The first years in the capital .
I arrived in the Uk in 2011 and i lived in London for 8 long years . Since my arrival I enjoyed the energy and creativity of the capital becoming a professional artist and a stronger and independent woman .
But after a few years i realised that London with all its beauty could not give to me what i was looking for: more or better love and a house that was my own property .
I always think of London like a mermaid, enchanting people with its beauty, lights, theatres, events, museums, parks, monuments , music , the Royals , history and art galleries .
But after all these golden introductions, London is holding the souls of people leaving them dried like empty nuts.
The same happened to me when i was living in the big smoke. I was working for the first time in my life nine or ten hours a day , trying to pay the bills and traveling also three hours on the expensive tube to commute from my home to the place where I was working .
People must understand that the capital is so huge that when you have to travel ,for example , from east to west it is minimum one hour and half .
But i was happy in those days because everything was new for me coming from a bigot country like Italy and i did not feel tired when i was working for long hours in film productions as an actress or as a life model in art academies .
But after a few years i realised that i was still paying an enormous amount of money to live in a small bedroom in a flat shared with others and wasting hours of my life on crowded and expensive trains .
Therefore , thinking to improve my life far from landlords and flatmates i decided to buy an old narrow boat, but unfortunately that experience was again expensive .
In London the greedy River Trust Canal treat boaters without respect and chase people with their stupid rules about miles, pretending to be paid a fortune for their licence because people are using public canals and rivers !
After eight years of this life fighting with landlords , flatmates and River trust canal I had enough, so in 2019 I decided to close my chapter with London for a cheaper and quieter place.
I immediately abandoned the idea to live around London because the costs of the trains are enormous and the service can be disastrous.
Living in the outskirts of the capital is not cheaper.
People think that is a good deal buying a cheaper new house just outside London in small towns created for this purpose but they do not think how bad are the trains in the UK , lately on strike at least three or four days a month , crowded and expensive .
An annual ticket can cost also eight thousand a year ( just to commute one hour outside the capital ).
Bristol was not a great escape from London.
After all my research I finally decided to move to Bristol following the advice of a few colleagues in 2019 .
But unfortunately quite soon I realised that Bristol was not so artistic like London , not so elegant , just a couple of museums and super expensive !
But why are the prices of the houses so expensive in shabby Bristol ?
Because someone in 2018/2019 started to advertise Bristol like a small happy London and during the lockdown many Londoners working from home decided to find a place to rent or buy in Bristol . But because the request was more than the flats available , the rich Londoners bid with a larger amount of money to get their flats .
This process unfortunately increased the cost of the houses in just one year! A flat that could be rent for £700 a month , after a year was on the market for £850!
I was not happy and I wanted to leave Bristol after eight months from my arrival but i was forced to stay another two years for the covid pandemic, living in a large room transformed in a micro flat in Cotham for £650 pound a month plus expenses.
Practically i was paying £850 pound a month for a large room that the greedy landlord had transformed in a micro flat with a minute bathroom kitchen and an electric heating that cost me a fortune .
The same landlord asked me to pay her old grey carpet when i left after 3 years ( two spent in lockdown ) because she found a few spot of acrylic paint on it !
Finally I discovered Newcastle upon tyne during one of my holidays in September 2021.
When i arrived in this city for my holiday i was almost sad because the southerns told me the city was uninteresting and poor.
But as soon as I arrived I fell in love with Newcastle for its beauty , elegance , theatres , art galleries and museums .
The Geordies ( people living in Newcastle ) were kind and ready to help and I immediately noticed the price of the rents were half that of Bristol and one third of London !
Because i had enough of landlords with their stupid rules I had a look at the flats to buy and discovered that a few two bedroom flats in very good condition were on the market for less than £90,000 !
I was so surprised about these prices that i thought at first they were scams .But after visiting a few estate agents i realised that the prices in Newcastle were excellent and real .
So immediately I started to look for a job to move in the north east to realise my project to buy my own property .
Finding a job was quite easy and in one month i moved from Bristol to Newcastle , i found the flat to buy and my new partner .
Everything went well and easy .
With the money i used to buy my two bedroom flat in Newcastle , i could buy 40% of a shared ownership in Bristol and maybe only a shed in London .
I do not understand why in the South of England the prices of houses are so expensive .
It is the same country , with the same rules and the same weather .
A few told me that Newcastle is like the North Pole but after living here since November 2021 i must admit that it is not colder than Bristol and London for most of the year .
There is a metro system that is quite good and cheaper than the tube in London . In Bristol there are only buses that often arrive late or do not stop because the driver is late for dinner with his wife !
Finally here in the North east I can work only six hours a day ( no more nine or ten like in London !) save money and enjoy my life in the excellent night life of the capital .
Then if you wish silence and a connection with nature you can take a bus or a train and go to visit the North Sea and villages in the Northumberland park just 30 minutes from the city.
Everything is perfect here and never will I miss my life in the South .
Thanks for reading
lauraartist68 