jonjarrold.co.uk

That’s right, after months and years and decades and ages of looking, the most unusual and unexpected thing happened! I found a house, and it’s great. Technically it’s not a house, and technically I didn’t find it either, but it is great. That’s no lie.

I’ve been living here for a couple of weeks now. The place came about thanks a mix of unfortunate events, some technology, my persaverence, and a mystery woman. We will call the unfortunate events unfortunate. The technology will be known as the Internet at those new fangled mobile phone device thingies. My perserverence speaks for itself. Probably the most interesting part of the story is the mystery woman, who shall be known as Miss Mystery!

Basically, as you know, I’ve been looking for a brand new pad for a long time with little or no luck. I’ve seen places, made friends, come close, and always fallen at a hurdle here or there. Just when I thought my collection of card boxes were going to have to be used as a shelter for me rather than to move my belongings, I heard a noise whilst sitting at my desk at work. The noise was a bit like a buzz. My desk vibrated. Phew…it was my phone. The message was from an unknown person. The message was good. It asked whether I was still looking for somewhere to live. The answer to this question was a certain “yes!”. I sent a txt back with words to that effect. I got a reply saying that the mystery woman, Miss Mystery knew of a room available and that she’d be able to get my contact details of the person renting it. Great! I received the contact details within a couple of hours. It was an email address.

Not to worry, for my phone has email capabilities so I set about emailing the mystery address, making sure I included my phone number to speed up any possibility of a reply.

Sure enough by lunch time I received a phone call from an unknown number. It could only be the mystery owner of the mystery email address sent to me by the mystery woman. Sure enough, I was bang on! Eureka!

Next came some more good news. The house sounded great and the girl on the other end of the phone was very friendly too. Brilliant. The rent was a bit more expensive than I’d hoped, but I was running out of options, being as picky as I was, so I made a viewing for the flat…I would be seeing it in about 6 hours time. Fantastic!

After work I set off to see the flat. It was nicer than I imagined it would be. The two people living there were also really friendly. They showed me around the top floor flat and told me a bit about themselves. We sat in the lounge and talked about things, and all was good. They, by the way, were girlfriend and boyfriend, but this didn’t bother me too much. I left on the understanding that I loved the place and I would have until tomorrow evening to make a decision.

On my walk home I talked it over with my parents. Yes, it was more money, but it was affordable. They said go for it. I got home, redid my finances and decided it was the one, but just to give me some time to reflect, I slept on it. The following morning I phoned up to give my decision. I’d love to move in, and it was now up to them to decide. I was accepted straight away, which was cool.

The mystery woman would turn out to be a good friend of the person who was meant to be taking the room, but couldn’t for those unfortunate reasons. She was doing him a favour by looking for someone to fill his place and not leave the landlady in the lurch. She spotted an ad I’d placed on the net looking for somewhere. She got in touch, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Thanks to everyone who helped me find my new home!