Me and the flat in Baywsater

Boyfriend and I move into a studio flat.  It has a tiny sitting room with kitchenette, a bedroom which should really be called a roombed - there being no floor on three sides of it, an interior bathroom and a balcony.  To get onto the balcony you had to climb over the bed, inevitably anyone climbing back in would step on the pillows leaving dusty footprints -I would ensure Boyfriend's pillow were always on top when we had guests and then swap them at bedtime - he didn't seem to notice their grey grittiness.

Although small, the flat was in a great location.  We would go running in Kensington Gardens (about three minutes walk away), lovely in summer but the Round Pond seemed to take on the weather conditions of the Barant Sea in winter.  It was very convenient for Sunday afternoon cultural pursuits  - we could walk to the V&A and the Wallace Collection - this was at the stage of life when we decided to 'do' all the major London Museum/galleries in their entirety from room 1 to the end - we managed to complete the two aforementioned places, the National Gallery, the Science Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Courtauld, but I'm afraid the British Museum never got finished.   It was also well situated for food, restaurants in Queensway when we were flush and when money was tight (the usual) the shop around the corner that sold real Turkish delight, fresh figs and ready- made cocktails in sweet little metal containers.

The house we lived in was divided into studio flats, apart from the basement which was a proper flat.  The basement was the home of this very good looking actor who was usually seen in a black leather jacket, smoking gauloises.  He had an incredibly thin, blonde girl friend called Alison - they seemed to spend most of their time arguing, but we decided that living next to the dustbins would make even the most serene people argumentative.

The house was always busy with an almost constant stream of men - they tended to be quite chatty when I was on my own but not so friendly when Boyfriend was with me.  It took a rather more worldly-wise friend to point out that most of the female occupants were on the game and that the friendly guys were their clients.