House-sitting without controlling adults

Jessica – 07/01/03

Yeah, the Christmas period. A time when the weather is fine and more importantly parents leave their grown up children at home while they go on holiday.

I can’t say that I am ever lucky enough to have my parents leave me the house for a couple of weeks, but am fortunate enough to have a friend whose parents do.

So hence for the last week and a half, I have generously kept her company and watched over the house with her. As both of us obviously still live at home, we decided to treat this time house-sitting as a flatting preview. As neither of us can cook, we pretty much lived on potato chips and onion dip, with chocolate sauce for desert, until one of our more culinary friends decided she would cook dinner for us.

Activities at night were mostly pretty plain, with movies being watched until the early hours of the next morning.

One night we decided to invite a couple of close friends over, for an evening of very cheap wine, and a laze in the spa. Dinner that night consisted of sizzler sausages cooked on the barbeque, microwave pasta, and yes, chips and dip on the side. So after a few glasses of $5 a bottle sparkling wine (yes very
classy) we jumped into the spa with the TV pulled out onto the deck with a few videos.

Now in case you haven’t combined cheap wine, a spa pool, and a few close friends, you won’t know how hilarious it can be. The wine makes you giggly, the spa light headed, and of course add in our friend’s boyfriend from South Africa and it makes for a good evening.

If this is a preview of what life will be like while flatting, then I say “Bring on the chips and dip!”

Our next adventure (tomorrow) involves road tripping up to the Marlborough Sounds, where we are staying with parents for a few nights, then on to Nelson for some parent-free days hanging out on the beach.

Our food for this trip so far consists of 3 packets of chips, 2 packets of snax biscuits, 2 blocks of chocolate and chewing gum.

I also have a feeling that we’ll be taking too much clothing and shoes for this journey as my luggage alone already fills the boot of my car!

Stay tuned for more!