Home By The Sea

"alone again in the lap of luxury..."

By my calculations I have resided in 17 'homes' during the past 14 years, and without any doubt, if I had to pick one of these as my favourite in terms of the actual dwelling, not neccesarily the location, then my home by the sea in Bournemouth wins every time.

It was deceptive from the outside, but once you stepped inside it resembled a cross between Doctor Who's Tardis and a lighthouse!
The living area itself was five flights up.
On the ground floor was a small utility room, which I made into a gym complete with ski-machine and a punch-bag. Two flights up was a second utility room which contained the washing machine and drying area.
A further two flights up was a small bathroom - the one disappointment with the apartment, and then finally a short climb up one further staircase to the main living space.
The landing step at the top of the stairs was big enough to house a dining table - so that's just what I did!
Once you reached the summit of the apartment, maybe with use of oxygen unless you had previous high altitude experience, was a large fully fitted kitchen, a seperate second bedroom recently kitted out with laminated flooring and sky-light, the large master bedroom, and finally the living room.
The living room was very spacious complete with a small balcony which overlooked the sea. You could constantly hear the crashing of waves onto the nearby shore.

The house itself was located in Alum Chime about a ten minute walk away from Westbourne, where the Nash-Williams main office stood where I now worked, which was a further ten minute walk away from the Bournemouth town centre. Alternatively, from my house you could walk down the hill to a steep slope, which then took you down to the promenade. From there you could walk along the sea front into town in about twenty minutes, which obviously was a much better scenic route.

The home was owned by a sufer, beach-bum who had taken off to the West Indies for six months, so chose to use a letting agency to lease it out whilst he was away, and I was the lucky recipient. Surf boards adorned the walls on the various flights of stairs, which gave the impression that I was a beach-bum too...and I never argued with anyone who made that impression - my extreme sports days were to follow much later in New Zealand!

Unfortunately, the owner was to return after eight months away, giving me an extra couple of months there after my initial six month tenancy agreement, and the remainder of my time in Bournemouth (a further six months) was spent in another apartment which doesn't really merit a mention as it pales into insignificance in comparison to my home by the sea.

Bournemouth itself was a strange place in my opinion. During the summer the place was swamped with tourists, so bad that you just wanted to tell everyone to p**s off & can we have our town back please!
Yet in the winter it was quiet and I enjoyed walking along the beach with Rose and her lovely springer alsation, Harley, despite the windswept conditions.
I also found generally speaking that Bournemouth people were quite aloof and pretensious (that doesn't include you Hannah, if you're reading). There is a lot of wealth there, but those that have got it don't seem to want to invest it back in the town - they prefer to keep it for themselves and flash it around when it suits. You only have to look at the Sandbanks area to understand what I mean, where apparantly unless a property is guaranteed to be valued in excess of £1 million, the local council won't allow planning permision.

Whilst I was living in Bournemouth I started getting back into playing pool, and Marty regularly travelled down from Fleet (he had gotten out of Slough too), and he would crash at my place for the weekend. We would have marathan pool sessions at a local club, playing on Amercian Pool tables and we both got to a really decent standard. In fact Marty registered as a semi-pro 9-ball player and got in the UK Top 50 at one stage, and I grew in confidence with my ability as a player as I could beat him quite regularly too.
We also 'hustled' a bit from time-to-time, and on one memorable occassion some 'numpty' lost all his money to Marty for a solitary frame, and then proceeded to play 'double-or-quits' with me, only to lose again. But he couldn't come up with the goods, so he gave me his girlfriend instead! Needless to say, being the gentleman that I am...I declined!

Also whilst living in Bournemouth, I honed my previous skills as a relaxational masseuer thanks to a girlfriend who I met at work, and was to follow when I finally left Bournemouth.
I've often flirted with persuing a career as a masseuer, but I always have the same problem - for every gorgeous woman I've ever massaged, if I was to do it professionally then I'd have to contemplate the fact that there would a hairy-backed bloke requiring my services...and I just couldn't do that! Lol.

So that was Bournemouth.

When Rose announced that she was going to return to Ireland to pick up a career in nursing, and then the girl that I was seeing informed me that she was moving to Gloucester I had a decision to make...and I made a compromise that I felt very comfortable with.
I had to follow her to the West of England, as I knew I'd always be wondering what would have happened between us if I didn't go. But at the same time, deep down, I really couldn't see things working out for us long-term.
So I decided that rather than put all my eggs into one basket, why didn't I move nearer to where she was going to be, but also to a place where I could be happy if things didn't work out.

That place was...Bath!

Nomadic Steve