Work, buses, and socialising

So the world is starting to open up again. For weeks now we’ve been able to leave our homes and travel on buses and visit non-essential shops, but it’s only in the last few days that I’ve considered lockdown to be actually over. Work has restarted for us. I’m lucky to have a job that’s taken me back, the hospitality sector is never very secure and of the 21 people employed in the kitchen I work in only eight of us were able to come back.

We’re currently open Thursday to Sunday, with shifts taking place on Wednesday to clean and prep food for the coming weekend. This gives everyone two days off at the beginning of the week, for the first time since working there we have a “weekend”, two days off to look forward to and be able to plan things for every week. It’s only for the next few weeks until business picks back up, but it’s a nice way of easing back into working life.

The menu is a lot smaller now, less staff on shifts, less prep to do, less meals to learn, they’ve made it easy on us. But even so the first weekend back was hard. The first shift even, a Thursday morning, made my feet hurt in a way they haven’t since I first started kitchen work, I was walking less than a third of the distance I would do during a lockdown day, but standing in place was causing me so much more ache than walking ever did. I’m also leading some shifts, acting as kitchen supervisor and being in charge of the small teams and tiny menu. It’s a job I did full time for a few months a couple of years ago, but ultimately the small amount of extra money from the promotion never made up for the added stress for me. Now I’m mainly doing it as a favour to my manager, a good friend of mine, and since we’re having our wages topped up by the furlough scheme I’m not actually getting any pay rise at all. It’s fine for these quiet, uncertain days, and I am happy to have a job at all. I complain about work and I insisted that I didn’t want to return, but the truth is I enjoy it there, the people I work with I largely consider as friends, and the work, while stressful at times, is satisfying and somewhat rhythmic – nothing feels better than it being a busy shift and getting into the flow of sending order after order upstairs in a timely manner and everything just coming together nicely.

New start times of 10am as opposed to the old start times of 7am have made a huge difference as well. There’s time now to get up, have a coffee and read/internet for an hour or so and then take Shadow out for an hour or so in the forest to chase sticks. It’s a nice habit, and when you’re stood in a bright, hot, busy kitchen on an afternoon it’s nice to remember the morning light of the woods where you started your day. Sadly for Shadow it also means she’s starting to re-learn how to be left by me. I worry sometimes that the lockdown has made her over-dependant on me and that she’ll struggle to adapt back into the routine of being alone at home, or being left with somebody else. Luckily for now my friend is still staying with me, luckily she’s one of the eight returning work mates as well, so we can work our shifts around each other and look after both the “kids” while the other works, this means that neither Shadow or the little girl have have their routines too disrupted, and they both get to stay with somebody they trust and know very well.

A nicer side of the service industry starting to get back to normal is how nice it’s been to go out and socialise again, and I say this as somebody who is more than happy to stay inside with my Xbox as opposed to going out and spending time with groups of people. But the simple pleasures of reading a book in a coffee shop while waiting for a friend, or going for a few drinks and ending up back at somebody’s flat have been experiences that even I missed during the long months of everything being closed.

Comforting, even if everything must be served in takeaway containers

Festival Season – pt 2

So after WGT is over all the attendees travel back to their respective homes and try to return to normal life. My friends and I always book our accommodation from Wednesday before the festival to the Wednesday after, giving us a day of recovery before heading back home. Usually we get up late, enjoying the bittersweet feeling of not having to rush somewhere to see bands or meet up with everyone we’ve ever met. We’ll spend our remaining euros on a relaxing meal at one of the many places we’ve not quite made it to due to having so many options on the cards (seriously, Germany is amazing for vegan food, we didn’t expect it at the beginning, now we look forward to a tour of restaraunts and cafes almost as much as we do the drinking and gig going!). At home there’s always the kind of feeling of “how do I go back to my regular life after having a week in this wonderful dreamland?”, the best way is to immediately start planning other festivals.

In addition to doing Treffen every year, we often manage to squeeze at least one other goth festival into the season. The three biggest events that crop up in my friend circles are WGT, Amphi in Köln, and M’era Luna in Hildesheim. Amphi is a big favourite, it takes place in a beautiful city, it has one of its stages on a boat, it features a lot of the more electric sounding bands of the scene, the EBM, the synthpop, the futurepop, etc etc. For my friend and my 30th birthday a couple of years ago we decided to check it out for the first time.

As opposed to always getting Airbnb apartments in Leipzig, we opted for a hotel for this one, and it was a gorgeous, luxurious room. I very annoyingly cannot remember the name of the hotel (I’ll try and find out and link it here when I do) but it was lovely dark grey and red coloured decor, lovely views from a high floor, decent continental breakfast options included, and all important air-conditioning, it was HOT the year we went. First day there was spent exploring the city, and it’s a very pretty city.

Köln cathedral dominates the city, it’s a beautifully imposing gothic mass

There were only a few bands we wanted to see at this festival, mainly we were going to check out the city and hang out with “cocktail club” our friends from all over the UK and Europe who net at each festival and drank cocktails and talked nonsense together all night long. So the weekend kind of blurred by in a haze of boozy memories.

The other regular German festival we attend is M’era Luna, held in Hildesheim, a small town with a largely disused airfield where the festival takes place. Although there are hotels and apartments in the town, they often fill up fast and cost lots of money, for these reasons and because it’s more fun and adventurous this is the one festival that we camp at. We go with a massive group of mainly British goths by bus from Northern England, down to Dover, then across to Germany via ferry. This whole trip is organised and arranged by a lovely man nicknamed Guv’nor who runs the Facebook group Goths on a Bus: https://www.facebook.com/groups/114862551375/?ref=share

The “North Bus” setting off from Leeds, in Yorkshire, and driving the length of the country to get to the ferry, we usually have the longest journey there and back. The rivalry between buses is a large part of the commraderie that makes the whole trip so special, it’s on this bus that my closest friends journey and together we playfully mock those from other parts of the country (“it’s just banta, innit!”)

Very important alcohol and snack options for the 20 hour coach ride, although i have somewhat lost the taste for Dark Fruits now after so many over indulgent evenings/events

We’ve been to M’era Luna three or four times now, each time we go we end up getting no sleep on the bus, staying awake all night in the cold tent, cursing people being loud and having fun until the early hours, so we curse the whole experience and say “never again!”. Then we won’t book the following year, but when people share their statuses and photos on social media when they’re there we miss it too much and immediately sign up for the next year. It’s addictive. Everything that makes it exhausting and frustrating all helps bond us closer together as a group and gives us fonder memories in the future. Perfect example being a couple of years ago, which happened to be he year we dragged a few WGT and friends along for their first time. The problems started soon after arriving in Germany – rain, torrential, constant rain. As we got closer and closer to the site the rain seemed to get heavier and heavier. As we were almost at the turnoff for the festival grounds the traffic all stopped. Massive traffic jam. We sat for three hours about 500m from our destination, as the rain poured and the playlist we were listening to looped again and again. Then we got to the camp site and it was essentially a bog. Putting tents up in the pouring rain, into muddied ground that was so soft and wet it felt fruitless. All of our clothes got wet, our sleeping bags, pillows, everything. It made for a miserable and very cold first night.

But the next day it was all laughter, everyone had spent the last day so wet and cold and annoyed that it was suddenly hilarious. We felt bonded by the experience. Instead of feeling happy that they had avoided such a situation the people staying in hotels and apartments in the town felt more like they had missed out. Later that first day we queued up to see a band in a large tent, the queue was huge and not going anywhere, so when the torrential rain began again we were trapped. As people started to get frustrated about missing the start of the band, and being trapped so close yet so far, and getting soaked through once again…a group of people nearer the front of the queue started singing, soon the whole crowd of us were singing along with the band at the top of our lungs in the pouring rain. It was so much more memorable than any of the other times I’ve seen that band live, and when we finally got into the tent to watch them properly it was nowhere near as thrilling as being outside and enjoying our own concert.

Drenched and dried out many times, looking and feeling bedraggled and sleep deprived, but happy and swearing we would all be friends for life after the shared experience

After two days of bands and three nights of camping we wake up early on the Monday, drag ourselves out of our sleeping bags and into the cold morning air. We have a mere couple of hours to be packed up and back onto the coaches to begin our journey home. Somehow nothing ever seems to fit into the suitcases as tidily as they had when we’d brought them here, and the lack of sleep makes us all weak and clumsy, but we somehow manage. It feels almost like we’d only just got there and then suddenly everything is packed up and we’re heading away again. We drive out via a supermarket so people can stock up on new snacks and buy things to take back home such as souvenirs and various alcohols that are cheaper or easier to get here than back home. I usually buy some fresh baked bread and some kind of “create your own” salad box and create sandwiches full of fresh vegetables that I’ve been craving after a weekend of eating and drinking trash.

The journey back always takes less time somehow, people usually sleep or sit in their own thoughts for the first few hours, after waking so suddenly and enduring such a tiring and rushed morning. We arrive back in Leeds very early on Tuesday morning, usually in time to get the first train home at about 4am. Getting back to our houses at about 6am, it’s always a battle between wanting to shower for the first time for so many days (there are showers at the festivals, but communal shower set ups weird me out) and wanting to fall into a comfy bed and sleep for 12 hours instead. Luckily this is usually the last festival of the summer, and the relief at being back in civilisation after being on buses and in tents for days is nice enough to offset the usual sadness at returning to normal life.

New home

I guess I should write about my new house.

I started looking for a house to buy in summer of last year, stepping up my search in September as I decided I wanted to be in my new place by Halloween so I could decorate it all spooky like. I did not make it in by Halloween. I thought people were overexaggerating when they spoke of the frustrations and delays with house buying, but no.

First of all my mortgage was approved for a certain amount, and I found a lovely home just slightly outside my search area and slightly over my budget. No matter, my mortgage could stretch to most of it, and my parents could loan me some more, and I could pick up extra hours at work to offset the need for a larger deposit in the near future. However then my mortgage suppliers got back in touch and said they could actually offer me £7k less than they’d initially said based on my more recent wage slips bringing my average earnings down. Balls. So no dream house for me it seems. I tried to scheme some more and asked the sellers if they’d drop the price, no luck.

So I started looking again, this time with the added pressure of not withdrawing my offer from the first house, still hoping I could think of something. Somewhat frustrated by my taking so long my mum and one of my sisters decided to travel to the city to help me look. So I went about setting up some viewings, two new houses that were in budget, and a look around the one i had my heart set on, I thought if they could just see it they’d understand why I needed it so badly and help me think of some way to attain it.

The first house we looked at was nice enough, although for the price it was a bit scruffy, there was various bits and bobs of work to be done that would push up the initial costs sonewhat. There was also no shower. I dislike baths so having to quickly find and fit a shower or risk washing in discomfort put me off somewhat.

The second house became my mum’s instant favourite, it was a five minute walk from where I was currently living, very close to a bus stop, a corner shop, a bridge onto the canal, about a ten minute walk from three large supermarkets, a 15 minute bus ride into town where I worked instead of the 30 minute ride that would’ve been from the first house I fell for. Inside the house was very nice. It had recently been redecorated, a nice pale grey wooden floor, the walls decorated in different shades of greys and whites, decent sized living room, large kitchen, bedrooms big enough for what I needed from them, and the bathroom was lovely, a big walk in shower at the end of the long room. And it was much more affordable.

I showed my family members around the house I’d already been attempting to buy and they were indeed suitably impressed. It was perfectly decorated, ready to live in, two large living rooms downstairs and two large bedrooms upstairs. My mum however remained set upon the previous house, saying that it felt much more like a first home and that the original one was “too nice for a first home”. I guess I agreed, the previous house did seem more ready for me to make it my own instead of me moving into someone else’s home.

Around this time my parents’ German shepherd gave birth to her first litter. If I was going to have a puppy like I’d hoped I had only a few weeks to get the process of buying underway.

She was known as White-Toe, pretty self explanatory.

What followed was weeks of my solicitors dragging their feet about various things, my applying for surveys and updating my mortgage advisor on my changing mind. On the 19th of December I finally was allowed to go and pick up the keys.

I had made a new friend at the end of the summer too, just around the time I had really starting to seriously go through the searches and applications required. We’d spent most of our mutual days off hanging out, so it was fairly logical that she’d been there for all of my updates and mind changing and incoming emails about whatever was going on at the time. Also logical then that I would ask her to come and collect the keys with me. It was midwinter and a grey, drizzly day in the city, we walked first 20 minutes one way to the estate agents and then 30 minutes back the other way to get to my new house (eek!), stopping along the way to collect a few items that I wanted to be my first inhabitants of my new home.

My first memory of my home is the two of us sitting in the empty back bedroom with a single candle, shivering, able to see our breaths in the cold, damp house that was now my home.

First tasks were cleaning tasks, and we arranged another mutual day off when we could come and set aside a few hours to scrub the mould away from the kitchen walls. After a lot of scrubbing and some homely additions brought by my mum as early Christmas gifts it started to look more like my own place.

Next task was my moving all of my stuff from the room I’d been renting previously to the new house. For such a tiny room it did have a lot of stuff in it, this process took weeks, mainly due to my laziness. My “lot of stuff” seemed lost in the space of my house.

This was after buying the sofa and mattress, before that I just had various cushions and blankets dotted around the place

Meanwhile White-Toe looked like this and my mum was asking when I’d be ready to take her home:

I moved in by mid January. White-Toe was dropped off a few days after I’d started sleeping there and renamed Shadow, she was the perfect company and distraction to suddenly being in house of my own and no longer having any human housemates for the first time in my life.

A few Ikea trips and charity shop raids later the place started to feel more and more like my home. My friend offered to watch my puppy while I worked some days in return for me babysitting her 5 year old. I’d pick up her daughter from school, take her to mine while her mother worked, take her and the puppy for a walk, feed them both and put them to bed. My friend would travel to mine after a late shift at work, stay over, and give the kids breakfast and an early walk the next day while I worked the early morning shift. It worked nicely and it made my house feel more lived in, there were more coats and shoes littering the living room, toys on the bedroom floor, jigsaw puzzles and childish drawings scattered across my living room. The best way to make a house feel lived in is to add children, even if they do bring a large degree of chaos to the situation. After being put on lockdown and having my friend and child move in full time for a few weeks my house feels more like home than ever.

Still need a bed, and a few shelves here and there, but it’s coming along nicely enough

I’ve been looking forward to living in my own place for years. My friends will move back to their own home after the summer, and while sad to see them go, I’m also grateful that they’ve been with me and Shadow for the first few months as this place has moved from an empty house I’d somehow acquired to an actual home that I can live a life in.

Just some dog-mum waffle

I got my first compliment on Shadow the other day. MY first compliment. She’s a good looking dog (biased as I am) and usually all the comments we’ve had when we’ve been out have been “oh, she’s beautiful!”, “she’s growing up so nice!”, “she’s so big for her age!” (is that last one a compliment? I guess it is if, like me, you like big dogs), I’ve never known what to say in response to these though: “thank you”? as if I somehow created her and was responsible for her looks? “I know”? seems so arrogant somehow. But the other day someone stopped me while we were walking near home: “I’ve seen you two walking down the canal, such a well trained dog, you’ve done very well!” turns out I still didn’t know what to say, but hearing that something that I was responsible for was worthy of a compliment was such a mood boost! So life affirming somehow.

Especially as lately Shadow has been going through what I’ve come to learn is “German Shepherd Teenage Phase” where she tests me and how far she can get away with stuff. She’ll sometimes chase other dogs, run up to dogs on the lead, refuse to come when I call her, bark at children (okay, that last one was a one time thing, but it was still horrifying!). Getting that random compliment made me realise that it’s because she’s so well behaved that the new disobedience stands out so much. And she *is* good, she always lets me put her back on the lead at home time, she’ll come back when i call her to stop chasing a dog, and she only barks at very specific, annoying people (either someone on my doorstep, when they’ve stood at the threshold of our home for too long, or children who are crowding around her, pulling her ears and wanting to spray her with water pistols).

Sometimes I look at her and I can’t believe she’s mine. For as long as i can remember I wanted to have my own German shepherd, and now i have one, she’s nearly fully grown, she’s very good looking, she’s pretty well behaved, and she loves me, I’m her person.

Let’s try and start this again…

I’m Draco, I’m in my early 30s, have no idea what I’m doing with my life, and frequently need the attention and validation from others.

I’ve wanted for ages to start up a blog again. Never really knew what to write and always put it off. I’ve also never been interested in that polished online life either, the ones where you can’t share the real things you go through because they aren’t positive, aesthetic, or even understandable.

So I have a dog, Shadow, she’s currently 7 and a half months.

I also have a house. I bought it in December last year, and it’s just barely starting to feel like mine.

I’ve had a crazy last 12 months, done amazing things, met wonderful people and experienced more emotions, good and bad, than I think I’ve experienced for my whole life previously (outside of those pesky melodramatic teenage years, ofc).

I guess I’ll write about Shadow, and keep track of my progress as I make my house into my home. And maybe let my feelings and emotions seep into my writing and be immortalised forever. Scary.