Is it 'common' to smoke on your front step?

[LookAtTheFlowersKerry]

My mother has spotted my decorative boot ashtray out the front. She is HORRIFIED.

I smoke out the front if it's raining (there's a covered bit, porchy thing). Otherwise I smoke out the back.

My mother says it's terribly low class and my neighbours will all judge me. They normally just say hello tbh, and comment on the shitty weather.

Is she right though? Am I committing a terrible faux pas?

What's worse is that I'm often in my pjs and slippers...

Aibu?

I am skirting a fine line though...I walked down the drive to pick up the wheelie bin, not only a day late, but in my slippers shock

I go everywhere in my 'slippers' when I'm in pain with my back. To be fair, they're not the giant fluffy bunny type but they are old and battered an old pair of sandal type pair of shoes from Primark that are incredibly comfy to wear. Now I want some fluffy bunny slippers. My DD got bought unicorn slippers for Christmas off DM. I'm still jealous.

This council thing needs clarifying though. Is there tiers? I'm asking because at the last election our estate was covered in tory and ukip posters but we're as chavvy as they come. So are we "looks a bit council" or "looks a teeny bit council"?

Smoking is pretty yuk all round. Front door step or not

Awaywiththepixies

I think it's ok as long as you don't go full council. You should never go full council.

And I can say that cause I'm a council bird

In order to go full council you will need:

A broke piece of furniture in your garden. More points if you still use it

Grass at least as high as mid calf although it will need dog shit

A broken gate, hanging off the hinges at a jaunty angle will also do

Four weeks worth of black bin bags. No recycling obviously

The ability to shout at least 50m down the road

A toddler in pants on a bike too big for them.

An attempt to cheer up the garden by means of an ornamental boot, windmill, fake round tree (broken), gnome.

Bonus bonus points if you have a few Stella cans on the ground or a teen slouched against the wall drinking generic red bull.

Everyone does it where I live (smokers standing in the front garden/outside front door). Often in their pj's. Me included lol. Working class area though. We're all quite common I guess.

Oooh, yes Loup - please start swigging from the bottle!

Any chance you could occasionally spit as well? That would be ace!

Technically I suppose the Duke of Windsor is council (tax-payer subsidised housing) so can smoke on his front step.

His decorative boot must be like this though.

My dm goes outside when she visits us on our naice estate. Do I need to go NC?

Also he smokes a pipe. :)

The only place I smoke at home is at the front door - I only have a tin though, no decorative boots . I feel like I need one now.

My neighbours, nearly every evening, meet outside our houses in their dressing gowns and slippers, have a cuppa, smoke and natter. Come wind rain or shine. I sometimes occasionally join them (fully dressed mind) but excluding hair rollers you'd think we lived in the 1940s. I think it's because they're both in their 20s and single mum's and enjoy the company but can't physically go into each others houses while the kids are asleep but it's for hours, talking under my window. But it's also kind of sweet.

I use a heavy glass ashtray, that gets emptied regularly. In the winter it lives on top of my gas box (under a porch thing), in good weather, on the table (with chairs, non broken) in my front garden, as in the summer, the sun is best out the front, and we can sit there and have a drink (usually a cuppa or lemonade) and watch ds play (we live in a cul de sac with a bollarded off bit at the top end where kids can play safely). We have a bench too, under the window.

At night, I often stand in my front garden looking through my telescope (at the sky obviously lol), sometimes I take a cuppa out, and stop for a smoke. I can't see the stars in draco or ursa major from my back garden. I'm glad most of my neighbours are as common as I am

I too smoke out the back rather than on the porch but this is only because most of the time I have no make up on and always wear my housecoat over my clothes during the day - don't want my neighbours thinking I'm a slob that's just got out of bed at 3 in the afternoon lol! I have a little wall to sit on in my back garden and can keep an eye on DD through the French windows - my ashtray is a manky plastic pot full of brown water - classy!

Whether I'd notice or not would really depend on the other circumstances. If you're smoking in a well maintained garden I wouldn't bat an eyelid. If (as I saw the other week) you are standing in a front garden containing a burnt sofa, rusty pram and lots of rubbish, and you're resting your can of strong lager on your wheelie bin while you smoke, spit and swear at the kids, yes I'd probably think you were "common".

Go the whole hog and pick up your ciggies in your local supermarket in your pyjamas with curlers in.

My SIL is pretty fashionable and came to visit "The North", not realizing that people here walk around in pyjamas all day. She was dressed bang on trend in "fashion pyjamas". see: www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/fashion/style/a46022/aw16-trend-pyjama-tops/

She thought the city was quite fashionable until she saw the curlers and ugg boots and realized people had just gotten out of bed!

^In order to go full council you will need:

A broke piece of furniture in your garden. More points if you still use it

It's a chair that no one sits on and it's in my back garden for smoking visitors to balance precariously on instead because when we chucked it out we didn't stop to think if it'd fit through the back gate

Grass at least as high as mid calf although it will need dog shit

Grass jungle length yes but no dogshit. Do I tick yes or no here?

A broken gate, hanging off the hinges at a jaunty angle will also do

The latch is broke but not hanging off just yet.

Four weeks worth of black bin bags. No recycling obviously

Nah. I have a recycling bin AND I use it.

The ability to shout at least 50m down the road

I can shout 100m down the road if necessary

A toddler in pants on a bike too big for them.

An attempt to cheer up the garden by means of an ornamental boot, windmill, fake round tree (broken), gnome.

I'm way classier than that innit? I have dragonfly and butterfly garden lights. Because reasons.

Bonus bonus points if you have a few Stella cans on the ground or a teen slouched against the wall drinking generic red bull.

Now you're just being silly Littlelanecountrygirl. Euroshopper energy drinks are just as radioactive and only costs 35p.

It's common to smoke full stop.

There's an old man on my route to work where I get stuck in traffic who comes out with a plastic chair and sits on his doorstep smoking, watching the world go by. I have only ever thought it was sweet and that he probably doesn't have a back garden! Genuinely my only thoughts. Never considered it would be common.

Littlelanecountrygirl

In order to go full council you will need:

A broke piece of furniture in your garden. More points if you still use it

Grass at least as high as mid calf although it will need dog shit

A broken gate, hanging off the hinges at a jaunty angle will also do

Four weeks worth of black bin bags. No recycling obviously

The ability to shout at least 50m down the road

A toddler in pants on a bike too big for them.

An attempt to cheer up the garden by means of an ornamental boot, windmill, fake round tree (broken), gnome.

Bonus bonus points if you have a few Stella cans on the ground or a teen slouched against the wall drinking generic red bull.

What a very snobbish post. Have you been watching programmes like "Shameless"?

Happy perhaps I could go one up on the spitting and start chewing tobacco (boak) and spitting that instead? Might be something I have to practice though, could be worth the effort

I do have a doberman too (who has been professionally personally protection trained), she lies at my feet on the verandah, does she add to the image or do I need to trade her in for a pitbull? She has a camouflage collar though...

personal, not personally

Are you someone important loup ?

User she's joking.

I have only ever thought it was sweet and that he probably doesn't have a back garden! Genuinely my only thoughts. Never considered it would be common.

He might have. But you can't people watch from your back garden as effectively

dowhatnow no, but my ex dp, who is still my closest friend, is. Why do you ask?