h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Somehow life seems to be busy as ever (no free weekends now until April!) and I'm itching to be able to stop the world for, say, two days, while I can finish off several things I've been wanting to do and haven't had the time for, and generally relax. But there's no chance of that happening .

A friend of ours called Chris was living in a flat with two other girls, and was looking at buying a house. One of them left early, leaving Chris and the other girl, Hannah, in the lurch. They did try extending the let on the flat on a rolling contract basis, but were told it was 6 months or nothing . Chris had only just put an offer in to buy a house, so was looking at a few months gap where he and Hannah would be homeless, as she would rent a spare room off him.

Me and Dave offered our spare room to him, no better offers turned up for him, so we now have a lodger till his house sale goes through. Hannah is lodging with another friend till the house sale goes through.

But.... it's *my* house (alright, *our* house ). Especially at PMT time, I need to have space to hide from the world before I want to kill something or someone. I need to have a space where I can just be me without any fears, where I can just be with Dave and without anyone around. I don't want to feel confined. I don't want to feel like I have to be on my best behaviour all the time. I don't want to have to watch myself so I don't make Chris feel scared/embarrassed/whatever. I feel incredibly possessive over the house - not the stuff in it, which is odd I guess. And I don't feel like I can relax there any more .

Chris is a nice chap but he is clinging on to being a student - so I do have some worries about what sort of state the kitchen and fridge are going to be in while he's around. Not that I'm a total neat freak, but it's nice to have some semblance of order!

I haven't said any of this to Chris, although I have to Dave. Don't get me wrong, as a person I do like Chris; but I'd resent anyone's intrusion into my house! And it worries me that barely a weekend into it, I'm already quite het up and feeling stressed about it all (but that's probably just PMT ).

I suppose it's the lack of options that gets me here; I wouldn't ask Dave to kick Chris out, but at the same time I can't really demand Chris naff off so I can have some me-time every now and again.



I expect he'll probably be out a lot, anyway, rather than moping around the house. Certainly the next few weekends we're away, which will make it odd for him. It must be weird for him - it's not like me and Dave live like sharers or students, we're definitely domesticated .

Hopefully at the end of it we'll still be friends... and I'll still be sane and have a marriage!

What? Students aren't messy!

At least it's only short term - spend some time outside so you can relax!

Well... not all of them are!

I think most of the time we'll be fine, to be honest.

I'm heading out to see some friends this evening while Dave's at Scouts, which'll be nice (I should say that he's a Leader, not a scout himself )

Had me worried for a second there...

Nah, I knew what you meant!

Does he have a woggle?

Yes, but I think he lost it at some point

But then, he *is* always prepared .