Dawson's Creek

What should you absolutely NOT do when you have PMT, are exhausted, have inherited your child's vomming sick bug and feel like you have regressed twenty years? That's right - you shouldn't watch the last ever episode of Dawson's Creek that a work mate has lent you. Now it aired in 2003 - so I don't reckon I need a spoiler alert - but oh my god JEN DIES!!!! I nearly lost an eyeball and had to pause for ten mins while I composed myself.

See, DC was a Sunday ritual in my old flat. I had discovered it one Saturday afternoon - lurking after the sport on Channel 4. Suddenly the second series leapt onto an all new Sunday strand called T4 and it was a mega mega hit. I lived with 3 other girls and one by one they would troop (or crawl after a particularly heavy Sat night)into my bedroom (which was the lounge really) on a Sunday around 11am and take their positions: Nikki in bed beside me clutching my stuffed rabbit. Claire sprawled on my sofa and Caroline (always last in as she worked until 5am or later running a bar) would insist on sitting on the floor. Caroline cried in almost every episode - whether or not it was remotely sad. We sang along to the theme tune and all wished that Pacey would buy a wall for us to paint on. We never wanted tomboy girl-next-door Joey Potter (acting range limited to shrugs and goofy smiles)to get together with Dawson and his over large forehead and complete lack of humour. It was the wise cracking, sweet, mild mannered rebel Pacey that stole our hearts. Not in a sexy Chuck Bass rip-off-my-clothing-and-take-me-now way but in a marry-me-forever-soulmate way. We tried to date Pacey types. We failed.

The homage to John Hughes's The Breakfast Club was inspired. To me, Kevin Williamson could do no wrong - I know it all went a bit screwy with that irritating Audrey girl when they all disappeared to college - but when they where based in Capeside it was so golden, so perfect. The eternal love triangle, the best coming out scene I have ever watched and everyone hanging on to their virginity's for dear life. I craved to be 17 again. I think deep down I always will. It's like that scene in The Outsiders when Ralph Maccio (spelt wrong I am sure) is dying and he tells Pony boy that life is green, kinda golden. Sort of summed it all up for me. Full of angst and isolation and yet brimming with hope and potential. Whenever I watch the Creek now I feel old. We all know what happened - Katie Holmes married Tom Cruise and became cold and dull; Michelle Williams blossomed into a great actress and then her life became sadder than any DC storyline; James Van Der Beek vanished and Joshua Jackson seems to be arm candy at various premieres and fashion parties these days with a pretty blonde actress whose name escapes me.

I miss the show. I miss those lazy Sunday mornings. Everything felt so much more innocent back then - the story had yet to be written. Almost 10 years on and the show feels so dated. If Dawson hadn't tried to get Jen and Joey in a threesome and Pacey wasn't trying to sell Es at school prom by episode 3, I doubt E4 would have sniffed it.

Call me old fashioned, a romantic at heart. Ok, a not-so-closet Pacey obsessive. But nothing has come close to DC since. I think I may have to buy the box set of series one and take a nice long walk down memory lane again. Ok, you can call me sad too.

They say 3 things....

...are the most stressful in life: death, divorce and moving house. Thankfully i don't know about the first one. But I have recently come close to the second due to the third. Oh my god to say moving is stressful is a gross understatement - like saying women quite like handbags and men quite like touching themselves even surreptitiously as often as they can!

I have moved. I have house. I have no furniture for said house. Until Friday I had no TV or broadband - I felt like I was on freakin' Mars. Husband turned into a creature from Mars. We rowed. In between rowing we unpacked and painted and rowed some more. Over what? Him going to work on the day after we moved leaving me knee deep in boxes with a howling hungry 23 month old. Him arriving at the new house 4 hours before me - and unpacking....nothing, but building a BBQ. Him spraying droplets of paint around the lounge after he failed to put down any newspaper or dustsheets. We now have a fetching spotty modem and phone cradle. One little acorn of a row managed to grow into a great big tree. It culminated in world war 3 on Sat night when he stormed out and didn't return until the next day. I think if it hadn't been Father's Day and if I hadn't eaten a truckload of humble pie I might have been able to tell you how stressful divorcing is as well. Sproglet was unnerved by his enormous room, but has now acclimatised and loves to bring in a truck filled with small stones and deposit them in the kitchen, on the stairs and in empty shoes laid out in the hall.

The house is spacious but filled with boxes. It has a garden filled with weeds. It has a dining room with no table or chairs. A lounge with no soft furnishings. But if is beginning to feel like home. I now drive to and from work and listen to the radio, humming along with happy tunes as sunlight streams through the windows. I have seen more green in a week than I did in 13 years in London. I feel more 'normal' whatever that means. Barefoot I pad around the polished floorboards and step into the underfloor heated bathroom. I wander around the hall and up and down the two flights of stairs. I wonder if we will ever fill the space. And if our marriage will survive this damn move. Fingers crossed for both eh?
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