I was 8 when my house opened, and at first I thought it was wonderful. There would be lots of people going through my house, cake (which my mum prepared), and picnic lunches in my room. Perfect, I thought. What could go wrong?
Well, for starters I didn’t have much space to move. There was a small patch in the centre if you managed to manoeuvre out the way of my sister’s unceremoniously dumped things, as her room’s contents were put in mine. So much for picnic lunches….
Lunches were compensated for by the fact that we went to Burger King every Saturday, which can’t have been good for me by any stretch of the imagination! Also I managed to nab slices of chocolate cake off the plates in the kitchen, although I had to get there before my brother and sister did. My sister was occupied earning a little money by waiting tables, and my brother stayed out of the whole business.
It wasn’t that bad when you look back, although my beloved videos and computer games had to be boarded up behind chipboard walls for the whole month, which could have caused irreparable damage to anyone younger. I did end up getting fed up of people trudging through my house, especially when it rained and they were all inside. You couldn’t get anywhere. My room seemed as packed as Wembley arena.
After all that, with the benefit of hindsight, would I do it again? Probably not. No matter how much cake I ate, nice people I met or knee high metal bugs there were scuttling about in the garden, I was glad when it was over in 2003.
I was 12, after all.

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