Life in Digs...

For the first time in my living-arrangements-career, I am in what could possibly be classified as digs. I have lived with family, I have lived with friends and I have lived alone. I have lived in houses, town-houses, appartments and flats, in barracks and hotels and I have lived in backpackers, but never in quite this situation.

I am now living in an old, very large house, which used to be a B&B of some description. I guess you would call it a boarding house, if this were the 1950s, only in this day and age we have to cater for ourselves. I have a room to myself with a lock on my room's door, but am sharing the facilities with possibly 10 to 14 other people. Yes, that many.

Now, that's actually not as bad as it sounds. There are eight official 'Rooms' in this place, but two (those which I believe have couples living in them) are en-suite, so I actually only share two bathrooms with as few as five, but possibly 10 other people, if each room actually has a couple living-in which I don't believe. I don't know how many are really here, but there is only one bed in each room so maximum of 14 others. I've met five of the housemates in passing, but I've caught glimpses of another two and then a few are supposed to be on holiday, and I've heard but not seen another couple...

Anyway, I don't think you can call it a share-house, as we don't have to ever talk to each other. There are no shared bills and each room has their own allocated cupboards in the kitchen and have to supply their own dishes and plates and saucepans and washing-up liquid and laundry powder. You even have to take your own toilet paper to the loo each time you go as that's not shared either. We all pay the landlord for all bills and he has a cleaner who looks after the common areas and that's that.

I guess this'd be like living in one of the huge share houses in London, where everyone is crammed in and living on top of each other. Only, we're not. Crammed I mean. My current bedroom is definitely the biggest room I've ever slept in. But then I always thought of those share-house arrangements as being a lot more communal.

So is this a classifiable living arrangement? Is this a boarding-house-without-board or digs or a classification of share house I've never heard of before?

I suppose others will tell me it's not so unusual so maybe won't find it strange. But this living-alone-with-other-people-who-you-never-see thing is rather weird to me. Detached but a part. Apart but together. Isolated in a crowd. Alone but not.

So and so. Strange to me.