Girl in a Gold Bricked House

I can be something of an abandoned puppy when Gareth gets called last minute for jobs and leaves me at a loose end. I spend too much time not speaking and then when he returns and I hear his key turn in the lock, I sprint to the door, excitedly chasing my tail and pawing him for attention before he's even had a chance to put his bags down.

Having been left with little ado on Friday night, I was dying to get out and have some fun come Saturday, when he finally got home. We'd been invited out to a friend's birthday party in the snazzy Goldbrick House, Bristol, and I had my glad rags on at the ready.

Perhaps because I'd been a good girl on Friday night and abstained, I went a bit crazy bananas on Saturday night, as if I somehow had license to drink twice as much. And so it was that we'd had too much gin before we'd even arrived at the party. A party at which there were about 40 people, and we knew three. A party at which when we arrived, Gareth declared loudly 'Tom's got a lot of friends,' drawing attention to himself just as he tripped over his own shoelaces, hurtling into a stranger and coming within an inch of colliding with a tray of fancy wine glasses. What an entrance.

It quickly became apparent that Gareth and I were on rather more exuberant form than was in keeping with 8pm in a posh establishment like Goldbrick House, and so should perhaps have had a few soft drinks in order to get in line with the rest of the party.

Instead we continued to drink gin and were hugely disappointed when the party finished and no one wanted to go to a casino and risk their life savings on roulette.

As the party disbanded, Gareth and I made our way back to the clever place we'd earlier parked our camper van, Eddie, all the while congratulating ourselves on how much money we'd saved by bringing our second home and sleeping roadside, rather than paying for a taxi home. We passed the Lizard Lounge, a meat market with a queue of men dressed in togas (because they're absolutely mental) and women wearing clothes I will not be letting my daughter out in. We quickly sobered up. Ah yes, I remember my place in society now. I'm getting on a bit. Young, loutish behaviour annoys me. People dressed in 'fun' clothes. Students. Kebab vans. High heels. Doormen. Chips. Vomit on the pavement. Men in Ben Sherman shirts drenched in Lynx. Shivering women who refuse to wear coats because they Must. Not. Hide. Cleavage. All very annoying.

We got back to Eddie ready for a cosy night and realised we had a) parked on a hill and b) parked outside a nightclub. Great work.

Gareth then proudly got out his pre-prepared empty water bottle. Like a boy scout with a bladder problem he had already cut the top off for easy peeing. He did a wee next to my face and then, lying almost upright, we drifted off to the sound of tomorrow's graduates vomiting, arguing and having sex. The soundtrack to Bristol on a Saturday night. It was very romantic.

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Still Got It...

My best friendship grew from a womb of white wine and poppers. It was born into a loving home of Friday nights that became Saturday mornings, of charging around festivals and congratulating each other on our successful love child – fun. Fun, our baby, grew bigger and better with every passing year. We were very good at fun. If I close my eyes and think back on all the fun we’ve had, moment upon moment of mischievousness, snogging and secret meetings in bath tubs (where we discussed the merits of opening another bottle) fill my mind. Because my best friend and I knew how to party. We were experts.

Yes, there were the bad times too – we’re not just good-time friends. She’s my go-to bird in times of distress and calamity. She’s my soul sister.

But this isn’t about the hard times. It’s about the fun.

The early days of our friendship were a heady whirlwind of hedonism. I don’t know where we put it, but my god did we put it away. One evening, for example, my best friend and I arrived at a pub called the Severn Shed, of Bristol, for a glass of wine. It’s actually more of a really posh restaurant, but for us it was to serve one purpose and one purpose only – wine guzzling.

‘Why don’t we go on a pub crawl and have a glass of wine in each pub?’ Cesca asked, flagging down the handsome wine servant.

‘How about a bottle in each pub?’ I said. We did so love to up the ante.

Fast forward eight pubs and eight bottles and I had made friends with some identical twin men, but could not remember which one I was snogging, while Cesca was blazing a trail of destruction, knocking over entire tables of beer while articulating what was no doubt a really good point. We left many broken glasses and broken hearts in our wake.

That was about six years ago. Cesca has just celebrated her 29th birthday and things are a bit quieter these days. She’s married, I’m engaged, we don’t live together anymore, we try not to drink as heavily. We go to yoga classes and at a festival this summer, it pains me to admit we didn’t even get drunk on the Sunday night. My goodness. The gods of fun were looking down upon us with thunder in their eyes. We were disappointing them and I knew it.

So I invited Cesca on a birthday date. We would go back to the Severn Shed and see if, six years on, we could still have as much fun. It was a loaded invitation – neither of us want to get boring, neither of us want to admit we’re not as mad cap as we once were. We had something to prove to ourselves. Or at least, I did. Cesca is probably much more at peace with sobriety than I am.

We arrived and refused to even look at the menu until we’d polished off a bottle of champagne. Two stark differences to six years ago already – 1) this time we ate and 2) this time we looked at the wine list and picked a posh champagne. Last time was more an eating’s cheating philosophy, barking orders for a bottle of the finest house white.

We mostly talked about our weddings. Cesca, the wise old sage, has had one, so could bestow upon me advice and caution. I am gearing up to mine and so wish to talk about little else and Cesca is one of few people I don’t feel guilty banging on about it to. She took that one for the team when she accepted the role of Chief Bridesmaid.

The wine flowed, so we’re still fun. But did we snog any twins? Did we go on a pub crawl? No, we decided that if fate would have a taxi passing by just as we left, we'd get in and go home. And there was one, so we did.

But wait – before you give up on us, writing us off as past it and better suited to the Women’s Institute than the Institute of Advanced Fun, we weren’t in our slippers drinking hot chocolate by midnight. We stopped off at Cesca’s local for a nightcap.

Here we were served our booze in a brilliant glass. The kind you want in your glass cupboard. The kind my magpie eyes soon had in their sights. The kind to steal, yes.

Now, I’m not proud of it, but back in the day I was a glass thief. Alcohol made me do it. And tonight was no exception. I declared that if we were to be even a patch on our younger selves, we better steal those glasses and run home wildy.

So we did. We even escaped through a gap in the hedge in the pub garden, Jack Bauer style, so as not to have to walk the walk of shame through the pub. I think I might have even done a roly poly.

Job done, I say. We’re still cool.

The next day I got a text message from my best friend, the former hell raiser.

‘Thanks for a great night. I’ve just taken the glasses back to the pub. Luckily they saw the funny side.’

That’s right. Where once we were hooligans, thieves and trouble makers, now, we dutifully return stolen goods the next day and order nice wine over dinner.

Now would be the time to make a poetic point about how much richer our lives are these days. We're older and wiser. We had something missing from our souls before, and alcohol filled that void. Balderdash! Allow me to pimp out Cesca for a night on the tiles with you and you'll soon see what all the fuss is about. If I could have my way our full time jobs would be to party together.

But as we reluctantly enter the next chapter of our lives, with fine wines, productive Saturdays and god, maybe even children, at least we can be safe in the knowledge that we had more than our fair share of fun.

And just to keep the spice alive, I’ll be encouraging my kids to steal glasses from pubs but Auntie Cesca will be allowed to return them. After all, there is fun, and then there is just plain stealing.

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Bye Bye Branson

Hello world. I have just come out of a long term relationship – with Richard Branson – and I feel wonderful.

I’ve known for a long time that I was in the wrong relationship. All the signs were there – my friends kept telling me to leave him and my mother disapproved. Plus I didn’t like his beard.

Other suitors would call me up occasionally to see if I couldn’t be tempted to stray. Yet for reasons unbeknown to me, I stayed, despite his abusive nature. I stuck it out for FOUR YEARS. I stood by him when he wouldn’t take my calls, when he’d put me through to call centres so far from the UK that his assistants didn’t even speak English.

Relationships are supposed to make you both grow and develop as people. I grew into someone who could spend an hour on hold, plotting ways to bring down the entire Virgin empire. Branson did not listen to my suggestions about how he could be a better person. The fool.

Every time he hung up on me,cut my internet or charged me £5 for watching porn that I wasn’t watching, I thought, this is it, I can’t take anymore, I’m going to BT.

But changing service provider just seemed like such a faff. So I stayed. I took the abuse. I was a fool.

Now, like all the other customers British Telecom advertise about, I’m going back to BT. And I love it. I no longer have to spend my life furious at Branson and everything he stands for. He’ll continue to be shit, I just don’t have to know. He can take his poor standards and terrible customer relations elsewhere, because I’m out.

Wonderfully, even as I let him know I was leaving, he let me down. As if I needed further convincing that I was doing the right thing. I pressed all the buttons for getting through to the people who deal with break-ups and then got told by an automated voice that I had to go on hold while an operator was found.

The super cool and friendly automated voice then told me that while I waited, I could press one for pop, two for R n B. bla bla bla. Six for classic. Wow, am I sure I want to leave? I don’t think BT give musical options while you wait. Virgin are so cool. So down with the kids. I wish I could be more like a Virgin, with your musical options and your overtly friendly automated voice.

Being a Radio 4 listening, piano playing knob head, I pressed six for classic. Ah, Branson, well done, the dulcet tones of JLS burns into my ear.drum Yes, Everybody In Love was a classic I suppose, but it’s hardly Mozart.

With that, my decision was made even easier. Don’t show off that you’ve got musical options when you clearly haven’t. Just chuck the elevator music on like everyone else and get on with finding an actual human being to answer the phone.

Goodbye Richard Branson, goodbye Virgin Media. I will not miss you. I’m off to find someone else to write stern letters to.

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The Sound Of Da Police.

Whenever I am overtaken by a siren–swirling, lights-flashing police car, the first thing I do is make sure I’m not doing anything illegal. Then they zip on past and I realise I am not the culprit this time, so thoughts turn to hoping that whatever crisis they are attending isn’t on my route. Which is an awful thing to admit, but yes, that’s what I think. Carnage up ahead? I hope it’s not on the M4.

I do love moving aside for the emergency services though. It’s exciting. For that split moment you are working with the emergency services. Come on lads, go forth and rescue – I’ll just move onto the pavement momentarily! I know it’s a legal requirement to move aside when you hear those sirens or see those flashing lights, but it always warms the cockles of my heart that we do it. A little nod of respect to the people who clear up after us.

So I joined the M4 and quickly realised that unfortunately, yes, the police car was on its way to attending to the carnage on my route.

Another police car raced up the hard shoulder.

But I didn’t mind. I joined the standstill and immediately turned off my engine like the dutiful little do-gooder that I sometimes am.

Two more police cars. Three police motorbikes. Then an ambulance. Another police car. Highway maintenance. A paramedic. Another ambulance. Two fire engines. Then a helicopter circled overhead before landing in the field adjacent to the crash. Crikey. It was all kicking off.

Like a scene from an end-of-the-world movie, people fled from their cars. Well, fled is a bit strong. Got out to get a better look, is more apt. Strangers spoke to each other. For international readers, that does not happen here in Engurland.

The crash was in sight. Just a mere 500 metres away, I could see the flashing lights of the fire engines from my seat. It must have only just happened. The hairs on my arms stood on end as I thought that if I had not stayed an extra minute at my sister’s house, it could have been me.

I watched as the strangers spoke to each other. Moaning about the delay. Tutting and shaking their heads. Looking at their watches. Peering up ahead as if the extra inch tiptoes provide will give the necessary conclusion to their crash related theories. Making emergency phone calls ‘Darling, I’m going to be late for dinner. Some idiot’s had a crash.’

Ouch. Bit harsh.

I, I’ll have you know, did nothing of the sort. I played Sudoku on my phone and thought about how much I love the emergency services.

Instead of getting annoyed that someone had been in a clearly serious accident, I got annoyed – irate, even, with the petrol guzzling 4x4 next to me, the driver of which, Sloane Ranger, did not turn her engine off for FORTY FIVE MINUTES. I wanted to get out of my car and march up to her, to suggest that maybe she’d like to reduce her carbon footprint and turn off her noisy engine, seeing as we clearly weren’t going anywhere and keeping her engine running wasn't going to get her home any quicker.

But I didn’t. I just quietly plotted her demise while Sloane Ranger’s children scrambled all over the roof of her car and took pictures of the crash on their iphones. Over and over again, she threatened: ‘If you do that one more time I’ll smack you.’ Yet every time they did the thing one more time, no one got smacked. Except my sanity. That took a beating.

Some Arrogant Scurriers then decided to take crowd control into their own hands, siphoning off into the hard shoulder in an attempt to excuse themselves from waiting.

Oh my god! Are you mental? You’re getting in the way! An ambulance screeched to a halt behind some Mercedes-driving nimrod who had thought they were above the law. Sirens went from ne-na ne-na to a furious WA WA WA WA WA WA WA and then a kind of deafening pitch that they obviously reserve for times like this. Forget rubber necking the accident – the real action was over here on the hard shoulder. Old nimrod had to shimmy up the grass bank to get out of the way, while we all laughed at him. Or at least, I did a little smirk. I don’t know if I had any comrades. Sloane Ranger was too busy issuing empty threats to her spoiled brat children to notice the drama unfold.

Another paramedic.

A police car.

The helicopter took to the skies, bypassing London’s traffic as it made its way to the nearest hospital. I was truly humbled.

I thought back to the early days of civilisation and how emergency services must have evolved. The tribes people were going about their day when suddenly a hut was on fire. Some people screamed and ran for the hills. Others stayed and gawked. While others, the future emergency services, rose to the challenge. They brought pails of water, they rescued babies.

‘Wow, you were quite handy then,’ the chief of the village debriefed. ‘Would you mind being on standby in case we get in a pickle again?’

And the future emergency service people said yes, we will do that. ‘But just one stipulation,’ they said. ‘When we are needed, you lot get the hell out of the way. And don’t use the hard shoulder, for Christ’s sake.’

That is probably exactly as it happened in 250AD. Verbatim.

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I Spy...

Oh good. Apparently the unprecedented warmth provided by climate change during the long spring, followed by a delightfully wet summer, is reason enough for all the spiders in the country to move into my flat.

When my sister first announced the news, SPIDERS! COMING IN TO THE WARMTH OF A HOUSE NEAR YOU - NOW! I could literally feel my skin crawl. I wish she hadn't told me, then I might have been able to think about something else for the last week.

I guess I'm waiting for an army of the little bastards to turn up at my door and ruin my life. But it won't be like that, will it? They'll creep and crawl in dribs and drabs - a spider in my shoe, one behind my computer. One in my bed, scurrying over my face in the night. One in the bath. They will eventually overrule the previous tenants of this flat (us) and we will have to live in a boat bobbing about in the sea where spiders can't get to us. The SAS will have to check our boat for spiders before we leave, obvs.

People laugh at Britain. We've got shit weather and we're known for moaning. We have wonky teeth and we like tea. Oh, the silly little Brits with their funny little ways! Well, we had one thing going for us, thanks very much - our spiders were harmless. Now, our climate is warm enough for foreign spiders who accidentally entered the country without a visa, on a banana, to settle, breed, and no doubt mutate to twice their size on their way to my house.

Here is a picture of our first spider of the season. Tegenaria gigantea. I'd come home from somewhere spiderless and despite my sister's warning, I wasn't at that moment thinking about spiders. I actually walked past him on the stairs without even seeing him.

Gareth got home shortly after. His spider sense was more heightened than mine.

'Jesus Christ!' he screamed. I knew what had happened instantly. Blasphemy is code for I'm staring a spider in the face. I came running. I hate spiders, but I do like to quickly assess how panicked I need to be.

It was huge. It was clinging to the carpet half way up the stairs.

Which begged the Big Question.

Was he on his way up, or down?

Down, I can handle. He'd had a poke about, found nothing of interest and was using the stairs to get out. He was so big he probably even wiped his feet on the welcome mat on his way out.

Or, he was on his way in.

After Gareth and I squealed like girls for a few moments, he grabbed a nearby poster tube and demanded that we battle this out like ninjas. 'Put your hand up that end, I'll put mine this end, we'll put the spider in the middle and whoever he runs towards has to get rid of him,' Gareth suggested, ever the strategist.

Even the very thought of a spider in a tube running towards my hand gave me the heebie jeebs.

So I went for the feminism tactic.

'You have to get rid of him - you're the bloke!' I said, squirming. I love this line - so useful when I don't want to do something rubbish. (Emptying the bins, carrying the bins to the bigger bin, filling the car up with petrol in the rain, phoning the bank - all things I am quite capable of but can't be bothered to do.)

'I'm bloody not,' Gareth replied.

'Right, we need to sort this out. We're getting married. Are you honestly saying this is what it's going to be like for the rest of our lives? You are not going to get rid of the spiders, ever?' I asked. Sympathy card - project into the future and make him see this is his chance to change the very dynamics of our relationship.

'Yup,' he said.

We fought a bit more, then we turned back to Spider, to see to my great dismay that he had gone.

He's either outside now, which is fine, or he's under my bed. Watching me. And considering the recent headlines, I think we can guess which way he was heading.

I know, I've written a blog about a spider before. But I really don't like them. Perhaps writing about spiders can become my niche subject. Some writers choose sports, beauty products, fashion, celebs. Not me. I could just write blog after blog about my life getting ruined by tiny insects.

So the situation as I find it, is that there is at least one massive spider in my flat, and I'm marrying a man as wuss as me. Either I trade him in for a fearless-spider-combating-warrior, or we buy one of those spider vacuums. Seeing as I can't be bothered to fill the car up with petrol in the rain, I can't see myself attempting to acquire a warrior, just so he can deal with the occasional spider invasion. Spider hoover it is.

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Owls of Fun

It is rather bloody exciting being engaged, I really must admit. For starters, I get to look at websites that sell trinkets and treasures, with a legitimate excuse. I can reward my very best friends for years of service, by requesting that they join me up the aisle and be my super beautiful bridesmaids. I can write a speech – hurrah! I love speech making. Us Willis’s were taught at an early age to embrace public speaking and as a result, Gareth says we’d all make speeches at the dawn of each new day if we could get away with it. (Or if anyone was listening.)

I get to look at wedding dresses. Not in a crazy, oh-my-god she’s looking at dresses, what a saddo, sort of way. Not a pining, then looking away quickly because I’m not getting married, sort of way. No, that’s all changed now. I have a ring on my finger, so chuck over some Vera Wang and a glass of champagne, pronto. My dad gingerly tried to suggest I choose the kind of dress I could wear again. Pa! Does he not know me at all? Unless the second occasion is another wedding, there will be no excuse to ever wear this little white number again.

I can fret about whether or not to change my name. Kim Jones Willis? Kim Willis Jones? Kim Jones? Who is she? Is she as super cool and fun as Kim Willis? Maybe she’s even better.

I can toy with the idea of a prenup. Oh Catherine Zeta Jones, you clever little minx! (Zeta-Jones is guaranteed $2.8 million for every year of marriage, plus a $5 million bonus if Douglas is caught cheating. To equate that to our lives, I reckon I could get £2.80 for every year of marriage, and a £5 bonus if Gareth shaves off his lovely beard. Although, I would be quite keen to protect my asset, Eddie the campervan. I reckon Gareth’s got his eye on it. I might make it a morganatic marriage just to protect Eddie. (*)

I get to look at honeymoon destinations, tossing up between a beach in Fiji and a hike round India is a full time job in itself.

I am Google’s number one searcher. I am searching for thing after thing, whiling away every evening with more fantastical ideas. Fireworks? String quartet? Releasing a white dove? (All a definite no. I’m cheesy but this isn’t a big fat gypsy wedding. Although Gareth does keep pushing for an owl to deliver the rings. He does love his owls.)




Facebook knows I’m engaged. My side bar is filled with wedding related advertising. A little bit creepy if you ask me. Stop reading my messages, Zuckerberg!

My future husband is slightly less interested in the wedding than I. Every time I start telling him my latest idea, he says something clever like: ‘Is that a new top?’ or ‘You look very pretty today,’ in the hope flattery will avert my attention and I’ll stop talking. (Unless we talk about owls. And then we’re not really talking about the wedding, we’re just talking about owls again.)

As I have the artistic eye of a blind lab rat, he ought to be careful. He’s letting me choose stuff. I am in charge, and he jokes the old adage that all he’s going to do is turn up. Well, I can’t say I didn’t warn him. There will be a monstrosity of a dress, there will be clashing colours, there will be too much money spent on things guests don’t even notice. Mwa ha ha. The dormant bride inside of me has been unleashed. Hello Etsy, I’m off to buy more tat.

*I am changing my name. Hell, I want to have the same name as my husband, even if it is Jones. I always thought I’d marry a Slazenger. Maybe a Van De Something. But you can’t choose the surname of the man you fall in love with, unfortunately. As for a prenup? Na. Gareth knows I’ll kick his ass if he ever tries to divorce me and steal my campervan.

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I definitely do.

Gareth and I have been together for about four years now. For three years, 11 months, three weeks and a day, I've been dreaming about marrying him. The thing is, I knew from the start that he was marriage material. Because, you see, he is a bloody good chap.

And so it was with sheer delight and a definite yes that I accepted his marriage proposal on Sunday night.

Now, at last, I can start looking at wedding dresses and writing my speech without people thinking I'm a bunny boiler. Now I have a ring on my finger (a platinum one at that, apparently.) I have license to think about our wedding. And that's why Gareth's just made me the happiest woman on the Isle of Wight.

I'm also the most nervous person on the Isle of Wight. A platinum ring? Me? Seriously, the time I lost the only piece of jewellery I own that didn't come from Accessorise, I cried for a week. Then I found it in my camper van and pretty much wet myself with relief. I am not to be trusted with anything of any worth.

I assure you that now I am engaged, I am not going to bang on about it in every blog. I'll still be funny, I promise. But I thought I'd do a blog about the proposal, because it was, after all, rather amusing. And I like a bit of amusement.

Gareth's vision for the Big Question was to get down on bended knee while the sun set on our favourite beach, on the Isle of Wight. Knowing I'd rather look nice for the moment, he knew he had to find a way to get me into a pretty dress. And so he appealed to my sense of vanity and asked me to model for him.

'I want to take a picture of you in a floaty dress beside the ocean.'

Well, he didn't have to ask this professional limelight lover twice.

Unbeknown to me, Gareth had enlisted my sister and mum's help in organising the 'moment'. While he was pottering about preparing his camera, I was sitting in my pretty dress playing Sudoku and they were down on the beach erecting a gazebo and laying out dinner for two.

Gareth and I then took the long walk down to the beach. During which, Gareth wanted to talk about how happy we were, how loved up and lucky a pair we were.

Not likely. Every time he tried to talk about love, I'd talk about some banal thing that had happened to me earlier. 'Yes, Gareth, we're in love, bla bla bla, do you think I got a tan today?'

We got to the end of the path and as luck would have it, there was a red rose in the way. Always an opportunist, I scooped it up and stole it. I'm sure no one would have missed it and it would be perfect for our photoshoot.

Turning the corner onto the beach, we saw the gazebo. Candles, champagne… my first thought was that whoever had set this up was probably the same person who'd left the rose in the path. And the poor boy was probably hoping his girlfriend would find the rose.

'Where are you going?' Gareth asked as I turned on my heel.

'I'm going to put the rose back!' I screamed, wishing I wasn't such a thief.

Gareth had to pin me back and assure me the rose, and this whole hullabaloo, was for us.

At the back of the gazebo was a hob, and on the hob was a saucepan, and in the saucepan was Thai Green Curry.

That's what did it for me really. How can I refuse to marry a man who gives me Thai Green Curry for my engagement meal? Forget 'he had me at hello'. He had me at the subtle yet spicy combination of lime and coconut milk.

There were tears, there were diamonds, there was a yes, my family joined us on the beach to share the celebratory whooping…

Then we walked back to the caravan, where my darling sister Pipsy was waiting. She has a way with words, and as I sat down beside her and told her that Gareth and I had got engaged and were going to get married she announced: 'That sounds a bit silly. I'm not coming to your wedding.'

And with that, I was brought back to reality.

Pip might take some convincing, but I am definitely going to be there, all guns blazing. Possibly with stolen roses in my bouquet.

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