RouteMaster

Sarah and I sometimes have different ideas about what sort of place we are looking for. How modern or rustic, how exotic, goofy or traditional. But on one important fact we both, happily, agree: we need a London bus.

This is the RouteMaster. I used to hate these things. Living where we did in London, a huge number of the busses down to the commercial center of town were routemasters, and while charming, they can be a real pain in the ass as far as strollers go. Bus after bus would go by. We'd wait for the wheelchair accessible version, rather than wake Kepler up.

But now that same hindrance is proving an asset. Because as of last year, they have all been retired. Wheelchair accessibility is all the rage these days, after all. What an enlightened age we live in, and suddenly there are a temendous number of routemasters for sale to the public.

Perfect condition? 15,000 quid, and it'll run all day every day for the next 20 years. But I don't think we need that. What we want goes for closer to 8,000 or so. And that is affordable.

Consider it. First, we buy the thing. Then, we bring it to Sarah's brother Martin. He's a marine engineer, and he also has a very good friend with a huge metal-sculpting studio. Put these together, and you've got yourself a magnificent home-inside-a-bus in no time. There's a remarkable amount of space inside, once you've got the seats out. So then we drive it down to our construction site, and live happily until our (land-)home is complete. Then, the homely appointments come out of the bus, and the whole vehicle gets converted into a playhouse for Kepler. Sweet. A slide out the top front window. A bricks-and-mortar passageway into the back of the bus. After all, these jump-on-jump-off beauties have their back corner wide open already. What could be easier?

And the most beautiful part of all is that, for 8,000 pounds plus rehab plus transport, we gain a full 40-50 sq meters of living space, and that's actually cheaper than building the same amount of floorspace from scratch.

License, I hear you shout? Pish posh. These are classified as vintage vehicles now. Which means that a standard drivers license will do. Incredible, but true. I've read all about it (there are actually of course collectors' societies), and I've been in recent frequent touch with a RouteMaster dealer, who confirms the story. No obstacles there.

The catch? 50 mph top speed, and ridiculous fuel consumption. It might actually be quicker and less expensive to ship the thing down here than drive it. But we'll see. I can't wait, though. Imagine the freedom-feeling, driving a racing-green London bus through the winding countryside of rural France.

But just as a playground, that's good enough. And so, my glorious wife and I, we've got ourselves a new criterion to apply to the houses we look at: "is there room for a London bus?"

Sweet.