July 2023

It has been a bit of a whirlwind month (as you will see) and I am coming to its end feeling slightly emotionally (and financially) fragile, but broadly optimistic.

Started the month with another (very nice) Capital ring walk. Work always gets a bit quieter in summer (no teaching, and freelance work tends to taper off too), so I've had a tad more free time and less spillover of work into the weekends, which is both nice, and lightly stressful.

I am loathe to use the word 'diet', so let's just say instead that I have 'taken control of my eating'. And it really does feel like that. Because of a combination of over-work, laziness, and simply LOVING 2 EAT, I'd got to the '10 Ritz crackers dunked in mayonnaise while standing in front of the fridge' style of snacking which frankly was not working wonders on either my body or my mind. It's not for everyone, but good old calorie counting has always helped me bring spiralling habits back under control. I am feeling a lot better about myself, and even though I've barely lost any weight, I HAVE stopped gaining it, and I am feeling a lot less oily and gross at the end of each day, which is nice. Once again, I TRY with fruit, but I just cannot.

Vegetables though, I am and always have been down with.

Love when the event gets cancelled and I get to stay hommmmmme (I was even quite looking forwards to this one)

Okay so here's the big thing I have not really talked about. Those of you who know me will probably know that my parents had managed to save up a chunk of money — enough to buy a comfortable family home in Yorkshire, which is exactly what they did with it — for me, Ava and Justin, back in 2018. We lived there for a year or so, paying them rent (it was an investment for them as well as a nice thing to do for me). 

I then blew all of that to pieces by breaking up with Ava, getting rid of almost all of my furniture, and moving back into a shared rental house in London.

My parents sold that house, and, quite rightly, said 'we're not doing that again, you can wait until we die for the money'. So that was what I decided to do, coming to a begrudging peace with living in shared houses or shitty rental flats until, most likely, my 50s or beyond.

However, my parents, both because they love me, and presumably recognise the boomer/millenial privilege gap, decided to gift me that money for a deposit now (because obviously, enough money to buy a family home in Yorkshire is not even though to buy half a modest one bed flat on the outskirts of London). 

I am so lucky in this that I have almost been embarrased to admit it, but realistically this (or a family bereavement) is the way most millenials ultimately get on the housing ladder, so there it is. Anyway, I was going to just quietly try and buy a place and not really mention it here — I found the perfect flat in around May, put in an offer, had it accepted, and proceeded to... Wait. The seller of the house was a very elderly lady who was moving very slowly with everything, but I wasn't too concerned, as I was under no time pressure to leave the place I'm in now.

Except suddenly, I WAS.

One of our housemates announces she's to move out at the end of the month. I mercifully managed to avoid Spareroom hell for a replacement by recruiting an old friend to move in for 6 months, as she needs a bolthole between houses (as she also attempts to buy). However, my landlord let me know that as soon as she moves out (around early 2024) he is going to (possibly substantially) put the rent up. Suddenly there IS a pressure to get things moving with the purchase, as I a) cannot take a rent increase, and b) do NOT want another fucking run at Spareroom for another new housemate

Ugggghhhhhh hurry up please lovely old lady with the nice flat we are trying to buy

I've actually quite missed teaching during the summer break. Enjoyed going to a planning meeting to talk about first year projects — including one called 'Objects of Provenance', where students are encouraged to select a small object they like, and then explore it in a wide range of different ways. Such a fun project! I drew a few small objects lying around on my desk — a very nice heavy electric lighter for candles, a necklace, a bottle of nice smelling oil, a good teaspoon, my 'salt pipe' (does it work!? no one knows), and a fidget toy.

The only area of my work that HAS been busy is the studio I work for, Geeks For Social Change. I delivered a body of research work that I am very proud of this month, for a project called 'Patchwork Gardens' (which unfortunately I have nothing to link to yet, as we have not had time to write about it!)

After subjecting our friend Vaishnavi to 'The Dark Crystal' a couple of months ago, we invited her over for a fun evening of Labyrinth and MarioKart

Another capital ring, for funsies

The only other teaching related commitment I had for this month was attending a staff 'away day', which mostly involved an important lady from the university talking about a lot of high level strategy stuff that was mostly way over my head, albeit lightly interesting. But there was a free lunch, and a few activities — the one I chose was by far the funnest (IMO), walking around the campus led by a sound arts guy, each equipped with a tiny device that turned electronmagnetic waves into sound that played through headphones we were wearing. TIL: there are a LOT of electromagnetic waves. It was extremely cool.

One good thing about (at some point) moving, is that I have truly walked this neighbourhood to death (especially during the pandemic). I walk a LOT, for leisure and exercise, and I am so over this place.

While getting my nails done, the trashy commercial radio station they were playing asked the audience, 'what does your favourite animal say about you'. My mind spiralled

I was offered some teaching training by the university, signed up for it with great excitement, and then the organiser never sent me the link to the event. I still have no idea what happened there and should probably follow up about that actually...

My partner got upset because people kept asking them where they were going on holiday, and their answer was 'nowhere because I like to stay in my house'. So we decided to book a lil break to Paris in late August, as it's easy to get to by train, neither of us have ever been, and my partner speaks a little French. I would entirely not have booked this had I known how financially fucked I was going to get later on in the month, lolsob, but I guess we're going!

In further 'Emma actually has free time' adventures, went to see the af Klint and Mondrian exhibtion at Tate Modern. Kinda an interestingly curated show as I didn't feel there was that much connetion between the two artists (they had never met, didn't know each other's work, though they were working around the same time, so obviously there was some link there). That said, I respected the premise, which was mostly to shine a light on the under-recognised af Klint (a woman), but still bring in the crowds with Mondrian as a big name. Af Klint's work was much more exciting to me!

And the next day I got over to South London Comics and Zine fair — I had applied to table here and was rejected, which I was kind of annoyed about, but actually attending the event it became clear that's because it was waaaaaaay out of my league, haha. Got some lovely stuff, and very much enjoyed visiting the great venue Stanley Arts (which is in the rough part of South London I am hoping to move to)

I guess tomatoes are a fruit? I have been getting very excited about fresh tomatoes this month, as is right and proper for July.

With my partner's birthday upcoming, I and housemate Beth got together to make a complicated cake! (and I did this bad drawing of it with biros on my lap at Samaritans before my night shift started)

I think my partner liked it...

And then the bad news. The old lady selling us the house decided to pull out. The lease was below 80 years, she needed to renew it before we would buy, she couldn't handle the admin and decided to just die there and make it someone else's problem. (She was very sick and had literally told us at the viewing that she wanted to go back to her home country of Albania 'to die', so this is not me hyperbolising)

Anyway, I immediately threw myself back into rightmove listings. Basically, we have enough money (generous deposit and mortgage) to get something that is not QUITE nice enough. There's always a catch. Too small. Terrible location. Haunted. Weird layout. Disgusting. etc.

Anyway, I booked in a bunch of viewings and then went up to York for the weekend to table at a zine fair there (tis the season) and more importantly, visit Justin and Dav. (iPad drawing as is my habit when I am travelling, fun to be able to take advantage of MORE, DENSER colour possibilities)

Zine fair was fun good vibes and got to see a bunch of familiar faces! In the evening I also got to go and meet my friend Thryn's extremely good boy dog pal, Goose. Excellent.

Then had a nice Sunday mooching round York — finally visited the Jorvik centre, went to the art museum with Dav, and had a great lunch with the two of them.

Then I came home. I like trains.

You have one quiet week and you're like 'oh that's nice'. You have two and you're like 'oh huh, more free time eh, cool cool', you have three, and then more and the freelance panic sets in. 

(Repeatedly telling myself it's FINE, this happens EVERY YEAR, things will SURELY pick up in September, and hopefully I will secure a good amount of teaching work then too)

Still though, my income this month is about half what it usually is, and next month thus far is looking like it might be even worse. Breaaaaathhhhhhhe it is finnnnnnnne

In some ways though, not having work on feels like it was perfectly planned, because it gave me loads of time to obsessively scour rightmove and book in loads of house viewings. (And I'm not gonna lie, I kinda love house viewings, and we didn't really do many first time round as I'd already found the perfect place). We saw 7 places on the Wednesday which varied from 'yes, quite nice actually' to 'cat piss hell'

We put in an offer on 'Huge garden with a great tree, wild layout, possibly haunted cellar', which was OVER BUDGET. They did not accept our lowball offer. I had a painful day on and off the phone with my mortgage advisor in which I established I COULD get more money, but was setting myself up for 35 years of suffering. Decided to come to peace with not over-stretching myself and making more compromises. Our second choice was 'a bit dingy (but perfect location), a greyhound lives here, and you can see trains from the kitchen!'

It's a bit smaller than we'd hoped for, and needs work doing, but we CAN afford it (and afford to do the work). We put in an offer on that place, and waited.

One of the things me and my partner liked most about the place was MELVIN (who sadly does not come with the flat), a large and extremely enthusiastic greyhound who currently lives there, and who greeted us with great enthusiasm at the viewing. (Besides just being excited to meet a beautiful greyhound, it mostly confirmed that you could keep a big fast dog there and have a nice time)

The seller initially accepted our offer at 5k under the asking price (the property had been on the market for over a month with little interest), but then SOME FUCKER came in and offered 10k more the same day, so we had to match him, and yes, I am mad about it. (As we now do NOT have the money to immediately do the renovations it needs)

I spent the entire day EXTREMELY ON EDGE waiting to hear if our offer had been accepted. 

Right before I went to my Samaritans shift, I got the good news — yes, the seller accepted (for 5k over the asking price, 10k more than we originally offered, grump grump grump), and there would be no more bidding. After reciving that phonecall, I was immediately bombarded with the next stages, solicitors touting for business, requests for paperwork etc.

Before my Samaritans shifts I often eat at a cheap chain udon restaurant. I wolfed down my noods while frantically texting and emailing and prepping everything I needed to do. The restaurant has signs up everywhere saying they have a pickpocket problem, so I always keep my bag next to me, or looped around my ankle if I'm at the high benches (as I was that day). A big group of tourists came and sat at the bench around me, so I moved my bag to my other side. I did NOT, however, reloop it round my ankle. Less than 5 minutes later I had finished my noodles and got up to go, and my bag was gone.

(Basically that drawing of a guy with my bag is an imagined artists impression, it could have been anyone, I did not see it happen)

Suffice to say, having already been extremely strung out because of house stress, I was NOT in a good mental space to handle this setback.

But luckily, kinda the best possible place you could go at your most vulnerable is the Samaritans, so I headed to my shift anyway (but did not actually do it), and my fellow volunteers turned their extremely good caring and empathy skills on snotty sobbing me, and helped me undertake all the neccesary card cancelling steps (which my thief friend was already rinsing in various shops on Finchley High Road) and pondering everything else I needed to think about.

Luckily neither my phone nor laptop were in the bag, but it was still a hit. I'd only recently bought both the bag (£60) and wallet (£25) as an attempt to streamline and degrungify my handbag setup, so was sad to lose (and have to replace) them so soon. I had a hefty c £120 power brick in there, which was the most expensive single item, as well as some sunglasses (c £25) and an expensive extremely high power sunscreen for my stupid ginger skin (c £40). I also had around £80 in cash from zine fair takings (damn it, I NEVER normally carry cash), so it was probably a medium-lucrative snatch for the thieves. They also managed to spend around £120 before I got my cards locked down (I will get that money back but they will get away with the goods).

So it goes, y'know. My fault for being sleep deprived, distracted and under-vigilant. I'll still go back to the udon place because the food is fuckin great.  

The biggest expense though, was changing the locks on our house. I couldn't really get consensus on whether this was neccesary or not. My landlord said he didn't care because it's not his stuff in the house (which is fair enough). My housemates were divided. Having initially thought it was excessive (yes, my keys were in the bag, but there was nothing in there to tie them to my address — my drivers licence doesn't have my current address on), I then decided I would be too paranoid about ever leaving the house if I DIDN'T do it, so promptly called a locksmith. (What would you have done, reader?!)

I was just going to replace the Yale Lock, but (presumably looking for some extra £££ as well as out of concern) the locksmith showed me just how easy it is to pick a yale lock, and I begrudgingly shelled out a total of £388.80 to replace BOTH locks (plus an additional £47 for extra sets of keys for all housemates and the landlord) 

Fucccccccckkkkkkk thissssssssssssss!!!!

I have bought a house though I guess. c £600 pales in comparison with [threateningly large 6 figure number]

Turns out, losing access to all your cards is REALLY ANNOYING and I kept repeatedly forgetting about it.

But anyway, after a long and at times trying month, my friend Jess came to visit, we played some nice games and ate some nice food and I now feel just about ready to face the perils of August. (Which is good, because it is August)