flat

I've left the flat.

It's been a great three and a half years there and, despite outward appearances, I will miss the place.

I'd had correspondence with the landlord, Cyril, for the last week or so, and it seemed he was playing his usual game of fobbing me off. The sticking point was two months' notice I would have to give on the flat to leave, which didn't seem at all fair. And before anyone says I signed a lease to the effect of these circumstances, I hadn't. At least not for the past 18 months. The terms of the lease have been something both me and Cyril abided to, in spite of it not being legally signed.

I really wanted to do everything by the book, but I just couldn't see the point in paying £600 of rent for a property I wasn't at. Both me and Jayne were seriously considering just doing a runner, but with grave foreboding......

Imagine my surprise when on Wednesday, Cyril arrives at the flat whilst I was cleaning up and packing the last of my bits.

He told me I'd been the "model tenant" and of the hundreds of people over the years he'd dealt with as tenants, I'd given him the least problems and was the only person in his experience who'd NEVER missed a payment of rent.

He was incredibly kind and warm about me and was willing to help in any way he could. So we've arranged for me to leave the flat officially at the end of the month. I don't owe him a penny, and vice-versa.

I've cancelled a few direct debits. All my bills have been paid up to the 16th of December, by which time my contracts with the utilities finish.

I'm now at Jayne's and we're in the process of changing all my details for stuff over to her address, and informing the relevant councils (both Liverpool and Sefton) of our changed circumstances. We're doing everything completely and utterly above board. As an example, I've to pay my car insurer an extra £178 to change my policy from Blundellsands, L23 to Fazakerley, L10. Not fun, but it has to be done.

The flat's served me very well. The moans about the girl upstairs, the traffic wardens, and the Weetabix incident are small talk compared to the positives I took from the place. I loved the area - the fact that one was five minutes walk from the beach was an obvious plus. The flat itself was incredibly sunny and bright. I loved nothing more on a summer's day than sitting on the step, sipping from a cold can of Coke watching the world go by. That part of Crosby was incredibly busy from a traffic point of view, but it felt so alive in being that way.

I felt enormously blessed to have the chance to create my first proper home away from home there. I worked hard at it and kept the place in as good an order as I could.

I'll miss it, I've had some great times there, and can only hope the next tenant gets as much feeling of it being their home as I did.