The first time I owned four walls and a roof was when I moved to Park Circus, in Glasgow. It was very much a one-person, two-bedroom flat - you couldn't swing a cat in it. But I was just excited to own a flat, particularly one that was within walking distance of the bars, restaurants and cinema of Ashton Lane. Dangerous but amazing.
The flat was on the edge of Kelvingrove Park, which was my gateway to outdoor activities. I probably went a bit mental when I first moved in. All my friends used it as a sleepover pad because it was so handy for the city and the West End. Pretty much every weekend there was somebody crashing in the spare room or on the couch.
It was a flat that rocked. I always take my piano from house to house. In the living room there was only room for a couch, a piano and a television. I don't watch much television, so the piano became the focal point. I'm probably not the best neighbour, unless you like late-night music, but I never got any complaints. I also owned an accordion, a guitar, two recorders, a tambourine and a set of drumsticks - I was always within reaching distance of a musical instrument. And if you came to the house you had to join in. I remember one particularly raucous party when I ended up with The Charlatans in my front room. I made their keyboard player, Tony Rogers, play Oasis songs because that was all I could remember at that late hour. They seemed to take it rather well.
On another occasion, I was almost responsible for injuring Stilian Petrov, the Celtic midfielder, two days before a cup final. He jammed his leg in the door when my friend, Laura, opened it too quickly. I told you, it was a small flat. I seem to remember he eased the pain with another pineapple Bacardi Breezer.
It was the first flat I saw and I stood in the main hall and before I'd even seen the flat I said, I'm having this. It didn't matter what it was like, because the building took my breath away.
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It was a converted church with many of the original features, including some gorgeous, high, stained-glass windows, through which the light poured. Every time I walked in the door I had to pinch myself to prove I lived there.
The entrance opened onto an atrium, with a little indoor garden, fountain and pond populated with carp. The pond was at the top of the stairs leading down to my flat, so I claimed the fish as my own. I never got as far as naming them - there were too many - but I did feel their pain when I came home one day to find the white one floating belly up.
I'm not very materialistic, so for the first six months I didn't even have a couch. I sat on some cushions that had been in my dad's old camper van. He's a musician who used to travel round the country. I was quite sad when my couch arrived; I liked the hippy-commune atmosphere.
I was working at Real Radio when I moved in, so suddenly I was only six minutes down the motorway from work. The problem is I do the breakfast show on Real Radio - which means getting up at 4am - so I never saw any of my neighbours for the first two years. I was arriving home when they were going out to work and vice versa.
The only time we met was in the communal laundry room. I would meet them taking my pants out of the washing machine. I chopped the labels off my clothes, so the hot boys from upstairs wouldn't see what size they were when they removed them from the dryer.
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Despite my late-night piano playing it was a quiet flat. When I lived in Milngavie with my parents, our house was directly under a flight path. My flat was a haven of peace and quiet, which with a hectic life like mine was a tonic.
Cat Harvey is appearing in Pinocchio at the Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, until January 30. She presents the breakfast show on Real Radio Scotland