Cabin Fever in The View from the Terrace

  • March 4, 2018, 4:08 p.m.
  • |
  • Public

Tony is thoroughly bored with being cooped up here because of the snow. There is no way he can get his car out. His girlfriend, Justeen, keeps ringing and saying how lonely she is. These modern youngsters make me laugh. If Tony doesn’t ring her at least once a day she feels neglected. Hubby and I used to go out twice a week when we were engaged in the 70s. We never rang each other in between. It would have been difficult anyway as we both lived in rented accommodation with a shared phone, no mobiles then.

When I went to London in the 70s I spent the first 9 months living in a hostel in a tiny room on the third floor, the only phone was on the ground floor, so I preferred people not to ring me if it wasn’t an emergency! The hostel belonged to The Girls’ Friendly Society. There were about 18 rooms on each floor and we shared 3 bathrooms per floor. The only cooking facilities were a mini hotplate with grill underneath on the landing near the bathrooms between all 18 of us. I never felt deprived. I was warm and clean, we did get a cooked breakfast, what more could I want? I would get a hot meal at work in the staff canteen and Sunday dinner was often a KFC!

The hostel was for women only. Male friends were only allowed in the downstairs sitting room. We were supposed to be respectable young women and there were times when it got rather boring, we had to find ways to liven things up a bit. There was the time that a group of us decided that it was time the English celebrated St George’s Day and we set out to celebrate by having a drink in every pub we could find called The George, of course we had to give that one up, there were far too many. The really funny thing is that I was the only English girl in the group. Another time my friend Christine from New Zealand and I decided to visit some of London’s most prestigious hotels. We started with a drink in the roof bar at The Hilton in Park Lane, then on to The Savoy where she wrote a letter to her family at home on their headed paper in the lounge. After that we went to The Ritz where I found they had coat hangers with the name of the hotel in the cloakroom. Christine dared me to take one as a souvenir. I still have it in my wardrobe today! Even respectable young ladies have to have fun.

Back to yesterday when Tony announced that he was bored and was going to build a snowman. Within a few minutes Hubby had gone out to build one too. Two grown men where having a great time in the snow.
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Hubby made a snowman with a snowdog
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Not sure what Tony’s is meant to be - very elaborate!
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It is starting to melt now so Tony will be back to work tomorrow and we will be getting back to normal. It was fun while it lasted.


Deleted user March 04, 2018

we go to different hotels in the city for a bathroom break

Marg March 05, 2018

Haha love the snow people (and dogs) - very innovative! That coat hanger might be worth a few bob in years to come!

edna million March 09, 2018

I love the snowmen!

Oswego March 11, 2018

The snowmen are a happy bunch! Great work and talented snow artists, too.

Also enjoyed your hostel reminiscences from the 70s. Those were the days. I remember that decade so well.

Deleted user March 22, 2018

Love that they built snowmen !
You had some great experiences in London !

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