Dear Diary: feeling the difference

Dear Diary
It is six months since I quit the Big Smoke for woodsmoke and boy, don’t I feel the difference that it has made! I no longer wake up in the morning, dreading the thought of the Underground. Instead, I walk across a stretch of stony ground to the teashop where I work: yes, I have found a job. I wait on tables, serving English breakfast, all day long. And heaps of sandwiches. And mountains of scones. And rivers of jam and clotted cream. And in the evening, I walk back along the stony ground, to the house in which I room. It is occupied by a number of people such as me, all rooming cheaply in order to save money so that we can buy our own houses. How exactly do we save money? Let me tell the ways.
First, we save on electric because no washing machine is plumbed into the house. Because of this, clothes’ washing could be a problem but we have the option of rinsing our towels and undies in the bath, or in the stream that runs past the back of the house, or using the local laundrette. I opt for the latter since Albert is ever lolling in the bath. And copious rodents occupy the banks of the stream. But I offset my lauderette fee against what I would have spent on electric and come out with a profit of – 2 pence. As they say, every little helps. Nor do I spend money on wastefuls such as food: Moll, the teashop proprietor, hands over the unsold sandwiches every evening, plus scones and cream and jam. I can just about subsist on this diet until about 2050, when I reckon to have raised a house deposit. And we can all manage without Netflix TV, since infotainment is via phone. But it gets better. One evening, the ever-enterprising Albert called a house meeting in which he outlined a plan by which we could buy a house sooner. Instead of the five of us trying to buy separately (he said) let us pool our pennies and buy a house together. And to help pay the mortgage, we need not bother with a plumbed washing machine or Netflix TV. And we can live on leftover food, just as we do now. I trust we will feel the difference.
(to be continued)