My Houses

[gemsybobsy]

I have been playing with Google Street View (inspired by zdeslava's post t'other day) and I found all my old houses.



Netley View, Hythe
I don't know which one it is... my memory tells me it's the one right on the end, but I can't be sure. This isn't the first house I ever lived in (Mum and Dad lived in Blackfield when I was born I think and somewhere else after that maybe) but it's the first one I remember. I don't remember a lot though. One of my earliest memories is being on a swing with my sis and it tipping over backwards. That might've happened here. It was definitely in a Netley View garden, haha.

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Kensington Fields, Hythe
Again I don't know exactly which house, but it was a two-up-two-down like those ones... I think we might've had the one on the end again. I remember our next door neighbour was called Briggy. Dad was talking about him the other night actually. I don't think I'd be able to remember his face though. We moved here when I was about 4 or 5 I think, and I remember Mum walking up Challenger Way with us in a double buggy, and walking through the cutway by Noadswood School and stomping in puddles in my wellies. This must've been when we went to Orchard Playgroup! Where I met Dave, but didn't realise I had met Dave at that age until about 4 years ago, when he found a photo of both of us dressed as a bride and groom! Anyway... house. I remember it having a burgundy bathroom suite. It was a new house, so it must've been the fashion. Fail. Even at that age I knew coloured bathroom suites were a bit wrong. It showed up all the limescale!

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Fernhills Road, Hythe
We moved here when I was about 5 or 6, the house with all my favourite memories! We lived here when Leeps was born, and I remember that morning so clearly; Dad coming in to tell us we had a baby brother! Dad converted one long bedroom into two. Nik and me shared the room with the window right above that caravan. We had an awesome room. '90s wallpaper that looked like hundreds and thousands! Bright red, blue and yellow, with massive cabin beds. So awesome. Then when we got older and started going to secondary school we got bunkbeds and a TV and grown-up floral wallpaper. We didn't have that extension bit on the side when we lived there, but we had a little side porch and a cupboard which some people in the area had as a WC but we had our own toy shed! And a wendy house. Dad had a massive aviary full of birdies. We had rabbits and ferrets and later on we got Pippa the westie. 

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Hollybank
We moved here when I was 13 and in my second year of secondary school. It was then a 4-bedroom bungalow, so that meant I GOT MY OWN ROOM! So exciting. I didn't leave it for the first two weeks! We were allowed to go into the new house early as it was empty, and I used to walk home from school (it was SO nice not to have to get on the bus with the scary big kids anymore!) and meet Dad there and help redecorate my NEW ROOM! My teenage years were spent here, so not the happiest of times for me - although of course there were some happy memories - I lived there for 11 years in total. And it looked like this when we lived there:



Heehee, bless it. My auntie and uncle and cousins live in the done-up version. It was awesome to be able to see it change into the epic house it is now. It's MASSIVE. They could turn their lounge into two studio flats. Moar about this house!

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Portswood
I left college in 2001 and got a job and learnt to drive and by 2005 I was already bored of my life. Anna asked me if I fancied getting a flat with her in town because she was sick of living with boys, so I did. I fancied a big change, and that's what I got! It was such a cute little flat, only half a minute's walk from the highstreet. It was so weird having a New Look and a KFC as 'local shops'! The window in the bottom corner by the tree was my bedroom and the ground floor French doors were ours, leading out from our tiny lounge. The kitchen was like a cupboard! Because we were on the ground floor it was like we had our own garden. We had a few barbeques and parties. Looking back I wonder if it was the right decision, moving out when I did. I was really, really excited about it and it turned out to be a bit WOAH. I went quite a bit nuts, my depression from college years came back worse and far from feeling free and independent I felt completely trapped, like I'd thrown myself straight into a life of paying the bills and living for Friday night and waiting for annual holidays and I couldn't even have a dog. I was a twenty minute walk away from my favourite pubs and clubs but couldn't afford to go out, and when I did people were bastards to me, and my friends would want to go to all these parties with people who lived in town and if I didn't want to go there was no escape and no-one to come home to... aaargh, and then I'd get home, drunk and tearful, and find chavs and randomers hanging around by that hedge, inches from our windows... so I'd turn the lights off in my room and hide... and once someone started a fire in the hedge over the road... Still, flat was so cute. Shame they wouldn't let me have a dog!

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Bitterne
Ahhh the good ol' Hundwagen in the drive there. :) Catch up, Google! On a goddamn crossroad, right under a flightpath and inches from the train station... it's Anna's house! It's so lovely. Well, it will be when it's finished. My room looks over the back garden, and it's a cosy little den of safe. It took a while for me to settle here and sort my life out though... I left my job and went self-employed and went about failing and trying things and failing again and... after asking and asking and asking and Anna saying, "It's not the right time, not yet, not yet..." DOGGIES. We've been here since 2006 and I feel completely safe and comfortable when I'm in the house, with Floyd and Didz. We're all getting a bit bored of the city now though. Everyone's moved on from Southampton, which is kind of a relief, and we want a Forest cottage. I'm sick of the 3am motorbike races, the sirens and car alarms. I miss having a proper local pub and I miss walking places after dark without risking being stabbed in the face because I'm wearing the same top as some coked-up twat. Well up for moving again right now, tbh. Just wish we could move this house!