Home

A little post I wrote in September but didn't get around to publishing.

I'm Scottish.  Mostly.  I was born in the land of the heathens, as was my father and his father before him.  Actually, should you care to look, you'll find various aunts, uncles and cousins scattered all across the highlands, from both sides of my family.  I like Scotland, in all its backward wildness, and despite having barely lived there, I always feel an otherwise inexplicable feeling of 'home' (cheesy as that is).  When I moved to Edinburgh last year, I had no apprehensions about the city or the people, and felt absurdly at ease wandering the streets alone aimlessly (although admittedly everyone feels that way about Edinburgh).  Perhaps the best thing about being in Scotland is that I rarely have to repeat my name, or spell it out before it's understood (Joe Bloggs and Emma Smith, this might go over your head, but I'm sure anyone who has a remotely awkward name - or two - will know what I mean).  I have the heritage, suffer with the colouring and know the lingo.  My surname supposedly dates back to one of the original Scottish clans, meaning I even have my own family tartan.  Bar the accent and a few addresses, I consider myself fairly Scottish.

That said, most of the places I have lived have not been in bonny Scotland.  I've lived a mildly nomadic life, moving from Ely to Norwich to Cambridge, with a couple of different houses in each place.  In fact, I've lived at 21 addresses so far.  So I've never really felt that I've lived anywhere for long enough to authentically describe it as "home".  I've now been living in or around Cambridge since I was eight or nine.  Despite this, I won't tell anyone (at least without a great deal of reluctance) that I'm 'from' Cambridge.  I'm not a local.  It's not where I belong.

Anyway, today I caught the bus into Cambridge for a brief meeting.  £3.90 for a return ticket.  THREE POUNDS NINETY (the Scot in me was not happy, but then, the student part of me was too lazy to cycle, so I can't really complain).  After my meeting, I started heading back towards a bus stop.  There isn't actually a stop for my route that's particularly near the meeting-place, so I had to walk towards "old town" a little bit.  

About halfway to the stop, I passed along the top of Bridge Street, which - for those who don't know -  is crammed full of cobblestones, boutique shops with rustic fronts, elegant restaurants, churches, a little bridge over the Cam and university buildings - essentially everything "Cambridge" bundled into a few hundred yards.  

Normally I just see it as a crowded lane, filled with river touts, arsey cyclists, lethal buses and stupid tourists.  Today however, it looked absolutely stunning.  Maybe it was the sunshine bouncing off the brass flowers that are studded into the pavement, or maybe it was just that a short walk would mean a longer and more convoluted bus ride home (therefore making that £3.90 stretch a liiiiiitle bit further), but I thought to myself, "oh, I'll just take a picture of how pretty the folk museum looks", and then "oh, the river looks nice, too" before strolling down towards the round church, nipping into Hardy's gorgeous old-style sweet shop (very helpful staff, thank you) and taking a couple more pictures along the way.  Before I knew it, I was practically in the centre of town, and still I was surrounded by bikes chained to iron railings, little patches of trimmed lawn, university crests and wide, clean, flagstoned pavements.  There is no denying that Cambridge is a beautiful city, and generally the people are a pretty good batch, too (no matter how much we'd like to deny it).  The river, the university, the wide open spaces and the pompous students - whilst I wouldn't want a whole world like it, there's nothing actually wrong with the inherent Cambridge-ness 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, no matter how cool it is to dislike where you're from, today I'm quite proud to consider myself Cambridgian.  By no means do I wish to stay here longer than I have to, but when I do finally escape I know there will be some pleasure in knowing that I can return to peaceful, historic Cambridge.  I will miss the things that are normal here and nowhere else; cycling on a bike with a wicker basket, punting down the river on a summer's day and the bemusement at a non-native asking "where can I find the university?".  My birth-city and the city where I live are pretty different, but you know what?  I don't think either of them are sh*tholes.  So there.

bit blurry - I blame the bus windows.

2013

My excuse for not posting in a while is just that I have been so gosh-darned busy.  Or at least it was going to be my excuse, until over the holidays my family pointed out that actually my entire year has been fairly eventful.

365 days ago I was in Florida, with my boyfriend.  We had 11 days crammed full of all the touristy stuff - Disney, SeaWorld and Universal (yep, including Harry Potter World).  It was sunny and warm, and we ate more food than most people probably do in a month.  Definitely a nice way to see in the New Year.

Okay, so this is 367 days ago if we're being precise.

Fast-forward a few weeks and I was sitting (and failing) my driving test, before re-taking it a couple of weeks later, and passing.  For a bit more pressure, shortly after this were my final exams for my degree.  These were a total breeze, and rather than aggressively cramming everything I'd ever learned into my brain, I definitely just sat back, painted my nails and meditated.  "Zen" is what my exam-period was.

Yeah, right.

Average revision session, courtesy of my instagram.

At least the exams paid off.  Come July, I was graduating with a 2:1.  The weather was gorgeous (although hideously sweaty for those of us in gowns), and I couldn't have been prouder of my friends graduating around me, with the grades we had worked our little socks off to achieve.

The least sweaty photo I could find

Before the terror of being an alumnus could set in, I ran away for a month in Thailand.  I won't go into detail (there's always the recap I wrote here if you haven't seen it already), but it was the most amazing month of lying around on stunning beaches, getting delightfully tipsy on Chang and sweating around stalls of street food and neon vests.  It's amazing how short a month can feel.

A day of particularly bad weather.

We landed back home with a bump - straight into job-hunting and the endless rounds of applications and unsuccessful interviews.  It seemed for a while that everyone around me was landing cushy roles in fancy companies, and I was stuck on Jobseekers Allowance, being sent home early from assessment centres for reasons employers didn't even care to divulge, and being offered positions that weren't in the industries, pay range or locations I was hoping for.

Somewhere in this terrifying rut, I turned 22.

*not actual birthday cake

And then at the beginning of November I got an interview for a company I thought were rather nice and, as luck would have it, they thought I was rather nice too.  Based about 30 miles from where I was living, I suddenly needed a car, or even better, a flat and a car.  Five days after getting the call, Bingo the Citroen C3 was mine, and three days after that, I was moving my vast collection of stuff into a cosy little two bed, only 10 minutes away from my new job, which started the following Monday.  Where I had previously felt like I was on the world's slowest bus into adult life, I seemed to be stepping off of a bullet train into the world of 9-5.

Housewarming gift - I ate the rest before the shutter closed.

Out of sheer stubbornness I decorated my little home for Christmas, even though it feels a bit sad, rather than festive if you're by yourself.  I can't really say what it felt like to spend the season alone, as most of the time I was actually with the fella, family friends.  I did try my hand at being a domestic goddess by cooking a roast - somewhat compromised by the fact that I don't actually have a dining table, and that I left the potatoes until LAST to prepare (d'oh) - but it was a start.  Give me a couple of years and I'll be mashing swede and stuffing a turkey (or not) like a pro.

My handiwork

Not my handiwork.  Sneeze; you bake a LOT.

And now we're here; January 2014.  Of course, just like everyone else I have personal goals and aspirations for the year, but given that "the only things I didn't get round to were getting married and having a baby" (thanks, Grandma), I think my main aim is to give myself some time to get bored.  I'm going to schedule in some "me" time to procrastinate and relax without the guilt of doing the same thing at uni - I'm not going to pretend I didn't chill out, even in 3rd year, but it was coupled with the knowledge that I SHOULD have been revising/working/reading (or, more accurately, the guilt of knowing that I should be feeling guilty, but wasn't). Of course I'll be using a good percentage of my weekends to visit London, and I expect now I'm back in the South I'll be around for my friends (and their new additions) a lot more than I've been able to be previously. On top of that, I plan to play my piano again, get back into running when the weather warms up, take a few weekend breaks in Europe, and finally, FINALLY play Lego Lord of the Rings to at least 99% completion.  Baby steps though, right?

It's a big goal, but hopefully by the time I reach 23 I'll be hitting my stride at this whole "life" thing.  I might not quite feel like a fully-fledged adult (at least I hope I won't), but watch this space.