We've been having a conversation this weekend about where we live. This started with a bonfire visit to a friend's house in Derbyshire, a house with big rooms and lots of them, a garden, space, all that kind of thing. In other words, not a smallish, ex-council flat in Central London.
"Why do all our friends have better houses than we do?" our nine year old asks.
We explain that we are fortunate enough to have two houses, which means that they both have to be very small.
He isn't really convinced.
The thing is, we say, we are lucky to live right in the centre of London. It's a totally awesome place to live. We start to say things like, "When we were young, living in Northern suburbia, we dreamed of this kind of location," but, as he has always lived in W1, he has no comparison. It seems that, at nine years old, it's unreasonable to expect him to appreciate the worth of location, location, location.
Most of the children at your school live in flats like ours, we say. Smaller probably, and with more siblings to fill them. It's just that our friends, people we know through work and university, they have just chosen to live further away where they can afford a house. But it might take those parents an hour or more to get to work. You wouldn't like that, would you? Not seeing much of us during the week?
A non-committal noise comes from the little man.
A moment of silence, then Arthur says, "I suppose your friends just made better choices."
Crushing. We are reduced to returning his low blow with one of our own. "Well we could move somewhere else, where we could afford a house but you'd have to leave all your friends."
He pipes down.
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