Flatting Life In Pimlico

Flatting Life in Pimlico

Let me say from the outset that flat life in Dolphin Square is a breeze. For starters we are situated in a really user friendly location with three bus routes running from our front door including the 360 which zips up through Sloane Square, South Kensington and terminating at the front door of the Royal Albert Hall. And then there are the 24, which rockets straight into central London via Victoria, Westminster, Trafalgar Square and moves on up to the Camden Markets. Good stuff and at just over one quid per trip it’s a winner. The Pimlico tube is a five-minute stroll away and is one stop away from Victoria Station so we have all travel bases covered.

The flat itself, whilst fairly basic, does what it is supposed to do. We are located on the seventh floor, a level which affords spectacular views over in the general direction of the Battersea Power Station on the left and Westminster Cathedral on the right.

The heating system is just great and large windows let in sunlight all afternoon.

The bath is huge and the rose head on the show must be ten inches wide. Trust me, in these parts this is a big plus. A modern kitchen, great big bedroom, it’s the business.

And best of all, mail is delivered six days a week right to our front door and again six days a week we leave any rubbish in a cupboard just outside our door in the hallway, and our friendly non English speaking Eastern European uplifts same at nine on the dot.

I must also say that being on the seventh floor of a 2,000-apartment complex loaded up with all manner of security devices makes one feel pretty secure.

Retail stores, Doctors, Dentists and a Tesco outlet are all within three minutes walk from our front door.

Our main supermarket is Sainsbury’s a ten-minute stroll down the road heading towards Victoria Station. Unlike its sister operation that we used in Islington for six months back in 2010, this Pimlico operation is very slick and is both operated and populated by humans who are by and large normal.

The extensive and attractive pricing in this super store is very impressive. Julia continually passes comment about how significantly lower our food/drink bills are when we compare them with New World Fendalton prices.

The other interesting thing about Sainsbury’s is that they are no fools when it comes to marketing and are forever offering “Specials” or “Two for One”, “Three for Two” or “Half Price “ deals on basically anything and everything. To give you an indication a bottle of red, which would probably fetch NZ$16 (UKP8) at New World would probably go for UKP5, as a single purchase however you could well be able to nail three bottles for UKP12. And let me tell you the punters just love it. It doesn’t matter whether the shopper is young, old, black or white, when it comes to check out time their trollies all contain vast quantities of cut-price food and drink specials. One other observation, I don’t quite know if this is a supermarket driven thing, or as a result of customer demand, however what I do know is that after checking out other punters trollies it’s blatantly apparent that the English (and their new immigrant friends) are all into fast food, pre prepared meals, and food products that are ready for consumption after thirty seconds in the microwave. As a result when we hit the fresh food section we almost have that area to ourselves. The same can’t be said of the area surrounding the shelves containing sausage rolls, Cornish pasties, and ready to eat curries. That area is mayhem city and is no place for a novice out-of-towner.

Whilst we were out grabbing our shopping last week a couple of things happened that made me thing of my mother who, whenever I was reluctant to eat up as a kid, always asked me to remember all those starving in Africa etc.

So down we go to Sainsbury’s and as we walked through the front doors I was confronted by a very large West Indian woman who was wearing this massive rubber Elephant head inclusive of a trunk about one and a half meters long.

I tried to pretend this behemoth wasn’t actually there and attempted to slide around her but no such luck. This slightly scary object screamed at me “Help the animals”. What could I do, I flicked her a quid and trusted that some skunk at the London Zoo would flick his tail in my general direction next time I passed by.

Then when we came to the check out two young kids asked me if they could pack for me and suggested that in return I may wish to contribute to their favorite flavoured fund of the week, namely saving African Children in Kenya’s orphanages. At this point two thoughts immediately came to mind, one, my mothers plea from fifty something years back to remember the starving Africans and two, I thought what is it with these do- gooders, Pimlico residents, is this some kind of conscience clearing exercise. So as the kids supervisor was hovering at the next counter with smile intact, I asked her if her group and the rather large woman collector at the store entrance were in cahoots with each other. Well, I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. If I had known this woman was on a mission to save the world I would have meekly allowed the kids to have gone ahead and done their thing and I would have flicked them a couple of quid. Too late. Way too late. This woman launched into the “its all the colonial powers fault “ line of attack. I was forced to listen whilst wishing these kids would speed up their packing however in an effort to get into some dialogue I waited until she paused, then asked if these collections were like their New Zealand equivalents, where 95% of funds collected go to the collecting organization itself and only 5% actually hits the intended target. This woman then blushes and says that she has to come clean and confirmed that in fact the full 100% of this particular collection went to the organizational wing of the African Orphanage set up, however if I came back next week she could guarantee that 100% of the funds collected on that particular day would actually end up with the needy in Kenya.

As we exited the store I turned to Julia and said. “ Right, that’s it, from now on I’m a Tesco’s boy, Sainsbury’s is history. Off course, I was lying as three days later I sneaked back in to nail a “Three for Two “ special on a line of very good reds

Cheers