Jobs and a Bedsit

Laura and I approach finding a job with two very different styles. I am relentless - checking the paper every day, calling, interviewing. Laura is far more laid back. She just prays and waits and trusts that the right opportunity will come along. It drives me crazy.

I found a position through one of my friends from the New Rainbow church where I had been going. His brother was the manager of a camera warehouse, located just down the street from St. James’s Park in central London. The warehouse was underground below one of their camera stores. I worked with another guy pulling orders to deliver to the other stores in the region.

Now that there was at least some money coming in, we started to look around to see if we could find somewhere to live by ourselves. The only thing we could afford was a bedsit, short for a bedsitting room. It is just a room in a house with a shared bathroom.

For things to be affordable in London you have to plan well. The closer you live to central London, the more expensive it is. But you also have to take travel costs into consideration. My job was in central London but we couldn’t afford to live in the central zone or Zone 1. 

In looking for a place to live, you also want to take into consideration the proximity to a Tube stop. We found a bedsit within walking distance of the Baron’s Court Tube station in Zone 2, only two stops outside Zone 1. My job was within walking distance of the St. James Park Tube stop. Both stops were on the District Line so I wouldn’t have to change trains. This was also an advantage because the closer you get to central London, the more crowded the trains get. There were usually seats still available by the time I got on in Baron’s Court but two stops later in Earl’s Court you could forget about it.

Our bedsit was the first floor front room of a row house. It was a good size with a bay window. It was a good thing that it was so spacious because friends would be coming through and sleeping on the floor. There was a queen bed and a large closet that opened to become a small kitchen with a sink, stove, microwave and fridge. The place was a far cry from Laura’s American middle-class upbringing but she really wanted to get out on our own.

I was still trying to push Laura to get a job. She was a preschool teacher so I was trying to get her to find something in that field. The timing was bad, however, with it being summer. In the US, preschools are more like year-round day cares. In England, they tended to keep to a regular school schedule. Meanwhile, Laura was still patiently waiting for the right opportunity to come along.

There are a lot of Americans living in London. Many of them work for companies that pay for all their expenses which is why many of them can afford nannies. Our friend, Cherilyn worked for one such family who were connected to others.

Through those connections, Laura started doing some babysitting for a couple of other American families and one of them turned into a job…of sorts. The Ciccettis had a young son and a baby girl. The wife didn’t really need Laura to watch the kids. She was a stay-at-home mom. We realized that what she was really looking for was companionship. So Laura would just go hang with her and the kids for the day…and get paid.

If you like to walk (and Laura does), walking in central London can be delightful. A lot of the corporate Americans in London live in the Kensington area and the Cicchettis followed suit. Kensington wasn’t too far from where we lived, so Laura walked about 20-30 minutes to work. And, of course, I loved that it saved on transportation costs too.

Getting groceries at reasonable prices can be a challenge in a city. We couldn’t afford to shop at the corner stores so we had to find a supermarket which were fewer and farther between. We found one but it wasn’t convenient to the Tube. We had to go together and carry everything back on the bus. That involved walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, keeping our groceries from getting squished on the often-crowded bus and walking home from the bus station. It was a challenge but paying for a taxi was out of the question.  

Friends sleeping on our bedsit floor (and my foot makes an appearance from our bed)


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