Help! I need somebody, well somebody's brain at least ;-)

[dragonyphoenix]

Okay, I'm writing a story for, um, Summer of Giles I believe. I need to know what Giles' family home would be like. Where he might have grown up, what the house would look like (Faith's PoV), and a vague description (main roads) of how to get there from London.

Comments

[gillo]

They used Tony Head's own real house for the scenes with Willow in England at the start of S7, so why not work on that as an assumption that it's his family home? We're told it's in Westbury, near Bath, which is a nice area. (Google images will show you lots of pretty pictures.) The real Westbury is closer to Bristol, but you can still use the name.

The area is quite lush. It rains a fair bit. The route there would be the motorway, the M4 from Heathrow, then the Bath turnoff, I think onto the A4.

It would look very old to Faith, and some of the furnishings might seem a bit shabby. Americans often seem to find our bathrooms odd. The heating would be patchy in old houses, and she might find the lack of central air weird. Heating might be by big old radiators, or even just an open fire. She'd possibly need to find an extra sweater. (We call those jumpers, BTW.)

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Awesome idea. thank you. That's perfect. And it gives me an excuse to watch S7 again!

Oh, and it's extra fun because I grew up in Westbury, New York. *huge grin*

[gillo]

That's a nice added touch. And a house like that would never have screens on the doors or windows, no form of aircon and if something isn't working properly, "We've had it for years; it'll do." is considered an adequate explanation. If a thing is historical it is always worth keeping.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

No screens? How do you keep flies and moths out?

if something isn't working properly, "We've had it for years; it'll do." Wow, that's totally my attitude! ;-)

[gillo]

We close the windows. Honestly, it's quite rare for it to be so warm after dark for us to leave windows open with lights on. Flies don't seem affected much, and moths aren't much of a bother. We don't have many biting insects. Americans are often surprised by this - Faith would probably be astonished.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

She will have been in London, at least, for a while before this fic. It's comics AU, a Giles coming back as a 12 year old story.

I recall one guy from England who came to visit a friend of mine. (They are married and living in England now.) He asked us what the noise was and it turned out to be cicadas, which is a kind of bug we have here. The thing is it took us a while for us to figure out what he was talking about. We're so used to them we didn't actually hear them at first.

You have the most awesome icons!

[gillo]

London is a whole different country. If that's all Faith knows of England, she might assume lots of restaurants deliver, 24 hour public transport exists and nobody is sppoked by unusual skin colours (races, demons, etc.) Rural Britain is somewhat different.

Thanks - I make most of my icons myself, so they tend to mean something to me.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've only been to London for a short visit myself so I did not know all of that. Thanks.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

The old radiators would look like something from this site (http://www.theoldradiatorcompany.co.uk/)?

[gillo]

Pretty much. Big enough to sit on, like the four-column painted example on that site.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

While I'm bugging you with questions, I was going to ask if the drink is called hot chocolate, hot cocoa, or something else I'd never think of over there.

But, I think a better question would be what would Giles have liked to drink as a kid? Something warm, chilly night kind of a drink. I'm thinking Faith would get back from a patrol and Giles' mother would send her in with a drink for him. Maybe she'd make a cup for Faith as well.

Thanks!

[gillo]

Hot chocolate or drinking chocolate.

Giles might have liked Horlicks or Ovaltine, both hot milky drinks with malt (and sugar. Way too much for my taste.) I dislike both, so it's always possible he grew out of them too.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thanks