Fading In and Out

With the ending of the university semester, I found myself on a train back to my hometown loaded with a single bag at least double my weight. Somehow, I had managed to fit 3 pairs of jeans, several thick jumpers, a laptop, an advent calendar and a lord of the rings sized textbook into a gym bag; and carried it over my shoulder the whole way back. I arrived, much to my delight, to a house pegged out in christmas decorations from fairy lights on the front porch, to cute little cuddly toys dangled in my old room. I can thank my dad for all that; and my mum, being only fond of the most sophisticated decor, ensured that he didn’t hang anything too cheesy. Even the fairy lights were set to “fade in and out” for “subtlety”.

This time yesterday, I had been living alone in the capital city for exactly three whole months. I must have had at least 4 near-death experiences with London cyclists whilst picking up essential city jay-walking skills, made a handful of very cool friends from different parts of the country and managed to dodge work responsibilities incredibly efficiently (try putting that one on your cv). I can say that the last three months have been some of the best months of my life; it was an adventure that is never going to be relived in the same way again and that’s what makes it undeniably real. There is so much to experience and so many people to meet. I found my most interesting encounters with others have been from simply stepping out of the house and going somewhere new spontaneously. I’ve met a Polish feminist writer who was stood up by her boyfriend on the Southbank; a 6-years-travelling New Zealander going home for good the next day, at a film premiere; and an investment banker living in Paris who did his first degree in Computer Science in Cambridge. (Note: I wouldn’t recommend chasing those sorts of adventures unless you’re very aware of looking after your safety, as stranger danger is in no sense a myth, but given the correct circumstances, the conversations I had were incredible.) London is the most beautiful city; I know I say it too much too often.

They say the rest of the country is two degrees colder than the capital, and I am very unhappy to have to vouch for that fact. In my flat, I hadn’t even put on the heating. Here, the heating is on and I was wearing four layers of clothing (including a onesie and a christmas jumper) at just gone 3pm, still shivering. Our house is alluringly old, but it let’s out all the heat through the gaps in the windows and doorways. My saviour is the fireplace; we lit it and it warmed the room up to only one layer of clothing necessary. We skewered marshmallows and roasted them until they were perfectly softened, and I tell you, it’s heaven in squidgy gooey sweetness. (We also made homemade cheese burgers in case I’ve not made you hungry enough yet.) Now, we sit in a tranquil state while I blog, and my parents watch an episode of “Inspector Montalbano”. It’s like I’d never been gone.

To speak of website updates, I have changed my theme as goes the rotary layout syndrome, and especially for christmas, I have a christmas themed header, as sourced from Design Wall. (Thanks, Design Wall.) It’s a lovely theme by Robert Brodziak. I’ll likely keep it after Christmas and change the header, but we’ll see how it goes. Some of the pages have received some minor changes to suit the theme swap, and I have added a photography page too as it seems to fit well. I might make some small alterations in the next week or so; keep your head to the ground!

The film note for today is that I finally saw The Imitation Game, which was both sad and inspiring. If you are or ever were a coder, programmer or developer, I’d recommend it. He was a man with a fantastic gift for maths and code breaking; and the platform that provides us with so much satisfaction is very much thanks to him.