28 Comments
Jan 14Liked by The Sophist

Pivoting to prawns as we speak.

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It's the only way to travel

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Jan 14Liked by The Sophist

Since starting to work in London I have a visceral reaction to daunt tote bags. Please I beg you all stop the influx

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Is it because you come to London and see us all walking around with them like wankers, or that you come to London to Orjenise our houses and then realise we can't close our kitchen doors because wads of Daunts totes are all hanging off them?

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Jan 17Liked by The Sophist

I did a house in which they JUST KEPT COMING, I swear there were 20 of them. We agreed going forward no more must enter the house but whenever I see one (constantly) I shiver

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Laughing so much at this Daunt tote thread

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Jenn (who’s begging us to stop the influx) is coming round my house later so I’m wondering if I’ve got time to nip round all the branches and accrue a few more to line the porch. A proper hero’s welcome.

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Jan 14Liked by The Sophist

That Hampstead balcony though. I couldn’t agree more, I would also want what you want for my seven million.

The mad old bungalow looks FREEZING (and damp-smelling). And there are a lot of things to sit on in the Venice duplex. Marvellous as always Sophie, thank you.

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I think they're being a little feckless with our seven millions Karen, I really do. Hate to say it but we might even have to consider investing them elsewhere.

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Jan 17Liked by The Sophist

Sigh. I think you’re right.

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Jan 14Liked by The Sophist

I started defending that 'mad old bungalow' but stopped once I got to the pink room. And the yellow one. God, what are (some) people thinking! And I felt really sorry for the tiger who stares out the window - from such a great distance that it made me even sadder. I wondered if it's not so much a child's room now as the room left behind by a former child - by which I mean adult - leaving behind scattered remnants.

I love your tours of places I could never live in. It lifts me to hear echoes of my own thoughts.

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What a lovely comment. Thankyou Debs. The tiger has perhaps eaten the child.

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in which case am I more sad for the tiger or for the child?

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How the other half live! All of them, please 😄

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Oh sorry did I not explain, I bought them all first. Getting a bit bored of the commute to Ibiza now though so you can have that one for a tenner and a Fanta limón.

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Thank you, come and stay whenever you want! 🤩🏝️

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I'll bring my dolphin lilo and we can take turns hurling it off the terrace

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Great! I’ll see if I can hold on and fly into the pool on it 😃

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loved this 😂

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Thankyou <3

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I'll have the naval captain's house please. That kitchen floor... that fireplace... It's all perfect. I'd throw in a few grand for the entire contents and I would not change a single thing. I'd sit outside and soaking up the view, possibly while smoking a pipe and looking through a telescope.

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Jodie it is as if you read my - are you me?

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In my naive provincial way, I look at the Hampstead house and all I can think is "But it's...semi-detached".

I think I'll tilt my beret at the Breton captain's house instead pls.

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Hahahahah I've been in London so long that semi-detached sounds insanely glamorous. 'End terrace' is about the closest we get to that inside of zones 1-to-3 and I've been rather proud of the London end terraces I have lived in. Well except that the main one (first decade of my daughter's life) was on the end because it abutted the carp park where all the dealers hung out and blocked everyone else's cars in with their mobile shops. Ahhh a colourful life.

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That should say car park. Carp park also sounds insanely glamorous, indicating the presence of an inner London fishing lake.

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Ah yes, I well remember my teeny leasehold flat in Hackney where the roof leaked from the day I bought it till the day I sold it and the freeholder would send round a variety of dubious-looking roofers to 'fix' it, including one who tied a rope round his waist so his mate could dangle him out of the second floor window. Fun times.

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Oh almost EXACTLY this sort of thing. Bet you felt incredibly relaxed in the hands of such trusted professionals and so glad that even though you had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds buying the thing, you still turned out to have a landlord.

(My mum and former flatmates may well be reading this thread and shuddering at the memory of our Tower Hamlets flat with the dodgy roof... well it wasn't even there at all for a full six months. But we do have a lack of Vitamin D in this country so exposure to sunlight can be a net positive, you see.)

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That Venice property is so tempting - the library, the garden, the dream...... just a question of a few million euros now......

And astroturf - an abomination! You're so right and I point this out to garden design clients all the time - you're not meant to hoover the lawn. It's meant to get muddy in winter and possibly a bit patchy in summer. The whole point of lawns is that they're alive and soft and don't give you plastic burns when you slip over. Oh, and that they can cope with 'wildlife' - whether actually wild, or dogs and cats who pee on them. When people realise the reality of that, they soon change their minds... great post, as ever!

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