). Instead we rent the new house next door with its more practical and flexible living space. Both houses stand out from the crowd and are a happy snappers delight.

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Caveat Emptor

Liam and I love living in our little stone cottage tucked away in the middle of old Bodrum Town. A perilous spark, a sieve-like roof, heat exhaustion and frostbite have not put us off. Our neighbours are a joy and the locals are warm, welcoming and obliging. We feel blessed. We rent and are thankful for the freedom. We can move as we please and when the mood takes us. We have been mercifully released from that inbred notion to own (something we Brits nurture in the womb).

For some, the dream can turn sour. For years now, we’ve read reports about people buying property abroad falling foul of unscrupulous builders, vendors, agents or officials. Some of the stories are enough to make you weep, particularly when the unsuspecting lose their shirts in a single dodgy deal. Sadly, it’s a phenomenon which afflicts many countries around the world – not just Turkey – and the laws which protect such people vary from country to country.

I was recently contacted by a member of the Turkish Living Forum who is fronting a campaign for change in Turkey. He points out that while many people successfully purchase property here, there are plenty of examples of those who have a really rough ride. He’s not alone in this view. The Turkish press is littered with examples of  scams and only last year, police raided the Central Tapu Office in Bodrum.

Of course, fraud can afflict all buyers, foreign and Turkish alike. But for foreigners, coming to grips with the complexities of unfamiliar property law in a foreign land can be a daunting task. Not to mention an emotional one.

Wherever you are willing to splash out, in Turkey or elsewhere, it clearly makes sense to do your homework. Do everything you can to understand the buying process, get good legal advice, don’t be tempted by cost-cutting shortcuts and don’t dish the dosh unless you are absolutely sure that everything is above board. Let’s face it, that’s exactly what you’d do in your own country so why lose your head (and possibly your life savings) when abroad? If it looks too good to be true, the chances are it is. There are plenty of people around who can offer good advice.

Turkey is a fabulous and seductive country to live or invest in. Dreams really can come true if you do it right and the authorities play their part too.