Buying a property in England is not easy. You could say it isn’t easy to buy one in many countries and you would be right. I’m not a property expert and can only write about our experiences and in this way this review is subjective. Others have other experiences regarding buying a property in England.

The Process

First and foremost when you are looking to buy a property the same applies as when you are looking to rent one: you have to be quick. When I relocated to England, I signed up to the newsletter of the biggest property website in the UK (rightmove.co.uk) and I received email alerts every time a new property came on the market. It happened quite often that I called an agent a few hours later from receiving the alert and the property has already been rented out. This could apply to buying a house, albeit I think it might not be that hectic. Good properties always sell like hot cakes no matter where you are.

Properties are sold via agents in the UK whereas in other countries in Europe owners may advertise their apartments and houses. In the UK it seems to be strict and literally everything is done by the property agents which makes the process impersonal and there is probably less room for negotiating. You can have as many offers as you like of course but the agent’s interest is to sell the property at a higher price. If you talked to the owner you might be able to negotiate a better price.

There is, however one big advantage: once you made an offer, you are protected and have the right of first refusal. This means that first came, first served so anybody interested in the same property can only make an offer if you backed out. So technically it cannot happen in the UK that you made an offer and you plan to transfer the deposit the following day but somebody turns up and pays the deposit cash the same day and therefore he gets the property. 🙂

The agents

It occurred to me instantly that the agents are not well prepared. Whether it is because they manage an awful lot of properties or because they are negligent, I don’t know. I just find it completely out of order that they are not aware of basic information such as when the house was built, whether the living room is North facing, how many square meters the property is , where the meters are whether there is a loft etc. This is very disappointing and you lose time as well.

Property types

Whereas in many other countries in Europe you can buy land and build you own house, in the UK it does not really exists. It does but it is very rare and you have to have a lot of money for that. People here buy either an old house and they build and extension and refurbish the house or buy a house in good condition or buy a new-build. Almost every free land is bought by mammoth property companies like Shanley Homes or Berkeley which they then convert into housing estates and sell at a very high price.

As for the house types detached houses are rare and you must have a deep pocket for that. The most common house types to buy is terraced and semi-detached houses. There is another house type which is quote frequent: the maisonette. This is basically an apartment with a garden which is either on the ground floor or on the first floor in a two storey house. Then you have the bungalow which is a ground floor house and of course you could bu an apartment in a block of flats or even in a manor house that was converted into flats.

Number of rooms

This is tricky. We would call an apartment/house that has a living room and two other rooms a 3 rooms apartment/house but the English call it 2 bedroom. A 3 bedroom house would equal a 4 room house in Hungary.

It is worth having several viewings to have some experience and to see what is on the market but also because photos often lie. There are properties with a good layout and with rooms of decent sizes but they might be in a horrible area. Of course you have Google Map Street View but there might be thing that you can only see once you are at the property. For example we had a viewing near Heathrow Airport and we thought it would be very noisy, yet it was good to go there and see that every 30 seconds planes were taking off and what massive noise it caused.

Rooms are extremely small in England. I cannot understand how people and families can live in such small rooms and apartments… Of course there are houses with decent size rooms but they are rare and you have to search for them. You must be looking at the floor plans all the time and also check whether there are storage possibilities because many apartments/houses do not come with a cellar, ceiling or storage.

The other thing we found difficult to find was a south facing living room. No idea why, it is just not available.

Victorian terraced houses, cottages are charming and appear to be very romantic, but the majority has the bathroom downstairs. You can imagine how uncomfortable it can be popping down in the middle of the night when you need the loo. You may put a loo upstairs but sometimes it is impossible because of the building’s layout. All in all this is the compromise you have to make if you fancy a romantic cottage.

Parking

The other very important thing is parking. Sometimes the property does not come with a parking space which can be a pain. Some properties have one parking space some have a garage which might be a few corners down the road – so always worth to check.

Garden

If you buy a house the size of the garden is equally important. Terraced houses may come with a tiny, narrow and long garden others may have a small square shaped one where you can only fit a table with 4 chairs and that’s it.

The two scenarios we often found ourselves in were: 1) houses with decent size rooms and garden at a reasonable price were like one hour drive away which is far too much for us, 2) both the house and the location was OK but we did not have the pennies. You have to look every day and wait until the best property turns up.

Ownership

Another very important thing is whether the property is leasehold or freehold or shared partnership.

Leasehold: You buy the building/property but the land the property is built on belongs to the leaseholder and you pay a lease for the land. This can be disadvantageous if you want to make alterations to the property pr register a business – things that may not be allowed in the lease document.

Freehold: The best combination where you buy the property and the land and you can do whatever you want to. Therefore it may cost more.

Shared ownership: the building company sells part of the property and the rest can be rented.

Prices

Like anywhere in the world the price of a property depends on many things but mainly in which location it is. Fair enough you could say, however in England this is slightly different as well. People often move just to be in the catchment area of a school otherwise the kids would not have a chance to get admission to a desired school. If there is a good GP and shops in the neighbourhood that can also put up the prices.

There is an English phenomenon on the property market: the property ladder. This is when people buy a small and cheap property just to refurbish it and re-sell it at a higher price. Then they buy a slightly bigger one, they refurbish it and re-sell it again to make more profit.

If you’ve found your dream property in England…

…then you have to make an offer via the agent which may or may not be accepted by the seller. If the seller did not accept it, no worries, you can make several offers before somebody else gets the chance to make an offer. Once the offer has been accepted, you get the documents (the leasehold for instance) which you want to read through carefully.

The house must be evaluated and also checked out by a surveyor from the structural and technical point of view. You must arrange these but do not have to be present at the check. You will get the report via email or post.

The mortgage depends on the value of the property and its technical condition, therefore no mortgage is agreed until these are available. Once you got them, you can go on with the bank and discuss the mortgage. You must be living in the UK for 3 years to be eligible for a mortgage. You then get checked out (salary, taxes etc). You also have to get a lawyer. I must remark we have tried two layers and neither of them seemed to have read the documents carefully. We picked up thing in the contract/documents and had we not done so, we would have ended up with us having to pay more for certain things. I guess, the standard clients do not read these documents anyway, that’s why lawyers are not bothered which is a real shame considering they charge you something like £500. For this amount they should read the documents and help you.

The whole process takes around 2 months and sometimes it is annoying to wait that much. In our case we had to wait 3 months because the lease was not registered. Then the bank and the lawyers agree on the date when the money gets transferred to the seller and once done then you get the keys from the agent. We have not seen the seller at all which is really strange…

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As you can see, the process is long and is rather complicated. To end the story with a positive note, let me show you what we received from the bank after we got the keys. 🙂 A so called House Move Pack which contained everything you need in an empty apartment for the start: kitchen rolls, toilet rolls, snacks, tea, sponge, cleaning materials. We have never seen anything like that before and thought it was rather a nice gesture…

I have been thinking whether I should or should not write this blogpost as I fear that I would be ‘banned from this country’ if I did. 🙂 But some well established bloggers say writing posts that you never dared writing actually helped them and those posts were always successful. So let’s see, shall we?

The good old English cottage

Everybody seems to love English cottages these days. We adore them no matter what colour they are painted, what they were built of, whether they are thatched or have tiled roofs. They have a timeless charm, fairy-tale-like romantic look which we associate with the real home.

My experience

Although we have already stayed at a Tudor cottage in Shrewsbury before, when I booked a 17th century cottage for our holiday in Cornwall this year I was over the moon. At last we are staying at a real English cottage, I thought. I looked at the photos and loved the country style interior as well and all looked cosy: the wood burner, the furniture, the decoration and I could not wait to arrive.

When we arrived, I ran through the house like an overexcited dog and checked out every room. I was pleased to find that the place looked exactly the same as in the photos. The cottage was cosy and romantic – who could not love this? I loved it especially when Bill put the fire on (it was chilly outside and it rained) and we snuggled up in front of the telly with a cup of tea.

The following day, however, I started to notice things and realise the downsides of a cottage like this.

1)

No, I am not saying we were missing anything like modern appliances. That is not an issue, everything can be fitted these days. But when I was dressing up in the bedroom, I realised that the bottom of the window was actually on the floor and the top by my waist. The room was not dark or anything like that, yet it was strange not to be able to look out of the window properly. It is the question of what you are used to, I suppose… Well, I am used to ‘proper’ windows.

Having said windows… Often these windows are single glazed and even if you wanted to change them, you would need to go for an authentic cottage window which can be very expensive.

2)

Then I was looking at the floor which was uneven and bumpy. Of course this is a charming feature as well, but it started to annoy me after a while. (At this point I started to think I was a bit like Poirot… 🙂 ) How could you possibly exercise on a floor like this, I asked myself the question. You could, I suppose, and possibly it is only me being that picky about straight lines and levelled floorings.

3)

The next thing I noticed was that there were some dead areas in the place which could not be used at all. That is certainly not practical. Of course that small window behind the television is cute, but it is difficult to reach it, let alone open or clean it. The wall in the bedroom that looked like an old kiln had a nice ambience with a bunch of flowers in a vase on top, but again, you cannot use that space for anything else.

4)

It also crossed my mind that you could not have practical furniture in a cottage like this. Yes, the chest of drawers are romantic and look lovely, but you also have clothes that need to be hung. There is no way a bigger piece of furniture would fit into a cottage bedroom like this and even if it did, how would that stand by an uneven and bumpy wall…?

5)

What puts many off of buying an old cottage is that they are often listed buildings, which means you cannot move a wall or install an air conditioner for example and need special permission to do certain things with the house.

Please do not get me wrong: I loved our stay at the cottage and enjoyed every minute of it. However, our stay made me think if I ever wanted to live in a cottage like this.

I don’t think so. Or at least not in an old, 16-18th century, timber or stone cottage. I would think they are the most impractical ones and give the most challenge to fit them for a modern life. However, a Victorian or an Edwardian cottage, which were built with more practicality and have straight lines and right angles, I could enjoy, I think. Having said that, the main downside of a Victorian cottage is that the bathroom is often downstairs while the bedrooms are upstairs and I would not really fancy having to go downstairs for a pee in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, many Victorian cottages and terrace houses were built in a way that there is no room to extend upstairs to install a toilet.

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Anyway, I am far from buying a cottage as no matter what cottage we are talking about, they are extremely expensive. Therefore, the cottage experience remains a holiday thing for me. A week is enough anyway, I would say. I would not mind living in a gorgeous period property like a Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian detached house or a town house though… 🙂

How about you? Would you be happy to live in an old English cottage?

Now that I have been photographing, blogging and vlogging for some time, I thought to share the unluckiest and funniest moments and challenges. I think the expression that would describe them best would be “Sod’s law”. 🙂

Photography

Almost every time I switch on the camera, find the right angle, composition, settings and just about to take a photo, something or somebody will appear in the picture. People walking across the street, cars driving up the street, delivery vans stopping right in front of the building I want to photograph. This means that I often have to wait minutes to be able to make a photo for which I have to stay calm and patient. It is not always easy! Below picture is a classic example. When I shot it, I laughed out loud because I could not believe it! Imagine the situation: you are having a gentle stroll in a seaside town, spot a charming seaside Cottage door with beautiful flowers, and the upper part of the stable door is opened – Oh what a lovely scene! You switch the camera on, zoom in, do the right settings and as soon as you hit the button, a hand appears in the door throwing some breadcrumbs out. What is the chance of that?? 😀

Weather

It is Sod’s law as well whenever I go shooting or filming, it is either raining and I have to mind the lens and try to keep it dry, or it is so bright that I have to squint and actually struggle to see things whilst talking into the camera. If I turned the camera, then the background would not be properly lit so catch 22.

I wash and dry my hair before filming so that I look presentable in the video. You can be sure that on the day of the filming it is either windy, raining or drizzling or at least the weather is humid and by the time we get to the filming location, my hair is all over the place.

Repairs, renovations

It happened on several occasions that a building I wanted to make a photo of had scaffolding around it or was closed due to renovations. It is quite annoying when you travel hundreds of miles and then it turns out that there is scaffolding or works going on.

Filming

Once we were filming on an estate and managed to make a good footage and I could talk fluently and was relaxed in the video which does not happen too often! When I watched the video at home, it turned out that I did not connect the wireless microphones properly to the camera, so there was hardly any sound…

Tongue twists

Even in my native language I often have tongue twists, no idea why. As a result sometimes one part has to be recorded a dozen times.

Timing

I left the best to the last. At the very beginning, being a shy person, I decided to visit an estate in order to practice talking into the camera. I chose Sunday morning and wanted to be on site for the opening thinking there are less visitors on a Sunday morning and I will not be disturbed whilst talking to the camera. That’s because you do have to practice not to be disturbed when somebody walks in front of you and stares at you. So I wanted to practice this on this estate in a quiet corner of the garden.

When we got there, we could not believe our eyes: thousands of cars, crowds, a stage in the north corner of the garden and an Elvis Presley song was blasting out of loudspeakers because there was some sort of festival on that particular day. I cannot put it into words what I felt.

After this frustrating experience we went to another estate to practice where I sort of managed, but realised I should also practice talking spontaneously. For doing that we decided to pop over to a third estate which I know very well and possibly could have talked about more spontaneously. We estimated our arrival at the country house at about 4pm. Perfect, we thought. People will be gone by four, the lights will be perfect in the sunset and I won’t be disturbed in any way. When we got there, the gates were shut. There was a lady who asked why they were shut. She explained they had a summer fair that day and exceptionally they closed at 4…

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As you can see, blogging and vlogging can be quite frustrating and requires patience and some good sense of humour. But more importantly you can see that the pictures and videos have been produced with dedication and fun for your enjoyment and pleasure.

I have been thinking a lot whether to write this post, or not, but in the end I decided to go for it. Those who follow me on Instagram could see that almost 3 weeks ago I stopped posting for a few days. On Facebook it did carry on, but that was only because posts were scheduled in advance.

So why did I stop posting on Instagram?

It upsets me emotionally with what is going on in the world at the moment. Not only the fact that people are dying, but also that many lose their jobs from one day to another, struggling to buy food, that their businesses they have been working on hard to build up collapsed overnight. I felt, it was not ethical to post beautiful photos and appear to disregard the crisis. I thought

No, you cannot not say something about it.

I checked some of the accounts on Instagram, I always have a look at every day and I was shocked: many kept on posting even more photos than ever, without saying a word about the situation and carried on building their self-brand. I found it extremely disturbing! I do emphasize: the issue is NOT with posting but with pretending everything is OK when it is NOT, however I will come back to this later.

Of course we are all different and react in many different ways. I was emotionally paralysed for a few days. Not because the business I have been working hard on for over a year now has become restricted from one day to another, but because of what is happening to people. I genuinely find this disturbing and I worry for those affected.

Of course, I realise life has to go on and it is vitally important not to allow the virus overtake our lives. This is why I decided to carry on posting now I have emotionally recovered sufficiently.

Since I realised that many keep on posting even more according to their schedules not making any reference to the situation because:

1)   They make a living out of it and they have to keep doing it if they want to stay alive. This however cannot be an excuse for not showing any empathy, I think…

2)   Keeping daily routines helps many to survive the situation.

3)   Many escape from reality on Instagram and social media.

I had a chat with some Instagram buddies and many of them think that our collective photos cheer up people, therefore we should not stop posting. It is interesting btw that this situation brought such an introvert person like me closer to others on social media. Also interesting to see that I received some feedback from people I was not even aware were following what I am doing and more importantly READING my posts. People from Canada and the US encouraged me and it was a wonderful feeling.

All in all, I don’t give up. I don’t give up blogging, posting photos or even thinking about my business. But I felt it was important to make it clear how I feel about the situation and it is important for me that my Readers and Followers know I DO care and they are aware about my statement, as the last thing I would like is to appear to be a selfish blogger, who does not take any notice of the world and is only interested in her blog.

The blog is doing well, but is not flying by the way. I have been working on it with full steam ahead since September and now as the whole World slowed down, I slowed down too. Not because I needed the World to slow down, I had done it before whenever I needed some time. But surely I feel less guilty about it and to be honest, I did try to carry on with full steam ahead and I just simply CAN’T. I admit it, I can’t and I am not hiding it.

Why I am not worried about my starting business becoming restricted?

Even if the crisis is over, people won’t have money to travel. Well, if I have got so far, I am not going to give it up. You have to wait for good things in life, so I take it that I have to wait too. Besides, this time allows me to focus on other things as well, to fine tune or re-consider things.

When I started this whole thing, one of my friends who has been running his business for 20 odd years, said your concept will change so many times during the process, so give up sticking to your original ideas. I took his advice. Therefore, I am curious what will happen and where I am going to end up… Am I going to remain a blogger? Am I gong to become a photographer? Or am I going to become all of these plus manage to build a business…? We shall see…

But more importantly, I have always enjoyed and loved writing, researching, photographing and GIVING. If I can make some of YOU happy with my photos or posts then it is worth it…

What positives is this situation having for us/me? More than I would have thought:

• People hopefully realise what true values in life are.
• This situation may rearrange social media and people who provide real value, but got less attention, will have more now.
• I personally have more time for research, to slow down and relax a bit which is still quite challenging beside work and a house move.
• Because we are working from home, I don’t need to get up earlier to get ready and do the make up etc. 🙂 Even if I get up a bit later, I can spend some time on the blog. After work we go for a walk (that’s allowed) spend some time together and can carry on blogging.
• Cooking has become more creative and a a challenge as I don’t have all the ingredients, so I am constantly looking for new recipes. It’s not necessarily a bad thing! 😉
• We notice the beauty of small things in life and nature even more. It is spring over here now: the sun is shining, the trees are in blossom and the birds are singing and we do pay attention to the beauty of the nature.
• All this happens in spring. Spring is always about renewal, revival about a new start… I am positive that with difficulties and lots of efforts our lives will change for the positive.

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Well, my dear Reader, thank you for reading this and more importantly thank you for being here! I would be thrilled if you stayed with me. I certainly will carry on providing interesting content and beautiful photos (of which I have loads, not necessarily taken now obviously) and will try my best to virtually take you to the English countryside…

Stay Safe and Healthy.

It is the end of the second quarter as well as the second anniversary of this blog. For this reason instead of a blog report I decided to have a look at the thing I learnt from blogging. I must admit when I started to list all the things for example you cannot please everyone or everybody always seems to be doing it better or the post I enjoyed writing is never successful seemed to be rather negative thoughts so I stopped and started it again. This time focusing on the positives. So let’s have a look at the

1) Spelling

Of course I could spell before I started my blog, yet believe me it is completely different writing an email to a friend and writing a blogpost which then will be read by many other people (hopefully). Whenever I think I have proof read my post five times and there is no mistakes in it, it is highly likely that I will spot one next they when it is published. In other words even if I check it thousand times, some mistakes will still be in it. I had to learn to put up with this fact, at the same time, I learnt to pay more and more attention to my spelling, especially because sometimes I really have to think how we say things in Hungarian (and English) properly. Since I have been living in England I read and speak much less Hungarian and believe it or not sometimes I struggle to find the right words. Therefore, the blog provides a good training for my brain and language skills and ultimately, my spelling.  

2) Writing

One would think writing is easy. Again it is much easier writing a message or a diary than writing a blogpost, especially about a certain topic. OK, but what if you had some feedback before that, you are a good writer and people enjoy reading your posts. Well, I have been blogging privately for 10 years now and 2 years of it ‘professionally’ and I received several positive feedback regarding my writing style, yet professional blogging is different and can be more difficult. In my case, posts about architecture and some specific topics can cause some headaches, however, with time these have also become easier. Yet again the marketers got it right, the more you write, the better your writing skills become, irrespective of the subject. If I look back on my first posts from 2 years ago, I would love to rewrite them. 🙂 Maybe one day I will have the time for it.

3) Communication

Communication in writing is always different, things can be misunderstood, one can take something to heart that he/she would not if it was said. Just like writing, communication can also be learnt and as the time goes by I started to sense what needs to be said to readers and followers and how. I am not saying my communication is perfect, but I am getting there.

4) Social media is not necessarily bad

I must admit, I had reservations about social media. I had never been on Facebook before, let alone Instagram, or Pinterest. I had no idea how it worked and what potentials it had. But handling social media can also be learnt. If I look back, I started to manage my social media only a year ago and I think I have managed to progress. I still do not have as much time for it as I would like to have, but it is certainly running now, whereby in the first year of the blog it was just there. The funny thing is, that I even enjoy managing social media. 🙂

5) Style

When you start doing something, you do it the way you can. You may not think about whether you are doing it in the right way or whether it truly reflects who you are, you just keep doing it and the style appears with the time. During the past two years I often questioned myself whether I am on the right track, whether my style is good enough, whether I create value. These questions and doubts appear mainly when I look at social media and the internet and I start to think everyone else always seems to be doing it better than me. Everybody has a better style, better writing skills, better photography, better subject choices. But in the end I stay true to myself, because my blog showed me what my true style is, which of course does not mean it cannot change over the time.

6) Persistence and patience

This blog has taught me to be persistent and more importantly, patient. We are all different, some of us are less persistent, some of us are very persistent. I would think I am a persistent person, yet blogging really stretched my persistence to the limits. Blogging is like an emotional roller coaster and I believe even the most determined bloggers can lose motivation at times. Patience is the other bottleneck, as I had read about the difficulties of blogging before, I was sort of prepared for waiting for success. In spite of this, I was impatient sometimes, however, I would like to think I improved in this regard, and now I am not getting upset, frustrated or angry whenever I detect a technical issue with IT and do not expect an instant remedy.

7) Photography

I would not even consider myself being a hobby photographer, as I am using photos only for illustrations and documentation. Yet, I followed bloggers’ advice and I improved my photography as much as I could, albeit an ongoing learning. I managed to take better photos, to use my camera as well not only my iPhone and more importantly to edit them. There is always more to learn and I hope the time will come when I can focus more on photography. For the time being, however, I have to focus on what I can do best and that is creating content and writing – and setting up a business.

8) Editing, planning, organising

Many years ago I had two insurance advisors visiting me at home. When I pulled out the folder containing my documents, tax reports and bills the  were amazed how neatly  they were filed and how organised I was. (The joke is that I did not feel being organised at the time at all. 🙂 ) The blog taught me to be incredibly organised: I am using editorial and other calendars, notebooks, and pay attention to what I select for the blog or social media whether it is a topic or a photo, it does not matter. It is like being an editor of my own magazine.

9) Showing myself

Perhaps the biggest lesson of all was to be brave and to show myself, to show my thoughts, photos and posts, my writing. For extroverts and exhibitionists it is not an issue, but for introverts like me it is not that easy and obvious, believe me. I am not saying, I show myself happily everywhere and in all respect, but it is getting better.

10) To love what I am doing and to love and respect my readers and followers

You love what you create, it is obvious you could say. Well, I am not sure. Because of the emotional roller coaster sometimes you are fed up with the whole thing and start to hate it. You have to pay attention to these feelings and must allow yourself a break from it, otherwise you will burn out quickly. I have been through this and I am pleased I learnt to allow myself a break and to love and return to my blog. Equally, the blog taught me to love and respect my readers and followers irrespective of whether they react, comment or not.

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Last but not least let me THANK YOU for reading and following this blog. I am pleased if you like what this blog represents and is about. I am always grateful and pleased post shares, likes, feedback and comments. All in all, thank you for being here, England’s Puzzle would not be possible without you.

Another quarter has passed… This blog report is important, not only because I wanted to give you an update about the blog, but also because I wanted to give you more insights into what has happened in the past three months. It may appear to you that nothing has happened, but I ensure you, I have been working hard behind the scenes.

As you may remeber, I identified the following in January:

I have to slow down, I can’t keep up with the pace and don’t have time to work on anything else.

Well, I think I managed to achieve this and to be honest, I am pleased I did. It might have resulted in the blog slowing down and Readers may think I  have neglected them – which I hope is not the case as I tried my very best to share interesting posts and be more active on Facebook – but I do feel that I achieved my objective and I got my life back. I become re-invigorated and inspired by, enjoying weekends and weekday evenings: cinema, watching inspirational TV at home, reading books, day trips, dining out, museums etc. These play a huge part in having been able achieving my other goal:.

Do not want to get there quickly. Enjoy the road and have fun.

Altough I tried to be more active on Facebook and create different content as well as hit the right tone, the majority of the time I worked on my product and own business behind the scenes. I felt like I had been in exile for a while. You, lovely Readers might have not seen it, but I can assure you I managed to achieve yet another goal, namely

Start the new year with the most difficult and biggest task.

Well, the biggest part of the job has been done. I must admit my enthusiasm has been up and down during the proces as I have been full of fears and doubts in one moment, then in the next, going full steam ahead. It is not easy to carry on with little encouragement and support and this road is bumpy anyway. On one hand it is amazing to work on your own ideas and what you like, on the other hand you are full of questions as to whether you are ever going to be able to run your own business. I am confident that what I imagined is good and there would be demand for it in the market, but whether I will be able to run and sell it myself, that is a different story.

It was not easy either to concentrate on the biggest task and not to be distracted by creative ideas. Finally, the long and grey winter did not always help to stay focused and have high spirits all the time. But now, being in the month of the Aires everything being reborn and we all get new energies and isnpirations.

As far as the deadline is concerned, everything could have been done in a shorter period of time, however, I managed at last to understand that best is to make progress in my own pace, otherwise I might burn out quickly. Your own pace is important so that you can get used to the idea of what you are trying to achieve and think through the whole concept.

This of course does not mean the process and setting up the business can be delayed forever. Yes, I could have finished work in a month, yes, I could have started running my own business earlier saying ‘Who dares wins!’. However, if you want to create quality, which I do, then it takes more time. I also had to remind myself that  research and knowledge is important and both needs time for what I want to achieve.

Every single piece of my business plan is becoming clearer and clearer day by day.

I do not mean to have everything perfect – if I did, it would take years, plus I am perfectly aware that I will pick up more knowledge and will fine tune the product through experience. But I do believe I have to LOVE my product because this is the only way to appear authentic and genuine in front of clients and I also must feel confident and comfortable with what I am selling. If I don’t feel comfortable, what would be the point in starting anything?

I also let my worries about my website go. I am aware there are many issues: plugins don’t work properly (instagram feed), it is slow etc. Unfortunately, I can’t deal with it at the moment and my priority lays elswehere. At the same time I know, that soon the time will come when I will outsorce this activity and the website will be reborn.

Results:

I must admit this is the first qaurter when I have not looked at the statistics. When you are not too confident because of having a different focus, the last thing you need is some daunting statistics. So I am sorry, Mr Statistics, but I don’t want you just now!

Numbers on Instagram are improving, not massively but still, however, I did manage to let the worries about the number of followers go for once and all. I have not been worried about it anyway for some time, but there was a sentence that made it absolutely clear why one should not worry. When we were in the cinema earlier this month, I saw the latest advert by Macmillan Cancer Support where it was said:

Cancer does not care who you are. […]

It does not give a damn about the number of followers you have.

I don’t think it needs more explaining. Therefore, even if I don’t manage to post on Instagram which is by the way the most successful platform of mine, the world will still turn. At the same time, I am pleased that

• The first time one of my photos got 100+ likes.
• There has been some dialogues with a few people which is nice.
• I get positive feedbacks which gives me pleasure and strength:

‘We love your content.’ Bestcastlecombe – an official, regional profile
‘Very impressed with the Shakespeare quotation. Especially in Hungarian.’
‘I cannot take my eyes off of it.’
‘What is a staddle stone? I’ve managed to live my whole life in England without learning this.’
‘It is fascinating to learn about the history of the buildings I have passed so often all my life and wondered what they were originally. Thank you for a great way of getting locally educated!’
‘Great to know the background. I have passed it so many times since I was little and now I know it!’

What are the goals for Q2?

A LOT.

• Pull together all the materials I have been working on.
• Register the business.
• Arrange insurance.
• Finalise pricing.
• Re-design website for which final content is needed.
• Create all necessary and practical documents (inventory, Health & Safety, invoice, accounting etc)
• Check last details
• Testing
• If testing is successful, then the most difficult task: advertising, sales and marketing including negotiations. (Uh, it sounds pretty daunting…)
• And of course get my head around the idea of leaving my comfort zone.

I won’t be bored, I think. I may or may not be able to have everything sorted by the end of Q2. If it won’t, it won’t be a problem.

~

Last but not least thank you for your patience and let me assure you I am going to carry on writing interesting and entertaining posts and give more of myself on the blog, on social media and everywhere as my exile has expired.

In Q3 I was very enthusiastic because of the promising signs and results, but in the last quarter of the year I felt I got stuck. Nothing moved forward, in fact everything slowed down. You could say that is absolutely fine as the nature slows down in autumn/winter as well and we sort of have to follow it. But when you are trying to build something, you are likely to forget about that. I was looking at my statistics and I was frightened.

I thought, it does not make sense to carry on at all.

I even questionned myself regarding my product and if I could ever make it work. The good thing is, they say, if you realise what your problem is, it is 50% success already.  I think, I did realise what my problems were.

The best thing to do was to have a rest. Me and the blog. I was close to burnout: my passion has disappeared and I was less enthusiastic whenever I shared an experience, or some information. That is not good, I wanted to get back to where I was and feel the joy of blogging and sharing posts with the audience. This is why I slowed down in December.

In the meantime, I was thinking a lot and realised a few things.

Namely,

• it is important to write about topics that might be common and that readers are interested in!
• my categories have to be re-named in order to be more user friendly!
• I have to slow down, I can’t keep up with the pace, therefore I am going to post in every 2 weeks or whatever it may be!
• For Facebook, I need other content. It seemed to be a good idea to link the Instagram account with FB, but the 2 platforms are different.
• Communication on FB must be changed!
• Find the target audience. I must admit, this is not easy. If I am only blogging, then my posts are meant to be for those who are interested in for example: English culture. As soon as my product is ready, this will change!

But most importantly, I realized that

I lost my original goal of the blog, which was to just introduce readers to my world living in England, with all that this entailed. However writing about England has triggered a product that I find inspiring.

I realised that it is NOT the blog that will sell my product, it is going to be a great background only, therefore I’d better concentrate on the product itself. As far as the product is concerned, I have to allow myself to TRY and develop it and not taking it deadly seriously and push myself to breaking point. If the product shows signs of success then it will be deadly serious!

During the Christmas holiday, I read posts of several marketing experts. It was funny to see that slowing down and looking into myself led me exactly to the same conclusions for instance 1) write a list about the things you will NOT do next year, 2) do everything at your own pace. However, there were 3 sentences that got to me:

01. Do not want to get there quickly. Enjoy the road and have fun.

02. Start the new year with the most difficult and biggest task. (I never have time for my product because I always concentrate on my blog.)

03. Stop blogging only…

Only after this was I able to get back on track, let the pressure go and make up my mind to start working on my product in January. The blog is going to be secondary for the time being and as soon as the product is ready, the website will be changed.

It is said to be important to summarize what results we had, so I made a list.

Achievements:

• Translated all posts (54) to English within 1 month
• Installed WPML and launched the blog in 2 languages in March 2018
• Changed laptop
• Learned Photoshop
• Improved photography
• Started to use apps on iPhone
• Started to focus on Social Media and post regurarly
• 1 notebook is full
• Google Search Engine lists my photos: English Baroque and English buttercross photos are listed on the first page when clicking images!

Feedbacks

• One of my readers made an apple pie based on a recipe posted earlier on the blog and posted a photo of it on Facebook tagging England’s Puzzle
• I could provide new information to English audience on Instagram: “I’d never heard of fire alarm telegraph boxes. You are always so knowledgeable.”
• One of the Instagram followers read my post about the Sundaials and promoted it.
• Instagram: “Great Photography, awesome views of London. Through your pics you are a photographer, you don’t need the title.”
• Instagram: “Love your enthusiastic reactions and comments.”
• “Reading your posts and looking at your photos I am admiring you. Interesting topics, brilliant wording and plenty of quality information which I have no idea how you manage to look up. Greatest respect for you, especially for your consciousness that is coming through in your latest blog report. Keep on doing it, you are giving me very pleasant moments with your posts.”

As far as the posts are concerned, here are the Top 10 in both languages:

Top 10 posts by Hungarian readers:

1. The Butler
2. The impact of the snow on the English
3. English cheesecake
4. English pub names
5. Why are there strawberry leaves on Dave Gahan’s crown?
6. English palladianism and baroque arciteture
7. What is HP sauce?
8. Georgian architecture
9. The Footman
10. Nuffield Place – A humble millionaire’s home

Top 10 posts by English readers

1. Georgian architecture
2. An English funeral
3. Regency and Gothic Revival architecture
4. English peerages
5. Why are there strawberry leaves on Dave Gahan’s crown?
6. The Footman
7. The secret of the Lavenham blue
8. Piccadilly or Piccalilli
9. Shopping failure
10. The oddities of the English

~

Getting back to the question whether the blog will come to an end, the answer is deffinitely a NO. However, it is essential that it changes and me too. I have to allow myself to change and to change the blog because this is the only way we can both develop and grow.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year.

There are some encouraging signs for the first time in the blog’s history and I can feel perhaps I got to a different level which makes me feel great. A lot happened in the past three months, which I am going to try to sum up, although I might struggle with the extent of this post.

Again, I realised a few things which helped me a lot.

01.

I have always known I wanted to create value, therefore, what I am aiming for is not publicity, but acknowledgement. In other words, I am aiming to provide quality and not quantity and what matters is returning visitors/readers/followers, whatever you want to call it, who appreciate what I am doing. I have always been aware of this but it is good to think it over again and state it.

02.

It is still difficult to do so many things at the same time, no matter how much I love doing it. However, I managed to stop panicking if I can not work ahead and don’t have 2-3-4 posts scheduled. I had to realise that it is indeed true: the more you write, the better you become at it. I now seem to have enough routine to be able to cope with the situation, where I have a few days to write a post and I am able to keep the balance between blogging and private life and even have time to read books which is great!

03.

To get there, I had to make some decisions:

• Based on my observations, Hungarian readers use more Facebook, while English readers prefer Instagram. By now, I manage to post daily on Instagram without major problems and although I agree with bloggers, who believe you should have different content on Facebook and Instagram, because if you have the same, that’s boring! I decided to link my accounts and publish the Instagram posts on Facebook. In this way followers on Facebook will not miss good content and I can save time and energy. As soon as I have enough time and energy to create different content for different social media, I will do it, but for the time being, I am not able to. As there are only a few followers who follow me both on Instagram and facebook, I don’t think this is going to be a major issue.
• I have to rework my categories and subcategories. After almost 1,5 years it is starting to become obvious which categories are doing better and which ones aren’t. Unfortunately, I have to reduce the number of posts about Home Cooking. I am not a foodie and I am far behind the quality of food-photography that you can find on Instagram or Pinterest, but this will improve with time and practice.
• Instead, I should focus on categories that are doing well. I made a chart about it and it is interesting to see what the Hungarian and the English speaking audience prefers. One thing is clear though: posts having a personal touch or experience seem to interest more people. In other words: if I give more of me, that post is doing better – in theory. 🙂 It is also interesting to see which posts the audience visited the most in this quarter. Ironically, not those which were my favourites that I loved writing. 🙂

04.

It is unbelievable, but I realised in July that subconsciously I managed to follow my business plan that I prepared in January. Basically, I am making progress every day, step by step. OK, steps may not be carried out 100%, but I am progressing in my own pace. On top of this, I had a great conversation with a Hungarian IT guy, which put things into a different light. He said:

… not sure you will make a living from your blog, but from your product and your blog might be a stepping stone and a good background.

Wow…! The penny dropped! I realised he was right and although I started to work on my product, I wasn’t working on it thematically. Therefore I made a plan at the beginning of September and I set the target to have the product ready by end of this year. So far, I am keeping the deadlines and making progress. So what is my product then? It is a secret and surprise. I will let you know as soon as it is ready. 🙂

05.

I realised I have to improve my skills and invest in myself and the blog, so I signed up for a photography course at the beginning of September. I learnt the basics of photography with lots of practice and this is a huge thing for me who always use(d) a mobile instead. The photos used in this post were made during the course and those of you who know photography know, it is not easy to take photos of anything that moves. I am proud of the featured image of three ducks 🙂 where according to my teacher one duck is under, one is perfectly and one is over-exposed, but I used the space perfectly not leaving too much water around the birds and the photo is not blurred. All in all, I loved it and hopefully it will pay off in photos to come.

06.

Everything has to be available on my phone. I am becoming a real blogger, he,he 🙂 But this is true: I need access to everything on my phone because I never know when I am behind, maybe I can post something whilst I am travelling etc. Therefore I have a photo and design editing application on my mobile, photos in the cloud, business and social media plans in the cloud etc. And this – being a NON-full-time blogger, does help, believe me!

Results

It appears, I have more success on Instagram than with posts on my blog. The energy put into social media seems to pay off. I have started to concentrate on social media a few months ago only and I must say I prefer Instagram to Facebook maybe because I have never been on Facebook when it was THE thing. Of course the Instagram world is very strange. For example I do not understand why somebody gets 150 likes for a similar photo I have just posted and was worth 14 likes only… Or I don’t understand why I get 5 followers one day, but by the following morning I have -4… However, as soon as I managed to stop concentrating on how many people follow me, results started to show… I just concentrate on doing what I love doing and the rest will come.

Another strange thing when somebody likes my post, gives a positive feedback and starts to follow me. By the time I checked the profile and decide whether to follow back or not, the person un-followed me. ??? I am only guessing the person with 31K followers thinks I would be amazed by the number of his followers and would hope to get more followers through his network and will start to follow him but he un-follows me because it is a pain to have too many profiles to follow (I know it by now). It all seems to be psychology but of course I un-follow people like this.

At the same time, you can learn an awful lot if you pay attention. For example I realised, it is really worth following people with similar interests and you don’t need to follow back everybody to be polite. You also have to be brave and start commenting, because people can see you pay attention, you are alert, you are willing to be engaged in conversations which then will be noticed by others and they become interested in you. And the most important thing: checking which hashtags similar profiles are using. THAT helps a lot. A LOT. Still, perhaps the most important thing is to post on a daily basis if possible and stay consistent.

I must admit, it was a milestone and some sort of euphoric moment for me when somebody who I take seriously (constantly posting about English architecture in a very high standard) started to follow me. THAT felt as if a university teacher would have patted my shoulders.

Besides, I get more and more positive feedback:

“I like your feed and not only that pic. Carry on!”

“Enjoyed your English Sundials blog – well researched and engagingly written. If you want to see some of the diversity of sundials in these islands try sundialsoc.org.uk (Yes, there is a society for everything in Britain)”

“Love your posts, BTW. I like the way you pick out quirky details and give the context.”

“Bless you, Hun… and please keep doing this! You have a keen eye and must be shared!”

“Very good photo because of the composition. I think just need some lighting in this photo then great!”

And some feedbacks from you, Readers:

“I cannot wait to read all of the posts. I love what you are doing.”

“I love your posts.”

“It comes through you love doing it.”

As far as the blog is concerned, I have more and more page views and the ratio of the returning visitors has doubled. It is 18% YTD and this is what I would love to improve along with the seconds spent on page figure. What is for sure I won’t stop writing and posting on Instagram only because I LOVE writing. No, I have to be tricky and divert people from Instagram to my blog. 😉

And then I have the plan for the last quarter of the year (OMG – where has this year gone…?!)

• Work on the product with full steam and finish it by the end of this year.
• Carry on creating great content even when I think it is basic for everybody what I am writing about.
• Carry on posting on social media.
• Divert people from Instagram to my blog.
• Follow Instagram profiles on Facebook as well.
• And one day I will have a design that I have in my head, but for now I must admit, I let it go. I will find my WP developer one day who takes me seriously and is willing to work.

~

For now, let me say thank you for reading this blog and special thank you for those who shared my posts. I will keep on providing you interesting reads to enjoy. I am full of ideas, all I need is time! But as the locomotive driver says:

Full steam ahead!

I read an article the other day about what would happen if the Queen passed away. I must admit, I was a bit upset by this article not because it was about the Queen, it would have equally upset me about anyone, because everybody deserves dignity when it comes to death. I found it a bit morbid and absurd to read about the detailed schedule of the ceremony, but then again, this is part of the protocol and it only showed the unvarnished truth. I was aware of TV channels having hours of programs prepared about well-known and old actors and persons (the likes of David Attenborough or Kirk Douglas who is 101 years old) which is understandable.

Getting back to the article, I was shocked by the detailed program of the Queen’s death and that even TV presenters have their attire ready for the day, moreover they have practised the announcement several times. If I were the Queen, it would hurt me, at the same time, it is possibly nothing special to her, because she grew up with the protocol and as Bill says, she is aware this is part of the deal.

How, when and why did I invest in the Queen?

It happened this spring, somewhere in April, I think. How? I bought this waving Queen figurine for 20 pounds, which is quite a lot of money for what it is! At the same time, I knew I wanted it, because Elizabeth II is one of, if not the greatest iconic figure of the UK. One either loves her, or not, but I don’t think she is indifferent to anyone. As for me, I like her, but I am not a fan who follows every steps of hers. I appreciate she has done a lot for this country that she loves in her deepest heart and I learnt to respect her for being able to learn from the mistakes made by the Royal Family and change things around. I like the fact she sticks to traditions, but at the same time she is flexible enough to loosen some expectations. I like her, because she has never really wanted to be in the spotlight, she did not show off or have a flamboyant lifestyle and she did not share too much about herself either, which leaves her being a bit of a mystery for many of us. Undoubtedly, she is a status symbol of the UK, especially since the 2012 London Olympics when – as we all know – “she” jumped out of James Bond’s helicopter with a Union Jack parachute. Just one example that shows the Queen does have a sense of humour.

I don’t think there is anyone on this globe (OK, this might be an overstatement) who would not recognise her, her silhouette, her attire, the hats and the coats and handbags or headscarf she wears. The whole world will be shocked when she passes away and everybody will feel, they have lost a friend and one of the world’s best known characters. This has become clearer to me when we visited Her Majesty’s estate, Balmoral in Scotland this summer, where Bill and a shop assistant started to talk about the Queen. They said, they cannot even imagine how it would feel like not having the Queen around, because she “has always been there“. They grew up with the Queen being on the throne and indeed, the generation of the 1950s has always lived with their Queen.

Do the English like the Queen?

Yes and no. There are royalists who do like the Queen and the Royal Family (Bill for example) and there are the republicans who don’t – just like Mr Stokes and Mable in “You rang, M’lord?” when the ex king of Dalmatia was visiting Lord Meldrum:

STOKES Well, I don’t know why they’re making all this fuss about an old king and queen kicked out of country. If you ask me, I’ll kick them all out, ours included.
MABEL Well, you are quite right, Mr Stokes. Do away with them all!

What I definitely find to envy is the traditions around the English Royal Family. I often think, our nation (Hungary) cannot understand what it feels and means like having a monarch, because we lost our last king of the Árpád dinasty in 1301. With that, not only the last Hungarian king, but the traditions were lost, too. (Of course you can say, we had King Matthias later and Princess Sissi etc, but I think that is different.)

Why did I think I needed a waving Queen?

No idea! I just suddenly felt I needed one, but definitely not because I thought it would make me English – I will never be English. Also, there is a house in Windsor (no not the castle 🙂 ) which I find extremely pretty and has become my favourite house in town. This is where I saw a waving Queen for the first time and this also inspired me. Of course later you bump into these figurines at every corner in Windsor’s souvenir shops. At the same time, I also thought I should buy the figurine now, because the price may go up when the Queen dies. (It might be a disrespectful idea, but this is what I thought… 🙁 ) I find it interesting that Bill thought the new items with Charles on them would be more expensive and desired. Well, maybe both scenario will happen… All in all, I like having the Queen in our window waving all day. This may sound stupid but it is soothing and it feels as if we had a patron saint at home.

After all let’s hope the Queen stays with us for a long time for which she has a good chance as the Queen Mother was 101 when she passed away. I hope, we can admire her and her colourful and vibrant attires and hats that make her so unique in the years to come.

~

As a final cord, when I bought the figurine, I carried it enthusiastically. I remember, I said to Bill he must have thought I was an idiot because I bought a waving Queen for our home. His answer which I will never forget was:

“No, not at all. But then again, you are a tourist.”
🙂

Although I have already been to a concert and to a classical music concert in London, I must admit, I only managed to go to the theatre now. We saw two, short comedies at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London last Saturday, which was quite interesting, so I thought to share it.

Choosing the right play!

Bill was looking for the right play for hours and he was not in an easy position to be honest, as I do not like musicals. Now London being London, is of course full of musicals and it might not be easy to find a good play. Helping him, I suggested checking if one of my favourite actors was playing on stage this season, as my first choice was Davit Suchet (Poirot). I feel extremely lucky as David Suchet is performing on stage this September and October, so we booked the tickets and counted down the days to the event.

We had absolutely no idea what these plays were going to be about, but we thought they would be OK as David Suchet would not play in something he considered to not be good. I deliberately did not look up what the stories were about, this time I simply put up with the information found on the website, which said these were two comedies that were very successful in the 1960s.

The Harold Pinter Theatre

The Harold Pinter Theatre was built in 1881 within 6 months only, apparently. It was opened as the Royal Comedy Theatre. It still looks very Victorian with the horse-shoe shaped balconies, the gold and blue interior design and detailed decoration. An interesting and a quirky solution: when you walk in, you are actually on the dress circle which in normal theatres would be on the first floor.

Just to put this theatre into perspective, it is sort of in the middle in terms of capacity with its nearly 800 seats and it is classified as a theatre with plays and NOT musicals. (Oh, yes!) I was intrigued how many theatres there are in London and I was amazed when I found out that there are 38 theatres in the West End only! Outside of the West End I found another 119 theatres, which is an unbelievable number (however, looking at the number of theatres in Budapest we are not doing bad, either, I have to say). Apparently, there are commercial and non-commercial theatres in London, the latter stage drama and classical plays (Royal National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Barbican Centre etc.) which is what I would prefer.

Some interesting facts:

• Longest running musical on the West End: Les Misérables
• Most popular theatre genre: Musicals
• Longest non-musical play in the world: Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap which has been performed since 1952.

Differences between the Hungarian and English theatre

I appreciate, for an English person the things I found unusual at the theatre in London are normal just like Bill said that he did not expect anything else. Obviously, being a foreigner for me these differences were quite strange and new.

01. Dress Code (or rather non-existing dress-code)

You could say that having been to one theatre in London can not be representative, but I have a funny feeling even if I went to another 10 theatres in London, that would not make any difference and I would have the same or very similar experience. The feeling I had, is that going to the theatre in London is not the same as going to the theatre in Budapest, or even in Hungary, I would say. Of course it does not have to be, yet I was somewhat surprised… Although I am pretty sure the situation has changed a lot at home since my childhood and even since 2014 when I think was the last time I went to the theatre in Budapest, but I would think people still dress up nicely. Maybe it is not a sin anymore wearing jeans in the theatre (unlike in my childhood when it was!), yet everybody tries to wear something elegant, or at least smart casual.

Well, London itself is quite diverse, why would the dress code at London theatres be any different? To be fair, I did not have a clue what to put on and what to expect at the theatre, but in the end, I could not, be not me, so I put a dress on (OK, not a cocktail dress or a gown, just a simple dress) and tried to look elegant and civilised and respectful towards the actors. “It is always better to look elegant than dressed-down“, I thought. As for the shoes, I wore ballerinas, but carried my heels in a bag so that I could change them at the theatre. Well, I did not need to… 🙂 When we arrived to the theatre, the audience were dressed in the most unusual and different clothes I have ever seen, for theatre goers. I must admit, I didn’t really understand how some of these attires were let into the theatre… You could see people wearing strappy, hiking sandals (barefoot), shorts with Doc Marten boots, mini skirts with over-knee boots… At this point, having felt completely overdressed anyway, I thought there was no point changing to my heels…

Of course, you can say it is great that theatres are that liberal and you can wear whatever you want and all that matters is you feeling comfortable, but I don’t know… If young women (and even older) can dress up nicely for a night in the pub, why can’t they do the same for the theatre….?

02. Food and Drinks

The other thing which I am struggling to understand, is the consumption of food and drink during the performance. I will never forget how exciting it was at theatres in my childhood, when we had a fairy cake and a drink in the buffet during the break and the adults would have some champagne or a coffee and we had to finish our refreshment when the bell rang. Then we went back to our seats and enjoyed the rest of the play. In London (or let’s say in this theatre) people sat in their seats with a glass of champagne, a plastic glass of beer and ice cream in tub. Ouch… Please, help, I don’t understand… !

03. Applause

Perhaps it is already known by Hungarians that the strong, loud, rhythmical, synchronised clapping that we call “iron applause“ is not known in Western Europe. Fine! I have to say, I was quite surprised, when at the end of the performance the actors bowed, then ran off stage and came on stage again and bowed once more, but then that was it! During the second bow you could hear some “Bravos“ coming from the audience, but soon after this the lights were put on, everybody in the audience stood up quickly and left the theatre. So did the actors. They disappeared. The stage was left there, not even the curtains were pulled. “Is that it?“, I asked myself the question. I am used to actors coming on stage one by one, then together several times during the applause. It was not the case here. Two bows and that was it.

Let’s get down to business: David Suchet on stage!

For me, the perfect Poirot is the one performed by David Suchet. I appreciate some might prefer Peter Ustinov or others, for me David Suchet IS Poirot. I love the fact he read every Agatha Christie’s novel, he made notes about Poirot’s character, observed the little Belgian man and paid attention to details to create Poirot. He IS Poirot and even he admits in his book, he loves the character, even if it can be disadvantageous as the audience often associate the artist with that character only and are disappointed seeing the actor in other roles. Well, I have seen David Suchet in the films “Gulag” and “Moses”, a biblical film and I loved his performance in both, so I was not too worried that I might be disappointed because I expected Poirot to appear on stage.

In the first play (Harold Pinter: The Lover) there were only two actors and neither of them were David Suchet, so we started to worry a little bit that we might have misunderstood something and he will not play in these comedies. Thankfully it was not the case. I had to strain my eyes a little bit at the beginning of the second play to recognise David Suchet (the wig puzzled me a little bit), but because of his distinctive, curved eyebrows and voice, there was no doubt: David Suchet was on stage! Wow, I saw David Suchet on stage in London! Yes, it is a big thing, because he does not play in theatres every year, the last time he did was in 2015, and he is not getting any younger either unfortunately, so the sooner you see him on stage the better – before it gets too late.

He was brilliant in his role, Harry (in Harold Pinter’s The Collection), a gay man in his forties living in Belgravia. He was articulate, spoke beautiful English and I could understand every single word. What I liked the most was his mimic. It was good to see David Suchet on stage and in a different character. I could not be happier and wish for more.

~

All in all the theatre was great in-spite of the odd English customs. I think, I have to apply the “When in Rome, do as the Romans do“ saying and everything will be even better. Therefore, next time when we are going to see “Les Misérables” at the Queens Theatre in London, I may wear jeans with ankle boots and have a hot-dog during the performance… 🙂