House Hunting

I've always had my suspicions about estate agents. One recent example, for instance, is the fact that several of the rather lovely houses currently being advertised on what would otherwise be sparse listings have actually been sold and moved into long ago but remain on the websites to give some sort of false indication that the estate agent in question actually has something to sell. I've blogged previously about their advertising ploys ("Close to Greenwich" being code for "Deptford", "Open Plan Studio" being "Bedsit" - you get the picture) and once again I have the joy of experiencing it first hand as we search, loved-up newly-weds that we are, for a place to call home that doesn't involve 3am fire alarms and sewage incursions.

So we chose Isleworth.

I don't know if you've ever been to Isleworth, or if you did then quite possibly you didn't notice. I did Elby a great disservice when I described it as "somewhere you drive through on the way to somewhere else and think, it's a nice little place, but you wouldn't want to live there." Granted Elby is fictional, but it's made more of an impact on me that Isleworth, which, unimpressively, actually exists.

This rather explains how we came about choosing it. It's not that we're actively looking for somewhere with as much flair and excitement as (*in-joke alert*) England's number 3 batsman, it's just that we can't afford to flirt with its altogether more interesting neighbours. What's amusing about Isleworth is that even the Estate Agents don't bother to keep up the bullshit for very long.

"It's a lovely quiet area," she lies, shouting above the roar of an enormous jumbo jet that is so low in the sky that if people waved at us out of its windows we might actually wave back. Our chosen road is not just in the flight path - one spot of unexpected turbulence and we could end up with our roof taken off.

"Apart from the fact you're in the flight path," I point out, unncessarily.

We change the subject.

"What's the area like?"

"It's great!" she enthuses. "I've lived here all my life. You have Twickenham down there, Richmond just over there, and trains into central London every fifteen minutes".

So Isleworth's biggest selling point is that it's quite near to other places which are not Isleworth.

"What about the immediate area?"

She looks as though she was hoping I wouldn't ask that.

"Well..." she pauses, clearly, thinking on her feet, then brightly says "Over there is Hounslow bus garage."

Well that's good.

"Are there any supermarkets? I mean, even a little Tesco or a Sainsbury's or something?"

"There's a Morrisons in Brentford."

A clincher if ever there was one.

"Ooh!" she brightens. "There's a Spar on London Road!"

It gets better!

"Any other shops?"

"Not really. "She thinks, then says "I work in Domino's Pizza on Saturday."

I don't know if this is an attempt to answer the question or change the subject.

What she hasn't mentioned is the sewage works to the south. Things didn't get so dire that she felt she had to play this up as some sort of modernist water feature.

The house is beautiful - a 3-bedroom terraced cottage with a huge open-plan lounge/dining room - the sort of house that would fetch a million or so in Pimlico when you have a few more selling points than a suburban bus depot and escape routes to racier climes. We can just about afford it. But, to my shame, I don't think I can quite come to terms with being one of those smugly-married home-owning types that, when friends invite you to those sorts of dos smugly married home-owning types go to the best you can do to keep up appearances as they wax lyrical about their local famers' market, Montossori nursery and art house cinema is "We've got our own brach of Spar. And did you know there was a Morrisons in Brentford?"