I couldn't leave writing in here any later as I wanted to document the hilarity of today. When I say hilarity what I really mean is stress and terror, as I managed to lock myself in the garden and couldn't get out.

Now, my new house's garden is pretty big, lots of trees and foliage and suchlike. All enclosed by high wooden fences, none of which you can see much past, only I know either side is other neighbours' gardens.

At around 6.15 pm (Simpsons ad break) I decided I would see if it was better for me to move my bike from the front of the house into the back garden. I went out the lounge patio door, shut it (locking it automatically and I don't have the key) and went round the side to open the other door to bring my bike through. This second door wouldn't open. Oh fuck. Now I can't get back through the patio door or this one. And no one else is in and I have no idea when they're likely to be - Jenn's gone for dinner with her boyfriend and Ben's been working in Kent. FUUUUUUUCK.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, people. Seeing as I knew there were neighbours each side so clambering atop the fence and into their gardens would most likely be frowned upon, I decided to get over the fence at the back of the garden. I had to wade through nettles, thorny bushes and various shrubbery and climbed partly up a tree to hoik myself over.

I thought once over the other side I would be able to walk around, somehow, back to my house. Oh how wrong I was. As I landed the other side it quickly became apparent that I was actually stuck in London's answer to Alcatraz. Some weird and slightly creepy deserted allotment/grassy area with a shed, all fenced in by an unrelenting fuck off huge spiky metal fence, not seeming to belong to anyone. The only way out of HERE was to invent a time travel machine and not lock myself out in the first place.

Luckily I spied a trusty wheelbarrow and propped it against the fence and abseiled back into my own garden, by this time scratched, muddy and irritated. And then some higher being had clearly had its fill of mirth at my expense as at that exact moment Jenn came through the door and I waved at her though the patio door and she let me in, whilst chuckling.

Thank God I'm not alone in being a complete idiot though - Jenn's also done this before and ended up scaling a drainpipe to get in her bedroom window! Like I said, desperate times.

Everything's new and different here - though not in a bad way - and therefore I'm still very much in the process of settling in (Gaz is coming to visit tomorrow to assemble my �11 desk from Ikea. Oh, and to see me as well I assume!) but I should get into the swing of things soon enough. Just don't let me out alone in the garden, whatever you do.

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