Where I Live
Earlier, I posted a brief description of where I am living. That was mainly for those people who were afraid that I would be living under a bridge for the first few weeks. Now, however, I am able to post a more detailed description of my living arrangements.
I live in a five-person house-share near the Old Town in Stevenage. I’m right on the bus routes so riding to the Town Centre takes only about five minutes. If I’m feeling energetic (or too cheap to pay the bus fare), the Old Town is a short fifteen-minute walk away. The Town Centre is only about a five-minute walk past there. The Old Town has some nice shops, places to eat, a small grocery store, banks, and a post office. The Town Centre has larger stores (more chain stores than independent stores), a nice, large Tesco Extra, a Staples (yes, the office supply store), a TK Maxx (yes, TK – not TJ – I don’t know why), the bus station, and the train station.
Currently, there are four other people sharing the house. We each have our own small room with a bed, desk, closet, television, and sink. We have two shared bathrooms and two shared kitchens. We each have our own small refrigerator and a cabinet in the kitchen. There is also a washing machine for us to use.
To dry our clothes, however, requires more ingenuity. Lacking a tumble dryer (and facing a prohibition on leaving wet clothes hanging in our rooms to dry), we have been asked to use the clothes horse (not a real horse – imagine my disappointment – but a wire rack) in the downstairs closet below the stairs. It gets quite warm in there and things tend to dry fairly well in there. Well, things that don’t need to be hung on hangers tend to dry well in there. Things that need to be on hangers generally get hung in my room (Shhh!). As a last resort (or on Monday morning before the cleaning people arrive), we have something called an airing closet. This closet has a large tank (maybe a hot water tank?) with slatted wooden shelves built around it. The point, as I understand it, is that you lay your damp clothes on the wooden shelves and the warmth in the closet helps dry your clothes. That’s the theory anyway. In practice, it didn’t work too well for my trousers.
Each Monday, someone comes in to change the bed sheets and to tidy up. And by tidy up, I mean, clean up after the messy American. Now, before you start thinking about the filth, I must say that I cleared the floor, put my dirty clothes in my laundry bag in the closet, made the bed, and made sure my towel was hug nicely.
What I did NOT do was to NEATLY organize my desk. What I also did not do was to NEATLY fold my sleeping shorts and my sweatshirt. Upon my return from work, I found the Post-It notes on my desk VERY NEATLY arranged, my sleeping shorts VERY NEATLY folded and placed on my sweatshirt, which had also been VERY NEATLY folded.
So, each Sunday night, I make sure to neatly organize the things on my desk and to neatly fold all of my clothes. I feel tempted to change the sheets, too, but I wouldn’t want to spoil all the fun.
I live in a five-person house-share near the Old Town in Stevenage. I’m right on the bus routes so riding to the Town Centre takes only about five minutes. If I’m feeling energetic (or too cheap to pay the bus fare), the Old Town is a short fifteen-minute walk away. The Town Centre is only about a five-minute walk past there. The Old Town has some nice shops, places to eat, a small grocery store, banks, and a post office. The Town Centre has larger stores (more chain stores than independent stores), a nice, large Tesco Extra, a Staples (yes, the office supply store), a TK Maxx (yes, TK – not TJ – I don’t know why), the bus station, and the train station.
Currently, there are four other people sharing the house. We each have our own small room with a bed, desk, closet, television, and sink. We have two shared bathrooms and two shared kitchens. We each have our own small refrigerator and a cabinet in the kitchen. There is also a washing machine for us to use.
To dry our clothes, however, requires more ingenuity. Lacking a tumble dryer (and facing a prohibition on leaving wet clothes hanging in our rooms to dry), we have been asked to use the clothes horse (not a real horse – imagine my disappointment – but a wire rack) in the downstairs closet below the stairs. It gets quite warm in there and things tend to dry fairly well in there. Well, things that don’t need to be hung on hangers tend to dry well in there. Things that need to be on hangers generally get hung in my room (Shhh!). As a last resort (or on Monday morning before the cleaning people arrive), we have something called an airing closet. This closet has a large tank (maybe a hot water tank?) with slatted wooden shelves built around it. The point, as I understand it, is that you lay your damp clothes on the wooden shelves and the warmth in the closet helps dry your clothes. That’s the theory anyway. In practice, it didn’t work too well for my trousers.
Each Monday, someone comes in to change the bed sheets and to tidy up. And by tidy up, I mean, clean up after the messy American. Now, before you start thinking about the filth, I must say that I cleared the floor, put my dirty clothes in my laundry bag in the closet, made the bed, and made sure my towel was hug nicely.
What I did NOT do was to NEATLY organize my desk. What I also did not do was to NEATLY fold my sleeping shorts and my sweatshirt. Upon my return from work, I found the Post-It notes on my desk VERY NEATLY arranged, my sleeping shorts VERY NEATLY folded and placed on my sweatshirt, which had also been VERY NEATLY folded.
So, each Sunday night, I make sure to neatly organize the things on my desk and to neatly fold all of my clothes. I feel tempted to change the sheets, too, but I wouldn’t want to spoil all the fun.
posted by Matthew Reames at 1/20/2005 05:47:00 PM
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