101) How To Find Your Perfect Life, and Your Perfect Home, while potentially creating massive drama?
Gosh…. This week I’ve been seeking work and a home, which has thrown very interesting light on the whole quest.
We each make an average of 10 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide a year (which, say scientists, we all need to reduce to 2.5). The problem is that us Little Brothers, the rich of the Western world - we make on average two tonnes of CO2 annually, just with our homes. How to reduce it? WWF say if you turn down your heating by one degree, you’ll reduce energy by ten percent – potentially saving cash, and two hundred kilos of CO2 a year. But this week, I’ve been working on a more novel solution…
Why not rent out your whole house, and take a room in someone else’s?
I’ve been living on a boat, where I kept all possessions in a rucksack: that makes you radically reappraise what you need. And when I left to travel six months ago, I rented out my four bedroom house in Kingston, South London, which brought four Kenyans into my life, who sleep in the house by night, while they work in a carehome by day. And now I’m back in Britain, I’ve signed up for Spareroom.co.uk where you seek rooms in peoples’ houses, and Cohabitas.com where you seek potential housemates. But my best move of all was seeing my friend Killa Deakin, who put me on her neighbourhood Facebook group, which brought me to the Kaplinskys, who offered a top floor studio, with kitchen and bathroom, for just six hundred quid pcm. Heaven, right?
I’ve moved in, and found the Kaplinskys are lovely.
They’re recently retired, which – weirdly – may make them perfect housemates: they’re not stressed; they have time. Yesterday, Simon Kaplinsky leant me his bike, and pumped up the tyres for me. What could be more perfect than that? I realise there’s a bit of a danger here: you’ll want to move in with the Kaplinskys. But back off, you’ll have to find your own recently retired couple.
Well… there’s a chance you might be able to move in. My daughter Iris has campaigned I move to Brighton, and yesterday I went off in a very successful expedition to investigate the scheme. It seems to do positive things to your energy, if you sail the Atlantic to plant trees and do other services for Mother Earth. Maybe it just makes you light and happy. Who knows what’s happening? Anyway I currently get offered everything I apply for.
On the way to Kent, I stopped in Catford, where an absurdly interesting and beautiful woman – who’d approached me on Cohabitas - said she’d be up for sharing a flat, if we found one - though, ironically, she wanted to live in the town of my ex-girlfriend. TBF, it’s pretty much my ideal town, too.
As well as having two very flamboyant cats, Catford lady had one of those magic meditation machines, that are mentioned in The Body Keeps The Score - the ones that change colour, as you soothe your mind. Her plan is to rent it out, and I reckon you could be a Big Hit in the ex gf’s town, if you’ve got good looks, two cats, and a magic meditation machine. She offered me a free go.
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