Walking Home from Marylebone Station & Stuff

Walking Home from Work

My friend Jeannette says she thinks that in years past the fan lights over front doors were used to identify the houses sort of like a numbering system (“scheme” is a more appropriate British term than “system” – a lot of schemes going on over here). I didn’t research this, so can’t swear to it. Jeannette qualified her musing with “or something like that.” Maybe there were a large number of immigrants or illiterate people for whom this system was useful. It’s an interesting notion anyway, isn’t it, to think that maybe your home was “outside edge scallop fanlight house” or “12 pane/3 row fanlight house” or something like that.

On this night as I was walking home from Marylebone station, I thought about Jeannette’s comment & decided I’d share a few fan lights with you. Would have been better pictures had more people been home, but perhaps I’ll get those fanlights another time! Most of these houses are on Gloucester (“Glouster,” of course) Place, the street that runs parallel to Baker Street. Looking down one of the connecting streets (between G & B) yields the view of the pretty white-painted, pink up-lighted, Sherlock Holmes Hotel. Maybe if I’d used my real camera and messed with the settings about 5 minutes, you’d have a prettier view of the hotel, but just work a little yourself & use your imagination!

Another side-street view shows the BT (British Telecommunications (think AT&T or Ma Bell)) tower, a well-known silhouette on the London Skyline. And high above Baker Street and my street shines the big bright blobby moon!

Now here is my street which is an alley or “mews” street between Mama Gloucester and Daddy Baker. My neighbours (guess I must have turned on “British” English at some point; my spellchecker no longer likes “neighbors”) and church friends told me that much of the area where I live was bombed out during World War II; thus for a long time, my street was a big wide vacant pavement stripped of it’s old “mews” houses until recently my (leasehold – see Portman blog post) landlord put up this row of brand new mews houses.

And what the heck is a mews you may be musing to yourself? Well, a mews is an alley or small street behind or to the side of mansions (now mostly rented flats, but Madonna’s place somewhere near here could most likely still be called a mansion) where servants lived and stables were maintained. They’re usually narrow row houses where all floors are rented as a singular unit, as opposed to a flat which is commonly one floor of an old mansion house. (A flat might be a wide as a mews house is tall!)

On the other side of my street, just before you come to my house, notice the recording studio on the right. Obviously refurbished, it’s huge round windows are reminiscent of the 60s or 70s and stand in contrast to the little neighbouring mews houses with their stable-looking garage doors. (My friend who lives near here in an authentic mews house couldn’t get her first-bought car in the garage & had to sell it & get a skinner car!)

Finally we have arrived at my house with its bright red door and when you open the door you see the very modern kitchen to the right and the very lovely soft-toned oak stairs straight ahead. I have not been able to bring myself to discard the sad pair of Clarke clogs on the steps. I do love my Clarkes. At least 10 years old, these were my second pair of Clarkes ever and apparently the heat from being shipped over here & stored in who knows how high temperatures was more than their poor soles could bear. On a recent shopping outing, I thought my feet felt airier than normal. When I looked down I saw that my poor Clarkes were yawning at me! The tops are still good and have served me so well, I may look up one of those brass plating outfits that does baby shoes & see what they can do for my beloved, trusty Clarkes!

A few more pieces of trivia. . . . 1) Oyster Card: This is what gets me to work & back daily. I “top it off” at Marylebone Station whenever it runs low & can use it instead of an individual ticket on anything that’s part of London Transit (trains, buses, tubes). 2) My coin purses: I carry two – one with American money & one with British money. If I’m going to the continent (oh, so sophisticated, now, aren’t you, country girl?) I replace the American money with Euros. 3) Electricity: This deserves its own paragraphs.

Electricity: After reading up on the electrical situation here, I got rid of all my 110V stuff except an extra sewing machine I had and a couple of things I brought inadvertently (really hard to go completely through all your stuff). So the UK surge protector has plugged into it the kind of converter you need (this particular one can be used most places worldwide) to essentially convert between the differing plug styles. You only use converters for things that already have the capability of using either 110V or 240V or anywhere in between. That big boxy looking thing you see is an actual transformer that reduces the voltage coming out of the wall to something a 110er can take. This is for short term use only, though; they say long term use will eventually eat the 110er up!

Electricity2: Notice the very nice modern, guest bathroom. How many electrical plugs do you reckon you’ll find there? To my surprise the answer was ONE AND ONLY ONE PLUG THAT CAN ONLY BE USED BY AN ELECTRIC RAZOR!!!!! Too dangerous to have electrical appliances in the bathroom. Period; end of statement. Although other countries with 240V flowing through their walls reckon that it’s not too dangerous to use a curling iron or blow dryer in the bathroom, UK knows better. After that big fire in the mid 1600s, they are taking no changes here! (p.s., that big fire is why all the buildings here are now brick.)

And here’s a bonus comment: What do you call a half bath near an entry for guests to use? Powder room? Half bath? Toilet? Loo? None of the aforementioned is correct. This room is called a cloakroom. Why, I am not sure. You may be able to hang one cloak on a door hook, maybe two, but that’s about it. Maybe it’s too unseemly to mention real function of the room to guests, requiring one to “cloak” its purpose with a more polite term.