It has recently come to my attention that shenanigans are afoot at Team Castle, an Irish castle where a group of 10 YA writers have gathered to stalk peacocks have a writing vacation. It has also not-so-recently come to my attention that while everyone cool was invited to hang out in the castle, I was, well, not.

Which is fine. I mean, whatever. (Okay, bull, I’m totally jealous.)

So I consoled myself by moving into a Regency townhouse in London this week. And yeah, I’m still jealous, but now the turn-tables have turned, because it just so happens: Regency townhouse? Kind of awesome.

And so, while the cool YA authors are busy baking banana bread and wandering through inspiringly spooky graveyards, I’ll take you on a guided tour of the townhouse where I am currently holed up, pulling out my hair over the final chapter of my novel:

This is the view from the fourth storey, where, last night, there was a fajita party and one of my housemates topped up my glass of wine so sneakily and frequently that I had to be forcibly put to bed so I would not attempt to drunk-write the final pages of my middle grade novel and then subsequently drunk-email them to my editor. Moving on…

The downstairs parlor, before we filched the fireplace candles to create a romantic ambiance in order to consume nachos.

This is the floor. I am ridiculously obsessed with it, as I am picturing the white paint being rubbed away by the hem of the lady of the house’s gown, perhaps on her way to the theatre.

Oh, hello. This is my room. Note the curtains that are made of mildly mouldering velvet pure awesome. Also note the writing desk! I’ve named it Daisy, as it seems to have arrived straight from West Egg, still a bit hung over from one of Gatsby’s parties. Also also note what is hanging above this desk: 1. a platinum album (not mine, as to quote Q from Paper Towns, “I have the kind of tone deafness associated with actual deafness”) and 2. A sign advertising Sherlock Holmes’ services as a consulting detective (totally mine).

More of the room. And my laptop being a little slut, lounging on the duvet and tempting me to climb into bed and surf the internet instead of working. My laptop is a minx, I tell you!

Please note the stack of recently-minted “Violet Haberdasher” calling cards, ready for Violet’s first London Season. Also note the massive zoom lens to my camera, which I think has its eye on my laptop. I’ll be watching those two! Also also note that my grandmother’s paste jewelry seems to have found a long-lost cousin in this mirror (“You’re from the glass family? Why so am I!”).

The view from my desk, if you sort of lean sideways like you’re about to fall over and also forwards like you’re squatting. Obviously I do this constantly.

Oh, hi, don’t mind me, standing in front of this random, ridiculous mirror on the third storey. If you think this is weird, you should see the completely-out-of-nowhere fluted columns in one of my housemates’ rooms, or the bizarre horse frescos in the downstairs bath.

Not pictured: 1. The treehouse 2. One of Pete Doherty’s shoes which, for some reason, lives under the upstairs sofa 3. My awesometastic housemates (more about them later).

Okay, I know it’s no Irish castle complete with peacocks, but this quirky, falling-apart townhouse is still pretty cool, right?

xo

Robyn

p.s. you can now follow me on Twitter, at your own peril.

Somehow, despite the fact that my ideas are rarely ever rational (for examples, see: “I should randomly move to England!” “Gatsby-themed party on Cinco de Mayo, y’all!” and “Michelle Trachtenberg and Amanda Bynes are really the same person!”), I convinced myself that one of them was genius.

Which one?

The one where my friends invite me to their mustache-themed party and instead of buying a stick-on ’stache, I decide to make my mustache out of real human hair. Specifically, out of hair that was, at the time, still attached to my head.

Yeah, basically, I gave myself bangs, saved the trimmings, put them on double-sided tape, then proceeded to stick this tape to my face.

Notice how my mustache DOES NOT LOOK FAKE? Yeah, that’s why.

See, the thing was, when the party ended, I peeled off my mustache, stuck it in my coat pocket, and got a cab home. And then I promptly forgot about it. Fast forward to this weekend.

Due to a massive mouse issue in my flat, I’d decided to move. And so, after putting down a deposit on a new place, I was standing in the Chalk Farm tube station, wearing a nice, business casual outfit (which was meant to convey the impression that I would be a rational, capable flatmate who did not, for example, keep her body wash in the fridge or harbor ambitions to have loud sex in every room in the flat), when I reached into my pocket and wondered what the heck that could be.

And I pulled out a lump of what was, quite obviously, my own hair with a piece of tape stuck to it.

I quickly put it back into my coat pocket and tried to pretend that I was very interested in the map of the Northern Line, but this one girl was totally giving me the hairy (ha!) eyeball. She was clearly wondering why a woman in a pinstripe button down would take a wad of human hair out of her coat pocket on the train platform on a nice, sunny Saturday afternoon.

To this woman, I apologize. I did not mean to upset you with my mustache. These things just sort of happen. And I really, really hope that we are not going to be neighbors who wind up standing on this very platform every Saturday afternoon, purposefully at opposite ends.