Moving

Despite some cheering words last night, 'Arthur's Hill? Ya movin to Arthur's Hill from Gosforth? Ya mad. I'm homeless me right, they've offered us places in Arthur's Hill, I wouldn't tek them,' I am really looking forward to moving house!

It's going to be exciting living in a bijoux pad with Becca. I got a text from her the other day detailing some items she can offer to the household inventory: "creme brulee pots, flan dish, fondue set, rice cooker, espresso pot." So, that's all the essentials covered then.

Although I am thrilled to be moving to the late nineteen-eighties (I stole that joke from someone else so if you laughed send half of the royalties to John), I will miss a few things about Gosforth. Stuff like not worrying for my life if I want to nip to the shops after dark. Just kidding... I hope. I'll miss things like trying to avoid speaking to Gerry (Jerry?) from across the street. He's one of those people you wish you'd never got chatting to because you're never going to be actual friends and now you're stuck in stilted 'oh, just getting in from work are you?' chat. A friend who works at the same place as Gerry informs me that Gerry is now officially a verb as well as a noun: 'where've you been?' 'sorry, I got Gerried on the stairs, I thought I'd never get away!' There was a while when I didn't see Gerry for ages and when I next saw him he accused me of ignoring him. I had actually seen a man about whom I had thought 'oh, he looks like Gerry, but sort of crippled'. It turned out Gerry had had an operation. When I first arrived in the street I met Gerry on my way home from the Metro late one night. I gather I called out to him 'Don't worry, I'm not following you! I live in this street!' (he was glancing backwards with enormous amounts of paranoia, mind). Anyway, I drunkenly responded to his neighbourly chat by saying that yes, it was a nice place to live but that, no, I had not found it a particularly friendly spot. He said I should give it a chance and that there were a lot of friendly people on the street. I subsequently had two weeks of amnesia regarding this conversation. So, a week later when Gerry stopped clipping his roses and grinned at me I thought, 'what are you smiling at, you freak?' and sped off without a backward glance. Yes, I'll miss Gerry.