Photograph Story Excercise

The sun’s shining, the skies are blue, its midday at the end of hot august 2009. The summer to remember. Sat next to me is Aimee, a school friend and flatmate. We’re sat in my car, outside her house in the middle of Lincolnshire about to drive to our new flat in London. My car is a Daihatsu Hijet MPV. Now if you know anything about cars you’ll know that its shit. It’s a van type car thing with six seats, in 3 rows, so two at the front, two in the middle and two at the back. It guzzled petrol, it barely went anywhere without something falling off, it even had a motorbike engine instead of a real one, and it was even older than me! Basically, it was an embarrassment. But it was mine. It was my first car and it had character. And I loved it. You know guys have to name their cars and I’m no different. She was called Ella. Unless she was being stubborn then she would be called Trev, but I had to stop calling her that cos it makes me sound like I’m driving a German porn star with a dodgy moustache! Sadly Ella has recently passed away to the big cloudy car park in the sky where she can drive at the actual speed limit for once. This was the end of a spectacular summer, well almost. I’d been in Edinburgh performing at the fringe and my flat was almost free to move into when the landlord called up and changed his mind. Balls! We have 2 weeks to find a house and move in before uni starts again! This was Aimee’s first year at uni and my second year, but I was finally getting out of the uni’s halls of residence, which resembled the inside of a broom cupboard in the shape of a sodding pizza slice. I don’t know which pillock designed them but they obviously never lived in the poxy bloody thing! So we rushed back from Edinburgh to find somewhere, anywhere that we could call home. After rejecting a few crack dens and whore houses, here we are, sat in the car, her sister is taking a picture of us before we set off for our new flat. I’d already driven a van load of stuff down but in the background of the picture you can see the last bits we’d forgotten to pack, which turned out to be about 30 boxes of crap that filled my oversized white elephant of a car. The car’s packed, we’re about to move in, ready for a long road trip to London. The sun’s beating down so we have the windows wide open, only cos we can’t close them without a screwdriver. There’s an unlimited supply of coca cola, party rings, crisps and crappy CDs to keep us amused for the 4 and a half hour drive. This is my memory of the best summer and it means a lot to me. Since then I’ve gone through my fair share of crap, who hasn’t, grandparents getting cancer, family members passing away etc etc blah blah blah. Not to mention living with a guy who’s a complete fuckwit and never paid his rent and stressed me out for a full year! Anyway, Aimee puts on some S Club 7 classic, London is waiting to be discovered, the flat’s finally sorted, the sun’s shining, I couldn’t be happier. The world was lining itself up to be my oyster. I pulled slowly out of the drive feeling happier than I had in a long time when.....Shit. Stalled.