Sunday 27 December 2009

How To “Cure” A Fantasy

I've always found prison-type fantasies somewhat hot. Workhouse girls, being trapped, unable to escape, at someone's mercy, powerless. Even the cold shower thing, though I protest that I can't think of anything more horrible, holds a certain appeal as something to be tried, at least once.

The last few days, however, have cured me of any notion of prison fantasies being hot. For those who have not already seen me whinging on Twitter or on here, the South East of England, where I live, has been suffering from the worst snow that we've seen... well, probably in at least 20 years. Not only is it the worst snow, but during the last 20 years, money that used to be allocated to things like gritting and snow plows is now allocated to other things. Of course, most of the time we have one or two days of snow which melts very quickly, so this is fine. It's not fine though, when we have 15 cm of snow, live in a town that is basically built on both sides of a very steep hill, and the town has no grit. Even the main roads through the town are not being properly treated, let alone the mile of hilly side roads you have to negotiate from my house to GET to the main roads. So, for six days, I've been pretty much unable to go in my car anywhere. Which in itself is not a problem. I have legs, I can walk. Well, I have legs, but for reasons far too complicated to explain, all my hiking boots and shoes with grip were not at my house over this period. They were 2 miles away. Uphill. On icy roads and pavements. So in order to walk anywhere safely without doing myself some sort of major damage, I would have needed to first walk to get my boots. So, effectively, I was trapped.

This in itself was somewhat frustrating, but I could cope. I mean, how long does snow last round here? No more than two days... (The answer to that question is, in fact, one week, and counting!)
The situation was compounded, though, on the evening of the second day of the snow when I noticed a damp patch in the house. Investigations revealed a leak in the pipes that led to my bathroom, so the tank that fed them had to be drained by a kind plumber who had walked to my house. Leaving me with just the cold kitchen tap. So I soon learnt what life was like when you were having to fill toilet cisterns from the tap to flush (believe me, you flush a lot less!) and washing in an inch of lukewarm water in the bath, having boiled the kettle six times. It is, to be honest, not that much fun. Obviously there are a lot worse things that can happen in life, but being trapped in your house with just the one cold tap makes you pretty quickly stop thinking prison or workhouse fantasies would be in any way hot!
I'm sure once these memories have faded I'll be back dreaming of workhouse thrashings and cold showers again, but just for now, no thanks!

3 comments:

Haron said...

Yeah... I knew things were bad when I saw that our local Sainsbury's had sold out of salt.

Paul said...

Eliane, this sounds bad, I hope things are sorted for you soon.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Might I suggest that word verification sums it up nicely.
cardi

Jessica said...

Arghgh!

Why didn't you ring oh ditzy one! We are only half an hour away and We'd have come and resucued you and taken you away to hot food and christmas lamb! And we have shoes with grips and our roads are salted (gotta love the Tories!)
Anyway hope you are now rescued!