SOMEWHERE TO LIVE

Right from the outset I knew my new life in the UK was going to start in rented accomodation. For various reasons ranging from family support to kids schools the area where we were going to settle was pretty much decided upon before we left South Africa. We did some research on the internet prior to leaving, but thought it would be best to make a final decision once we had arrived in the UK. Fortunately we had family to stay with on our arrival.

My pre-departure searches on the internet revealed that finding a place to live might be a little confusing. Firstly there was the terminology used to descibe "houses" in England. These range from detached, semi-detached, terraced, end-of-terrace, bungalow and few others that I am not sure I can remember. Over the internet it was fairly difficult to understand what these were. When one "house" in a search a number of options can be omitted.

Admittedly, on arrival, after having spoken to family and friends it became clearer as to exactly what was what. I'll do my best to explain what I think each of these are.

House: just about always double storey but could be anything from a free-standing house to what we South Africans know as a duplex, to one of a row of duplexes joined together.

Bungalow: normally a single-storey house just as we are used to in South Africa.

Detached: normally a free-standing double storey house.

Semi-detached: normally two double-storey houses joined together. Looking from the front or back - one would be on the left and the other on the right.

Terraced: a row of, what we South Africans would call duplexes joined together.

End-of-terrace: as for terraced, above, but the "units" at either end of the row.

I'll discuss in a further post my impressions of housing in general in the UK