When planning this adventure (and I use the word planning quite wrongly – I applied, it happened. There was no strategic approach as such), I anticipated the changes that I might encounter: cooking food I like (never have I had a housemate who liked meat that came with bones – but think now upon all the lamb chops I can eat); walking through the house in underwear without anyone being annoyed; having my own bathroom. Liberating dreams though these are, the real implications of living alone are many and varied.

Not only does it have handles, but also its a 3 dimensional ‘x marks the spot’

There is a certain, barely describable feeling that comes from being able to eat a chop, rack of lamb, or a chicken drumstick. Its a primal thing, a kind of freedom that comes from eating food that says “pick me up and eat me.” How else can we interpret the fact that it comes with handles.

On the other hand, there is an utterly describable feeling that comes from not having any housemates, a feeling that cannot be overcome by the consumption of lamb chops. It is called boredom. It’s main symptoms are: ordering things from book depository at a rate that far outstrips the speed at which I read, excess phone and internet use, developing expertise on high quality youtube cat videos, and related blogs – such as Cats That Look Like Hitler. (Really? what on earth? Who thinks of these things?).

I do miss the dazzling conversation of my former housemates, it cannot be denied. But there are tougher truths to face than loneliness: I must now cook 100% of meals; take out rubbish, recycling etc all of the time; do all vacuuming; remember to buy milk and toilet paper

true sadness

These are all things that I would have sworn I was the only one that bothered with them. I see now I was wrong. Well done beloved other residents of my many share-houses for what turns out to have been a nicely divided bit of household labour. Please feel free to move here and do this again.

So maybe it wasn’t all the dream I dreamed to begin with – I have to be fully responsible for the day to day running of my domestic life, AND there are far too many windows in my house to frolic about in pants. Such is life, and growing up I suppose.  Not all hope is lost, however: I can indulge my obnoxiously overzealous enthusiasm for British crime TV in the lounge-room without boring anyone else to tears. The true brilliance of this is that the other masterpiece of John Nettles’ extremely popular, but genre limited tv career – Bergerac – can now grace my delightfully large television screen without complaint from anyone else. Just look at those opening credits – that’s some serious quality. (*Please note – comments may or may not contain irony. Irony, if existent, should not be misconstrued as criticism. It takes a lot for a show to be this dated and camp and still endearing.)