During those seemingly endless days of working from home in the midst of the first lockdown, we decided that enough was enough. My husband and I were squeezed around the dining table, one eye on our laptops and the other on our restless toddler. Pregnant with our second child, I was excited, intensely nauseous and nervous about how we might cope with a newborn under the current strict social restrictions, and later the extortionate costs of having two children in a nursery.
By that point, we had lived in London for almost 15 years and owned a tatty but much-loved flat in Lewisham. Our time there had been a blast, mostly – we were happy in our careers, with a great support network of friends – but somewhere between parenthood and the pandemic, the inconveniences we’d always accepted as part and parcel of city living increasingly gnawed at us. The walls of our windowless bathroom were constantly damp, the ceiling mildewy. The concrete rectangle of our balcony seemed bleak compared to the families we saw on social media splashing in paddling pools in their gardens. The grating creaks of the lift right next to our front door disturbed our sleep all night long.
