Houseproud

Living on my own is, as previously mentioned, like having a little oasis to come home to at the end of each day. I love my little house, and I love this part of town. It’s all very comfortable. In fact, I can feel myself sinking into a sloth-like torpor as I write this, just out of sheer contentment.

I’ve met the neighbours – this being West End and all, there’s an area near the house where people congregate to drink wine and smoke pot and air their dreadlocks. The community sense of it all is nice, but I have to admit I feel like I’m going to be busted at any moment for being not cool enough/meat-eating/a public servant. But less so now that I’m settling in – the people are genuinely lovely – and I can talk the talk with the greenest of them. Me and my fisherman’s pants, that is.

Speaking of the neighbours, they gave me the skinny on the history of my little place, which explained a number of things. Like why the last tenant got evicted. The reason the carpets were ripped up and the floor freshly sanded. The origin of the faint smell that emerges when the house has been closed up all day. I’m not going to go into details because it involves kittens; suffice to say I had a little cry when I got home. And a shower. I asked friends for advice on what to do about the situation; one said bleach and another said incense cleansing ceremony to drive out bad spirits. I decided on the middle road – mopping with some vinegar and some incense waved around each room in a vague clockwise direction. Seemed to do the trick.

Hot water is sorted, and consistently so, finally. I copped a bit of flak (from the fam, natch, it’s how we show love) over Christmas for blowing out the pilot light to see what would happen, and then being unable to relight it for a few days. I still think it was a reasonable thing to do. A girl should be able to relight her pilot light as she wants to (note: not a euphemism). I mean, what if it blew out by accident and I didn’t know how to get it going again because I’d never done it? What then I ask you? WHAT THEN?

I got around to putting up a curtain in the front window (more involved than it sounds, as there was the purchase of curtains, curtain rod and brackets and the use of a drill) (I’m so DIY right now), happily blocking the line of sight from the street to the shower. Amazing how much easier washing your hair is when you don’t have an audience.

…and that’s pretty much the end of the “Not Very Exciting List of Contented Sherd’s House Things”. Can you believe you just read that? Or that I wrote it? Domesticity has eaten my brain. You can give up on any more rants or gig reviews or random stories. It’s all colour schemes and garden tips from here on in. So, must dash, B&K are coming round for dinner and the OC (axed, oh, how sad) soon, and I have some pork that’s been marinating in honey, apple cider vinegar, red wine and ginger to cook.

To be honest, the reason I need to rush is so I can cook and eat that before they get here, and then serve them some dodgy curry from the freezer. Mmmm, freezer curry. There’s something Jamie Oliver never showed you how to cook.