The Yank Has Landed

New Directions:

Bridget McKenna
The Little Apple, Room #3
98 Kennington Lane
London SE11 4XD
U.K.

Jill has indeed secured me Room #3 as you can see from the address above. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the workmen aren’t finished laying the new wood floor in that room (the old one appears to be about as old as the building, which I suspect is nearly as old as the United States of America. It’s listed by Heritage Pubs, which implies a certain antiquity, as does the architecture). But the other good news is that Gerry left for a week in Ireland last night and left me the key to his room, so I have a place to stow my bags and sleep for now. Presumably they can’t work so slow that I won’t be in my own room by next Tuesday.

Gerry’s room is on the first floor, just upstairs from the pub. If you look at the picture below, I’m behind the right-hand window, almost directly above the front entrance. You can see in the picture I took that the window was slightly open. It still is. Jill says the Guv’nor’s neice lives in the room across the hall. The Guv’nor doesn’t yet know about the emergency housing scheme, but she’s going to tell him so he won’t worry about why someone who doesn’t work here is running around behind the Private Entrance. On the room side of the Private Entrance is a sign that reads “Please be sure this door is locked at all times.” As far as Jill knows it’s never been locked, but she gave me a key to it just in case, and one to Gerry’s room, and warned me that you can’t lock the room door from the inside without locking yourself in until someone can get you out with another key.

My room is upstairs of this one – I believe the third or perhaps the fourth little dormer from the left.