Home Comforts

I'm happy. I'm genuinely happy, which makes me sad. I'm home now, having travelled incognito the night prior to Mother's Day by a train journey during which I made a new friend instead of, as is my preference, chancing upon one of my oldest. Nonetheless, I am very much happy in my current surroundings and this makes me very sad indeed.

The phenomenon is not unlike the happiness I felt last summer. After A-Levels, I had more than enough spare time to do everything I'd wanted to do for years. This just so happened to be nothing. I rowed 25 kilometres down the Tyne, raising £90 for a local children's hospice in the process, read several novels and novellas which I had meant to read for quite some time and I even earned some dough working in a local shop. The void between school and university was a most blissful one; beloved, as ever, knew nought.

The dawn of university brought with it more novelties and new faces than I could possibly communicate, but given that this would be the case for almost anyone, it shouldn't be too difficult for most readers to sympathise with the gravitas of such a situation. As first term rolled on, I became ever more attached – even infatuated – with my peers. I find it ludicrous to suppose that I may have ever been attached to such depressing surroundings as those of Warwick University, but perhaps my infrequent jogs by Lakeside's lake and my initial attraction to Leamington did something to capture my imagination. Come Christmas, I was somewhat distraught to be separated from what I considered my home. Upon returning, the rose-tinted spectacles of the opening sequence had been washed away by the tides of winter. Despite my companions ever brilliant, the place itself and the feeling of isolation it placed upon me greatly grated my spirits.

I had awaited a change – a revert – of scenery with great anticipation. I knew Tyneside would restore my geniality, and she did not disappoint. Furthermore, I have spent such great times in the company of old friends that I query why I ever believed moving away from home – as I know believe it to be – to be anything other than misplaced adventurism. I am happy here; it makes me sad to know that, like the summer before it, this inconsequential playtime must end abruptly and all too soon.

I miss my flatmates, my fellow mathematicians, and all the insane bunch of film nerds and literature geeks with whom I spend a curious amount of my time. I also know that I cannot postpone the final examinations of the year, and that I must do myself justice in them. With that in mind, I have taken to doing some revision and resolved that returning to the land of labour from here, my world of whimsy, is a necessity. I need only survive three more years in the anus of Britain. Next year looks to be more endurable: living in a town, not a township.

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.

Imprisonment

I used to think my bedroom back home in Whitley Bay was cell-like, and I wanted to live elsewhere from the moment I realised that was a possibility, which, given my perceptiveness during early childhood, was probably at a very young age.

"Be careful what you wish for" is the phrase usually associated to such matters, and despite its disgusting syntax, its sentiment appeals currently. I may have a bigger room than I did – it even has an en-suite bathroom – and I have the run of the kitchen, but I still feel less free at times, living on this inaccessible campus, in the middle of nowhere, by which I mean too far from the sea.

Back home, the public transport system works. The buses may be slow, occasionally expensive, and inevitably each service is either infrequent or unreliable, but never both. The Metro surpasses every public transport system in Britain excepting those run by TfL, and though there's always a slight possibility of a stabbing, it is at least close to reliable, and more than enough healthy competition for buses, which most areas of the UK lack.

As such, in Newcastle, it's fairly easy to go anywhere you want to go – and a bunch of places you wouldn't – pretty quickly, and, besides, neither the sea nor the city centre is beyond cycling distance, no matter where you live in Tyne and Wear. There's always something to do and somewhere to go. That's not the case living on this campus. Perhaps Leamington Spa is better for it, though it still resides at least sixty miles from the coast, and certainly less architecturally interesting.

I'll hope that this craving for sea air and an end to the tedium of this landscape or lack thereof is a passing one, after all, if I can go 32 days without meat, I can surely make it to the end of the term without watching waves crash down on the shore. Oh, waves. Hmm, sand.