The trip to the UK

On Wednesday March 15^th we drove down to Tokyo, Narita Airport and flew to Edinburgh via London Heathrow. The grueling 13 hours flying and 3 hours changeover with 2 young children (1 and 2 years old) was exhausting but we made it.

We spent a week at my Uncle’s cottage in Crinan relaxing and getting over the Jet Lag. We also figured out that living in such a rural place as the Western Highlands wouldn’t be possible for both economic and social reasons.

We went back to my mum’s house in Livingston and visited a plot of land just outside West Calder. This made us quickly realise that we did not want to live in a small town like this in Scotland – which tend to be a bit depressing and run down.

We were invited to lunch at my cousin’ Jackie’s house in Portobello, near Edinburgh. We had an appointment with a financial advisor, to discuss financing the house, in Edinburgh at 12, so took a bus down to Portobello afterwards. This meeting would turn up our plot.

Jackie and her husband Dave had been looking to move from their 3 bed flat to a house but stay in the same area – a small seaside town of Portobello on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

They had put in a number of offers which didn’t win on houses over the past year. They had just been to see a Victorian terraced cottage which needed work but which fitted their requirements. The problem was the House included a plot of land at the bottom of the garden which had planning permission to build 2 No. 2 bedroom flats. This would inflate the price above what they were willing to pay. They were also not delighted about the idea of flats at the bottom of their garden.

So they mentioned casually “You don’t want to buy a plot of land do you?” I replied Yes, we do actually. We looked online at the planning applications (Edinburgh City Council logs all their planning applications with drawings online – a very useful service). And then Jackie took me to see it, Makiko was putting the girls in bed for their afternoon nap. As soon as I saw it I thought this is right for us.

On the way, a 5 minute walk from their house, Jackie was waving hello to other people and stopped to talk to another mum whose son was friends with her daughters. The walk along the beachfront was beautiful and the one could see the potential of this area – lots of Victorian and Georgian houses, tenements and terraces with a big sky and the north sea and a sandy beach right there. There was a good primary school and lots of child care we heard. The area was good for new families. It was a dull, cloudy March day and it still felt very nice.

The plot is at the rear of 11 Bellfield Lane. Here is a location plan (and here it's location on multimap EH15 2BL). The red line delinates the existing house and the proposed 2 No. 2 bed flats at the rear. North is UP. The street at the bottom of the image is the Portobello High Street with shops and transport to Edinburgh.

The plot itself was tiny, 194 square meters (2088 square feet or 0.048 acres). I had previously worked out a minimum plot size for what we wanted as 0.1acres so this was less than half. However it was a town location rather than semi-rural and when we thought about it the plot was very similar to Japanese plot dimensions. 194 square meters is almost exactly 59 tsubo (a Japanese unit of area equal to 2 tatami mats or about 3.3 square meters) and compares with many of the houses and gardens where we live now.

The plot also had a 2m high stone wall all the way around and while the rundown garages made it look ugly I could see the potential for both privacy and a nice, cozy garden.

It has a good aspect (the long dimension orientated to the south) with no overshadowing. To the north was a nice mature sycamore tree which while it’s root system might need some care provided nice ready made mature foliage over the garden – maybe even a branch for a rope swing?

I went straight back to get Makiko and we did the same walk on our own with time to think and discuss the options. We actually weren’t able to get on the site but with land that is less important, we just walked around and peered over the walls. Makiko liked it too and we decided there and then to take it! On Friday 24^th March 2006.