Sometimes moving around is a good thing

Right now I'm sitting in a room that is that has barely enough space to walk around the double bed to inch out the doorway. My worldly belongings are scattered between the boot of the car, someone's garage and in a pile on the landing outside the bedroom door. I'm living with 14 people in a 7 bedroomed, 4 storey house in Camberwell and not paying any rent. There's weed wafting from the basement, a kitchen table and bench that I've never seen clean and only one bathroom. The second toilet has a couple camped outside the entrance making it inaccessible from the hours of 2am and 12pm when they sleep. Three months ago I was living in a penthouse overlooking London Fields, with an en suite and private balcony. Has something gone horribly wrong or is this just the way things go sometimes?

In six months, we've stayed in six different places: Ashford (Kent), Limehouse, Hackney, London Fields, Islington, Camberwell and soon Tuffnell Park. Although it's been a veritable whirlwind of adapting to new people, places and transport, it's giving us a well grounded perspective of different areas that many Londoners may never experience. Not only are the Brits a patriotic bunch, but they're quite proud of being from the North, South, East or West and whatever borough comes within that, so, living with die-hard locals is often the best way to experience the creme de la creme of that area. For us, that was discovering the best coffee on Broadway Market or the best pizza in Islington..and right now, it's having found a wicked greasy spoon with an all day breakfast down the road…because finding that was easier than playing Jenga with the piles of kitchen dishes at "home".

Another tip if you do find yourself moving around a lot is to dump your excess stuff in a central location. If you don't have any friends that you can leave your gear at then then there are plenty of storage places in London that will accommodate. Storage London is a good site to start.