The House

The house has a lovely exterior. Inside there’s a very small entry way that leads to rather steep stairs on the left and a hall leading into a very open and lovely living room on the right. Through the living room is the small but quaint kitchen with pigmy appliances. No, seriously, the appliances here are like midgets compared to the ones at home – I’m taller than the fridge for crying out loud! The kitchen also has what (I think is called) a free range stove that I think may be gas…but don’t quote me on that. The backyard is oddly shaped but nice…or so I thought until I caught a glimpse of the rat calling it home. A rat, I kid you not, was running about the backyard just like you’d expect a squirrel to do except that, by gods, this was a RAT. I’ve since decided that the backyard looks best through the glass doors of the living room rather than from outside.  Also downstairs is a reception room turned bedroom that Jessica uses.

Upstairs has the bathroom – hands down the most modern room in the house – immediately to your left and in front of you are two doors leading to my other roommate’s bedrooms. On the far right is my room. It is TINY.  Like a postage stamp but smaller. I think prison cells might be larger. It has a double bed and a wardrobe and the space leftover is just enough that the door to room and those to the wardrobe can all open ninety degrees without hitting anything. The window – which is a decent size – has  pale metallic brown curtains, a view into the front yard and a sill that is as wide as my hand. There is exactly one electrical outlet and it’s behind my bed.

After unpacking and exploring the house some, I tried out the outlet converter and blew up my surge protector. Whoops. I went for a walk to explore the neighbourhood. There’s nothing all that exciting to see but I did find the tube station and a couple of little shops that may be promising depending on their prices. Called my mom collect from a pay phone when I failed to find Wi-Fi access – took me talking to FOUR different operators before one them finally just dialed home for me. Naturally, calling my mom got me crying again. Came back to the house and slept for a bit. Woke up when two of the roomies – Dana and Jessica – came home. Tiffany came back about an hour after that. Out of sync with them right now so far as conversations go; they were all about their assignments and the classrooms and the kids…I had an uneventful flight and jet lag. Conversational fonts these topics are not.

Came up to my room about eight-thirty and decided to try out the outlet converter again. I figured the surge protector was to blame and plugged my Batman alarm clock into first one converter and then the other (I brought two)…it didn’t blow up. Unfortunately, the converter has a habit of turning itself off every now and then as a safety precaution. Okay for electronics that can hold a charge like my laptop and portable DVD player, not so good for the alarm clock. Put alarm clock (and fried surge protector) in suitcase – all of which then went up thanks to my roomies into the attic to be stored.

My first night in London ended with me settling in to watch Thor on my portable DVD player and then going to bed. Oh, the high life!