Well I came in from work last night at around 6pm. I was shattered and just wanted to clean up and chill for the night.

I jumped in the shower and washed the day off me and got into my scruffs. Arghhh! Nice and chilled and relaxed. I wasn’t too hungry so thought I’d make a sandwich and take it too my room.

So I went into the living room and was greeted by two things:

1. That same sweet pungent smell that seems to give me the munchies
2. A sheet of 8’ x 4’ plywood sheeting

The plywood was stroon across two sofas. So I asked what was happening? One of the guys said come and help us do some painting. No thanks I have some work to finish so just grabbing a sarnie and retiring to my room to do some work. Just as well as you three have got the SHARED living area like a tip. I thought those words I didn’t speak them. So I went to my room, ate my sandwich and did my work. I got a text off ‘N’ asking if I could help them with something they were stuck with. They were in the kitchen so I thought I’d make a cuppa and see how I could help. I came in made a brew and was chatting with N when I noticed something slippy under my feet. I was only standing on the plywood board which had on it what could only be described as dog poo only without the smell. Sooo in the politest way possible I said ‘what the fuck is going on here’. J came over to me and said ‘we’re going to do some painting, please join us. We are just sealing the wood with plaster of paris and ground brick dust. Brick dust can be very damaging to your lungs so I told them to take it outside or wear a mask next time. Apparently they were waiting for the mixture to dry on the wood before they started painting. I went to my room and crashed out. I was first one up in the morning and the board was still there and it still is now.

So the morale of this story is, weed doesn’t enhance the mood or senses, it just make everything seem a good idea. Lol. See my daily observation on weed.

My son came to visit me over the weekend and we had a great time. I met him at kings cross and we came straight to my digs. I had the luxury of my hard, single bed and he had the luxury of a camp bed. It was great to have him visit as weekends can be a lonely place in London when you’re on your own.

We could barely move in my room with the camp-bed set up or should I say, it was cosy.

We were up at the crack of dawn ready to set out for an adventure. My son is 15 and I said we can do whatever he wants to on the Saturday. He loves the underground so we planned a day visiting some of the interesting stations on the underground. I was amazed at his knowledge of the tube and its history (by the way he’s 15). We started off with a good Wetherspoons breakfast then headed towards Stratford via several stations and the Meridian line.

After a couple of hours on the tube we decided to set out a challenge. We decided we’d go on every tube line. I had already been taking a photograph of him next to every station underground sign we had visited. With only two lines left to go on, we found that the metropolitan line was partially closed and we had to go to Kenton and walk to another station close by to get onto a stretch of the Metropolitan line. We made it after a round the houses trek and even managed the City and Westminster line (only two stations on that one). What a day, we were both shattered and needed our bed and camp bed.

We got back to the digs around 11pm and needed to wind down a little before bed. N was in the living room watching a movie. N is great, made my boy feel at home, having a chat with him. N is probably my fave housemate. We always have long chats, debates and discussions about nothing. I’m really going to miss N when it’s time for me to go home. Although I’m sure we’ll keep in touch.

Unfortunately, my son didn’t get to meet ’I’ as he was out. ‘I’ is great and again I know we’ll be keeping in touch in future. After hearing of my sons love of the underground, he gave him a full size map of the underground. This is now pride of place on his bedroom wall. I’m sure when I was 15 I had the girl tennis player poster on my wall. Every lad did at that age.

He’s gone back now but I’m still buzzing as we had such a great weekend, thanks mate!

I’ll be heading up north to home next weekend and I’m contemplating coming back on my motorbike. It’s about a 220 mile trek so should be fun if the weather is OK. I’ll see how it goes. The bikers and scooter riders in London are totally crazy. Zipping in and out of traffic and flying around corners, undertaking, overtaking. London is certainly fast paced.

Normal service will be resumed shortly. I just wanted to share some of my weekend 😊

Let me start by asking a question.

How long does it take to wash the dishes, dry them and put them away?

Let me answer that for you. Apparently ONE WEEK! I kid you not. There has been a dirty plate, knife and fork and a cup on the kitchen bench for one week. That is seven days, 168 hours or… 10,800 minutes. Now from my perspective. There are several of us living in a shared house (the clue is in the ‘shared house’ bit. Some just don’t get it. Why would you even consider leaving dirty dishes that long? The plate could be growing lab cultures by now and the cup is even worse. I reckon if I made a cup of coffee in that cup, I’d be drinking a cup of penicillin. There is furry stuff clinging to the remnants of what was previously consumed and multiplying the growth rate at alarming speed. Filthy animals whoever it is. I hope they drink from it and realise they have no toilet roll. I make my food, consume it and wash and dry mt dirty dishes and put them away in a fraction of the now 10,800 minutes.

But I think what is really worrying is that no-one in the house knows anything about it. We have shared images on the house group chat but still no-one owning up. Unless of course we have a ghost in the house. It is an old house and it does have creaky stairs and floorboards AND, I went to bed the other night quite early and feeling quite tired. I got a whiff of that sweet smell I mentioned in an earlier post, you know the smell that seems to give me the munchies. Well, I thought I would have a cool drink before my sleep. I went to the freezer got a handful of ice cubes and some water. I sat in bed for 10 mins and went to sleep. When I woke the next morning, the ice cubes had vanished and there was only water left in the glass!!! OMG! I hear you saying. Well you can imagine what I was like the next morning. I was trembling with fear. Where were the ice cubes, what had happened whilst I was sleeping? So, the place as well as having dirty dishes, it also has ghosts!

There are nine rooms in the house and all are full except one on the ground floor which is due to have someone moving in shortly. Some of the housemates have given the room a clean and brush-up. The smell resembled my socks after running a half marathon, not pleasant. Speaking of which, does anyone else’s trainers or football boots smell of Tom Cats Piddle (TCP) or is it just my feet? Hmmm! It’s OK to lie in your replies if it’s just mine. The room was as clean as they could clean it. Like all of the rooms the carpet tiles were manky dirty and the walls plain with some classy magnolia paint splashed on everything and I mean everything! Cables, most of the electrical sockets had a good splashing of magnolia even some of the plastic window frames. Maybe if they painted the floor tiles magnolia they’d have hidden the dirty patches. Trust me it’d look better than the floor tiles.

Last night some of the housemates had a bit of a late night. I’m fortunate as my room is isolated and I didn’t hear any of the noise. S whose room is on the middle floor is directly beneath the living room and kitchen area so they had to send a polite reminder to keep the noise down at 01:00 AM. I saw this as my phone was flashing a blue light which means I have a message , email etc. at around 02:30 AM when I needed a midnight stroll to the netty (that’s toilet to you). Strange thing happened though. I could smell a very sweet pungent scent in the house and when I got back to my room and clambering into bed, I was starving and a real craving had set in, the midnight munchies, strange…

So let me tell you about the characters in the house and believe me I think they’re all great in their own way and all very different. I will use letters for their names as I obviously want to keep their identity private.

I, I is the granddaddy of the house, the oldest and been there the longest he has a great personality and has furnished the living areas and added some great touches to the place.

A is in his late teens and spent most of his time in Australia but is back living in the UK. Great guy and he is huge I mean he must be at least 6’4”. I get a kink in my neck when I’m chatting with him. I’m wondering if the air is thinner up there. Answers on a postcard

B, like A is in his late teens and not long out of Uni. He loves his music (as does A) great, hard working fella. I don’t see much of him but we always have a good catch up.

RG1, yep that’s me. I’m not going to tell you what I’m like you can build up your own opinion of me J.

S, Rarely seen out of her room and always working. Nice and friendly and chatty when I get a chance to see her.

N, N is great probs around late 20’s and from Poland. Speaks and probably writes better English than me. Works hard and party’s hard. We often have long in-depth conversations on an evening. Usually about work and life in general.

C & H, not a replacement for C&A. Love these guys C works long shifts and has a hobby working with wood. He is very inventive and good at what he does, H is his partner. She is a musician and has a part-time job. These two fit together nice and bounce off each other great.

J, J is the newbie of the bunch. I always see her smiling and she’s always happy. She’s in the LGBT genre and proud of it. If anyone’s feeling a bit down she’s always the first to distribute the hugs

Back to the drawing board and the search of the internet for some digs. On one of the websites I was using I came across an advert for a property guardian, ‘a what?’ the rent was reasonable for the area of London, so where is the catch?

So I made an appointment with the agent a bit similar to my previous viewing, meet at the property at a certain time. So I arrived at the designated time and the agent was extremely nice and knew immediately who I was, which was a nice personal touch “and you must be RG1”.

We entered the house which was set over a ground floor, first and second floor. The agent explained to me and two other people who had turned up to view the rooms that there were 3 rooms available on each floor. The entrance was cold however it was November, so it was probably just the time of year.

The first room was on the ground floor and was £650 per calendar month. All being eager we pushed and tussled to get through the door. It was manky! The walls had been painted with the emulsion paint just slapped on with a soggy teabag. The floor was covered in old commercial 100% nylon floor tiles with paint and what looked like oil stains on them. As we moved around the house these stained floor tiles were a common sight. As we made it to the top floor the agent opened the door to which was obviously a stationery or store cupboard in its day. IT WAS MINUTE! Dirty smelly blue floor tiles and a window with bars over them, TWO STORIES UP!!! Who the hell would want to live in a room like that? The agent said this is a small single room and is £300 per calendar month. ‘I’ll take it’ I shouted as fast as I could, thinking I was at an auction house. Hey £300 a month with bills included and unfurnished is a bargain and I’m living there from Monday to Friday. All of a sudden the shitty floor tiles didn’t seem so bad and smell, what smell?…

Coming to live in the capital for 12 months means many things to me.

First of all, where am I going to stay, that’s reasonable, cost effective and safe. Working in Canary Wharf may be nice but not all of us earn the mega bucks of senior bankers and finance bosses. However it will keep me ticking over and in the employed bracket.

After landing the job I had to find somewhere to live within a reasonable commuting distance of work. Simple! Not a chance. i looked at my budget which was between five and 600 hundred per calendar month. I thought I’d get somewhere half decent. Bloody hell was I in for a shock.

I checked some online house share websites and viewed several properties. The first I viewed was 550 per month so was mid budget and it looked great on the pictures and in a great location. It was a single room and included all bills and WiFi. Oh My God! when I got there the smell of weed was so strong I was almost sick. The agent met me at the property and showed me in. He was very nice and polite and very softly spoken whereas I’m a northern bloke and sound a bit rough around the edges. He opened the door for me and we entered the house. the first thing that hit me was the stench of dampness. It was ripe! When i was talking to the agent I could feel my nostrils flexing. I asked him “is that a slight damp smell I’m picking up?” Trust me it was fucking lifting! his response was “don’t worry I think there was a slight leak from the washing machine last week, but it’s all fixed now”.

He showed me to what would be my bedroom and in my head was the thoughts bloody hell it’s a room with a single bed in it and no room for anything else. You couldn’t swing a cat in the place (no offence cat lovers, I have two). We then went to the bathroom. Of course as we are walking between rooms we were having a bit of banter. When we entered the bathroom I found out the real reason for the damp smell. Approximately one foot of tiles above the bath (which had a shower over) was furry with black mildew and the shower curtain was not a curtain. I’m convinced it was a shroud of mildew hanging from curtain hooks above the bath. There were open wires leading to the electric shower and then I caught site of it, the toilet, the carsey, the crapper. The seat was more like a velvet seat of which i am sure was mildew and the stains around and in it were disgusting.so in the finest words i could muster at that moment, I asked the agent “Are you fucking taking the piss?” His response was you’ll be sharing the house with four other guys. At that point I turned and started for the exit saying “well that aint gonna fucking happen”

I got back to the hotel I was staying at and showered for about an hour with my arse pursing at the sheer thought of sitting on that toilet. Knowing if I did so it would closely resemble a Flanders poppy (think of poppy day and you’ll get my drift)

It was later that night whilst in a state of panic that I came across a website about being a residential guardian of a property…