Let me explain the housing situation. When I first arrived in England I had no house. Well, it was here, it was just in pieces. Construction on my house has been ongoing since…let’s just say the watch that was keeping track of time ran out of battery. I believe the original plan was the have the house finished and ready to move into by June. Ron moved here in the middle of July and had to bunk up in ManHouse 1 because our place wasn’t finished yet.  Then I heard nothing significant for a few weeks, when suddenly, 5 days before getting on a plane for England I get a message telling me the house will not be ready, our landlord has changed his mind about letting Ron and I move in before October 1, and that Ron is no longer going to be living there, period. I didn’t panic, though, I stayed cool. Mostly because I didn’t want my mum to freak out and make it harder for me leave (what with the inevitably ensuing motherly guilt and all).  After days of negotiating with myself and hours before boarding  a plane I received word from my wonderful friend Jennie saying I could stay with her until my house was “ready” (ready or not, I would be moving in October 1st).

Finally, October 1st came and I hauled my giant suitcase down the tiniest, narrowest staircase you can imagine to land in Jennie’s even tinier front foyer. I found myself locked in the house since, for some reason, in this country you need keys to get out of the house as well as into it. I had to knock on the door of the guy who lived downstairs (one I hadn’t met yet) and ask to be let out. So, like a gentleman, he unlocked the door and left me to maneuver my giant suitcase around the peculiarly large front hall table and down the last few steps to the outside world where I was ready to set off to ManHouse 2. [Note: dragging a 60 lb suitcase down cobble stone sidewalks for 20 minutes is uncomfortable).

As I came around the last bend of Heslington Road I was greeted by familiar faces. Dan, Richard, Kelly, and Richard’s brother, possibly also named Dan. They were beginning to empty what looked to be a comically large white van compared to my one orange suitcase. When we got into the house, well, it didn’t quite look like a house. My soon-to-be room was basically just a pile of drop cloths and wood, with a boxed up bed frame and mattress propped against the wall. The bathroom was basically complete (save for installing the medicine cabinet that was leaning against the radiator, bathtub sealant, and any other bathroom convenience one comes to expect, like towel racks, mirrors, any kind of storage, toilet roll holder, etc) but covered in a fine layer of tile grout dust. And the kitchen, the life source of any home, was basically just cupboards on the wall. But hey, at least they were those slam-proof cupboards, well, some of them. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit, we did have a fridge and an oven but no running water, which left our food options limited to frozen pizza. Luckily, the upper two floors of the house were in better shape. And since only Richard and I were actually moving in that day I was able to snag one of the finished bedrooms to sleep in for the first few nights. Kudos to Luke for unknowingly putting me up.

Now, why would anyone live in a house that wasn’t complete? Well, if we put aside the fact that I was in a foreign country with nowhere else to go, an unfinished house seemed like a pretty good deal. And sweetening the deal all the more was the agreement that Richard had secured that said if the house was not complete by October 1st, we could all move in and live there rent-free until all interior work was finished. So, a place to live and no rent to pay? I was into it.