*** I smoke cigarettes in my house ***

*** No requests more than 3 weeks in the future ***

*** Intolerance has no place in this house ***

*** This is not a free hostel - it's my home. Please respect that if you are offered some free accommodation, I expect that you'll spend five minutes reading my profile to see if my place suits you ***

*** There is no spare room, you will be sleeping in the living room ***

*** I'm fully vaccinated, and you should be too ***

I'm 54 and enjoy travel. Open-minded as to lifestyle. Don't drink or take drugs but do smoke cigarettes. If you come home drunk you'll be looking for a new host in the morning.

The place is a mess, it's the way it is. It gets swept and the floor cleaned and surfaces sometimes dusted, but it's London and if you have a real allergy to dust then I'm not the host for you.

I've been involved in a number of industries - market research while studying, IT help desking, mental health, EFL teaching and my last employment was as a preschool teacher, which is the best work I've had the pleasure of doing.

LBGTQIA+ - I welcome everyone and expect that you will, too - you may not be the only guest(s) here.

Life's too short to be stuck in a job you hate, and you're never too old to retrain!

I work as a community manager for an online game. You won't know the game, but it keeps me really busy.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I love travel, and other travellers are the next best thing to being abroad myself!

Did someone tell you Couchsurfing was a free way to travel around the world? It's not free. Not for me, anyway. I've bought extra bedding for guests; it takes money and time to wash your bedding once you're gone; and when you do laundry, cook, use the fridge or electricity here, it's NOT FREE FOR ME. Please respect that my money, my actual money, goes into hosting you. Similarly, I appreciate that when you host me, your actual money goes into having me there. I will not come with empty hands.

What you'll get while you're here:

Washing machine and somewhere to hang your things to dry
A sofabed, opens out to a double
A mess. It's there, just turn a blind eye to it. I do.
Close to Clapham Junction station. Very close. I could throw rocks at it, and am frequently tempted
Flexibility
Somewhere to cook and a fairly decent spice cupboard
Traffic noise - cars, buses, lorries, planes, drunk people.
PS3 and games (I'd have to find the PS3 though)
Duvet and pillows only for guests
No bedbugs - and I don't want them. If you bring them, be prepared for a scathing review and a bill for the fumigator.
Excellent transport links to anywhere in the country. 45 minutes to Gatwick, an hour and a bit to Heathrow, 1.5 hours to Luton. We don't talk about Stansted, SarfEnd is dead to us, and LCY is only used by wankers (https://youtu.be/AbAal7jIWQ4?t=572).

BRING YOUR SENSE OF HUMOUR.

When you send a request, I expect an interesting story to show you've read this far. I'll make you work for that one night stay. :)

Interests

• opera
• languages
• travel
• aerospace
• other cultures
• strategy games
• online communities

Music, Movies, and Books

Favourite music: Nixon in China. Currently obsessed with Philip Glass's Akhnaten.

Movie: Who has time?

Book: reading Mary Trump's book on how to raise a psychopath.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

December 23, 2008. Standing on the crater rim of Vesuvio. Fog all around - just me and the volcano.

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach: I don't know - is there something you want to learn and I have a vague idea of? Happy to blunder toward understanding it with you - it's more fun with company :D

Learn: everything. There's no topic too obscure or boring. Even bricks. Really. Where would our houses be without them?

Share: stories and experiences!

Ever gotten the wrong train and ended up in the wrong country?

Have you ventured out to find you were navigating by the sun in the other hemisphere?

Never been taken PoW by the Chinese, but shared a house once with a man who was. Not recommended.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I can cook, mind my own business, and am an excellent sleeper. Cooking, sewing, ironing, crochet lessons, etc. If you need grocery or other shopping, I'll gladly pick it up for you during the day; in exchange for a sofa for a night or longer. If you have an artistic project you've been feeling a bit tired with, maybe it's something we can work on together for a while until you find your mojo (crap at drawing/painting, though!). I really enjoy hands-on artistic work - ceramics, woodworking, crochet - 3D and I'm all over it.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Czech Republic, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom