Looking to let a flat

aka rent an apartment

We saw the good, bad, and ugly in Harrogate (an old spa town) and York (you know the one that has a guest appearance in my favorite movie Braveheart). We saw grandma's pink 50's retirement home, basements that smelled musty with a bit of mold (from recent heavy rains), super swanky "baroque" furnishings, the clifton garage sale collection, and some plain old nice places to live.

After much discussion, stress, and last minute realtor calls, we landed in York. Ironically, in an area referred to as Clifton, but much nicer than it's Cincinnati counterpart. It's in a grand old house that has just been refurbished and split into flats so we'll be the first occupants since renovation. (Pictures to come--we took movies and they won't upload) It has a reserved parking spot, an amazing shared entry staircase, and is nicely placed on the first floor (that's the second floor for us Americans). It's across from a nice village green aka park (the view is shown in the photo here), is close to the river and the city walls. We think that it's a 15 minute walk from the train station, but that's up for debate right now. It's unfurnished right now, but will be mostly furnished when we take occupancy.


Most importantly for our future guests, it has a good size second bedroom, second bath, and a tiny "third" bedroom (don't worry--nobody will get stuck there).

From our brief on-foot exploration of York, it looks very cool. The surrounding farmland is beautiful--somewhat reminiscent of Tuscany, but less dramatic. There are poppies here too which seem to grow everywhere except Cincinnati.

Here are some misc. photos:







Tomorrow is driver training for me. Not really looking forward to that, but it's necessary. Friday I have to get down to business and work on Lauren's wedding invitations (no, Lauren, I haven't forgotten :)

And to sign off, I have made my first English blunder. When we went out with one of Pat's co-workers I mentioned to Pat that I found a good price on a pair of pants. Well our pants are trousers in England because pants refers to underpants. His co-worker got a kick out of it, but has spent enough time in the US to correct me vs. be confused.

Will try to write again soon (assuming I don't crash into a roundabout tomorrow),

Jamie