Can you see her yet?
This lurking shadow is Harriet Rum. For those readers unfamiliar with the real Harriet, she's an English folk music junkie with a penchant for ale and rum (ostensibly enough), and she is quite, quite mad. She will be joining the Crombies for the next three days before moving into the neighbourhood. If Harriet doesn't think it looks like her enough, I REGRET NOTHING.
Well, let's see what kind of girl our Harriet here is.
A businesswoman in the making! Harriet wants to start her own retail empire. Probably making cushions...
Some other notes: Harriet's main interest is 'the paranormal'. And she calls herself an atheist.
She wants to be a chef, apparently. She wants to throw a party. And she wants to be friends with Jack and Nooreen. Aww... and one of her fears is 'getting fat'. Don't make me laugh.
Pyke sits in the car, knowing that it will be smelling of her own piss for weeks to come. If she just creeps in, no one will know...
Harriet's housewarming debuts with total immersion in virtual skiing. I don't know why they love that game so much.
Nooreen doesn't show any outward reaction to Harriet's sudden intrusion, just silently stares at her.
'You'd better not think about beating my high scores.'
Jack wrestles with his irrational fear of dustpans.
'I got the high score! HAT FOR THE WIN! HAT FOR THE WIN!'
'You have to sleep some time. And when you do, you can say goodbye to your ears.'
As dawn breaks, the Bears of Judgement maintain their eerie presence. Standing guard against the corruption of the lewd and salacious.
'I... I'm sorry about the smell... and the car... I made everyone cornflakes...'
'Whatever, Pyke. I'm just going to eat my nondescript square.'
'... and I'm really sorry about the car seat, but I had nowhere to go, you know...'
'Pyke, no! Not Franklin! He was genuine leather!'
'Jack, I wish you wouldn't name everything. It just makes it harder when you have to get rid of them.'
'That's not true!'
'I've heard you, you know. In the... toilet...'
'It always makes me sad to see them whirl away out to sea. They're like the children I'll never have.'
Catriona is completely shattered. She needs sleep, pronto. Here she is making a last-moment dash to the nearest bed. You can do it, Catriona!
...
'This is so gay.'
Pyke enjoys her cereal in the lounge (which is what I've decided to call it). She filled up all available spaces in the kitchen and I think Catriona was blocking the first floor lift so she had to go all the way to the top.
Harriet...
Jack's carpool's arrived at exactly the same moment Harriet gets off the computer. She wants to talk to him, but she's lost the chance.
'... Don't go!'
I wake Catriona up so she can get the rest she needs and get out of everyone's way. Also, this tree is causing some serious clipping issues. But I think it's awesome. There's a gap of nothingness between the balcony, the music room and King Maurice and I felt it needed filling.
No, Harriet, just no. Do you know how long that's been there? You're not going to eat it are you?
Mould, fly eggs, actual flies, rotten cereal flakes, and even more rotten milk complete with congealed floating lumps. All of it goes down the hatch with no discrimination between food and health hazard.
That last maggot didn't go down too well.
'This cereal smells like piss...'
Pyke knows how to make cereal! All of the Crombies have sampled its flavours now. Redemption cereal is the best cereal.
Catriona liberally sprays Nooreen with half of her spoonfuls as she gorges herself.
'When I see that woman, I'm going to make her pay for beating my skiing scores. I unlocked Alpine Peak for crying out loud!'
Where is Harriet...?
THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!
'I'm going to shove a baseball so far up her-'
'Maybe you should go for something skiing-themed. The best revenge is either apt or ironic, I've always thought?'
'Yeah?'
'Yeah, when Jack hid my face cream, you know what I did?'
'No, what?'
'I hid HIS.'
Catriona's belch could steer ships away from rocks.
'Nooreen, there's an Oscar in your Ricicles!'
'I don't see it.'
'Look closer.'
'I still *glub* don't see it.'
'That'll teach you to beat my time trial for the Snowy Peak stage!'
Harriet, meet Gateway to Hell. Gateway to Hell, Harriet.
I still think it's strange how they don't at least expose their bottoms in any way before emptying their bowels. Maybe the waste is highly acidic and it eats its way through... only science can tell us.
'Cereal, cereal, cereal, oh yum yum yum yum yum-'
'I think I can see a BAFTA.'
'You'd better not use my bed. Or I'll have to kill you.'
Harriet attempts to correct her rotating head.
Why do these guys insist on using the petri dish this counter is becoming rather than any of the other ones? I don't usually prepare my food on something that appears to have been covered in raw sewage.
Jack, you son of a gun. That's a job I would love.
Harriet decides to play some jazz. It sounds... like either extremely bad jazz, or perhaps extremely good jazz. It depends on your perspective.
More bringing food from the top floor to the microwave oven on the ground floor. Tsk.
Not much seems to be happening, I'll zoom out a bit and-
Um. Nooreen, don't do that. It's... disconcerting.
'Many citizens in SimNation have been reporting a number of gravitational anomalies throughout the course of the day...'
STOP POOPING UP THERE. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! AND ABOVE THE KITCHEN!
Once again, one of the Crombies tips the piano player and immediately turns the stereo on afterwards and dances to latin music. I'm quite tired of hearing sambas all the time so I get her to change it to classical music.
She continues to rock out to something sounding very Mozartian. What is that expression she's pulling? It's like someone hit her over the head with a mallet. There ought to be little birds flying round her head or something.
Jesus, she's wiggling her bum now and she's still got that bewildered look of severe head trauma. It's just like when her face stuck in the chess game except worse. Oh, much much worse.
A small expansion to the back of the house allowing quicker access to the first floor from the living room/blue and green bedrooms area. And a back door! That'll make it much easier when I eventually tell them to light the bonfire.
As garish as possible, that's the ticket.
'Maybe you could try that sailing game? I hear it's quite fun?'
'I will not rest until I have my honour back! DEATH OR GLORY!'
Finally, someone's seen fit to tidy up after the mess the sprinklers made yesterday when Nooreen set fire to the microwave.
My theory is that the wet floor reminded her of past sins.
... Well... everyone has their hobbies.
Catriona admires her creation. Better not let Jack see you, Catriona, he's got a jealous streak.
This woman is not Nooreen.
Pyke sways her hips to the bip-bop beat of Schubert.
When Pyke dances she does it serious.
'Oh baby, baby, baby, I wanna compiiiiiiiiile! I want to decrypt the code to your heart and learn aaaaaaall your passwoooords...!'
These Pykes are crazy.
Harriet joins in on backing vocals.
I've grown a little tired of the giant tree passing through walls so I put a palm tree in its place.
Immediately, Jack is on the case. He can't WAIT to tell me how shit he thinks the tree is can he? Or maybe he will like it? C'est possible?
'This tree is too tall, and it offends me.'
YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKER, I DON'T KNOW WHY I KID MYSELF THAT ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'LL APPRECIATE ME!
In my day, we had to make our own entertainment, none of this watching closely as your friends use the toilet.
Nooreen cleans the counter. What a trooper, taking the bullet for the rest of the gang. I mean, sure the fumes will have knocked a few years off her life expectancy, but on the other hand those Crombies love their spaghetti bolognese.
Even as she washed her favourite bowl, Catriona was alert. Her sources had informed her Pyke was making a play for the SSX 3 high score - and she wasn't taking no for an answer.
Addendum: Pyke smells.
Jack is oblivious to the skiing-related tensions in the house. He's got problems of his own, like being at the centre of a highly localised tornado.
Harriet is in bed after playing piano nearly all day. She dreams of bowling... that would be nice. There's no way she could get tapeworms from that.
'Nooreen, I think I'd better just come out with this straight: are you a robot? 'Cos I think you're a robot. Pyke says you're just another collection of slowly dying organic matter in a godless universe, but she says that about everyone.'
'And she saved over my file in Donkey Kong, that envious whore! That self-righteous bitch from Hell!'
Imagine this happening in slow motion... the camera slowly zooming in on Pyke, the image becomes grainy, black and white... and then BAM - Barber's Adagio for Strings.
'Yeah! And you know what I hate? WALLS.'
'Look, Catriona, I want to make things up to you. Maybe we could hold hands. Just like old times.'
'Don't do it Catriona, she's the enemy! She's in league with Harriet to take over the high scores forever!'
'Hooray for holding hands!'
Nooreen looks on in dismay. The war is already over.
Discussion turns to what shoes should be worn while they frolic, hand-in-hand in the daisy-rich meadows of joy and peace.
I think these guys are going to be just fine. Eventually, they'll be laughing about the whole 'Catriona gave Pyke a mastectomy' thing.
'No, Pyke, no! We're holding HANDS, not FEET. That's RIDICULOUS. You NUT. Wait 'til I tell Nooreen about this.'
'Yeah, well if you tell Nooreen, I'll tell Harriet you've been wiretapping bartenders because you think they're part of an underground orgiastic Satan-worshipping cult.'
'THEY ARE. And if you tell her about that, I'll tell Jack you threw away his collection of toenail clippings.'
'She did WHAT?!'
Nooreen is reading That Book again. The build-up of sexual tension and frustration in this household is so thick you could stab it with a fork.
'I can't believe she threw away Julian! We've got to call the police, that woman is out of control!'
Wait a second. Something's wrong here.
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT. That is not my nose! No human could have been born with something like that on the front of their face! It looks like it's been sanded!
Never tell a man his toenail clippings aren't important.
Chapter One of 'Toenails And The Law: A Thorough Analysis'.
And so Day Nineteen draws to an end. Maybe tomorrow I'll make the swimming pool an indoor swimming pool? That way I can expand above it. Not sure what I'd put there yet, but I'll think of something. Until then, see you all next time.
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