'I’ve found the best place to live in London'

It’s no great secret that London is a very expensive place to live.

The average family home usually costs somewhere in the high hundreds of thousands, if not the millions, pubs can charge upwards of £7.50 for a pint and no one will bat an eyelid, and wages haven’t gone up nearly quickly enough to allow regular people to keep up.

So if I became London’s next Lotto millionaire, I know exactly what I’d do. First, I’ll call my girlfriend, get dressed up and head to The Lanesborough on Hyde Park Corner to splurge on a very fancy 12-course meal.

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Then with the remainder I’d get up Rightmove and start looking for our dream home. We’ve experimented with Woolwich and are currently living in Shepherd’s Bush.

Endless weekends strolling around West London property-gawking convince me we’ve found the best place to live in London. Where? Ravenscourt Park, of course.

It’s a quiet and remarkably pretty stretch between Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith. I’d love a cracking view of the park - severely underrated, if you ask me - and to be far enough from busy Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith that we’re not kept up every Friday and Saturday night.

The homes are, in essence, the sort of place a charming Richard Curtis protagonist would live. Or me, if I won the Lotto jackpot.

I’ve given some thought to who I’d actually tell about the win, too. I’d let my family know too, and I expect my girlfriend would tell hers, but aside from them I think we’d like to keep it mostly under wraps.

Having said that, I’d have a time explaining to my friends how I’d suddenly been able to afford much more salubrious digs in a more expensive part of London, so maybe they’d put two and two together.

I suppose my plans are grand enough that ‘he’s come into some money’ would be a pretty unavoidable conclusion.

So if you get an invitation to my housewarming party any time soon, you’ll know I’ve hit the Lotto jackpot.

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