Living in London

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One thing we love about our new flat in Hampstead is the feeling of being up high – we have large windows, lots of light, and feel really elevated after the old ground floor flat in Kensington. We have our office in the largest room on the street-side of the flat, and are constantly entertained by outside activities. I have been working at home quite a bit this week as I wait for various service people to call (and wait, and wait, but that’s another post . . .). 

Here’s what I have seen in a six hour window on Thursday:

• A policeman on a horse walking down the centre of the street (heard this before I looked out)
• A man with a broom, a dustbin, a little push cart, and a orange safety vest, sweeping up leaves and debris. They don’t have the concept here of days when you cannot park on certain streets because the street-sweeping machine comes through – or – they they believe in full employment. Not sure which.
• A big scooping machine picking up loose debris from the front driveway of the house next door, which is being completely renovated. The workers haul this debris, one wheelbarrow at a time, from the back yard and the inside, through the house, out onto a low scaffolding, and then dump it into the driveway. 
• A porta-potty being delivered next door.
• So many vans, delivery trucks, and service vehicles on the street that it was gridlocked.  Unfortunately, none of these were delivering anything to us! I am glad we don’t park on the street – looked like some close calls were happening!
• A flat bed truck picking up debris from the second floor flat across the street, also being renovated. (see photo)  (That’s the third floor if you were in the U.S. because the English they start at “ground” not “1.” )  These workers’ method of carting out the debris is via a big bucket they lower by a rope down from the scaffolding. This scaffolding is also how they get into the property in the morning, and how they exit at night. In the U.S. scaffolding would indicate that something is being done to the external of the building, but here, it’s apparently just to support the renovation work being done inside. The debris they lower down is all in office-rubbish-basket-sized plastic bags. These bags are removed from the bucket that was lowered and lined up on the sidewalk, or in the street until the flatbed comes to pick it up.

All this observing makes me glad that I don’t have to do hard manual labour for a living. Some of these guys make a lot less money than I do and they don’t get to live on the first floor in a nice flat in Hampstead.

-LmG