The Best Room

I'm sat here in my 'new' room in Kaikoura, propped up on the pillows in bed.  Heated blanket is on, hair's wet and my finger is throbbing and has gone slightly poisonous because I'm a child and don't know when to stop biting my nails.  

As I look around this room I'm reminded of all the bedrooms that have come before it.  My shoebox child's bedroom with a bed on a high frame to create space for furniture underneath it, the walls covered in posters of Ricky Martin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lara Croft.  My uni dorm room that I had to paint over blood spatters on the wall with tippex (there's a story there, but maybe not one for the blog), the variety of disgusting bedrooms in Hatfield that followed it with awful wallpaper and single beds and no sound insulation.  My two rooms in my house in London - both large considering our rent, cold and creaky and the floor wasn't flat so all furniture would wobble. 

My favourite room of all is my first room in New Zealand.  I'd arrived in Auckland six months before, and Amy was living in a cute wooden villa on Paice Avenue - a surprisingly quiet, tree lined street wedged between two busy roads in Sandringham.  Well - there was debate as to whether we were in Sandringham or Mt Eden - we were smack bang on the boundary line for both, so we liked to say Mt Eden as it sounded fancier.  I spent the first 3 days sleeping on the floor of Amy's room, and she'd shown me round her house, pointing out the tiniest room I ever saw (bar my childhood room) and saying that if I decided to stick around, that room would become free in a few months or so as the current occupant was heading back to the UK.  It had a double bed, a small built in cupboard, and space for not much else.  I laughed and dismissed the thought immediately.

I spent the next 6 months living out of hostels, my car and then a tent, travelling the length of New Zealand, stopping when I needed a break and some stability and comfort to wwoof.

I eventually came back to Auckland, and Amy again presented me with this tiny room - there was a couple living in it temporarily whilst they found a more permanent house, and I camped out on the lawn for three weeks whilst I house hunted for myself.  I resisted the tiny room at Amy's house - I wanted to strike out on my own, the room was so small, I wanted to make new friends.  But I couldn't find anything else I liked, and her flatmates were lovely, and the rent was cheap, so I ended up moving into this room that I had scoffed at 6 months previously.

I foraged industrial estates for pallets and found 2 mismatched ones as a bed base, bought a very old lumpy mattress off Shanyn for $60, and searched op shops for bedding and a book shelf.  I found a tiny kids chair for $5 which I used as my bed side table, and a little woven rug for $2. Clemence gave me a spare lamp she had, and I filled up the built-in wardrobe with my backpack full of clothes, barely making a dent in it.  I lay down on the bed and looked up at the high ceilings and felt immensely proud and happy - I'd moved to the other side of the world, I was paying rent, I had an address, and a door, and a window! No more zipping the tent up.  I had wooden floors, a view out into the garden, a gorgeous Kowhai tree right outside that the Tauhau's and Tui's loved, and got the sun most of the day through the two big windows.   

It may have been a tiny room but I filled it to the brim with memories.  

Shanyn coming in on the weekends to see if I wanted pancakes for breakfast.  

Waking up to the room shaking because the couple 2 rooms away were having such energetic sex it made the house move.  

Being forced to listen to everyone's toilet habits because it was literally right next to the bathroom.

Having 8 people come sit on my bed during a house party for no other reason than people like to gather in weird places at house parties.  

The various boys who stayed over.  One of them came over on his motorbike and there was barely any space for his helmet and motorbike clothes.  Getting annoyed at another boy who woke up early at 5am to go and kite surf rather than spending his morning in bed with me.  The first night my ex boyfriend came over to stay and I was so nervous about him meeting my friends that I got really, very drunk and I tried to do the worm on the kitchen floor, before taking him to bed and passing out on top of him half way through, then waking up at 2am busting my guts for the toilet and waking him up with the sounds of my toilet explosions - the very thing I would laugh at everyone else for suddenly became my turn to experience the embarrassment.  Not my proudest moment and definitely a make or break situation for him, but I guess he decided he liked me enough to continue for another few years. 

The night I cried myself to sleep because I was about to turn 30 and thought everyone hated me and I didn't have a proper boyfriend and there were so many milestones I should have hit by now and I hadn't and I was just a loser that was living in a tiny shit rented room in a country far away from home when I should have a husband and child and my own house by now. 

The time we got burgled and the people used my room to get into the house, but my room was so small and bare it had nothing obviously worth stealing, so they bypassed it and nicked everyone else's stuff instead. 

It was so small it had the added benefit of forcing me to spend more of my time in the lounge, or on the deck in the Summer.   We had an open plan kitchen/dining room/lounge and so I would spend most of my time here, curled up on the sofa on my laptop or in one of the rattan chairs reading a book.   One of our housemates discovered that the fire was usable and not ornamental, so that added excitement one winter.  Sometimes Shanyn would bring out his computer monitor and we'd gather round it to watch Game of Thrones or the occasional movie.  Most weekends were spent on adventures away or hiking in nearby regional parks, Shanyn whipping up pancakes in the mornings to the sounds of Fat Freddy's Drop on the stereo and friends dropping by to say hello.

It was a very nice period of my life that I think back very fondly on.