The Best of Both Worlds

"If you could keep that box exactly that distance away, and have it here...the large one would fit inside the small one."

(Fourth Doctor explaining the whole Tardis, bigger-on-the-inside malarkey, Doctor Who)

If I've judged it right, most people will now be going "Wha-? What the Hell's that got to do with anything?"

Well, quite apart from anything else, it proves that Doctor Who, not the Godfather, is the I-Ching - there's no situation in life so weird or so wonderful that a Who-quote can't encapsulate it.

And what situation is that relevant to, I hear you ask, stifling a yawn. Well, stick with me, Daniel-san, and all will be revealed.

When I came to live in London this last time (having spent three earlier years studying for an ultimately rather underused degree in History here), the point was in being here. It felt like London was the only place in the UK where people were really alive, where they really counted at all, and every day not spent here was almost like a day of lifetime wasted. I needed to be here.

Now I've needed to be here for nigh on ten years, and in that time, London itself and my relationship to it has changed significantly. Stratford used to feel safe, but now gangs have moved in. Stratford used to be cheap, but since Olympic fever started really bubbling, the property and rental prices have pushed higher and higher, like Mercury in a Malarial thermometer. The cost of living in the capital has kept pace as the economy has crumbled, while salaries have frozen as prices have continued to climb and climb and climb. And then there's the people.

I know, I know, you live in a capital city, it's gonna be crowded, that's the point, but there's fun, buzzy, pursuing-the-dream crowding, which seemed to be how it was when I arrived, and then there's pain-in-the-arse, under-catered-for-by-the-infrastructure, get-the-Hell-out-of-my-face crowding, which is what seems to be happening right now, making everything both slower and more Hellish to do, to get to, to get through. Plus of course, I'm nearly ten years older and crankier and more prone to prod people with sticks and get happy-slapped or simply stabbed in return.

So, as longer-term readers will know, I've been exploring the idea of getting the Hell out of Dodge for a while. But this is where the Tardis principle comes in. The one surviving reason, bar the occasional buzz, to live and work in London is - ker-ching! - the money.

If you don't work in London, you get less money. If you do work in London, you get more money, but you also get gigundo-costs, and you lose the benefits of frankly not being in London.

Of course the ideal - the best of both worlds, if you will - would be to be somewhere else...and then to have London exactly that distance away, and have it here, so you'd get paid a London wage, without all the London hassle, but with the opportunity to dip your toe back in every now and again and get the buzz. But you can't do that, clearly. That'd be silly...

So colour me Silly, bee-atches, cos that's exactly what I'm pulling off!

Regular readers will also know that I've been mellowing towards my home town of Merthyr Tydfil for some time now. Hated the place growing up, couldn't wait to get the Hell out. But I've changed since then, and it's changed since then, and over the last year, it's been very good to me. It's also, of course, where my folks are, and quite a number of my friends too. I first conceived the idea of maybe getting closer to the folks when my dad fell pretty ill last year, so as to be more immediately on hand to look out for and look after them if necessary. Since then, my dad's gotten better-than-he-was, if not Better-Better, and my mother has taken voluntary retirement from the Health Service (thank you David 'Wrecker' Cameron) and is now a freelance Force of Nature, looking for mischief! I applied for a couple of jobs in Cardiff, but the point about jobs in Cardiff is...they're in Cardiff. Not London. So you have to take a punch-in-the-face pay-cut, and still, if you're in Merthyr, commute every day. As I say, the ideal would be to earn a London wage, without the London hassle.

So I talked to my boss. Took him quite a while of umming and ahing to dot his t's and cross his eyes, but eventually, yesterday, he agreed to the idea I proposed - starting in January, I'm gonna be doing my current job...from home, in Merthyr. Now it's true, I had to offer to give up my London Weighting to swing this deal (Hey, I'm getting old and sentimental - I daresay fifteen years ago, I would have tried to swing it without this concession). But the point is I'll save an equal amount in rent every year by making this move. What's more, we've got a place with more space, being entirely remodelled and stocked with furniture, all of which we're kind of point-and-click choosing, and only some of which we're paying for, and we'll be a couple of hundred yards from that kickass, really cheap leisure centre I was dreaming about yesterday. Plus, without all the schlepping back and forth, I'll have time to get on with my writing. Plus of course, I'll be on hand for the folks. The real coup, I suppose, was the add-on - my boss wants me to come into the office once a week - so I still get just enough London in my veins to make me love the place, without having to hang around and battle the seven million other bastards for any particular length of time.

So let's see:
Better flat - check.
More space - check.
More time with wife - check.
Far less rent and living expenses - check.
Smaller likelihood of stabbing, or being stabbed by, a total stranger - check.
More time to write - check.
Close to friends - check.
Close to family - check.
Better, cheaper, closer Disappearing facillities - check.
Happier wife - d grew up in a small town and loves the atmosphere. Plus my folks - check.
Weekly visit to London to get my fill of the vibe - check.
Escaping the insanity of the next Olympics - check.
More or less still getting a London wage - check.
Did I mention the ability to sit on my ass all day in my jimjams if I want to? - check.

All in all, not too shabby for Tony. Without wishing to brag...Oh alright then, entirely wishing to brag, I reckon what we've pulled off here is the creation of a work-life-balance Tardis. We've built the best of both worlds, and fused them together. Huge Fatboy-Dancing wave in tribute to the Awesomeness of Us.

So now, let's turbo-boost the thing - got to do all the myriad things you have to do when moving across the country in the space of about six weeks. There are lists to write, and things to tick off, and vans to hire, and movers to book, and boxes to pack, and bedrooms to dismantle so as to fit in all the boxes you've packed, and organisations to tell, cellars to excavate, and Stuff, in a word, To Do.

Can I get an "Awoohoo!" for Stuff To Do?

Oh, and yeah, by all means, feel free to hate me right about now! I'd be entirely surprised if a lot of people didn't...

Blood was 4.9 yesterday by the way, and 5.3 this morning.