Since becoming a yoga teacher I have enjoyed some amazing travel opportunities teaching yoga overseas. However as a family we also began to do a lot more travel together and one of the ways that we have discovered to inexpensively do this and enjoy the experience of getting to know an area like a local is by home exchanging our London home with the homes of others. This is the home we have to offer.
OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
Located in Shepherds Bush, our home is close to all the famous and lesser know attractions that Central London has to offer. Shepherds Bush itself is home to the BBC Television Centre, The Bush Theatre and the O2 Empire Music venue, Bush Hall jazz and live music and comedy club, Queen’s Park Rangers Football Club, Shepherds Bush Market and Europe’s largest inner city shopping mall, Westfield with its hundreds of shops, cinema, restaurants, bars and gym. All these local attractions are within 5 to 10 minutes walk away from the house. On top of all this Shepherds Bush is a vibrant multi cultural area with a distinct sense of community. Shepherds Bush’s nearest neighbours are Notting Hill, famous for its vintage WEEKEND street market, upmarket Kensington and leafy Holland Park. Shepherds Bush has three separate tube stations and one overground train station making it one of London’s best connected hubs for transportation by bus. It is also easily accessible to London Heathrow and Gatwick Airports and just over an hour away by train from the sea at Brighton, one of England’s most popular coastal resorts.
Locally there are parks, public tennis courts and swimming pools and the pretty pubs and riverside walks along the banks of The Thames are a short bus or tube ride away in nearby Hammersmith and Chiswick. Shepherds Bush is also convenient for road links to the west of London making visits to Windsor Castle, The Botanical Garden at Kew, Richmond Deer Park, Hampton Court very easy. A regular hourly express coach service connects Shepherds Bush to the famous university city of Oxford.
OUR HOME
Our London family house is quiet and homely. It is surprisingly spacious with a large welcoming kitchen diner which overlooks a small secluded garden with a seated dining area and barbecue. We have an Aga which makes this room cosy in winter and fuels all our central heating and cooking. It really makes the kitchen the heart of our home and is particularly fantastic for roasts, slow hot pot dishes and home baking but equally suitable for rustling something up on the hob after a day of sightseeing. If home cooking is not your thing when on holiday then you couldn’t be closer to the vast amount of takeaways, cafes and restaurants that Shepherds Bush and the nearby Westfield Shopping and Leisure Mal have to offer.
Our living room comprises two rooms opened as one and is light and simply furnished featuring two openVictorian marble and wrought iron fireplaces and ornate traditional period plasterwork on the high ceilings. All five bedrooms have comfortable double beds and the loft room also has an additional single bed suitable for either an adult or a child. Both bathrooms have baths with showers (one also has a separate shower cubicle). Our home is unfussy, low maintenance, low tech and family friendly with polished wood floors throughout, its tidy (usually!) and we hope will provide a homely base from which to explore London and South East England.
Our home has five bedrooms and we regularly host guests – either mature students or couples visiting London in our spare room which we run as a casual home from home B&B.. Hence when it is free we are always happy to host. You will have your own private bathroom and a double bedroom with TV, Hi-Fi, tea and coffee making facilities and internet.
ABOUT US
We are Elisa and Dominic Williams and we have five children now all in their teens and early twenties. As you will already know from having found my website I am a London based yoga teacher! My husband Dom has recently reinvented himself, having left the stresses of the print industry behind to renovate properties and pursue his passion for sailing – he is a qualified professional sailor. We all enjoy living in this colourful part of London surrounded by a real mixture of people from different walks of life and its many contrasting features. However we love the outdoors and enjoy regular family holidays in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We are all keen sailors and keep a small yacht in the West Country and have undertaken sailing holidays off the British coasts and in France and Croatia. We think you will find our home calm and relaxing, maybe a bit quirky in that English kind of way but definitely a good base from which to enjoy all that Central London has to offer.
We are however used to camping and as a large family making with makeshift bedding arrangements so don’t feel that we would need to have enough comfortable beds for 7 of us if we were all to come and stay in your home! A tent in the garden or camp bed on the floor of the bedrooms is quite normal for us.
CONTACT US
We are registered with two great websites: www.homeforexchange.com andwww.guardianhomeexchange.co.uk through whom over several years we have undertaken numerous successful home exchanges. In doing so we have met a wide range of people who like us love the idea of letting others enjoy their home and local area. Its been a brilliant way of seeing the world, living like locals and saving money all at the same time . If you are interested in proposing an exchange with us we are usually interested in holidays during the UK school holidays but we’re all always open to offers and suggestions and if you don’t wish to contact us via the two exchange website we belong to then you can contact us direct by emailing: elisa@elisawilliamsyoga.com.