Optimism

I know. I didn't think I was capable of it.

More than anything else, I'm looking forward to not living in this glorified Travelodge. I may have lost count, but I believe it's around 160 days until we can move into our house in Leamington. Here comes an exploration of all the things which will be much better in my new home.

First up, as it's on my mind, laundry. Currently, I have to walk about 50m to the building opposite if I want to wash my clothes. As such, I don't do that nearly often enough. Next year, the washing machine is 5m from my bedroom. Furthermore, my bedroom itself is a lot bigger, will have a sofa in it, a router, a server, some spare monitors, one hell of a printer, possibly a piano and much more wardrobe space and thus much more clothes. The only thing this bedroom has over my future one is its ensuite bathroom.

By some sort of anomalous geographical tragedy, The West Midlands are in the middle of nowhere, despite being in the middle of England. Meriden, Britain's furthest village from the sea, is closer to this University than anything which counts as civilisation. I feel sympathy for Coventry; whereas London is more than experienced in rising from the ashes, Coventry was completely forsaken after the Luftwaffe decided to tear it apart. Perhaps it was thriving and trendy in the '30s. So we have future house's next advantage: location.

Leamington Spa is a lovely little town. Rather deserted, unlike any similar settlement in Tyneside which all clump together to form a kind of sprawling metropolis, Warwickshire's towns are some distance from each other. Further, Leamington Spa has a McDonald's; Whitley Bay does not. Stupid protesting residents.

As a town, it really is quite something, and given that within a five-minute radius there is more than I can properly discuss, I'm going to forsake prose and venture into the hideous world of bullet points:

• Domino's Pizza
• McDonald's
• Every clothes shop imaginable.
• Pizza Hut
• Pizza Express
• Apollo Cinema — which is the nicest cinema I've ever known
• Yet more places that do pizza
• CEX
• Tesco Express
• Swimming Pool
• More quaint parks than anyone would ever need — picnics!
• A copious amount of pubs
• A more copious amount of clubs
• A TRAIN STATION! — I've never lived so close to a train station.
• Curry houses by the dozen

Really, as of August, the only time I have to leave Leamington is when I have lectures. Darned lectures: they take all the fun out of University.

And before I forget, the top five "best things" about my house next year are my housemates.