I was working from home today, and was surprised when my flatmate was as well. But nothing could have surprised me more than when she said, "I've actually been wanting to talk to you, I've decided that I'd like to live by myself for a while." My stomach absolutely plummeted, and I felt nauseous and ready to vomit. Given that she owns the flat we live in, this means I've got to find a new place to live.
I was totally shocked when she said, "I hope this hasn't come as a surprise to you..." Ummm....really? How about jaw-droppingly, breathtakingly, wind-knocked-out-of-me surprising? Not a clue that this was coming. We seem to get along so well, and she seems to enjoy my company, so I really didn't see this coming AT ALL. It really reminds me of some of my break-ups, where I just got blindsided out of the blue when the guy wanted to end the relationship, and yet he acted like it was so obvious, I should have seen it coming from miles away. Which does sort of make me wonder, what on earth did I miss?
She did assure me actually that it didn't have anything to do with me, and my protests that I could go into the office more fell on deaf ears, she really just wanted to live alone. It really puzzled me though, as she confessed that she can't actually afford to live here on her own, and so she's hoping to find someone who commutes from Manchester to live here a few days a week, just not all of the time. Ummm...so you want to live by yourself, but yet you'll still have a flatmate?
Alas, what can I do? There really is nothing for it but to start looking, hope that I can find something nice in this area, and somehow hope I can manage the challenge of packing up my absolute mountains of stuff. To her credit, she assured me that she wouldn't stick to the official terms of our lease (1 month's notice), as I have absolutely no idea what I would do if she did, particularly given that I'm due to head to the US for two weeks on August 25th. No way in heck I could manage to move before then, so it's nice to have some more time and advance warning...
Still reeling from that news, I had to head up to north London for an agreed upon meeting with the head of the Dartmouth Club of London, as I'd volunteered to take over from the club president, along with a few others, to form an executive committee and hopefully make the club a bit more active.
Made it to her house, where she was at home with her 20-month old daughter. The kid was cute, but very active, so I could see why she wanted to pass along responsibility for running the club, as she obviously didn't have a lot of time on her hands anymore.
Kind of interesting to see someone else's flat in London, to see how on earth people actually do manage to live with kids in this city. It was a nice place, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were living in your standard two-bedroom flat, just like anybody else.
Did some chatting, made sure I knew everything I needed to know, but then made sure to lead the charge to leave to give the obviously very tired mom some downtime in the evening... Kids are cute, but obviously take a lot of your focus!
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