#oneaday Day 798: Home is where the heart has been, part 2

Yesterday, I left off with a lovely flat my then-wife and I lived in in a fairly shitty area; a place which I nonetheless have mixed feelings about due to how it was where I was living when I suffered a nervous breakdown and left teaching as a career behind as a result. Today, we continue.

At some point, my then-wife and I made the decision to move back to Southampton. I forget exactly what the reasons for us doing this was — it may have been the fact that I had got a job at the then-new Apple Store in the WestQuay shopping centre, or it may have been some other reason — but regardless, we found ourselves coming back to Southampton, initially in a ground-floor flat in an area on what I will always think of as "the far side" of Southampton, known as Sholing.

My enduring memory of living in this place will always be, on our day moving in, walking in to the Indian takeaway that was next door to the block we lived in — as everyone knows, British moving days are fuelled by takeaway curry — and the proprietor of said establishment bellowing "WELCOME TO THE SHOLING!" as we walked in. It was a great little takeaway, that place, and I was always grateful for the warm welcome the owner provided.

We rented that flat off a woman who had a cat. We kind of wanted a cat, but we had lived in so many rented places that didn't allow pets that we didn't think to ask if we could have a cat. When we moved out, the landlady said that not only would she have been more than happy for us to have a cat in that flat, we could have had her cat. I'm still not entirely sure how to feel about that.

Anyway, it was a nice flat with some big rooms and a lovely oversized comfy sofa in the living room. My "study" of sorts, where the computer lived, was also a utility room, so I had to share space with the tumble dryer. My Sony Vaio desktop PC, which had been a loyal companion for a number of years, died in that flat, which I was annoyed about, because it was a great system. But one day it just started inexplicably screeching at me, and that was that. I eventually ended up replacing it with an iMac, which I got for a generous discount thanks to working at the Apple store.

At some point, we moved out of that flat. Again, I don't entirely remember why, but we ended up moving into the town centre of Southampton, into what appeared to be quite a new block of apartments. It was a really nice flat with a huge living room, a massive kitchen and a generously sized bedroom. It was a very comfortable place to live, with the only real hiccup being that one day I came home to the sound of rushing water downstairs in the block. It turned out the basement was flooding from somewhere, which ultimately knocked out the power in the whole building and meant I had to spend several days staying on a friend's sofa.

However, this is also the flat where my first wife and I parted ways, so as nice as it was, it will always be the most bittersweet of past places I lived, and the subject of a number of posts from around that time.

Due to a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, including not only the end of my marriage but also being bullied out of a job that I once loved, I ended up unable to stay in that lovely flat by myself, and having to temporarily move back in with my parents. At the time, I was mortified at the prospect of having to do this; today, I am eternally grateful for the fact they supported me while I picked myself up after such a massive setback.

While living back in my childhood home — which was still familiar despite having changed a bit — I eventually ended up meeting Andie, my now-wife. Both of us had experienced a somewhat challenging period in our respective lives, and ended up finding one another at what appeared to be a good time. I was also in the process of building a new career at that time, and I was gradually getting to a point where I felt I would be able to support myself again. So Andie and I eventually agreed to move in together.

We ended up moving to Chippenham in Wiltshire, which was near to where Andie was working at the time, and since I was working from home, I could do that from anywhere with an Internet connection. We had a nice house there, and were greeted almost immediately by the two cats who lived next door, Artie and Chester. Chester was a black cat who liked sitting on suitcases, and Artie was a long-haired tabby who liked shouting at towels. The pair of them were absolutely lovely cats who paid us a visit on many occasions, and we always welcomed them in.

During our time at Chippenham, we also decided that, in the absence of being able to have our own cats, we would try keeping rats, and we discovered the joy of these little creatures — as well as their sadly short lifespans. Also the smell, which you soon get used to. During our time at Chippenham, we had a wonderful time with Willow (who sadly did not live very long as she was quite poorly), Lara and Lucy.

Our house in Chippenham is another place I have somewhat mixed feelings about, as both Andie and I were facing numerous challenges in our own lives at that point in time — among other things, I lost my job at GamePro when we all logged in one morning to find out the parent company had unceremoniously laid us all off — and also there was apparently a murder in the Sainsbury's car park that was, like, two minutes away from our house.

Our next move was, once again for me, a return to Southampton. We found ourselves a lovely flat whose only mild inconvenience was the fact it was on the third floor, which made moving everything in a bit of a pain. We ended up having to buy a whole new sofa because the one we had bought while we were at Chippenham simply wouldn't go up the staircase; it lived in the garage for a whole year, and thankfully survived, though we ended up replacing it some time later.

This flat, I have fond memories of. Both Andie and I had overcome some significant troubles in our own lives, and things started to seem like they were getting back on track. I still wasn't in what I would call a position of stable employment, but I was getting by, initially by writing about odious mobile and social games, and subsequently being a founder staff member of the now-defunct USgamer.

We also still kept rats in this flat — Lucy, Clover and Socks — though after the last survivor of the various pairs we had cared for, our dear Clover, hung in there for a lot longer than we expected she would, we decided that we should maybe take a little break from keeping pets. It was sad to eventually say goodbye to Clover, but we feel like she stuck around for us even as she got old and life clearly became a bit harder for her.

Eventually circumstances dictated that Andie and I would be in a position to actually buy a house instead of renting, and that's how we ended up where we are now — and have been here for over ten years at this point. This is officially the longest I have lived in one place for, except for my childhood home. As I said yesterday, we're not ruling out moving someplace a bit bigger some time — just not yet — and we've done a lot to make this place into our home — not least of which is having cats. The dearly departed Ruby and Meg will always be in our hearts, and Patti and Oliver bring us so much joy in the here and now I cannot imagine ever being without such wonderful companions again.

I've lived in many places over the years. All of them hold their own memories, both good and bad. All of them have helped make me into the person I am today, for better or worse, and I'm sure I will always remember them all.

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1216: Hometime

I am writing this to you from English soil. Boooooo!

Yes, that's right; we're back home. Apologies to those of you who are in the Toronto area who maybe wanted to catch up and we didn't get the opportunity to — turns out we filled two full weeks pretty nicely with Stuff to Do.

A very public "thanks" to Mark and Lynette for putting us up for two weeks at their lovely house with its regular squirrel visitors, and thanks to our mutual friend Jonathan for providing us with some board and card game entertainment on more than one occasion. It's a shame we didn't have more time to try some games a little more than we did — I would have liked to play A Touch of Evil again, and I'm bummed we didn't get time to play Mice & Mystics — but we'll just have to save those for next time, I guess!

The flight back was uneventful, and unusually for me, I managed to actually sleep for most of it. This was perhaps at least partly due to the fact that we had to be up at some ungodly hour in the morning to actually catch the plane, but perhaps it was also a case of the prior two weeks catching up with us somewhat. It wasn't the most hectic, chaotic holiday I've been on — thankfully; I'm not a big fan of holidays where you're constantly doing stuff and never get any time to just kick back and relax — but it had enough stuff going on to keep things interesting while wearing us out somewhat. To be honest, my main priority for the trip was to see my friends rather than do the "tourist" thing, but I'm glad we had the opportunity for a jaunt around the ROM and the zoo while we were there.

I think the highlight of Toronto for me has to be the board game cafe Snakes & Lattes that I mentioned the other day. If there was such a place here in Southampton, I think I would probably spend a lot of time there — so long as I could find people to go with, of course.

There actually is a regularly-meeting board game group here in Southampton, but I have held off attending thus far due to my own issues with social anxiety and meeting new people. I have little doubt that I would probably have a good time if I just went along and met some new people, but it's getting over that initial hurdle that's the tough bit. Of course, if I lived in Toronto and attended Snakes on a regular basis, I'd probably run into the same issue, so… well. That's something to contemplate another time.

It is both nice to be back and sad to be home. We both had a great time, and I hope we get the chance to do it again sometime soon. For now, however, I think it's probably time to get some sleep!

#oneaday, Day 273: Roots

"And so it is said," quoth the ancient texts that I've just made up in my head, "that the Place in which a Man shall lay his Roots is not chosen by the Man, but rather the Place."

And so it was that this weekend I found myself back in the vicinity of Southampton, the City of Lost Dreams. The circumstances under which I was back in said city (or specifically, the adjacent town of Beastleigh Eastleigh) are not the subject of today's post; rather, the curious twists of fate that lead someone to return to the same place time and time again are.

My original choice to go to Southampton was based almost entirely on the university campus. The lush greenery, the pleasantly rolling hills of the campus grounds, the pleasant water features—all of these things combined to make me think that "yes, this is the place I'd like to be". That and the fact that it was one of very few places in the whole country running the English and Music course that I was interested in studying. Incidentally, if you're about to go to university and you are currently justifying your choice of degree subject by saying "it's a good general qualification, good for anything, really" then just stop, punch yourself in the face and go and pick something specialist that leads directly into a career you're interested in. Seriously. It will save you a lot of annoyance a few years down the road.

I studied in Southampton and successfully completed my degree, despite a few early-morning lectures ditched in favour of trips to the campus coffee shop, and one piano workshop which I had to leave in favour of being a bit sick in the Turner Sims concert hall's toilets. I decided that I liked it there for various reasons, so I took on a teacher training course primarily as a means of staying in Southampton, and also as a means of getting a career appropriate to my skillset. Once that was over and done with, I moved to Winchester, which is a much smaller, nicer and more expensive town than Southampton. But my heart was still in the city of WestQuay.

I spent two years in Winchester, living in The Nicest Flat In The World for the first year and A House That Would Be Quite Nice Were It Not So Mouldy And Smelling Of Gas in the second. Following this, I moved to Aldershot to be closer to my job. I then quit said job and moved back to Southampton into another Flat That Would Be Quite Nice Were It Not So Mouldy But Not Smelling Of Gas This Time because I had a job in, yes, Southampton. Tired of mould, I moved into the place in the city centre that was to become the final resting place of my hopes and dreams for my life that was. During all that time, even when I hadn't lived in the city itself, it felt like "base camp", home. A place to be centred. This was partly (or probably mostly) to do with the people who were there—people who were and still are important to me.

Leaving the city behind was tough, as was probably apparent from the blog posts around that period. It was so tough, in fact, that it took nearly all day to say goodbye to four people. In fact, it did take all day, and my overburdened car was not on its way up the M3 until the sun had long since dipped over the horizon.

Now, circumstances, Fate, whatever you want to call it; something has intervened and is dragging me back there. I'm not complaining (except at the cost of petrol or train tickets, both of which are extortionate) but I do get something of a wry grin on my face when I think of the city (and, by extension, its surrounding smaller towns and cities like Eastleigh and Winchester). It's like a stubborn child that won't quit until it gets what it wants, tugging on my metaphorical coat sleeves to attract my attention and pointing, oh look, over there, there's a badger with a gun, can you see? Wouldn't it be awesome if that was in your back garden?

So what will happen in the long term? I couldn't honestly say. A lot will depend on the job situation, which still isn't resolved yet. But let's just say that there's something of a quasi-gravitational pull in a south-westerly direction. It may be hard to resist that call for long.

#oneaday, Day 236: Moving Day

Apologies for the lack of comic today. I've run out of filler material. Note to self: stockpile strips for use in situations like this. Normal business will resume tomorrow.

Edit: Look, I added a picture, making that first paragraph completely redundant. I could have deleted it. But I've chosen not to.

You'll forgive me if I forego my usually verbose nature (he says, picking the most pretentious words possible) just for the sake of today, I'm sure. Today has been a day of mixed feelings that I haven't finished processing myself. So I don't think I have any concrete conclusions to offer; this is just going to be one of those self-indulgent rambles.

No change there, then.

Today, I left behind the fine/chav-infested capital of the South Coast, Southampton. I know it feels like I've been saying this for a while now. But today it finally happened. I left my flat, I dropped my keys through the letterbox (picturing them landing and bouncing on the carpet inside in slow-motion with appropriately overdramatic "slam" sound effects with each impact) and said a last goodbye to the place I had once called home. It was difficult to do. I stood there with my hand in the letterbox for a good few minutes, not wanting to let go. But after mustering some mental strength, I did, and it was done. That particular chapter was closed.

I took a walk into town to burn the hours until I was supposed to be meeting some friends for lunch. I spent most of the time drinking coffee, reading Twitter and delivering an excessive amount of Follow Fridays as I realised I'm lucky to have so many friends right across the country and even the world, let alone just in that city.

It didn't make it easier to say goodbye to those few special people though.

This is where those mixed feelings come in. On the one hand, leaving sucks, there's no question of that. But on the other, there's nothing like a crisis to discover who are the important people. To be fair, I knew already. It's nice to have it confirmed. But heartbreaking to have to walk away from them, look back and know that they're sad because of something you're doing, whether or not it was your choice.

So to those few special people I said one last farewell to today, thank you for making my last day marginally more bearable. A lot more bearable, in fact. And thank you for making it hard to let go. To leave on the quiet, mourned by no-one after ten years? That would be awful. To leave knowing that people will miss you? As unpleasant as it is, it is also nice to feel appreciated and wanted.

As of now, I'm staying at my parents' house. I am not feeling happy. Fresh start or not, tonight in particular is going to feel hideously lonely.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring more positive feelings. But it is going to take some time.

#oneaday, Day 233: Keep On Movin'

I hate moving house. I really hate moving house. And yet it's one of those things that becomes necessary at least several times during your life. Still, I feel like I have done it more than many people, largely due to the fact I moved pretty much every year since starting university, until I ended up in this current place, which I actually lasted about two years in.

I didn't move every year through choice in most cases. Most of the time there were extenuating circumstances which caused the move. I moved after my first year at university because I wanted to live in a house, not a hall of residence. I moved after my second year because the flat I was in was a shithole and the cheeky bastard landlord put the rent, which was already expensive, up. I moved after my third year because my housemate was leaving town because she'd finished university and I was staying on to do my teacher training. I moved after my fourth year because I was no longer a student. I moved after that year because the beautiful, lovely flat I was living in was reclaimed by its landlord for her daughter. I moved after the next year because my housemate was, again, moving and also the house we were in had damp, mould and smelled slightly of gas. I moved after the next year because I was in Aldershot and was hunting down a job back in Southampton. Also, Aldershot is a shithole. I moved after the next year because the flat I was staying in had damp and mould. Again. And the circumstances under which I am leaving this particular place have already been well documented elsewhere on this blog.

So I'm pretty tired of it. There are a bunch of things that always, always cause stress to do with moving. First of all is never having enough boxes, and ending up having to spend more on boxes than on anything else you've ever spent money on ever. I remember when I was younger, our local supermarket used to have a little "pen" near its cash tills with hundreds of discarded boxes that you could just take for yourself. I haven't seen a supermarket do this for ages. It's probably some sort of Health and Safety Hazard. What if someone gets trapped inside a box? What if it's used to carry a bomb? What if Solid Snake is around?

So boxes have to be acquired via alternative means, be it hassling friends for them, finding them discarded in disgusting places or actually purchasing them for vast expense from packaging stores. I went for the latter option largely for convenience more than anything else, and at least it means I've got some decent-quality, new boxes that (hopefully) won't fall apart when I'm lifting the bastards into a van later.

Then of course there's the packing process itself. Bundle things into a box, seal it up and then suddenly, inevitably, something catches your eye. Something which should be in that box you just sealed up. Something which could easily fit in that box you just sealed up. But it's not in the box. It's sitting there on the side, mocking you quietly. So you swear profusely, bundle the thing into another box, consider writing the fact that you've bundled said thing into the "wrong" box onto the side of its new home, figure that nah, you'll remember where you put it, pack it in there and then six months later when you still haven't unpacked half your boxes and realise you really need that thing that you put in the wrong box, you discover that you can't, in fact, remember where you put said thing because you didn't write it on the box.

As part of the packing process, you also reach the inevitable "small bits" stage. No, this is not a euphemism. This is a reference to the stage in the packing where you've pretty much cleared all your bookcases and cupboards and all that is left are hundreds, thousands, of small little bits and pieces, none of which can be justifiably assigned a complete box. So you end up with at least one box marked "JUNK" which contains miscellaneous paraphernalia of such diversity that should you ever dare dip your hand into it, you'll come out with something completely different and unrelated every time. And inevitably, there's too much "JUNK" for one box, making you think you should have perhaps organised it a bit better, but it's too late now.

Then you have to move said boxes and furniture into a van. That's today's job. And the van will be arriving shortly. So I'd probably better get on with it.