2 middle aged SA goats in the U.K: 2nd half of looking for a house

Sho, if i dont sort my time management out I am going to fall behind and never be able to catch up.

So..the second day I was picked up at Sevenoaks station by Amanda and Anji in Amanda's big Mini. 2 min pause whilst I rack my brain as to which house we saw first, 53 years olds should blog everyday!!

Right, the first property had a garden out the front, it wasn't a bad size but it didn't really appeal. The kitchen was tiny and only had a bar fridge, even if I bought my own freezer there would be nowhere to put it. 2 bedroom 1125 pound a month.

Next on the list was a masionette , I liked this one, I think mainly because of the garden it was also a decent size and a very good price 950 pound a month.
It was very central but not close to the tube, Pierre would have a 20min walk to Sevenoaks Station. If you look at the pic below, our entrance was down the side, the door you see is for the flat on the ground floor. The little wooden gate is where we would go to get into the garden. I liked the shed...small wood working projects were starting to manifest in my brain!!

Don't panic I am not putting all 11 properties on, just the interesting ones. Just a quick note about my 2 relocators, they were rather amusing, the postal codes they were using in the gps kept taking them to the wrong houses so they had to phone the estate agents and get them to guide us in! Needless to say we got hooted at a couple of times. What was great was inbetween viewings, if there was time they drove me around Sevenoaks and neighbouring towns so I could get a feel of the place.

Okay on we go, the one I am showing you now I put in because it was the only place, other than one other that had storage in the bedrooms, the rest had no built in cupboards and wardrobes are expensive here. At least, I think they are, again I am probably looking at it from a 'I can make that for so much less' point of view.

The place below didn't have a garden but was more spacious. It was going for 1050 pcm. It was also 2 bedrooms. The one I looked at was on the top floor.

We had a quick lunch then we met up with an estate agent that was originally from South Africa, she had told Amanda and Anji that she had the perfect property to show me, they were a little out of our budget but she said she was sure she could negotiate a price for us. Her name was Lynn and she works for a company called Helen Breeze in Sevenoaks.

So off we went to a small village called Leigh (pronounced Lye) it is near Tonbridge.
This is what we found:

Isn't it lovely...
It is a converted barn and I just fell in love straight away. It was a little over our budget but Lynn chatted to the landlords (who are such a nice couple) and we have signed a two year lease for a lower rental, with a one year break clause. I hadn't heard of a break clause before, what it means is if either party isn't happy after one year, the contract can be made null and void. Normally it is put in after 6 months but because we signed for two years we made our after a year.

Now all we need is our furniture, which is scheduled to arrive on the 29th of April. In the mean time we are getting by quite happily with 2 of everything cutlery and crockery wise, one 2 seater couch, 2 chairs and a small table, all thanks to our landlords Jill and Joe who have kindly lent them to us until our container arrives.

We have had to buy some essentials like a mattress, 1 set of linen and 2 towels, a pot, a frying pan and cooking utensils. There is only one wardrobe and it is quite small so we bought a clothes rail for now. We don't have any wardrobes coming in the container so we are going to have to buy some pretty soon. I have been looking at the YMCA shop in Tonbridge, they have some lovely ones, lets hope they deliver!!

The small garden below is our private garden, the rest of the views from the windows are the landlords garden and trees in the area surrounding the barn.

The barn has two double bedrooms, a spacious kitchen with fridge, freezer and dishwasher hiding in the cupboards :) and then the washing machine. Most of the places I looked at came with the above, some were missing the dishwasher which is definitely not essential. There is a large reception room with a wood burner. A full bathroom upstairs with a bath, separate shower (lots of places had showers over the bath) Then downstairs there is what they call a wet room, it has a toilet and another shower.

Enjoy the pics my next blog will be a short one of tips when moving to the UK, nothing profound just useful I think. After that i will tell you about my first week in Leigh.