wellieswithwings

Work in progress

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 | Uncategorized

On the 5th Jan, what looked to be the coldest night in a long time with temperatures dropping to -4 I think, we bravely welcome the plumbers into our home to rip out the bathroom and central heating.  So began two weeks of the outside toilet, huddling around fan heaters and spending more time at the gym than I have for a while (for the showers, you understand).  Fortunately, four days later we were graced with new central heating, which was nice.  It certainly helped us to cope with the remaining week and a half.

Two weeks on and we now finally have a working bathroom.  Although not finished, we have the essentials plumbed in and a particularly splendid bath which makes the entire experience worthwhile.  (It was certainly an *experience*!)  It has been a pretty ghastly couple of weeks.  I expected to find the lack of heating the biggest problem, but being squished into about a square foot of free sofa space and being surrounded by dust, dirt and a bathroom suite really did get to me.

We did the sensible thing and stayed in a hotel for the first weekend.  After a root around we decided on the Lansdowne Place Hotel, over on the Hove side of town.  It was nice (it had a bath!) and fairly reasonable for a mid-range hotel in Brighton.  There were a couple of things which let it down, but to be honest the hot running water put these into perspective for me and breakfast in bed certainly helped.

It’s odd staying in a hotel in your home town.  You’re away from home and yet there you are, bang in the middle of where you spend every day.  Walking into town, I actually looked around me rather than glazing over and wandering on auto pilot.  It was nice to walk “home” along the seafront rather than strolling in the opposite direction as usual.  It made me realise that ever since moving to Brighton eleven years ago, I have always lived in the same area.  It was refreshing to see Brighton from a different angle for a change.

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