I recently decided to move house. It started with a resentful yearning to own two bedrooms, but I quickly discovered that to afford a spare room, I must leave my seedy area of west London for a worse one, or leave London altogether. Not easy after 30 years.
Since I made up my mind to move, my normal life has disappeared. In the ceaseless hunt for houses I have no time for blogging, writing, painting, exhibitions or sociable lunches: the things that used to give life its shape. As there are not enough affordable houses, there is intense competition involved, which has changed me into something like the unpleasant yuppie I was 30 years ago: anxious, resentful, greedy and tense.
I put in offers while looking elsewhere, bidding against others when I know I’m not really interested. I obsess on rising prices and desirable locations and spend most of my waking hours on property websites. Now that I have no time for my real friends, my main companions seem to be estate agents, who ring and text me at all hours like the most devoted lovers. They are mostly foxy young men, but not foxy in the American sense — I mean they remind me of scavenging foxes: sharp little faces and watchful eyes. Also: oily quiffs, tight suits and unpleasant elongated boots with squared-off toes.
Some seem to have an innate contempt for clients. I arrived at a property which looked pretty in the pictures but turned out to share its only outside space with the local fire-engine. ‘You should look it up on Google Earth if you want that kind of information,’ said the young vulpe dismissively. Sometimes the foxes don’t even bother to show up and leave me shivering on a damp doorstep — richer fish to fry I suppose.
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