Today I utilised my Pru-Health membership to its fullest degree! Through Pru I was able to join the new Virgin Active gym in the South Stand of Twickenham Stadium for the bargain price of thirty five pounds a month, which is less than half the price paid by mere mortals.
A year ago, had you asked me to pay fifty pence a month for life time access to The Ritz I would have shooed you away. That would have equated to exactly half of one very difficult month’s entire food allowance.
I can assure you that this is no literary exaggeration. Couple the food prices of the North-East with a hungry student’s ability to sniff out a bargain and you have yourself a hefty crate of expired Super Noodles, or their less known equivalent.
But, this month I am a millionaire. Well, it’s all relative. Though still a student (on an MA course), I now have a part time job and have moved back in with my overly generous Mum, once described by a teacher with whom she had remonstrated as “feirce in defence of her young”.
I now enjoy three luxuries from which I have, for the last three years, been deprived.
I eat for free. Never again will I engage in the shameful act of collecting the discounted Big-Mac vouchers on the back of bus tickets.
I live for free. Free from the perpetual harassment of landlords who cheerily let a houseful of prespective tenants into your bedroom as you lie, hung over, naked, and wishing to God you had mustered the energy to get underneath the duvet last night.
I switch on lights for free and in the winter months, I fully intend to turn on the heating. Yes, that’s right, I will run the boiler until it does exactly that. I will have long, warm showers, sit in artificial light that doesn’t reduce the room to darkness every time someone sneezes, and if I want to, I will fall asleep to the hum of Formula 1 on my television set.
It’s good to be home.
