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October 11, 2005

Moving Apartment

I moved apartment this weekend. I was living in the upstairs flat of a house on Castleforbes Road, near the Point Theatre. I had been there for 4.5 years, sometimes sharing, but often with the place to myself. It was very handy for work, being 25 minutes walk away, and was equally handy for getting to Dublin city centre. I'll miss it. The whole moving process was prompted by the developments that have been taking place near the Point. Over the past year, I have watched apartment blocks being built across the road from where I lived. They are now finished and I guess that frees the developers up for their next project. In short, my landlord is selling the house and I had to move. while the move is forced, there was no unpleasantness and the landlord and I are on good terms.

I am now living in Ashtown, in a nice modern apartment block. My apartment overlooks the canal and has a balcony and a super fitted kitchen. I also have a parking space. It is not as handy for work or town as my old place, but the area is well served by public transport: the 120 bus passes through the development at 20 minute intervals, and Ashtown train station is about 8 minutes walk away along the canal.

In finding the place, I used some decision analysis techniques that I had been trained up on in work. This was very useful as it helped me decide what I wanted:

I viewed a lot of places and I enquired about a lot more. Many of the places were really nice but they all lacked at least one of my requirements.

The move itself was easier than I expected and took place in two parts. On saturday friends of mine arrived with cars and we filled them with boxes (mostly filled with books) and them drove across town. We made two trips and were done in about 3 hours. On Sunday, I hired Richard O'Shea and his van to transport the bulkier items (mostly bookcases). Richard was punctual, helpful, and friendly, and I'd recommend him highly. That trip took about an hour to complete. All that is left now is the unpacking...

Posted by JohnC at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)