In the beginning

I'm not sure when I first met Tom, probably due to the hard-drinking world that is one's first term at university. He lived on the floor above me in halls, and had befriended one of my troop of Jessicas (for the record, 6th form Jess, who I knew from 6th form). Tom lived on a corridor of boys, which was rather bizarre as the rest of the building was resolutely mixed. In search of female companionship from the beginning, even the gay guys, the routinely ended up in the kitchen Jess' corridor. Jess and I regularly cooked and ate together, taking it in turns between our kitchens, so I got to know the boys from X (our corridors were alphabetized, Jess was on V, I was on Q). For the first few weeks, Tom was just one of the quiet boys who looked intimidated by my incessant bouncing and cheeriness (I was hyperactive for most of my first year at uni), but we sang in the same choir, so I got to know him a little better when he actually bothered to turn up to rehearsals.

By the end of term, we were kind of friends. He had a girlfriend back home, and I had been having a fling with another guy from choir, resolutely not falling in love with him, as I was newly single and DID NOT want a boyfriend. I then moved on to a guy from my corridor for a few snogs, but was in a flirty, flighty mode. Nothing serious for me! When the Christmas holiday started, halls were abandoned apart from a couple of people, including me, Tom and my GBF James who had come to stay for the night. We spent the evening before going home for Christmas in my kitchen, drinking and being generally silly. Before leaving, Tom and I swapped numbers. Over the Christmas holiday, we both thought about calling the other, just because we had got on so well on that last night, but had decided not to, thinking that it would be weird, or silly, or misinterpreted.

At the beginning of February, there was a choir night out, involving Chinese food, much drinking and a very dodgy club. It was an exciting evening for me, because I had a message to say that the results from my Grade 8 singing had arrived at my parents' house. While we were in the pub, Tom offered to go to the phone box with me to call home (I hadn't got a mobile by then, though those days were numbered). He gave me a huge hug when I found out that I had got distinction, and we carried on to the restaurant with the other guys from choir to celebrate. It was a really fun evening, with lots of drunken silliness, and at least one girl had to be carried home. After dinner, we went to truly dreadful club just off Oxford Street, and it was there, while trying to avoid a rather scary male stripper with whipped cream, we had our first kiss, photographed by the guy who would turn out to be one of Tom's best men. The kissing continued, and we managed to kiss in every bus-stop between Oxford Street and Camden, conscientiously missing buses all along the way.