Ever been to Brentwood?

It's fucking FAR! From Baker Street to Liverpool Street, Liverpool Street to Brentwood on the Overground... THEN a 20 minute odd car journey along winding roads flanked on each side by fields and forest and canopied with trees. We saw rabbits darting over the road, eventually arriving at the mock Tudor house of one Luke ‘Swoop’ White. It was his 21st birthday a couple days before, and we'd all met at the pub on the day and gotten pretty drunk as a group, unfortunately having to tell young Swoop that we wouldn't be making it to his birthday party proper because, well... he lives too God Damn far away!

He bought what you all now realise is a total line of bullshit. We were planning to go the entire time, but figured if he thought no one was turning up from the group then he'd be less disappointed when only 5 of us went. T’was me, Kaylee Trotman, The Mogran [star of Shit Party!] and Little Lins. Having survived a journey so long we could have gone to Nottingham [seriously, it took us just over 2 hours. On the train that's Nottingham baby. Could have gone The Red Lion] we rocked up with our Tesco bags of beer/Magners ready to PARTY it up Country House style.

First person we saw peering out of the door was Swoop's sister Meg, who looked about 19 or so but really she's 13, well that's not cool at all. Barely teenage girl at the house party? That should be OK right? I guess it IS her house and they might have had trouble shoving her out. Kids dig a ‘grown up’ party. They wanna stick around to hear the exotic swearing, see the debauchery and experience first hand when a fat dude just straight up ralphs on the floor from no where. So the little sister we understood.

But then his Mum was there. Lovely woman. Brenda her name is. She was dressed up really nicely in a sort of black silky dress type affair... which is confusing because you don't usually get someone's Mum in their formal evening wear at a rowdy 21st house party. Then again, you don't usually get someone's elderly Nan either.

Looking around the living room I took in 2 facts. This is a really nice house, and I'm the oldest person there who isn't someone's Dad. That second one is usually pretty depressing for me, but not here, because here that just meant there were a lot of people's Dads in attendance. Swoop's Dad. Lee Brown's Dad [and Mum, and brother, and grandmother] and a series of other people's parents... but not a great many of the Other People to whom they belonged.

We stood out in the garden, the four of us, sipping our drinks and putting in a heroic effort not to swear. This was a family birthday get together, attended by young cousins and grandparents alike. There would be no rocking.

I did talk to Lee Brown's Nan [once fell in the river Trent] and also Luke's Nan [convinced I was Canadian despite there being TWO Canadians at the party and me not sounding like any of them] and a dude who cryptically answered "it's like a make of nappy" when asked for his surname [which then turned out to be Hughes, for fucks sake] but that was that. No one could misbehave, what with the high parent content of the house. They're not our parents, and likely we'd never see them again... plus we're all in our mid-20s [some more than others... ahem] but the sense of politeness and decorum doesn't disappear as a result of any of those factors. We're not from London, none of us. Kaylee and Linsey are from Wales, which might as well be the Midlands frankly, and even Mogran's from New Zealand. New Zealand is an entire island of YORKSHIRE! There's politeness in us all and we can't help it.

The rowdiest thing to happen was on the drive back to London in Lee Brown's car, when the girls got hold of his laptop and played various Disney songs for us to sing along to. My personal favourite is of course Kiss The Girl. It's surprising how many Disney songs I know the complete and full lyrics to. After a while we were doing three and four part harmonies on the road.

When I got home there was a spider on my wall so large it has an XBOX Gamer tag with more points than me and was drinking a can of Vimto.