Everlasting Love Affair

Of course I've seen his films, always thought he was fabulous but you know, million miles away from the world that I live in, which is, here - Notting Hill.

There's a market on the weekdays selling every fruit and vegetable known to man. There's the tattoo parlour, with a new guy outside every morning who got drunk and can't remember why he chose the name Ken. The racial hairdressers, where every one who comes out ends up looking like the Cookie Monster whether they like it or not. And then suddenly it's the weekend and from break of day hundreds of stalls appear out of no where, filling Portobello Road right up to Notting Hill Gate.

And thousands of people turn up to buy millions of antiques some even genuine and some - not so genuine.

And what's great is that lots of friends have ended up in this part of London, there's Ben Winston, Music director turned chef, who recently invested all of his life savings in a new restaurant.

And this where I chose to spend my days, years, in this little village in the middle of the city in a house with a small door that me and my husband bought together - before he left me for a man who looked like David Beckham, only more handsome. And where I now lead a strange half life with a lodger named...

"Niall" Louis shouted as he closed the door behind him, picking up the post on his way and trying extremely hard not to trip over the numerous items all over the floor.

As if on cue, Niall appears at the bottom of the stairs. He was an incurably strange man, incredibly unusual looking fellow with his brightly highlighted blonde hair. He also spotted an unusually loud Irish accent and always wore the most unusually short boxers.

"Hey, you couldn't help me with an incredibly important decision, could you?"

"This is important in comparison to let's say, whether they should cancel third world debt?" Louis challenged, turning around to switch the kettle on.

"That's right - I'm at last going out on a date with a great girl named Janine and I just wanted to be sure that I picked the right t-shirt"

"Right" Louis spoke, pleasantly surprised "What are the choices?"

"Well, wait for it" He shouted as he fled up the stairs, giving Louis a chance to pour the boiling water into his mug. But he was soon back down, throwing the first shirt over his shoulders.

"First there's this one"

Louis tried to stifle in an abusive comment towards this mans stupidity as he glanced at the t shirt, it had a horrific looking plastic alien coming out from the middle, jaws open and blood everywhere with the simple words 'I love blood' written across it.

"Yes" Louis starts and stops, trying to contain himself "might make it hard to strike a romantic note"

"Point taken" Niall nodded, running back up the stairs and removing his top "I imagine you'll prefer the next one"

He re enters the room with an even worse top, a very blatant and large arrow pointing towards his crotch with the words 'get it here' in bold letters.

"Cool, huh?" Niall asked, pulling the bottom of his top side to side to show off.

"Right, well, she may not think you have true love on your mind?"

"Right, good point" and back he goes, his feet banging against the flooring before he returned back down the stairs "last one"

Although it would most definitely not be claimed as the most attractive t-shirt worn, he couldn't exactly argue with this one. The words 'you are the most beautiful woman in the world' sprawled across it and the giddy look on Niall's face made it hard to deny him of this one.