Seaside
This February, I began a period of research leave - a space away from my timetabled teaching to think, read, and write. I normally have seminars and lectures during February half-term, but this year, for the first time, I didn’t - so I booked some holiday time, we packed up the kids, and we headed to the Sussex coast.
For a brief spell in the mid-noughties, Sussex was my home. I’d just graduated from university, and I was drifting…lost. I had to move out of my student house in Yorkshire, and I had no real idea where to go next. An opportunity arose to move near my extended family on the South coast and to rent a very cheap garret in a Victorian house near a street called “Seaside”.
A garret sounds romantic and artistic. This…wasn’t. Dysfunctional, noisy neighbours. No central heating and no double-glazing. I nailed big plastic sheets over the windows in the winter months to keep me warm, and the wind would force its way through any gaps, howling like a ghost at all hours. There was a kitchen sink and a small countertop, but no space for a cooker, or a washing machine, and I had no cash for white goods anyway. A cupboard had been converted into a shower room. I can’t remember where the toilet was (in another cupboard?). I was still bobbing along, unsure of my next move. But setting myself up in this little flat allowed me to lower the anchor for a bit, to take harbour, to restock.
Most nights, I cooked pasta on a cheapo tabletop hob I bought from Argos. I claimed benefits and got a job…