I think I can safely say my house party moment is probably over.

It feels like a million years ago when we would all be crammed into various bedrooms of our house in Lower Clapton. People racking up lines on DVD covers and smoking non stop, for some reason people always bought bottles of cheap prosecco to house parties didn't they?! When I look back I'm racking my brains to work out what we did for an entire 24 hours. They'd always be the random bands that would turn up after they'd exhausted their other parties, sometimes it would look like cover of NME from 2006. I once answered the door to the lovely boys from The Mystery Jets at around 5am at one of my birthday parties, as I opened the door, my nose started to bleed. Not one of my coolest moments tbh. I was mortified.

At our house parties in Tooting Broadway we would be in a little MDMA bubble, eventually getting all cosy and comfortable in a little nook somewhere, OR mine and my ex's party trick was to stay awake and go straight to a carboot sale as soon as it opened at around 6am determined to avoid any 'end' and just ride through until we were exhausted by Sunday evening, order loads of takeaway and fall asleep.

We would buy loads of clothes, things that we thought were perfect at the time but looking back mainly just scruffy old jumpers and t-shirts, large M&S old dresses that I'd chop up and pull a belt around wearing with clumpy Doc Martens and laddered tights... essentially it was a bit like poor mans version of a scene from Skins.

Once we bought a pair of roller skates that were a size too small for me... my bedroom was a bit like a museum of decision making whist still high.

Tbh those aren't the times I regret as I think it was a massive exploration of all sorts, a kind of process to get to where I am now, nothing particularly out of the ordinary when you're in your early twenties in London and I wouldn't be who I am now without those years. I never felt out of place at those parties, I still have the same core group of friend from then, and it was mainly harmless fun but it did lead to crippling anxiety in the years that followed. Later when we moved to Berlin for a year that anxiety really came into play, in quite a severe way.

It was not really those 'growing up' house parties that I would do differently, it's the random Tuesday nights, up until 6am the next day for no apparent reason that are the nights that fill me with regret. Those nights that didn't shift anything or move me forward in anyway but just into bad moods, bad work performance, bad sleep and less money in my account than the night before. Those were the nights that more recently were what got me thinking I needed to reassess what I was doing.

I would say I'm quite driven and to have a whole day (or two) written off for the sake of a repetitive conversation was starting to take it's toll on me mentally. I started to feel that I couldn't have a drink without it creeping into a night like that...it was like a sort of groundhog day...nothing was new, nothing was changing and nothing felt exciting. Not like those parties, when it did feel new and exciting, the last year or so of drinking and doing drugs felt pretty boring really and the feeling of guilt and chronic hangovers only worsened.

Now I find that if I'm at some kind of party or event, one of my favourite bits is getting ready, I LOVE clothes and me and my friend Ben both always laugh about the fact that once we've got ready and taken photo's of our outfits together & after the initial catch up chat with the people we want to see, we find ourselves wanting to leave.

I have new versions of house parties these days, like dinners with friends, gym classes, cooking for my friend Harley and laughing relentlessly at him jumping around my house like a loon, laying in my bed with Claire watching a film but by watching I mean talking the entire way through it and showing each other things on Instagram, going to a session with Blaize at The London Wellness Studio, events like Gurlstalk, or fashion shows or gigs I'm filming at, my weekly brunch with Makeda where we talk all morning about everything and anything, walking Queenie with Tim and his dog Bruno, A car journey anywhere with my friend Sam where we chat and laugh and belt out songs, a posh dinner with my other friend Sam, who wont eat anywhere unless it's pretty bouji, where we talk for hours about the jokes scenarios he's got himself into, Columbia Road Market with Ria then tea and her sofa for hours drinking tea swiping left and right conferring on each swipe... the list is endless.

That phrase 'nothing good happen after 2am' resonates quite a bit with me now but it's usually more like midnight... modern day cinderella. So I think I can safely say, I think my house party moment is probably over.