10 things I have learned living with two guys

Living with one man is hard enough (though I will give credit where it is due, my boyfriend is a brilliant housewife at the weekends), but my boyfriend has a housemate and two men, one woman, and every other weekend six kids crammed into one space can be testing at times to say the least.

It is not the kids that are the problem though, it's the grown men.

Here are 10 things I have learnt while living with both of them, which may be tips for you if you find yourself in the same boat as me.

(If you are, call me, we need to go out for a well deserved drink!)


1. Toilet paper needs to be bought by the truckload.

For some reason every other day we run out of toilet paper. I'm not quite sure what we all do with it, There are three toilets in the house and yet when I looked in each of them this morning, there were two tiny squares left on one lonely roll.


2. Number 2's.

Men seem to think that toilets clean themselves, or that little poo cleaning fairies come along in the night with their teeny tiny toilet brushes and scrub away. I cleaned all three when I moved in as yellow/ orange is not the colour the bottom of a toilet should be. My boyfriend's response to me telling him to go into each bathroom and inspect the toilet: "Oh, I didn't realise they were white."
My response: "Make sure they stay like that because I'm not doing it again."

3. Nothing is off limits.

Men talk as women expect them too, it's sex, sex, sex. I have problem talking about it, and can happily chat about it for hours but 24/7 is a bit tedious and sometimes I just want to talk to someone about what has been going on it Corrie.


4. New words will be learned.

Chad= Arse. Did you know that? Nope me neither, there are copious amounts of other words that I have learnt since being in the company of two men, however they are too rude to write here.


5. People presume I am having a threesome.

That is not the case, though walking out of the front door sandwiched between two men may look a little suspicious. It's hard enough to keep up with one man, let alone two. Sometimes a girl just needs a bath and an early night - ALONE.


6. The oven and hob get neglected.

Those magical fairies in blokes minds (the ones I live with), must be working overtime. They believe there is one who pops on her rubber gloves, gets her Mr Muscle out and cleans the food grease out of the oven and off the hob. Oh, and the walls and ceiling. (How? I don't know.)

7. Nothing has a 'place'.

Everything is just left where it was discarded. I am not the tidiest person in the world, but there are socks that have been left behind the bathroom sink for days which I refuse to put in the washing machine. (They are still there, today is day five.)


8. "I promise we will not come back drunk."

This needs no explanation. Though I do need to go and see a chiropractor after I hauled my boyfriend up 2 flights of stairs last week when he went out for 'an hour' with his housemate.

9. Clothing is essential.

Walking around naked if you just live with your boyfriend would be acceptable, walking around naked with your boyfriend and his housemate in tow is not good. I forget all of the time there is another male in the house and walk out of the bedroom naked. Luckily, I usually only make it halfway down to the first floor before I have realised and run back upstairs to cover my 'Bridget Jones' wobbly bits.


10. Guys are actually really good at giving advice. The three of us have had some fantastic nights in and out discussing relationships and life. I have come to the conclusion that I am actually pretty lucky to live with both of them, even if I do have to morph into a magical fairy.

(Though there will come a time Bill, when we want you to move out- just saying, don't get too comfortable.)

Official mud monster

I thought a 5k race would take me half an hour, what a fool!

I stupidly didn’t read what I was getting myself into because I just wanted the title of ‘Mud Monster’.

Why? I don’t know because I don’t even like mud that much, even less so now that I am still picking it out of my ears over a week later.

As for the race taking half an hour, I misjudged that by about an hour and a half.

Thank goodness I went for the 5k race and didn’t push myself to do the 10k or even the 20k race, I am not exaggerating when I say that I would not be here right now, I’m pretty sure I would have ended up in hospital.

It started off ok, the sun was shining and we did a gentle warm up before we set off, I though it was a lovely way to spend a Sunday.

The first challenge were hay bales that were covered in plastic sheeting, I thought at the time that it was going to be easy if that was what it was going to be like the whole way round, but by thinking that, I stupidly set myself up for an epic fall into a deep, muddy bog.

I had images of the moment in Titanic when Jack and Rose were in the ocean freezing to death, when my body fell not so gracefully into the brown water.

Screaming didn’t help as that only made another place for the mud to go.

I ran as fast as I could when I had clawed myself out of the hole, but I just looked like a was one of those cartoon characters where their legs move but they don’t go anywhere because the grass was so slippery.

Laughter really is the best medicine in situations like that and it really helped me get around the course.

I completely forgot about the hay bales at the beginning of the course as I climbed under cargo nets, over walls and carried tyres-which I have added to the list of things I hate, I can honestly say that I will never carry a tyre again in my life.

What took me by surprise more than anything else though were the other people that I was with. Being on my own, I was very vulnerable. The course was slippery and relentless but whenever I came to a part where I needed help, there was always someone there for me.

They encouraged me, and at one point a group of boys even held a branch for me to grab hold of when I couldn’t get out of a bog. I will always be grateful to everyone that helped me because I really, truthfully couldn’t have got through it by myself. It wasn’t physical possible.

The hardest part was when I came to a sign that said I had run 2k, which meant that I still had 3k to go. I felt like crying.

I’m not one to give up, but at that moment I wanted to scream and walk away. The trouble was that I was in 170 acres of fields and had no idea how to get back, my only option was to suck it up carry on with the rest of the course.

Eventually after nearly two hours, I made it to the end of the course happier than ever to see a shower- even though it was a cold one.

Though it was an experience and I am glad that I did it, I think that for the next few Sundays I will stay on my sofa and earn the title of ‘biscuit monster’.

"Oh, hello you look lovely today."

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

Everything has been manic over the past few weeks, Christmas has come knocking (how on earth did that happen?) and I don't even remember Easter happening.

Everything in life has been going well, Scarlett is now six and cheekier than ever. I am no longer a spinster, I have nearly finished my journalism course and will be an intern at a magazine in London in the new year which means I will be living there during the week. Life is pretty good at the moment, for me anyway.

There have been horrors going on in the world throughout the year, atrocities which are becoming more and more frequent. It makes everything around us seem a little darker and today I woke up and thought, why not try to spread some happiness and share some light.

My idea is simple (obviously), a compliment a day to a stranger.

I kicked off today by telling a woman what beautiful colour nail varnish she had. She looked genuinely pleased and we had a chat for about five minutes about our nails.

That is all it could take to make someone's day become a little brighter.

I am aware I am not Mother Theresa, but why not try and be a bit more positive?

I will tweet everyday with #acomplimentaday and hopefully it will catch on and everyone can share the compliments they have said to strangers.