Moving is an emotional rollercoaster. The excitement and the stress mingle into a tingling feeling and you spend countless nights laying awake wondering if you are doing the right thing. You worry that you have spent more money than you earn, you worry about liking the neighbours, you worry about the school district, even if you don't have children and the dog walk routes and the local amenities and what day the bins will go out and how long it will take you to remember that new bin day schedule. So then your head explodes and you haven't even begun to decipher the utility bills. All this stress and emotion is then heightened when you haven't actually chosen to move.
Let me talk you through one of the most stressful periods of my life so far in what I hope will be a fairly humorous way. It began in September, when I embarked on a training course for one of the most undervalued professions in the country; teaching. Life was great, I had moved in with a group of friends in the quaint Hampshire countryside, Labrador in tow, I had met a tall, dark and handsome man and I was just starting out in the career of my dreams. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, everything that could go wrong, would go wrong; and one by one those adoring friends left that quaint little countryside home and I was left clutching at unpaid utility bills and conversing with an estate agent who was so unhelpful he couldn't have arranged for a poo to go down the loo.
So in my haste, I thought it might be a good idea to find some lodgings. Once again, in the delightful Hampshire countryside, but this time, much further away from the school that I was working at, I found a lovely elderly supply teacher and her dog. Perfect. So perfect in fact, that the one hour commute would be highly justifiable. At last, some stability in my hectic life. Moving day number two arrives and mum, dad and the tall, dark, handsome man move me into this lady's bungalow in three cars. There are some awkward gestures and words spoken with my new landlady and her observing-from-a-distance lover. She offers a hand and stands in the way of furniture and boxes being moved into my dingy ground-floor bedroom. Luckily, they leave so that my mother can look at me with knowing eyes and ask me what on earth I was thinking and I can plead with them not to leave me there. The first night I head back home with the boy, convincing him I owe him a take-away for helping with another move but really just wanting to be anywhere but my new home. I knew that I had made a terrible mistake. Thankfully, the Labrador went off to stay with mum and dad and remained under the impression that he was on some kind of luxury holiday.
I had to go and sleep there eventually, so my first night there goes by with very little sleep. I awake to my pre-dawn alarm to get ready for a day on the front line as a trainee teacher, I shower, eat my breakfast and leave the house before 7am making as little noise as possible. Later that evening, I return to finish my work, cook my dinner and go to sleep, but I am confronted by my new housemate. Now, her request was a strange one; but one that began my frantic realisation that I needed somewhere else to live quickly. She asked me, quite politely at first, not to shower in the mornings because the sound of the water was quite disruptive. Not knowing really how to answer a request like this I sheepishly told her that this wasn't really possible, as part of the expectations of a trainee teacher is that one arrives at school on time, clean and bad body odour free. Quite basic really. The strange requests then became demands, and soon I was not allowed to use the oven or flush the toilet if I had only done a wee, or park near her car if she was planning to go out, or wash my clothes in warm water. To inflict these rules, the hot water had been turned off before dawn, so as I approached my 6am shower one morning, I came to find a trickle of ice cold water. Who is this woman I found myself cohabiting with? She belonged in a pre-19th Century boarding school and after day three I was trawling around Southsea after dark viewing bedsits that were once crime scenes and probably would be again very soon. I returned to my lonely lodgings that night, climbed into bed and began typing away on the laptop, when, ever so slowly, the door creeks open. This is it. I am going to be killed. In creeps the landlady's married lover. A hunched figure peered around the door and stared, I froze, unfroze and began to calculate objects near enough to throw and heavy enough to leave a mark. He quickly retreated muttering excuses and in a few seconds of bravery I flung the door back open and demanded an explanation. The excuse that the trespasser made was this, he was not aware that I was home. The verdict, these peculiar people are snooping through my belongings while I am at school. So possessions packed into a Mini Cooper and a Renault Clio the following night, the significant other helped me escape while the lady was elsewhere, although to this day I am convinced that we were watched from behind a painting or from the eyes of some hideous gargoyle.
For quite a few weeks, between the marking and the planning and the commuting and the reading and the rest of the many tasks that come with learning how to be a teacher, I lived between his house and a friend's sofa until I came into a stroke of luck. When some friends had an opening in their student house I jumped at the opportunity to live with these sane individuals. For now, I have climbed out of the vortex in which I couldn't stop moving house. Thanks to my new housemates and true friends, things are finally beginning to settle down and out of this experience, I have learned not to move in with people who advertise their spare rooms on the internet.
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