I am broke. Monumentally, breathtakingly broke. Largely due to a bit of a book splurge, but mostly due to those holiday things I went on, that I’ve definitely not already told you all about. To reassure Natwest that I’m not going to do a runner with their ill-advised and very generous overdraft, I’ve returned to York and waitressing early in order to top up my despondent balance.
Because my university has ridiculous term times, and all my new housemates have better things to be doing (like exploring Spain and climbing mountains…), I’ve been living on my own. Though I don’t particularly feel responsible enough to maintain a house by myself for any period of time longer than it would take to use up all the clean dishcloths, I’ve faced the challenge pretty well.
For instance; The broadband in our house was duff, so, like a GROWN UP, I spent an hour on the phone to a lovely and well-meaning, but impossibly accented woman. Whilst wedged between a piano and the wall, trying to unscrew what I believed to be the main phone socket with a butter knife as a screwdriver and my phone as a torch, the Sky lady and I agreed that it’d probably be best if a professional engineer was sent out. Technically, it was the engineer who solved the problem, but I definitely feel my efforts played a role in the whole charade. That now sits proudly on my CV, right next to “Knows all words to Robbie Williams back-catalogue”.
Naturally, as it’s me, and not some actual domestic goddess, there have been a fair share of mishaps. Perhaps the most horribly stupid is when I angrily phoned my landlady demanding to know why the washing machine wasn’t working, and where I was supposed to plug the bloody thing in considering it was in the shed. She turned up the next day, and rather than heading out to the shed, simply opened the cupboard door beneath the sink- where a fully working washing machine was dutifully waiting- and pressed the “on” button.
Aside from embarrassing myself, I’ve been trying to avoid soul-munching boredom by training as a housewife, should a career as a professional Linguistics graduate not work out. At first, this mostly compromised of carefully arranging my room into an obstacle course for me to navigate before work each morning. Then I went a bit crazy.
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| Not exactly Food Blog fodder, is it? |
Feeling guilty for spending so much of my wage on flapjacks, and not on giving Natwest their money back, I decided to make my eating habit cheaper by making my own. Spurred on by this sudden and uncontrollable enthusiasm for baking, I made a (really shit) loaf of bread, and an apple pie that I didn’t want to eat (don’t like apple pie, duh) and ended up donating the lot to some local starving students. I spent the next day cleaning flour out of my hair and butter off the floor.
I’ve mastered dragging out simple tasks this summer. I can make a book last and I can make showering and drying my hair last an entire afternoon if I know I have nothing else to do. But there are only so many nights of no TV, books I’ve already read thrice, no internet access, and no noticeable social life, one can endure before they start to lose their shit. I’ve been replying to radio presenters’ rhetorical questions, just to hear my own voice.
Thankfully, my housemates are slowly starting to move in. It does mean I’ll have stop showering with the door unlocked (so I can hear the radio downstairs!) and I’ll have to stop wearing the green paisley trousers so much. Those are sacrifices I’m happy to make in return for real interaction that doesn’t involve asking customers how they’d like their steaks cooked.
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I have exciting news. I’ve been shortlisted for the Best Young Blogger at the Blog North Awards! (I KNOW, me neither). If you could take a few seconds to follow this link and vote for Every Second Song, I’d probably never stop being excited.
