Upper Beechwood: The Last Days
That makes it sound like it's been destroyed or something. It hasn't; it's falling apart, but it's nowhere near as bad as Ranmoor apparantly was.
I just don't live there any more. I'm gonna miss the place, and we didn't get a big group photo before we all left.
It's gonna be so weird moving from a house of 24 to a house of 4 next year.
So I thought I'd offer the utter Beechwood-ness of my last days there. Even if no one's interested.
Before I do tho: if anyone still wants to guess at that song game before I do the answers, there are still six lines in there with the title in them.
So I said what about a picnic at Karoline's?
Okay, this was technically over the road in Crewe Flats, but it's still a funny uni memory so I'm putting it in anyway. Karoline was in my Practical Drama class, and she invited me round for a picnic in the gardens for her birthday. After walking round all the gardens, round the building (it has it's own police station- why did I not know this?), up to the main Stevo building and to the Edge and back, she finally called to tell me the picnic was actually indoors.
I brought little French sponge finger thingies, which fooled me with their packaging because the picture made it look like they had some kind of filling inside, which they didn't, and the crema di limoncello. Which I learned the hard way should never be mixed with lemonade. To be fair, it was quite nice, just like lemonade but with an alcoholicky aftertaste, once you got past the gelatinous lump on top.
She had a hedgehog cake!
Made entirely of Cadbury's by her mates. It got mangled as soon as someone cut into it.
And they had a paddling pool indoors, which out-cools even Lower. And no one will ever know why there are watermarks in the corridor.
Warning- pictures of an overenthusiastic Ladyfurter to follow
There was a Rocky Horror night at Leadmill on the last Monday in May. Considering that yours truly is insanely physically attracted to eight of the ten main characters/ cast members, was there any question what I was going to do that night.
Everyone else was revising, so I went out alone, dressed like this.
I go through periods where I start suffering withdrawal symptoms if I don't dress up as Frank N. Furter in so long. I've spent so long as an introvert before sixth form and uni, my repressed exhibitionism just came out in this one bizarre quirk. I love it tho. It gives me cleavage :-D
It's just a great thing that me and Louise are so close, despite being completely different- I could never have asked her to take pictures of me dressed like this if she hadn't offered.
The clutter is all ours. It was exam period, so we just both stopped tidying. To me a desk is just storage space, and a makeshift ironing board (we have no idea what happened to the actual ironing board- we think Lower stole it and used it as a wicket to play corridor-cricket).
It was also the debut of THE SHOES-AH!
They are so comfy. Not as much as I thought they were before, they did give me some tiny blisters just on the side of my foot under my big toes, but much more comfortable than the strappy prom shoes I've been wearing lately (they made the balls of my feet burn every time I stood up, which they didn't do at the actual prom).
When I had my coat on, I actually looked quite demure, a bit like Hilary Clinton- all you could see was the fishnets, shoes and a pearl necklace (borrowed off Claire), and when I took the coat off in the club, this random guy standing next to me just stared and said "I did not expect to see that outfit under there!", to which I grinned.
Unfortunately, it turned out that no one really takes theme nights at Leadmill seriously, because I was the only one in a Rocky Horror costume. Cest la vie.
At least it's quite rewarding that I can have a Random Male pulling me into the hiphop room to hump my leg without even trying. It was quite annoying actually.
But that's how I met Someone, who I'm not going to name because I don't really like him all that much. I spent most of the night just getting off with him, quite bored if I'm honest. I feel really guilty tho, cuz he was actually really nice. He paid for my drink and the taxi home, even when I asked him not to. I guess I'm just naturally mistrustful of men I don't know (the appeal of men in general wears off when you realise just how many think "I like your tits" and "Can I have sex with you?" are pick-up lines, and this was when I wasn't going out in what is basically underwear), so I just don't want to see him again.
Why I gave him my number is beyond me, I wasn't even drunk- my mouth was around his so much I didn't really have time to get it around many drinks- but he's still calling me. I just don't answer the phone.
On the plus side, it was one of the cheapest nights I've had for a long time- I think I paid about a fiver for the taxi there (I hate solo taxis), three or four quid entry, and 60p for one drink. He paid for my other drink and all of my taxi home.
We both misheard each others' names tho. I've found out what his actually is, but he still thinks I'm called Amily.
It was actually a good night. Random pulling is fun, whatever anyone says.
Interlude
First Boosh poster in Sheffield town centre.
A few days with Leroy
Lower are crazier than us. We're pretty crazy, but they are us times... about three or so. Lower are the people who stole road signs in Freshers Week. Lower are the people who stole roadblocks, snuck into our house in the middle of the night and left them upstairs. Lower are the people who broke into their basement and had a Hallowe'en party down there.
And they got both our houses inspected because someone filled water guns with paint and went postal on their front door.
But also, since the halls are very strict about the no pets rule, Pete and Ross got a hamster within the first month. His name is Leroy. He's adorable. But obviously with the inspection going on, they had to hide Leroy somewhere, and Louise was going out with Pete at the time, so we got to keep him for a few days.
Squee central!
We had him crawling around on Louise's bed, in his ball running round the floor and crashing into things, and climbing the walls of his cage, even though he's blind. He was amazing. I could just sit there for hours watching him.
It's kinda weird- if you thought of Pete with a small animal, you would immediately fear for that animal's life, but apparently Pete was so upset when they took Leroy to the vet's and found out he was blind.
I think we had him about three days. I didn't really want to give him back.
Requiem for Jeremiah
This is Jeremiah, our pigeon.
You can't see him very well, but I didn't want to get too close and scare him.
He was injured when Lower found him- he could hardlly walk and he couldn't fly- but of course some of them thought it'd be a great idea to traumatise him, grab him and dump him in our house. He was terrified as some of the lads tried to shoo him out, until Other Louise (she doesn't like being called Parker) picked him out and put him outside. Thing was, he was so traumatised, and it was raining as well, he just sat there sheltering from the rain all night. And someone got a load of washing up liquid or something and squirted it all round him. We stayed there for ages making sure Lower didn't go near him.
Mother Lynnesa.
Lynn sat by the door for hours to make sure no one hurt Jeremiah. It was Lynn who named him as well.
She'll probably kill me for taking this photo, but it's here because I LOVE YOU LYNNIE!
So while we were all there, George got a mini water pistol and squirted the "SHUT THE FREAKIN' DOOR" sign someone made.
Oh yeah, he was jugglng spatulas too. Lord knows why we have spatulas. The kitchen's about three feet wide and it's so dirty you don't want to put things down in there.
This turned into a water fight when I stole one of George's pistols. But stealing a water pistol to battle someone who has three, and apparently eight more in his room (he said they were four for a pound, so he bought twelve) is not a good idea. Especially if you try and cover your face so you can't actually see what you're shooting at.
This tends to be the result.
Lucky I was wearing a dark coloured dress, cuz if it had gone see-through, I wouldn't have had anything on under it.
Then George shot Lower.
And then we shot the sign some more.
After the water fight tho, some people were suggesting that we kill Jeremiah because he was basically dying, but Lynn and I refused to let them. And George was vaguely in on that too, tho George just doesn't seem the kind of person you'd trust with a dying animal. Tho really, George doesn't seem like the kind of person you'd trust with anything.
Most people thought Jeremiah wouldn't last the night, but he was still there in the morning.
In the end, I think Kristian or someone killed him.
R.I.P. Jeremiah.
Kleptomania and the Last Laugh
On that quiz meme that Bryony gave me, I mentioned that I had never stolen anything. At the time, I'd forgotten that I actually had. At the time tho, it was just posters. The club Plug does Jump Around on Thursdays, and their advertising campaign is cartoons of celebrities dressed as whatever the theme for that particular Thursday is. And for a few weeks, around my birthday (I remember that cuz it was at the Mighty Boosh party just before my birthday that I got absolutely hammered on half a can of Strongbow -Julia didn't want to finish it, it's still lager's wussy cousin- a Zombie- second-best cocktail ever created- a Screaming Orgasm and not the five double vodka and cokes I'd originally thought I had, but more like eight or nine, and got thrown out) the celebrities were the Boosh. With this in mind, I stole one of every poster I could get my hands on, even when Noel eventually got replaced by the Queen and later by Alan Carr. They still had naked Julian, y'see.
But this week, I went one further.
I'm finally living up to the stereotype. But it's a stereotype I don't really mind. It feels more like a rite of passage.
This was after the last-but-one Last Laugh, and because I was done with exams and not feeling ill or anything, it was the first one I'd drank at for a while. Me and Arkady got a five-pint pitcher of Carlsberg, and I drank the most of it. This was about three pints, and I am an absolute lightweight. Not only that, I hadn't drunk for qute a while.
So I went out thievin'.
Some random guy saw me dragging it back behind me. I just grinned. I have no idea how people can wear them as hats tho, the buggers are bloody heavy. I had enough trouble getting it up the stairs.
It was a great Last Laugh too. Jason Cook was compering, and I always love it when he's there. John Gordillo was there too, the man who was in the middle of his act several months before when my phone went off. Being drunk then too, I had called my parents back and given him the phone, just because he had asked me to. It went something like:
Gordillo: Hello, is that Mrs Cresswell? Hello? Hello, are you alright? Yes, what? Hello, is that Mr Cresswell? I'm a comedian at the Last Laugh Comedy Club, and I've just been doing a bit about parents giving their lives for their children. Tell me, Mr Cresswell- would you, under certain circumstances, give your life for your daughter?
Holds phone to microphone.
Dad: Yes.
Massive cheer from audience.
Me: I love you Dad!
Gordillo: What would those circumstances be?
Some speechlessness from the other end of the phone.
So after this week, Arkady went up to John Gordillo and told him that it was me whose phone had gone off the time before. Which was interesting. And then Jason Cook told Arkady that he had to come to Carnival. He knows him by name, y'see. Arkady is a legend at Last Laugh. That's how I met him.
But yeah, when I left Beechwood tho, I didn't know what to do with that traffic cone, so I dumped it in the street.
Barbecues and Kangaroos
The day before Carnival, Chris invited me to a barbecue with his Sign Language Club. We went out earlier tho, hoping to catch a few offers in Bar One, but we got up late so we didn't. We went straight to Lounge instead, which is one of Chris' favourite bars, and had some beers. Lounge is the place we got locked in on Chris' birthday when he brought me, Ty, Kieran and Rob Rob there, and Ty, Kieran and Rob got drunk and apparently trashed the toilet and broke a painting which was for sale for a few hundred pounds. The barman said that since I got a bit upset (I was pretty drunk then too) he'd give me a lap dance whenever I wanted (we'd planned to go to a strip club), but he didn't recognise me. After that, we went to Interval at the union and had some cheap and very lovely hot chocolate, and we met Kieran, Lewis and the Sign Language Club there. We went to someone's house, and after about an hour we finally managed to get the barbecues going, and I took over the Quorn one. There were only two vegetarians there (and she was helping cook meat, for some reason), and she didn't have an appetite quite as big as mine, so I basically stuffed myself to bursting. No one else wanted my Hollandia beer and cherry wine. Tho to be fair, I'm not really surprised. Who the hell buys Hollandia? It was in those tiny bottles as well, and we only had Chris' bottle opener, which was a freebie from a taxi company I think, which was completely useless. We chipped off more bits of bottle opener than bottlecaps.
I met the sign language teacher, who was really nice, and he taught me to sign "English Lit".
The homemade giant Twister never made its appearance tho. But there was an inflatable kangaroo called Neil, with a penis-head-baby called Stuart. I don't know why, but he looks more like a Melvin to me.
We abused him.
But we love him and we had a photoshoot. Abusing him.
I finally opened my best limoncello- the proper non-creamy kind I bought in Sorrento last year. I don't think Kieran liked it, but Lewis did. Or it might have been the other way round. Chris didn't want any, even tho I'd been saving it for something like this. Beautiful stuff tho. The perfect kind of thing to save memories to.
Then me and Lewis went home becuase he wasn't going out that night and I had a load of undrunk alcohol I needed to take back, and then I went to Plug with everyone else. We took the kangaroo with us, even tho it belonged to someone in the Sign Language Club.
It was then that Claire told me she'd been picked to sail in the Nationals.
CONGRATULATIONS CLAIRE!!!
I had a great time at Plug, even tho the cashless wonder (i.e. moi) ended up buying the first round and no one else bought one. But then weird stalkers in their forties started coming on to Claire. I have no problems with older men, but stalkers of any age are just plain scary. nd this guy looked absolutely depraved. Claire looked really uncomfortable, so we left early and went to Nisa for snacks and stuff. She said she was tired, so I just went to bed with a big bottle of lemonade.
It was a great day.
The Era Ends
The day after that was Carnival. And the day after that I went home.
After, of course, I had to turn round and go back to the Edge one last time.
Not because I missed the place already, but because I forgot to hand my keys back in.
The it was over.
Goodbye Upper Beechwood. It's been a great nine months.
We've seen the fridge break, the light in the kitchen leak whenever someone used the shower, campfires in the garden, that fire drill where some of use came out without trousers on, I peed in the garden that time...
Whoever lives there next year won't know that it was me who provided the sick stain by the stairs down to the loo. Or that that bit of wall where the plaster looks different wasn't a repair job, but where Kieran got drunk and kicked a hole in it.
I'll miss it.
This post is dedicated to the Upper Beechwood crew:
Chris- champion drunk
Kieran- angry Londoner with an Irish name
Olivia- sleeping through lectures
Rob Rob- the one we taught to iron
Lewis- the one who isn't there very much
Tyrone- the one who supported France
Lynn- Iiiiiire-land!
Eve- from Essex, but not actually
Claire- champion sailor
Sarah- Beckhams' biggest fan
Other Louise- world's smallest security guard
Julia- guitar Queen
Kirsty- Bryan Adams girl
Seerah- wandering the streets with Pooh bear
Cath- "Captain Hoebag"
Mini Rob- the midget one
Rugby Rob- the tall one
Eleisha- she who can wear a Quality Street tin as a belt
Hattie- our resident manic medic
Kristian- teh K-Man
George- King of witty put-downs, also known as the house bitch
Tom- the first one to lose some hours
And my lovely roommate, Essex Louweeese