I had set an alarm for 8:30, but woke up at about 7. Not surprising given that my “bed” is not that comfy: when I slept at the youth hostel at St. Pancras, where the mattresses are like solid rock, I woke at 6:00am without needing an alarm.
After greeting (and shortly thereafter saying farewell to) Emma’s two daughters, Josh and I had a cursory look at the list of Young Rewired State applications. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to turn down the applications from North Carolina and Bangalore.
We headed out to London on the train from Woking, talking about plans for hack-days for Rewired State and matters house-related.
We headed to the Canteen at the Royal Festival Hall again, this time meeting someone from the BBC. We introduced ourselves and our skills, talked for a little while but had to go to our first viewing of the day. We headed out to Haggerston and met the estate agent. The place was amazing. We arranged another viewing so that Jordan could come and look around, but had pretty much decided on making an offer.
After a Subway sandwich, we headed back to the agent to ask a few more questions (is that bath in the master bedroom actually fitted?)
We had two more viewings scheduled but, partly in elation at finding the previous apartment, we cancelled one. This gave us plenty of time to get to the one after, so we headed for a coffee shop and had tea (me) and lemonade (Josh) for a while. We left, thanked them, and slowly walked over to the Tube station. After a minor fuckup on my part, we got to the right place early, had the tour in 10 minutes, and decided against it.
While walking back to the Tube station, I realised that Stephen Mount, who I hadn’t seen in ages, was in London, so we should meet. I phoned him, arranged to meet at 7, and we headed for Holborn to pick up Jordan and head back to the first flat.
We arrived on time, but the estate agent showed up half-an-hour late. By that time I had to phone Steve and tell him we’d be late. But we toured the flat, decided to make an offer and headed back to the agent’s office. We can’t formally make the offer till tomorrow, but he’s accepted our terms in principle.
We got to Covent Garden, where we planned to meet Steve, at about quarter-past eight. We wanted some food, as well. We phoned Steve and, after a brief period of phone confusion caused by indecision, we agreed to meet Hyde Park Corner and head to the Hard Rock Café.
I ordered a burger. We introduced ourselves to the waitress by saying we’d just found an apartment, but she misheard in the loud restaurant atmosphere that we’d “founded a pub.” So there was amusement about that for a while.
At the end of the day, we said our goodbyes and Josh and I got the train back to Emma’s house. (After getting the wrong Tube. Again.)