Little Miss Cosmetic and the Wall

If the bathroom is covered in fake tan, leaving two ghostly feet outlined, if the front door slams, if all you can here is high pitched giggling... then you know Little Miss Cosmetic is in.

Young and happy and busy and somehow possessing of that youthful body where the only enlarged areas are the ones that give her flattering attention, she would naturally be my nemesis, if she weren't so non confrontational and down right sweet.

In part I relive my innocence through her, as I listen to tales of stumbling home at 3am through a dark park, or watch her blush at recalling tales from her latest Brit's abroad beach holiday for 9, or I simply marvel at the fact that I rarely see her eat much more than a bagel with peanut butter.

Her current stories are revolving around a recent catch, "Hot Maintenance Man".
This man, it seems, is definitely not her boyfriend although by now I think he just might be in all but name.

Speaking of names, he is foreign (well so am I, but he is not of English speaking decent) and has a name that just won't stick. This had each flatmate frantically whispering to each other each time he left a room, "What's his name again?" The whole thing was getting incredibly uncomfortable until we decided to put him on our wall.

Not in a pin him up and hurt him way... let me explain...

Living in a house where said walls haven't been painted since before the discovery of New Zealand, it becomes hard to respect the paint work, and so, in a little arch in the lounge we began to mark our heights.

Yes, we know we are all past the point of growth, but now it has become a place to mark out our guests, a primitive visitor book of you like. There are stickers and slander and silly references to how tall God is, but for the most part it helps us remember the first time we had that person visit.

So now Hot Maintenance Man has his name on the wall, so every time Little Miss Cosmetic comes home (with the man that isn't her boyfriend) all five of us stare at that marked out space before we can say hello.

He must think we are incredibly odd. I don't think he is wrong.

ONE YEAR ON...

I moved into this house a year ago, give or take a week of hazy memory.

Today there is one carton of semi-skimmed milk (3/4 full) one carton of soy light (1/4 full) one carton of soy regular (unopened) and a suspect half carton of regular in the fridge. How did it come to be this way?

To understand this you must first aim to understand the house and it's odd content.
Nestled in a quiet London street is a large abode, each brick threatening to succumb to gravity at any moment. A steal as far as rent, and therefore hospitable. Never mind the stairs creak as if they are rigged for a haunted house, never mind at least one appliance is always malfunctioning, never mind there are no light fittings only lamps, anything that is cheap in this city counts as livable.

Within it live a half a dozen, and I promise if three is a crowd then six is a multitude. Each character struggling to survive, to be heard in one of the biggest cities on earth, and pushing just to chose the channel on the television for just one night a week.

The line up of this mismatched place will be revealed day by day until you can get all six... and then know how lucky it is that we all haven't imposed restraining orders on each other yet...

So for today I best start with the author, which is me, and what I am. Just hit 30 and yes possibly a little too old for the house share thing, but I can't quite consider myself grown up enough for my own four walls and garden just yet. I left my much warmer country more than six years ago on a whim, moved all about Europe, and still haven't managed to swallow moving back. Perhaps it's the cost of a ticket? Unfortunately I am the anal cleaner in this ensemble... well it's unfortunate for me only... I am the one that likes plants and nice food and quickly gained the reputation as the peacekeeping entity. The real question is, how much longer do I want to keep the peace for?