Onward!!

A year ago, almost to the day, I arrived at this house, dropping my luggage in an empty square-shaped room that fit a double bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. Feeling a bit confused, I unpacked my things and thought I’d get used to it all. I remember the smell of that room, slightly dusty and warmed up by the central heating going on full blast, driving away the February chill.

It smelled exactly the same just now, when I grabbed the last pile of things and carried them out. It looked the same, too, when I put up the long red curtains that were there when I moved in. I’m only moving upstairs to the room vacated by a couple who are leaving, but it feels quite momentous. The dynamic in the house may very well change, considering the leaving flatmates were giant, affable personalities. They’ve taken quite a bit of things with them, which of course they are entitled to, but it too has contributed to a feeling of change in the house.

The mattress topper I have is slightly too big for the bed, and most of my things are spread across the floor. That reflects a bit of how I feel, too – a little uncomfortable and scattered. It remains to make this room, gutted to the bare minimum, feel like home. I guess I’ll have to spend money for that to happen, though I wouldn’t want to spend too much considering I never know where and when I’ll be moving next and moving with lots of stuff is a pain. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to spend money on throwawayism in the form of a load of flat-packed fibreboard furniture which you can’t really transport once assembled.

I’ll have to do the same thing I did a year ago and try it out. It’ll settle, as will I. It’s just made me think of how I have no clue where I’ll be in a year’s time from now.

Arriving back from African sunshine to a bright but breezy and cold London was a shock in a multitude of ways. Not only was my body unused to the temperature and artificiality, I got a few big pieces of news as well. Two rooms in our house are becoming empty as some of my housemates are getting a smaller place together. I do believe their assurances that there is no acrimony involved in their leaving, because they are all very dear to me and have significantly improved my experience of living in this city. I really hope the changes don’t impact the house dynamic or atmosphere too much, because our place is kind of special in my opinion.

The news did hit me hard, I won’t lie. I spent a good hour and a bit ambling around North London to clear my head on Sunday a week ago, wandering vaguely on a circular route that ended up being around five miles.  I will definitely have to do that again, as the lack of a camera prevented me from capturing some really nice shots, from young rowers on the canal to boarded-up post-industrial gloom of trackside business premises long abandoned.

So, to get the house full again, I’ve had to make my room look as presentable as possible for a prospective female housemate, because gender balance tends to help with things. If anything, it’s made me think about how I can effectively store my meagre belongings once I move up a floor into one of the departing housemates’ rooms. It’s been pretty stressful on the whole, having viewings/housemate auditions pretty much every night, coordinating schedules and other admin at the same time as working full days. Oh, and racking my brain about another development I’m not sure what to do with.

I’ve been offered a job that would start much earlier than my current contract finishes. Apparently it’d be mine if I applied for it, and the colleagues would be enthusiastic to have me. All good and great but though it’s more money, I can’t help but think I would have wanted something more career-oriented as my next job. I don’t want to say too much about what this offer would be but somehow I feel this’d be an easy way out, perhaps too easy. I like the field (it’s vaguely academic) but as much as I’ve never thought about career advancement, the lack of immediately visible prospects from it bothers me.

And I know I should always be looking out for number one, but telling everyone I work with, fixed-term and temporary as my current contract is, that I’d be leaving for greener pastures fills me with dread. There would be no coming back, I don’t think.

London is in the grips of the coldest weather in memory and the supposed “extreme weather” is on everyone’s lips, if only in relation to their commute. I took off from home yesterday morning ten minutes earlier than usual, and took a different route to work from normal due to transport disruptions. The result? At work a good quarter of an hour earlier than normal. The roads in central London were quiet, and buses had pretty much free reign. People with cars must have avoided driving due to the icy conditions, which suited me just fine.

To drive away the cold and the gloom, we holed up in a cosy pub with some housemates in the evening. It, too, was pretty empty, probably owing to a lot of people leaving work early.  Didn’t matter a bit to us as we had a fantastic time, from the initial chat with just three of us, to eventual rowdiness once more people joined. Somehow we ended up spilling out of the pub at closing time singing Hava Nagila, until it was remarked by someone in the group that the song had, in fact, become “too commercialised”. I don’t know either.

Having fun like that kind of made up for it being even harder than usual to get out of bed this morning.

I’ve been going through a horrible (but seemingly and thankfully rapid) cold these past few days. It all started on Saturday, when a few glasses of Parisian mulled wine led to me keeling over the toilet and my throatache of the past few days becoming the least worrisome of my symptoms. My mini weekend break had thoroughly changed course. Not having been ill enough to call in sick has made this time even worse than it probably is.

The experience has made me think about living in a shared house and the way that illness affects that dynamic. I most likely caught this off one of my housemates, and quite likely will pass it on to at least one of them, if not more people. I’ve tried to hole myself up in my room, under my delightfully warm blanket, watching endless videos and things and spending far too much time listening to various internet radio stations, because I’ve wanted to avoid doing precisely that. Plus, I have to be in full health for the coming weekend, where troupe of London folk will descend on Vienna to wreak havoc that city. Us not knowing the first thing about what to do in Vienna just makes for a more interesting trip, I think.

So, on the one hand I’ve been withdrawing, but on the other I was immensely glad that a housemate of mine told me she could get me anything I might need. I was all right (dosed-up enough on cold medication) to go to the shop yesterday and have food for tonight too, so I should be fine. It’s nice to know that we’re not just people inhabiting the same building, but actually care about each other. Or I guess I knew, but something like this just reinforces that thought.

There is also a cat on my street that likes to hang out on the pavement begging for attention from passersby. It has a crystal-studded collar and is of substantial size so I know it’s cared for. It nearly broke my heart to kick it out when it made a beeline for my door when I opened it. I know it’s cold outside but still… my housemates (as lovely as they are) are not cat-people. And, like I said, it has a collar, meaning it also has a home. I did think I would use it as a warming, purring cushion for a few hours, though… Would anybody notice?

Sitting in my flatmate’s bedroom, typing away on short articles for her online mag, some of us leaning out of the window smoking, all of us sipping some red wine. The air outside is warm, unseasonably warm for the time of year. Thom Yorke’s solo album is playing, filling the gaps in our chatter. There are no sounds from the road outside the window, no traffic and no people.

The Irish girl who’s visiting is showing her captain’s hat she got in the charity shop underneath where she lives. It suits her quirky features.

I should probably sleep but it’s just too chilled to go to bed just yet.