Finding a House – January Reflections

I feel like January normally drags a little, the cold days and endless greyness of the sky stretch out and we all find ourselves wondering if February is ever going to turn up. I haven’t found that this year though. The bleak weather is certainly hanging around as usual, but the actual days have been tripping over themselves in a hurry to get to spring.

My month started in the Peak District, hiking around in the hills and eating bakewell tart. On one of my favourite walks, it started snowing for a couple of minutes which was magical. The whole week was wonderful actually (apart from losing my bullet journal…).

I headed straight back to university from the rugged hills and had a hectic first week back on a compulsory course workshop. It was pretty tiring and a lot of people didn’t show up, but I’m glad I went. If I hadn’t, I would be wondering what I’d missed out on. I really can’t complain, most people had exams that week which I thankfully didn’t have to do.

The next week was the actual first week back – being in lectures and seminars again felt a little strange, but not as strange as I thought it would. It’s interesting how quickly you can fall back into routines again. My main focus that week, however, was not academic work; it was the dreaded search for a house for second year. My flatmates and I went trailing around a whole collection of houses in vastly different states of being, resulting in several near-chunders. Some of the places we saw were absolutely putrid – not necessarily the houses themselves, but the detritus of the people living in them currently. Rubbish and old food littered the carpets, junk piled up everywhere, some extremely questionable smells… An eye-opening experience for sure.

We did manage to find a house – it’s quite small but in a great location with lots of light and nice bedrooms. And, best of all, no smell. After a stressful week wondering if we were going to actually secure it or not, we managed to get the tenancy agreements signed and the deposits paid – the house is ours!

With that major headache out of the way, I started focusing on university work again. I am enjoying getting back into studying after Christmas but the term seems to be disappearing at an alarming rate – I’m not sure how to get things to slow down a little as we’re rattling towards the next lot of essay deadlines a bit too quickly for my liking.

Aside from studying, I’ve been working, getting back into reading (I’m nearly finished with my second novel for the year – I know that’s not a lot but it’s impressive compared to last year’s record) and running. Where I live now is a lot flatter than my hometown and so jogging feels a lot more approachable – the streets are quiet and once I get away from university campus there are some lovely spots. I’m starting to see my running ability improve and that’s the most motivating thing for me.

In other news, I’ve been living in my Lucy and Yak dungarees throughout January, appreciating the rainbows and snow punctuating the grey days, and enjoying using the stationery I got for Christmas. (Hence the influx of bullet journal related posts on my blog recently). Speaking of blogging, I’m proud of myself that I’ve kept my blog active this month – I’ve had a post go up every 3 days – however, most of these were written over Christmas so I’m sorry if you’ve been engaging with my posts and I haven’t reciprocated comments like I normally do, it’s been a pretty hectic time. I did find a moment to go to the cinema though – I saw Beautiful Boy which was the embodiment of ‘harrowing’ (it was an excellent film, just left me feeling a little sad).

But to end the post on a much happier note: I rediscovered my love for the glorious mug cake. Reintroduced to me by one of my flatmates, I made these sometimes as a kid but completely forgot about them – now I am unearthing that love as an adult. What a wonderful time to be alive and in possession of a microwave ❤

Although it doesn’t look like the most appetising thing, I promise you this peanut butter choc chip mug cake was delicious

Have you had a good start to the year?

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