DADDY G IN DA HOUSE!

My dad came to visit me for the first time at unit 24 of Oslo house, last year and even though he called it the commune, I know that my dad secretly loved it. I know this because he couldn't wait to arrange his next visit, and the other weekend this visit finally occurred. It couldn't have happened at a better time. I was feeling fragile and needed the distraction and the security of a parent. My father was so excited about the weekend he had texted me the weather forecast and had consulted me at what outfits he should bring for the trip. He was unsure as we were going to watch Warhorse at the theatre on our first night. We had tried to go and watch the show on his last visit but we had been too unorganised to buy tickets in advance and it was sold out.
My father complemented itself on what good seats he had got for us (which in truth they were) and nearly had a heart attack when he paid £30 for 4 gin and tonics at the theatre bar ( to be fair though, so did I!) but we both went home with smiles on our faces after watching a magical performce.
The next morning we awoke early as we both wanted to go and see the Da Vinci exhibition. We arrived at 9.30 am before the museum opened at 10am.
"Look Dad. The queue is not to big" I said as I proudly joined the back of the line.
"I'm afraid the queue is shut" said a guard to me. "It was shut at 7am due to the amount of people we had".
"What the hell! " I stand there in shock. "Come on Dad. We will never get into this exhibition unless your a complete weirdo and camp out from 5am in the morning, and I love Da Vinci but not that bloody much!"
We go and have a fry up instead. Well actually I don't as I don't like fry up's (I should of added that to my list of food phobias)! I just have a nice Danish pastry!
The good thing about having guests in London is you actually go and see things you have never seen before. When you live somewhere, you don't do the tourist things. My dads visit gave me the perfect excuse to do something touristy. I'd never been inside Westminster Abbey before and me being the history geek I am and the Abbey being one of the most important historical places in the country, it had always been on my to do list. We were then entertained with our own audio guide tour with the soothing voice of Jeremy Irons for the next couple of hours. I was not disappointed and had an amazing afternoon though as I was looking at the kings and Queens tombs I realised those people in the olden days were total midgets (maybe they are related to the Mexicans)?

My dad hasn't met many of my friends, so I decided it was time he did.
"Dad we are going for a curry with the girls tonight, you don't mind do you?"
"No Carly. You know I never mind the company of women."
No, you bloody don't and that's always been your problem in life, I thought! So off we went to Tooting and I did throw my Dad in at the deep end due to the fact that I introduced him firstly to my close knit, most feisty group of friends: Debs; Evans and Becky. We all met at uni and have known each other for 12 years now (God! I feel old!) but we are all as thick as thieves and when you get us together you can't bloody shut us up! My father did very well. He was social able; charming; entertaining and if I remember rightly didn't tell any bad Dad jokes. At the end of the night when we were going home on the tube he said to me:
"You have a good group of friends there, I can tell. You are very lucky."
Yeah, I thought to myself, I have. We love each other entirely even though we are so different. I know I'll know them even when we are old women. Actually Evans has had a hair brain scheme recently that we should all buy a villa together somewhere like Portugal, for when we retire ( I guess I'm stuck with them forever now!

I had announced the crazy decision that I was going to cook, Sunday roast for 8 people including my father, to impress him! Bare in mind I have never cooked a roast before in my life! I started to realise that I might have been a bit over ambitious, so I turned to my reliable source:
"Oli! Will you help me cook a roast?"
"Yes doll" he said with his usual resigned look.
Come the day of the roast, Oli is still in bed, and Jono pops in for his usual daily visit to inform me in his all so charming way that:
"Oli got twatted last night!"
Oh my God! I'm on my own I think! I take my Dad out to buy the groceries, which is fine though he tells me I've spent to much on the Beef at the butchers and I could of got it for half that price at Tesco's. I tell him, that it's bloody good beef. He tells me that it should be at that price! I get home. Oli still isn't up! I'm stressed now! My father asks what time everyone is coming for dinner? I tell him to read the Sunday papers! He asks me, should we start preparing the dinner right now? Oh my God! I don't know! I've never done this before. Arrrgghhhhh!!!!!! I tell him he's a guest and just to read the papers. I'm stressed now, though I don't say anything. Oli rises. Yeah! He looks super hungover and grumpy. No! I'm on my own! Then something amazing happens.
" Do you still want me to help with the roast?" says hungover Oli.
"Yes! Yes please" I say, like some happy puppy.
The next thing I know, he's taken control of everything and we revert to the roles that we do best in life: Oli is cooking; and I'm entertaining the guests and keeping the drinks flowing! We sit down to the most amazing roast ever, that I can't really take any credit for ( though I must say I did all the peeling!) but who the hell cares, everyone is happy, even Oli who has the hangover from hell. I do believe it might have been my favourite roast ever in Oslo house. Oh! And just so you know Daddy G said the beef was very good in the end. The perfect end, to a perfect weekend.

WII ADDICTION!

I cooked stew and dumplings the other night, for Oli and our friends Jono and Scott (Who feel like part of the furniture these days)! Oli and Jono, after clearing their plates rushed off to Soho to go and see a Chilly Gonzales gig and me and Scott were left there drinking red wine wondering what the hell we were going to do with our Friday night.
"Oh my God! Who's is the Wii" Scott said very excitedly as he spied a box in the corner.
"It's mine" I replied.
My brother had given me his console before he moved to Japan, because he couldn't carry it and wasn't sure if it worked. I brought it back to the flat in fit of excitement.
"Look everyone I got given a wii!" I cried.
The housemates reactions weren't as enthusiastic as mine. Angus looked at it as if I'd brought the devil into the flat; Alex was being too erratic again to notice and Oli did show a slight interest if I remember rightly, but I think that was more at the thought of fixing it, than playing on it (He loves stuff like that). Since then it has just been sat there gathering dust in the corner.
"It probably doesn't even work Scott and I only have one control" I moaned.
"Have you tried? It can work with one control, we just take it in turns" he replied excitedly.
So we tried and it did work, perfectly.

You don't even have to play a game to have fun, as me and Scott just spent the first hour just creating each others Wii character. There not the most flattering as I look like the love child of Steve wonder and Janet Street Porter and Scott looks like an inflated balloon. To fair though I think the one we did for Jono is the worst as he looks like something out of planet of the apes!
I did pre warn Scott about me on the Wii, though I still think he was a bit shocked. In fact after seeing me play tennis he said he'd never seen anything like it! The thing is I really get into it. I just can't sit there and press a button; if I'm bowling I'll do the run up like at a lane( everyone thinks I'm going to go through the TV); when I play tennis my arms swing everywhere (Don't get in my way, or you will get a black eye; and boxing, well boxing, I'm great at boxing. I've always had a lot feist in me, so I really go for it. Boom! Knock out! Boom! Another knock out! Love it!
Oli and Jono returned from Chilly Gonzales at 2am to find me and Scott still playing. It's even later when I decide to retire to bed, leaving the guys to play bowling and with Jono wanting to know why his character looks like Planet of the Apes!

The next morning I wake up and I can hardly move my arms. What a work out. If I do Wii everyday I will have guns! Linn walks down the stairs looking hungover from her previous nights clubbing, but then her eyes light up when she sees the Wii.
"Who's is the Wii?"
"Mine" I reply happily, "Me and Scott were playing on it last night and I'm going to buy another control and some more games."
"No need" said Linn "I have 3 controls and loads of games in my room!"
"Oh my God! Really?"
"Yes really!"
"Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!"
"Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!"
I text Scott straight away to tell him the good news and they we are going to have a Wii day and he's like,
"Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!"
And everything is just, you know,
"Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!"
Now this was the kind of enthusiasm I was expecting. So after this we all lived happily ever after in our Wii addiction heaven.
P.S I still can't move my arms with out them hurting. I better get some bloody muscles from this, to make the pain worth it!

ELECTRIC BLANKET WHORES

I've got two guys in my bed at the moment! Don't get excited, I can't even get one guy in bed these days. No! These guys are of the furry feline type. Yes our cats; Cassius and Hank. My sudden rise in popularity has nothing to with the fact that they love me dearly. No! It's because as the temperature has dropped below freezing, I have got out my winter best friend: The Electric Blanket, and they absolutely love it. They sleep with me ever night now (which means I get Hank screaming in my face at 7.00am, for food)! I don't mind though; being used by the cats. I love them and I haven't got much time left with them, so I have to make the most of it, before it's gone.
Also breaking news, while we are on the cat front! Moonin Troll has finally started to like women! She has always been a boys girl, but she won't leave me and my new housemate Linn alone and sits on ours laps. I was so excited about this, I sent Alex, who is still swanning around Mexico drinking too much Tequila probably, a picture of her sat on my lap. Her main response was:
"She looks fat!"
Alex has a thing about fat people, this also stems down to fat cats, especially if it's her cat! I can imagine her brain going into over drive sat on a Mexican beach somewhere, trying to think of ways to make the cat thin again. Oh God! Its going to be a nightmare if she comes back and finds a fat Moomin Troll. Maybe I should do something about it. Is there weight watches for cats? I'm going to go and google it now.

WELCOME HOME

I never really know what I'm going to come home to on a daily basis in my place in London: a photo shoot in the flat; a cat falling from the ceiling or a gathering that seems to have turned into a party again. So after 5 months away I really, really didn't know what the hell, I was going to find when I walked through the door. To my surprise I found a calm empty house. I had the place to myself. It was quite nice to be eased back into my surroundings. It was still the same, but different. The warehouse which was already cluttered with stuff seemed to have accumulated much more. I find out we have been donated Alex's, dead uncle Roy's stuff, which includes framed pictures of Dead uncle Roy's dead cats, which now sit over Moomin Troll's bed like a shrine; all of dead uncle Roy's ceramic collection, which includes Diana & Charles memorabilia; and pictures of dead uncle Roy himself.

Please add to this a ton of crystal wear which Oli got from working in the art department on the film, The Iron Lady. I tell Oli that maybe we could sell them on eBay and say "As used by Meryl Streep!" I asked if Meryl drank from any of the glasses because then we could add they have Meryl Streep germs too. I don't think Oli likes my eBay idea?

I also see some very unwanted additions! More God dam dolls! Oli keeps finding the most horrible, ugly dolls and puppets around Hackney wick and brings them back to the flat! I'm scared of them and hate them too. In the past the boys of my house, have found it really funny to put them in my bed and sit there waiting to hear my screams when I find them. I got my revenge though, at our Jane Fonda Party when I got some girls who I didn't know to throw them on the bonfire we had going outside, so I wouldn't get in trouble. Unfortunately one of them survived and Oli found out I was the culprit anyway! I'm now thinking of ways to get rid of this new batch!

Three people that were home, were our cats, Hank, Cassius and Moomin Troll. I had missed them so much while I was away and was so excited to see them, but as I greeted and hugged them, they looked at me like a complete stranger. No, I thought! They don't remember me. Well I have been away for 5 months. It will take time.

Oli arrived back and then later the whirlwind that is Alex, and they hadn't changed in the slightest. I realised then how much I loved them and how much I'd missed them. I guess there more than friends to me these days; there like my family also. I sat there chatting and probably boring them with the tales of my travels, for ages but I also felt anxious as I was awaiting the arrival home of 3 people in our house that were strangers to me. I had rented my room out to an Aussie girl called Tylie, Angus who is still traveling had rented his out to a Brazilian guy called Guilherme and my other housemate Rohan had moved in with his girlfriend while I was away, so in his place we had an English guy called Nick. Then suddenly everyone seem to come home at once, add to this our friends Melaine and Jenny bursting in very drunk also, it was all a bit overwhelming and all of a sudden I felt like a stranger in my own home.

Luckily I got to speak to my new housemates in a calmer setting the next day and it didn't take long for me to realise that they were all lovely. My unease was soon put to rest.

Alex being the Miss organised that she is, had decided to have a welcome home BBQ for me, though to be fair it was probably just a good excuse to throw another party in Oslo house. Everyone brought food and booze and I'm proud to say I cooked the best Asparagus and polenta quiche ever. Even Oli said it was amazing, and he's like master chef! This means a lot for girl who's known culinary skills consist of cereal with milk and peanut better on toast.

It was a great BBQ. The sun shone, loads of people turned up. I got to see and catch up with loads of friends and I found my feet once again in London. Alex had purposely invited lots of single guys, and kept coming up to me and saying "Well, do you fancy anyone?"
"No, I'm not really interested", I replied. It's the truth I really wasn't. I was just happy to see my friends, that's what mattered. I've decided that I'm really happy on my own right now. It's a nice feeling. If someone wants me, they can come and get me, as I'm not looking anymore. I'd grown so tired of the London dating scene before I left; all the games; the being messed around. The thought of going back to it fills me with a sense of dread. It still won't stop Alex trying to marry me off though, I expect.

Unfortunately my friend Melaine's new housemate, Greg decided he did want me and started following me around like a puppy dog, and then as he got more drunk started to tell everyone that he was going to "Smash me!" The only thing he smashed that night was himself as he passed out on the living room floor. God! Why do I always get them.

It feels nice to be back, but I've been traveling before and I know that this feeling doesn't last. After the excitement of being back, comes the fall of being back to reality. It's depressing. I know it will hit me, I just don't when and it doesn't matter how prepared you are for it, it always hits hard. Until then I will keep as busy as possible and pretend it won't happen. I start work again tomorrow, for the first time in over 5 months. Now that will be back to reality.

OBSERVATIONS:

* Hank our cat has got fatter

* My cat allergy is back

* People need to smile more in London

THE LAST SUPPER

So this Saturday my friends arranged a leaving meal for me, as I have been so busy and too tired with work to do anything.  Well when I said arranged, they told everyone to come round ours for a meal on Saturday which I would be cooking!  It turns out I'm more popular than I thought, as  I was cooking for 18 persons!  People who know me well, know that I hate cooking.  I get freaked out if I have to do anything more than warm up some soup in a pan.  Luckily Angus came to the rescue by helping me and suggesting we cook his much loved butternut squash risotto, which would also cater for all the bloody vegetarians ( I hate vegetarians, there a pain in the arse!)  He also went to Billingsgate market first thing to get oysters and scallops for the starters (What a star!)  Actually the cooking thing I don't mind once I get into it, and I'm surprisingly alright at it!  The only stress of the night in the end was finding enough places to sit everyone.  Everyone brought a bottle and I proceeded to get more drunk and open the Moet from Billy Piper and drink my new favourite, expensive Whisky, given to me by the West (Dominic West) as a leaving present.  Alex was her usual crazy self by dressing up in Sophie's fox fur and roaming round the house pretending she was an animal for the cats to play with (the girl doesn't even drink really, imagine if she did!)  I was given a special early Crimbo present from Debs, which she got on her job Benidorm.  Its a vest that says "Good girls go to heaven.  Bad girls go to Benidorm."  I have now been laid down the challenge by the girls, to take it traveling with me and have my picture wearing it around as many well known sites in South America as possible; so basically making a tit of my self again.  Luckily I don't care, never have.  That's the good thing about being an exhibitionist.  The night ended with a trek in the snow to a house party on fish island, which we returned from a 5.00am, very cold and slightly bruised, after falling over in the snow so much.  Thanks guys for my  a great last supper and making my last weekend in London for a while, such a special one.  I will miss you, even though I like to tell myself I won't.

SOFAR: SONGS FROM A ROOM

I've started a new job and its heavy going.  Its called The Hour, and is a 1950's drama for the BBC, starring Ben Whishaw (I love him!) and Dominic West.  Its going to look bloody amazing, but the hours (see what I did there) are a killer and after coming straight off the back of Diary of a Call Girl,
 I'm completely knackered.  All week I have been getting in from work and going to straight to bed, so that lights are off most nights at about 9.30pm.  Its ruining my party girl reputation!  So when I parked my car after work on Thursday after another heavy day, I was prepared to go straight to bed, but instead I bumped into my good Friend and neighbour Laura May.  She was all excited and started telling about the event they had organized in there unit that night.  Helen our friend and her flat mate had arranged for a night called Sofar: songs from a room, to be held in their house hold.  Sofar is a night which has different bands playing from some one's own front room.  Thursday there were four bands playing and probably a lot bigger audience than usual, as the warehouses can fit a lot more people in.  I got to sit in the VIP area at the top of warehouse looking down on everything, as I was in there with the crew.  It was a great evening with some great music ( my favourite band of the night was the third, Ex Libras).  Of course it being the wick, there is always something strange going to happen, and it did.  I had the best chat up line ever, or worst depending on which way you look at it.  So I was stood in the corridor having a drink when this guy waltzes up to me and said:
"You look rather nice and your breathing.  Fancy a fuck!"
Well what do you say to that?  "Piss off of course!"  Why do I always get them.  In fact another guy I know asked me if I wanted sex with him that night!  Whats going on?  I had to ask my house mates if they had written on my back "I want a shag!"  They laughed.  Apart from that it was worth staying up for, and was really nice to have a bit of a life for one night.  I paid for it the next day at work though.  You win some, you lose some.

MOTOR BIKES

The latest fad among the boys of unit 24 seems to be motor bikes.  Yes!  Angus & Oli have decided that they want to buy a motor bike each.  This means they are constantly on e-bay looking at bikes, looking in bike mags and checking out which accessories look the coolest.  Oli has even taken his theory test and brought a helmet, which he seems to like wearing at all times, even when reading.  I'm not complaining though.  I love motor bikes.  I travelled the whole of Vietnam on the back of one.  Its just that Motor bikes don't like me, as I have crashed two (Well mopeds, same thing!)  So I do believe it is safer if some one else does the driving for me. It seems like this is going to be a big on going thing in the house so I will keep you posted.  The future is bright.  the future is motor bikes!

A CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Oh Jesus!  Its been so hot lately.  Not like I want to be one of those British people that complain when its hot:  I love the heat,  but Oh boy!  Its been hot.  I came back to London to find the whole flat had turned into a green house!  That's the problem with Oslo House:  Siberia in winter; the Tropics in the summer.  As the week went on and the temperatures got higher, me and the housemates seemed to be stripping off to just the bare essentials, and the place was going to start looking like a nudist resort if the temps when any higher.  One good thing was, it was way to hot for the cats and they just lay passed out all day like normal cats do, instead of running riot round the place and ruining everything in their path.  The only solace there has been is when the evening comes and the breeze from the roof terrace.  It also means that the evening weather is just right for an outdoor party, even better a roof party, and on Friday night that's just what happened.   Our fellow neighbour, the lovely Miss Josephine Chime, has a supper club called The Sit down Affair, which she just happened to be holding at her flat at Oslo House that night.  Due to it being so hot and way to many guests she decided to have it on the lovely roof terrace instead, which I was very pleased about for two reasons:
1. The obvious one, that is was way to hot inside (I know, I keep moaning about the heat).
2. I got to show off my lovely garden that I have been working on all year, which is good, as long as no one decided to piss on it like the last roof party at last years Hackney Wicked!!
So we sat down to a great three course meal in great surroundings, great atmosphere and great music as Josephine & Co had drafted in their mates to DJ.  After the meal, things become a little blurry due to amount of wine I had consumed, but I remember we had a amazing party, dancing, topless Ping Pong, me telling the boy's of the house to Piss off lots, the police coming to shut us down at about 1.30am???? and me collapsing and falling a sleep on the sofa after deciding my room was to hot to sleep in.  A great night and bring on the heat if produces parties like that!
Check out The Sit Down Affair website and blog here for more info about upcoming events and more photos.

Whoop! Whoop! Itz tha sounda Polize! Boo!