Ode to Old Mill Avenue

So this is where Lia, Gav, Stana and me lived last year, with a couple others. It's in Canley, about 10-15 minutes walk from campus in a residential area where barely any students live. The house was sick, 8 rooms, living room, garage, massive garden, pond plus a giant field behind the garden. There are so many good memories in this place and it was awesome to remember them all while walking here to pick up a sleeping bag I'd left behind. Since I probably won't be coming back any time soon, and for fear of forgetting some of these memories, I'm writing a non-exhaustive list here. Excessive TL;DR so just skip to the next part. Here we go, in no particular order:
- the crazy neighbor with her bee hives, which we only learned about when she decided to let them out over our garden!
- setting fire to bottles, trolleys, broccoli, steel wool etc. all for the sake of photography
- the lives of Bob and Bob #2, the bean balls (and target practice in the kitchen with the monkeys)
- epic meals every couple weeks, including the 3kg bolognese, the overdose of mac&cheese, the jager-bolognese and rounds 1 and 2 of pizza making 101
- we hit TURBULENCE!
- moving the couches into the garden for summer
- my broken double bed (various times)
- building a fort in the living room, not very comfortable...
- four house parties throughout the year:
1) housewarming party
2) drinking games in the living room with all of knightcote
3) Lia's birthday
4) epic summer party & barbecue!
- skateboarding down the endless road
- the five barbecues in four days we had during the last week of the year
- our 13-14 trolleys hidden in our garden by the end of the year
- trolley mountain and the frisbee games
- co-creating blaze ball with Gavin and Adrien (I need to find the rulebook)
- playing blazeball in the garden with photosoc (Mark, Shane and me thrashing everybody else!)
- drinking beers and chilling on the roof of the garage
- moss-throwing wars off of Adrien's roof
- snowball fights in the house
- welcome to St. Tropez!
- sending pinecones at Adrien's window in the middle of the night
- kicking the football at Stana's window at any time of day (westwood style)
- playing frisbee over the roof of the house
- Bass Sculpture experiment in the garden
- football with Adrien and Gav in the field, and receiving a warning from the cop for our use of trolleys as goalposts
- ultimate frisbee and "pink glittery ball" cricket in the field
- smashing bottles in the garden for the sake of photography (glass everywhere!)
- cleaning the pond on the first day we moved in
- revising at 5am in the garden in term 3, at sunrise
- the really hot week of May, when we bought an inflatable pool
- the eight 12-packs of corona at £6.60 a piece, from our good friend the alcohol manager at Tesco's
- trolley rides down the Endless Road
- the giant snowman we built in the middle of the road, before tackling it to the ground in front of a car
- bike races around the block on Gav's bike
- LGBT, Apartheid and the other trolleys, and the long journey to recycle all the bottles at the end of the year
- door handle wars and locking Gav in his room, before spraying his eye with deodorant!
- coming back home from Jailbreak early to find my room filled with hanging penises and covered in pennies and water-filled trays
- rearranging Gav and Adrien's rooms while they weren't around
- emptying and plastic bagging Stana's room
- pringle and laundry wars with Gav
- playing Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot in term 1, before the playstation broke...
- late night monopoly games which temporarily broke down a couple friendships
- and finally, not much work being done, all in all!

It seems I have a lot to remember from second year at Old Mill, and this isn't even half... Plus it's only the memories from the house! Yeah, last year was great, no regrets, even with our negligent landlord.

It seems like a lot to write for the world to see. It's funny to think that blip is open to literally every one of my facebook friends (many of which need deleting), and the world beyond. I'm far from being one of those who pours their soul and life on blip, but so far I've taken blip as a place to record memories I don't want to forget, ideally via the use of photos. Thus, the fact that this is an incredibly mediocre photo with no artistic value doesn't even matter anymore, its what the photo is of and what I've written. Its just where else am I gonna write all this stuff, a stupid word document? Nah, I do want to write this and as far as I can tell, despite the openness, blip is the place to do it. I might change my mind though.

______

Back to the present.
After campus, Luisa and me picked up another puzzle (you know it!), this time a lot easier than the four-day swans. In the evening, headed to Robbin's Well basement to celebrate Jodie and Tom's birthdays! We ended up hitting Saint's afterwards, all in all a cool night with some good friends, and quite eventful.


peace