South House, South Street, Dorking - View from the Penthouse

Aw...brings back lots of happy memories - this panoramic splice (more great finds from the archive) - living in "The Penthouse" (flats on top of South House in Dorking)...every Friday night was hilarious theatre, we used to crack open a few beers, sit out on the balcony and watch the fun when the pubs kicked out (complete with police breaking up all the fights), during the day it was a succession of people failing to parallel park (often crashing into other vehicles) oblivious to our tears of hilarity and muffled guffaws from above...at parties having paper plane distance competitions (the ultimate goal being to land on the roof of the building opposite) -

- growing the most successful tomato plants in the history of culinary horticulture (imho anyway) as the balcony was the ultimate sun-trap, and relishing the ability to wake up, throw back the curtains in the living room (the whole back wall was glass) and lord it over the Surrey Hills...what a fantastic place to live...not to mention that within 2 minutes walk was Waitrose, a Video/Game hire shop, 2 Curry houses (including the best in Dorking), 2 Chinese restaurants and an off-licence...it was practically perfect...

Of course, when it came time to move to the house, getting all the crap out was a bloody nightmare (4 flights of un-even stairs), those, I *won't* miss (especially dragging the bikes up, or 15 bags of shopping)...but the time living there was priceless...