Before I get ont othe long bit, I would just like to say...

Yesterday, I went to Asda and bought a cheap string bikini, to wear as a substitute bra in this hot weather. I have never owned a string bikini before, and I haven't owned a bikini since I was 18, and I wore one on my post-exams holiday (where I was far and away the fattest girl there, among my anorexic private-school classmates).

Anyhow, I bought a string bikini, the sort that ties up. It's light blue with strawberries printed on it (very 1950s pin-up!). Asda being brilliant, I was able to buy the top and bottoms in different sizes - size 12 bottoms, size 16 top (the 12 & 14 tops all had such tiny "triangles" that they'd never cover my E-cup breasts).

And then, I wore the top, along with a knee-length denim skirt (to protect innocent civilians from the dimply hell that is my upper legs), in Battersea park, among all the other beachwear-clad beauties.

Yes, I do not have a "bikini body". Yes, everyone else wearing a bikini in the park was heaps slimmer and fitter than I. But I felt pretty damn good - even if the 2 triangles + 2 pieces of elastic that made up the bikini top were completely inefficient at keeping my boobs in check, and they were jiggling all over the place when I nipped to the loo and back. Much to the amusement of everyone staring at me.

Heh hee! I wore a bikini in the park! Go me! :-)

So here's an idea we've been tossing around for a while. See what you think.

The main problems with our living arrangement at the moment are:

1. It's pretty small. Bearable, but still small. We'd like to have our own space, our own rooms etc. I love living in a studio flat, but it's better on my own. With another person, I'd prefer to have multiple rooms. And if we're going to see other people, we need our own rooms!! :-)

2. The location. I love Battersea, it's really nice. However, there's not much going on here and it's somewhat "gentrified".

About a month ago C & I started talking about how we could resolve this. The most obvious solution is probably that we should buy a bigger place together, but...

1. There is no way we could afford to buy a decent 1-bedroom place in a decent location on our combined salaries (yep, that's how expensive London is). And besides, we'd both want our own rooms, and a 2 bedroom flat is WAAAAY out of our league, unless we move out of town (NO NO NO!!)

2. I don't think I want to buy with anyone anyway, even if it was all contractually sorted out (who owns what percentage etc etc). Yes, I am a paranoid commitmentphobe - sorry, but I refuse to see shame in that! :-)

3. Good grief, we've been together 5 minutes and we're talking property?? Plus there is the minor issue that C is married, which would probably complicate things legally.

4. We don't really want to live as a couple. Recently, the idea of living with other people has started to appeal. Instant going-out buddies! Friends! etc! C & I have only lived in shared houses briefly - single years at University - and we think we'd like to do it again. If anything, living with other people would help us avoid the "insular couple" problem.

OK, so here's a plan. We live together as we are until - say - the end of the year, and if we still want to live together, we do something about it. The suggestion:

1. I fix up my flat, and get it into rentable condition. I do not want to sell up, as getting off the property ladder would be incredibly stupid. Fixing up my flat would involve a new boiler, bathroom floor replaced, shower installed, general repairs & painting. This would come to a couple of thousand quid. I do not have that sort of money, but I can deal with that later.

2. We find a 3 or 4 bedroom flat/house to rent in a funky area of town. We either find a couple of cool people to rent with, then find a property; or we find a property with 2 rooms for rent. Not the simplest thing in the world, but I imagine quite possible.

3. We find someone to rent my flat, with as little crossover between the two as possible (I don't want to be paying rent & mortgage at the same time!). My flat merrily pays for itself (I don't care about making a profit) while I live somewhere else. I have more room, and I get to keep my valuable property.

But this is where we find a major hitch.

Jerry.

I don't know about where you live, but here in London landlords do not rent to people with pets. *Maybe* if I was renting a whole house/flat, they might let me have a cat, but the chances are slimmer than slim. *Maybe* if we rented two rooms in an owner's-own home, they would be OK with pets. But most likely, a professional

landlord

renting out individual rooms in a property would never allow pets. Their perogative, of course, but a sticker for me. And the difficulty in finding such a property would mean that finding a comfortable crossover point at which I could move would be a real pain.

Heh. Smoothish sailing up until that point. Back when I got Jerry, I thought she'd never be a problem - I didn't think I'd want to move home in the near future, if ever. Plus ca change.

There's the option of keeping Jerry a secret, but that's not easy either.

I don't really feel 100% comfortable leaving my flat. But you have to compromise somewhere. Relationships, apparently, consist of a certain amount of compromise. And here's me always used to doing

things my way ;-)

Of course, this is currently all conjecture. It's just talk. It might not happen, or it might happen differently. C & I might decide that him renting a room on his own is a better option. We might decide to stick with the very cheap option of carrying on as we are.

As I said, that pesky future is the sort of thing you can't predict.

I do like the idea of living in a shared house, with my own room, though.