In the Twee Suburbs

I AM ALL MOVED IN. Apart from bucket, mop and sundry papers strewn all over the last place's floor, all has come with me. I have yet to spot a single cockroach in my new house.

My Mum and Brian turned up yesterday morning to what resembled a bomb explosion in an Oxfam shop. Stuff was everywhere, and where I'd tried to pile it up it looked worse than ever. How on earth this would fit in the new house I dared not imagine. Where on earth it had come from I could not compute. The kitchen cupboards were bare. About five boxes full of stuff just from those. Bathroom emptied out. A whole pharmacy of drug paraphernalia chucked in the front bin.

It took us three carloads to do it, Ikea tables, clothes racks and all. My patience was wearing thin at the end as I was over-tired. I had been feeling semi-ill all weekend. On Friday night I honestly felt it would never get done, as I lay in bed, nauseated, hoping not to vomit (which I did not) and staring out forlornly at my conglomerated stuff.

The new place is luxuriously cold, with no double glazing. Radiators firmly off and a natural climate rather than the double-glazing-intensified sweaty midsummer furnace two of my last three places have turned out to be ...

I fell into deepest slumber at eleven o'clock on my new unmade bed. My Mum says it's a kingsize mattress. She had to rush out to buy new undersheets from BHS because the old ones were far too tiny. I've not fitted the replacements. I've done nothing except survey how clean, tidy and neat my new place looks.

Trotters are pride of place on a low table next to the television. Every now and then a pink nose appears from a tube end, followed by a furry face. Then if you're lucky you might get Spherical scurrying scurrulously from tube to gnawed-out Atora-box outhouse. The neighbours probably already think I'm mad for cooing in a silly voice: "Hello little Trotter! Hello! Have you got perky little ones!?" I'm talking about her ears. Only afterwards did I realize this might be open to interpretation.

Talking about perky little ones, I went for a midnight walk and apart from the local off-licence-cum-vegetable shops (bottle shops) the only place left open appeared to be a 24-hour knocking shop. It was called a "sports club and sauna" but looked decidedly seedy to me...

So welcome to Avenue Life... I'm now at the furthest extreme of my old stomping ground, not quite on alien territory. My old friend Valium Marilyn, who looks like Marilyn Monroe with a 30-year gear habit lives just a couple of streets away and two of my old dealers used to do business round here: one from the road off the one end of my street, one from an alleyway at the other! So it's old ground really. Those dealers have long gone. One, who I liked, got flushed down the toilet thanks to his own habit on crack. The other is doing massively long prison time by all accounts after police caught him well and truly, digging up a massive money and drugs stash in his Mum's back garden.

As for me I'm reading John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey with the radio on (as the TV aerial appears defunct), procrastinating unpacking and considering starting up a mini herb garden in my bedroom bay window, that could double as a pretentious bougeois reading seat ...

It's Mayday bank holiday (that is, a public holiday). So life's as busy as ever. The sun is shining, cars are out. I'd better ping off before this internet caff terminates me. Have a nice day, y'all ..!

PS I'm not one for TV theme tunes of the 1980s obsessions, but I did wake up with this, the music from Juliet Bravo going around and around in my head. As TV themes go I think it's quite OK (do you?) It reminds me of having Findus piri piri beef crispy pancakes with Birdseye potato waffles and Heinz baked beans for tea "of" an evening after coming home from school ...

PS Juliet Bravo ran on the BBC till 1985. How old does that make me feel..??!?




In the news: British woman Samantha Orobator faces firing squad for allegedly trying to smuggle heroin out of Laos. The South Londoner, who was allegedly hoping to study medicine, was caught with a 680g package of heroin "in her suitcase" at Wattay airport in the Lao capital.

Most mysteriously of all, however, she is now 5 months pregnant, having been in an all-women's prison for NINE months..!

PPS I am a big fan of the actress Rachel Griffiths