Ridiculous question about living in London

[Skunkandnancy]

I’ve just come back from a few days in London. We stayed in Paddington (Sussex gardens), just across the road from the station.

I LOVE London and when I get back I’m always a bit fascinated and think about it a lot. Where we stayed there appeared to be ‘normal’ flats just along from Sussex Gdns where people were just living.

I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous but I can’t get my head around being able to live right in the middle of London like this. Surely it must cost a fortune. It was noisy at night (all night partying it sounded like) so how do people just live alongside this.

We walked up Whitehall, around Covent Garden, Fleet Street, St Paul’s etc and am just fascinated at the thought that people live amongst this. I look at people on the tube and imagine just being able to travel around like this so easily.

London history is so fascinating too, so much to see everywhere. Do ‘ordinary’ people live right in the centre like this? How is life? I bet it must be amazing 🤩

😁

I think flatshares are still to be had in Paddington OP, so if you want to parteee in a grotty slightly damp flat with Aussies and drunks on your doorstep London is your oyster.

I only lived super central (just off Regents Park) when doing a weird live in job when I first moved there, but I have lived just off brick lane and in Vauxhall and it’s fun. I live further out now (needed some trees) but I love London, it is exciting after 20 odd years, and i don’t think I’d live anywhere else.

It would be good for the centre to have more people living in it though, there were lots till the 70s. I still work in the middle and there are supermarkets, so you’re ok there.

As a student I lived in halls by the Barbican - was very dead at the weekend! And odd to be surrounded by city workers all week. There’s a supermarket off white cross street - now a Waitrose but was a Somerfield back in the day!

Later on lived in an ex-LA flat across the road from Hyde Park at the Lancaster Gate side. It was amazing being so close to the park and I didn’t mind the noise. Shopped in the sainsburys in Paddington station there.

Lived in Hackney after that and now comfortable zone 3. Still love London.

I grew up in SW1. Walked everywhere, or very short bus journey to everywhere central. I have lived in rural Yorkshire since 2000 though

I went to an industry awards dinner on Park Lane last year with a couple of colleagues from villages near Leeds and Harrogate, whose knowledge of London is largely based on the Monopoly board and Eastenders. As we were walking to our hotels, venue and back to LKX, they were going on about "so you grew up here??" Well, I did, but I still grew up in a terraced house with not enough bedrooms, went to a comprehensive school.

Middleagedminx aka Jo Good ( Radio London) I think, she is on YouTube and Instagram and lives in a small flat in Marylebone, buys good quality clothes and enjoys a great social life. Also has a lovely dog.

Where we stayed there appeared to be ‘normal’ flats just along from Sussex Gdns where people were just living.

That's me.
My neighbours are a mix of private renters who can afford high city rents, owner-occupiers, and people like me who are HA tenants.
Shopping's easy - there are 2 Waitroses in walking distance and numerous little Sainsburys and Tescos as well as the Middle Eastern shops on Edgeware Road and Church St. market. That said, I do love an expedition to a proper big supermarket like the Sainsburys in Camden.
It's great to be in the centre, so close to the parks and walkable to so many places. (I avoid the tube in the rush hour if possible.)
Noise isn't really an issue - the council has a super-efficient noise team who respond very quickly to late parties. You get used to the sirens.
Paddington's being smartened up. The girls on Sussex Gardens seem to be there much less often. The corners opposite the Monkey Puzzle are where they often used to stand. I don't suppose the vice trade has disappeared though, just moved online.
I hope you saw the Maarten Baas Real Time clock on Eastbourne Terrace opposite the Elizabeth line - evidence that we're going up in the world if someone's spending that kind of money in Paddington. I'm always so pleased when tourists notice it.

I live in South London just outside zone 1.

Yes, it's expensive. A room in a shared house here is £950 a month. Somewhere near Paddington would be multiple thousands a month for a small flat. Only the rich live there.

The noise you get used to. Buses shake out house through the night. Foxes, sirens, shouting. You learn to ignore it. It becomes mostly white noise and the occasional thing wakes me up at night.

But I do love it. The buses and tube mean I don't need a car and I can get anywhere with ease. Though the cost adds up. There's loads to do. So much so that sometimes you don't know where to look and end up doing nothing.

I moved from a rural village in Yorkshire. I see the pros of both lifestyles. I will eventually move back out - I live opposite a park but I miss being surrounded by nature. I also miss having a garden.

I would love to live in London and am also always fascinated by this.

Although my commute to work on the bus takes me past the London Eye and Houses of Parliament which always feels very cool. And I can walk to Buckingham Palace from my house (however I rarely do takes about 40 mins walking or 6-7ish in a car)

I'm in zone one bordering between Pimlico and Westminster. It's just normal. Although my four year olds can sleep through anything and got freaked out on holiday a couple of weeks ago asking where all the people were! For weekly shopping we get it delivered but there really are little supermarkets around lots of corners if you look!

Ooo I love this idea.
Due to more people working from home, transport strikes have been staged to put people off travelling in and noticing less actors. If you look really closely you will see that every 3rd commuter is a cardboard cut out.

I can hear the Hair Ambulance being asked for in a gorgeous Jamaican accent too!

I used to live on Westminster Bridge next to the London Eye. It was noisy at times but not horribly so. I had a hospital, hotel, the House of commons, river, bridges, South Bank all within one minutes walk.

My local supermarket was either Mark's and Spencer inside Waterloo Station, Iceland or Waitrose on Oxford St.

It was strange at times, the city never stops, there were always people about on the South Bank, even at 3am. It fascinated me, I spent a lot of time just watching people come and go.

I used to drink in the terrace bars in the House of commons, the pubs in Kennington, walk to Oxford Street, soho, Somerset House, St Paul's, watch films at the BFI or watch major celebrities filming tv/films in the area. I travelled by bus a lot, it was great because I had the time to do so. Would I move back, probably not.

I used to work with an architect who had a house in Covent Garden. Seemed amazing.

Dh and I are going to retire to a flat in central London. It will be living the dream.

I used to live in zone one, walked everywhere. I loved it but live in a more suburb bit of London now for space. Still love being able to see a show and be home in 30mins. We moved fully out of London for a while and I never want to live in a town ever again.

Unless you are on the really main, busy roads like Oxford St, roads where Notting Hill market is or key traffic routes then the side roads are actually very quiet.

I was like PP and was taken to stay in a hotel in Earls Court as a child. I was completely fascinated by the girls Prep school there in a town house. To add to it they had a really old fashioned uniform. I never forgot it.

Zoom forward many years and I've recently left my job in a very similar girls prep. I absolutely adored the feel right to the end- quaint tradition, homely feel and sense of pride of being Londoners. They were paying buckets to have a miniature playground and small classrooms but the whole experience was so lovely and charming. Now at a prep in the countryside and it's got its own charm but just not the same.

Yesssssss the Sinner Winner man!!! I loved him.

"When the final whistle blows which side will you be on?!"

We quote him frequently!!!!

Where were you when he got his ASBO NewJobSoNewName? Which side were YOU on?

I lived in Chelsea, Wandsworth, and Acton and Kensal Rise. Loved them all only left to buy a house, I live London and also am amazed that people live there, but I do feel sad when I see childrens bikes on balconies and think of being stuck inside during lockdown

When I used to live down in London I was in the outskirts but a friend lived right near Hyde Park in a protected tenancy so enjoyed a very cheap rent. She shared a room with her mum though and was late fifties when I knew her. It was a lovely huge flat with tall ceilings and balconies but you did have to climb two flights of stairs to get to her home. She was very lucky to be so near the park and would shop amongst the Arab sheikh who had a bob or two! There was space for car parking too.

We must have walked past you (the Monkey Puzzle was a great pub)!

Cannot believe we missed the clock! Is it at Paddington on the Elizabeth line? We got on that a few times (lovely and modern and air conditioned). We will be back in London again in November so will make sure to check it out.

When we return in November we are staying at Marble Arch and have two full days free. Anything we shouldn’t be missing? We’ve seen / done all the big attractions so will now hunt out the quirky / smaller places. Good food / drinks recommendations accepted please.

Really enjoyed reading other people's experiences of inner London - if nothing else it shows there are a great variety of people in the inner locations. When renting I usually lived in Zone 1 - places like South Kensington, Earls Court, Pimlico, Chelsea. Most are actually pretty quiet if you are not on a main road or near an area with a lot of evening activity. Even Fitzrovia is quiet two blocks away from Oxford St.

The area I've named were accessible for people who earned a reasonable amount of money but that was in the 90s and now I think private places / rents are mostly expats or locals in high paying professions like law and finance. In South Ken even back in the 90s a lot of flats were owned by people from overseas so not always occupied and certainly doesn't help keep the pubs open - about half the pubs in Belgravia have closed in the last 20 or 30 years and it also affects places like St John's Wood - many people have moved into these areas who don't really have a pub culture so the services on offer change accordingly. Lots better restaurants and cafes though as a result.

It's interesting that people routinely refer to Notting Hill or Fulham as rich / expensive areas - they certainly are now but go back 40 or 50 years and they were nothing out of the ordinary. There has been an ongoing process of gentrification in Inner London that has been going on for decades - Notting Hilll and Fulham maybe in the 70s/ early 80s but later in the 80s places like Clapham, Camden, Islington. Even now there are areas close to the City (particularly in the NE-E-SE) that I would have never dreamt of living in 30 years ago that have become desirable - Bermondsey, Shoreditch, Hoxton, Finsbury Park even Bethnal Green.

It's interesting to read the snapshot from OP from outside London. London is always changing - sometimes for the good, other ways not so much. Soho for example is much better than 30 years ago. The clip joints and red light bulbs in first floor windows have largely gone and the number and quality of restaurants has exploded. Leicester Sq/ Covent Garden/ Oxford St however are little more than theme parks for tourists and I generally avoid them. There is much more to do in inner areas like Islington, Clapham, Putney, Fulham so a lot of us socialise in those sort of areas rather than the West End

I've got a 'Ridiculous question about living in London'

Someone once told me that only the Queen can open and close Tower Bridge. There is, apparently, a big handle she winds at Buckingham Palace.

So what do you do now the Queen lives at Windsor Castle regarding opening and closing Tower Bridge?

😕

My biggest regret is not moving to London when I was young. Through a series of fortunate events, I had the opportunity - I could have had a great time.

One of my DSes lives in zone 2 now though - so I live vicariously through him!

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles - she's got Bluetooth and uses a remote control