Challenging beginnings

I had planned to start blogging this year.  What I hadn’t planned was coming back to university.  The trail went cold on my search for a placement rather late in the year, and I found myself with about a week to find a liveable flat, get through the necessary paperwork, and move in to start my studies.

It turns out renting a flat is not something you rush into.

 Two weeks after moving in I found myself still in a half empty flat, with no internet (and no prospect of it until I knew I wasn’t moving out again), no working hob and no working oven.   The cold water was tinted bluish green and tasted like metal (and produced interesting precipitates at the bottom of my tea).  The hot water was barely lukewarm and smelled of biology.

Attempts to bake in the toaster oven (emergency purchase, thank goodness I now live so close to Aldi), were mixed...

Mixed, honestly.  I swear the filling tasted fine!

But things rarely stay bad for long.  I borrowed a mini oven/hob combination from a family friend, the hard water worked do my advantage, in that it didn’t stay coppery for long.  I found some nice areas of the library, so the blog was back on the cards.  Most importantly, thanks to said mini-oven, I started to cook, and that always makes me feel better.

While it will probably never produce a prize winning Victoria sponge, the mini oven held temperature steady enough to get a rise out of cornbread, and the hob meant I could finally cook from scratch again.  

Since then there have been more repairs, and my furniture has arrived.  Things are almost at the point that they should have been a month ago.  The hob has replaced and the oven now turns on (although the thermostat doesn’t work), and the internet connection is on its way.   I can think about university a bit more and sorting things a bit less.  And perhaps the most relevant fact to write here is that I finally have the time to prattle on about eating, cooking, food and drink.  This time in a format where no one can interrupt me to point out that I should have been somewhere else half an hour ago.

So in the grand scheme of things, I guess the hiccups weren't the end of the world.