999.

The news is often filled with horror stories about when parents go away, leaving their teenage children unattended to throw mad parties, trash the house, or burn it down altogether.

So when my Mum and her boyfriend went away at the same time as my Dad went away with his girlfriend, my little sister and her best friend Geoff, it's no wonder my Mum decided to write us out a little booklet entitled "Brooke & George's survival guide to 57 Walker Road".

This was the deal; George and I would get to stay in the house all week, as long as we fed the cat. It seemed simple enough - what could possibly go wrong?

Picture the scene. It's 1:30am. The house is pitch black. George and I are just drifting off to sleep. Suddenly, there's a loud rattling noise from downstairs. A loud, un-catlike rattling noise. A someone-trying-to-open-our-back-door rattling noise. I froze, and then proceeded to slap George in a panicked fashion until he eventually awoke.

"You alright?"

"SHHHH! SHHHH! THERE'S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE!" (whispered, of course)

"It's okay... it's just Choccie messing around. Go back to sleep."

Hand squeeze.

Rattling noise.

"Errr... Brooke... that's not just Choccie... is it?"

We get up and go over to the window. Looking out we can see our living room lights are on and George's drum kit is clearly reflected across the patio. I'm thinking about all the things we've left in the living room - the living room which has yet to have curtains installed. Drum kit. Microphone. Two guitars. Two amps. My brand new Macbook.

You can probably tell that by now I am freaking out. George is threatening to go downstairs. I am offering the solution of barricading the door whilst I call the police. George throws me my mobile phone. "Dial 999."

The man at the other end of the phone is very nice, considering it's now 1:45am and he's talking to a nervous wreck version of myself who can hardly remember my own name, let alone explain the current situation. He tells me a police unit is being dispatched just as the living room light appears to turn off and the sound of footsteps is heard climbing the stairs.

The survival guide had not prepared me for this.

Now I'm stepping back a little while. When my Mum was having the electrics rewired in her house, she decided it would be fun to get one of those novelty doorbells. The ones where you can choose which song plays when your guest rings the bell, or even record your own voice onto it.

If you know me you will know how amused I would've been by this. You will also understand that to me, it was a perfectly sane idea to record myself yelling "I'm a doorbell!" into the mic and setting it to play whenever the doorbell is pressed.

Let me tell you now, it is very, very embarrassing when the police turn up at your house and decide to ring said doorbell. We're upstairs shaking like hell with our ears to the bedroom door, and suddenly there's this noise of "I'm a doorbell!" "I'm a doorbell!" "It's the police, please open the door!" "I'm a doorbell!". Cringe.

So we creep downstairs and open the door to find one very butch lesbian-type police officer alongside one very short obviously compensating for this fact-type police officer, who then search our entire house and deduce that... nothing is wrong. There is no one in our house at all. Just us. And the cat. False alarm, did you two watch scary movies before you went to bed, your house is very secure, now go back to sleep.

And as if that wasn't enough drama for the week, I just got locked out of the house and had to get our neighbour to climb over the fence and open the back gate. Oops.

Packing: The Dilemma.

Tomorrow I go on holiday to Malta.

Most people would be extremely pleased about going on holiday with eleven of their best friends - and don't get me wrong, I am. But what I truly cannot stand is all the stuff you have to deal with before, and all the hassle in preparing to actually go away. By the time it's all sorted, you feel like you need a holiday.

For the past week (okay, the past two days) I've been asking myself important questions such as:

What do I need to buy?
Who am I sharing a room with?
Do I have a full inhaler to take?
Do I have a spare inhaler to take?
Do I still fit into last year's summer clothes?
Which addresses do I need to send postcards to?
Where is my passport?
Why did I not diet?

But the thing which I hate the most about getting ready to go away is the dreaded 'P' word.

This evening has been spent standing over my bed (covered in clothes) with a list about the length of my arm of stuff which I really really, really, really have to take and could not survive a week without. It really is such a mission trying to work out what you'll wear each day, and each evening, and on the beach, and what shoes you need, and what you'll wear on the plane.

You search your wardrobe and your drawers and your washing basket for the dress you bought last summer, only to find it won't do up. You realise that your friends are currently online choosing their seats on the plane, but you're still busy trying to find flip flops. You spot your Dad coming out of the bathroom wearing your beach towel, even though he hasn't been compelled to use it all year. You panic and you cram and you sit on top of your suitcase just hoping that it won't need a "heavy" sticker, and that the zip won't ping off at the airport, displaying your underwear for the whole of baggage control to see.

And then, you realise that somewhere within the depths of your case, you packed your toothbrush, and it's still 22 hours until you leave. Oops.