#oneaday Day 516: Away Game

Spending a weekend in markedly different surroundings to the place where you spend most of the rest of your week is an eminently worthwhile experience, particularly if you spend most of your week chained to a desk — whether that’s in a working-from-home sort of situation or the daily grind at an office. Over the last few weeks (and probably months) I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to spend some time away from the environment I spend the working week in, and it’s a healthy, positive experience.

The only frustrating thing about the whole shebang is the fact that most places I go away to are inevitably attached somehow to either my awesome girlfriend Andie, who currently lives 150 miles away from me; or to friends I left behind back in the Southampton area (about 120 miles away) when I was forced to depart last September.

In some senses, this is good, though, as it means I get completely out of the daily “grind”, as it were, by going somewhere markedly different from the places I see every day. Even if I do go out while I’m back at home, it’s inevitably to the same old places time after time — local shop, local supermarket, post office, local coffee house. And while I know Southampton and Winchester pretty well having spent the best part of 10 years living and working in the area, the fact I don’t live there now is enough to keep them feeling fresh, pleasant and not “new” as such, but places I feel I can rediscover each time I visit.

Now, granted, Southampton’s a bit of a shithole and if you want to do something on a Saturday night that isn’t getting pissed (and, by extension, into a fight) or going to the cinema, there’s actually really not a great deal to do — not in the town centre at least. But as I’ve said on several occasions in the past, it’s a place in which I lay down some “roots” and even if I end up never moving back there to live — which is looking increasingly likely — it will always be if not a “home” then certainly a home away from home.

Winchester, on the other hand, is a place I’d return to in a flash given the opportunity. My favourite place I’ve ever lived was in Winchester. It was a gorgeous big fully-furnished flat with a dishwasher, heated towel rails and a dressing room off the main bedroom. The furniture provided was good quality, not the usual hand-me-down shite, and while I was there, even though I was working a soul-crushingly awful job in the secondary music classrooms of Hampshire, it was a haven I could return to of an evening and feel like I had come “home”. Of course, as Sod’s Law tends to go, this dream-come-true of accommodation was snatched up by the landlord, who rather inconsiderately wanted to give it to their daughter, so we ended up living in a nice-ish cottage that was unfortunately afflicted with a great deal of damp and mould, and smelled disconcertingly of gas in the living room.

I often wonder where I’m going to end up next. I hope it’s somewhere good that I can lay down some roots once again and start afresh. For now, there are weekend escapes like the one I’m on now with Andie, and right this second, that’s the best life has to offer, so I’m damn well going to enjoy it.