image via tallulah fontaine @ tumblr
Since previous posts, things have changed. (As they tend to do when you don't update a blog for a year and a half.)
I have now moved away from my teeny tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and currently live in Manchester, which is obviously a bit more exciting. I have emerged from a year's living there so far with high expectations about public transport (there's a bus every thirty seconds rather than once an hour!!!!!), a paranoia about my so-called posh Southern accent, and a new-found appreciation for Greggs (who am I kidding, I've always loved Greggs).
I love Manchester, and how there's always something going on there. I love living away from home, and the freedom to visit people whenever I want and get in at 4 in the morning, and the technical ability to eat chicken dippers for tea without my mum clubbing me to death with the packet for cooking junk food in the house. I love living up north (everyone is friendly, it's cheap, and they call bread rolls barms which is really cool).
The only problem is that my boyfriend has moved away from home too, and now lives in, as far as Manchester is concerned, the arse-end of nowhere. The journey from Manchester to Cambridge, if you're taking the cheap route, is five hours long and involves a train and a coach: almost literally planes, trains and automobiles. It also requires money, and a lot of planning. Spontaneity is supposed to be sexy, isn't it? Sitting on National Rail Enquiries a month in advance is most decidedly unsexy, as is waking up at three in the morning to get the first train with unbrushed hair and dribble on your chin. Even less sexy is watching somebody be sick in a Tesco bag on the X5 bus and lob it out of the window into Milton Keynes Station. The X5 bus is not a place that fosters romance or elegance.
Being in a long-distance relationship also makes me an extremely boring person. At home I was always confused about people who couldn't spend a day without their partners; being alone can be so lovely! Then I got into a habit of spending every evening on Skype talking about the inanest shit (for example, extreme interest in what the other had for tea), starting to miss my boyfriend after two days of not seeing him, and, worst of all, may or may not have fallen asleep spooning a pillow on more than one occasion.
As difficult and lonely (and expensive) as a long-distance relationship can be, however, there are silver linings. Neither the freezing walk to the train station at three in the morning, nor Milton Keynes Station, nor the X5 bus are particularly romantic. But running into the arms of the person you love the most, bags and all, on a sunny morning on a Cambridge green is rather cinematic. And curling up in somebody's arms after months of not seeing them, laughing in almost disbelief that they're real and you're with them, is probably one of the romantic things around.
Then again, I say this from the perspective of somebody who's home for the summer and is a fifteen minute walk away from the love of my life. So think of me next September as I slump on the 4:30 train with bird's nest hair, feeling as unenthustiastic and unsexy as humanly possible.
I love Manchester, and how there's always something going on there. I love living away from home, and the freedom to visit people whenever I want and get in at 4 in the morning, and the technical ability to eat chicken dippers for tea without my mum clubbing me to death with the packet for cooking junk food in the house. I love living up north (everyone is friendly, it's cheap, and they call bread rolls barms which is really cool).
The only problem is that my boyfriend has moved away from home too, and now lives in, as far as Manchester is concerned, the arse-end of nowhere. The journey from Manchester to Cambridge, if you're taking the cheap route, is five hours long and involves a train and a coach: almost literally planes, trains and automobiles. It also requires money, and a lot of planning. Spontaneity is supposed to be sexy, isn't it? Sitting on National Rail Enquiries a month in advance is most decidedly unsexy, as is waking up at three in the morning to get the first train with unbrushed hair and dribble on your chin. Even less sexy is watching somebody be sick in a Tesco bag on the X5 bus and lob it out of the window into Milton Keynes Station. The X5 bus is not a place that fosters romance or elegance.
Being in a long-distance relationship also makes me an extremely boring person. At home I was always confused about people who couldn't spend a day without their partners; being alone can be so lovely! Then I got into a habit of spending every evening on Skype talking about the inanest shit (for example, extreme interest in what the other had for tea), starting to miss my boyfriend after two days of not seeing him, and, worst of all, may or may not have fallen asleep spooning a pillow on more than one occasion.
As difficult and lonely (and expensive) as a long-distance relationship can be, however, there are silver linings. Neither the freezing walk to the train station at three in the morning, nor Milton Keynes Station, nor the X5 bus are particularly romantic. But running into the arms of the person you love the most, bags and all, on a sunny morning on a Cambridge green is rather cinematic. And curling up in somebody's arms after months of not seeing them, laughing in almost disbelief that they're real and you're with them, is probably one of the romantic things around.
Then again, I say this from the perspective of somebody who's home for the summer and is a fifteen minute walk away from the love of my life. So think of me next September as I slump on the 4:30 train with bird's nest hair, feeling as unenthustiastic and unsexy as humanly possible.
