11. La Maladie du Home

Well the time has come… I’m feeling homesick. It’s 15 weeks since I arrived, and I am now properly yearning for l'Angleterre. So far, I’ve been feeling okay by fully suppressing any wistful dreaming of beans on toast, frosty walks on a common and that blast of warm air you get walking into a Tube station using a time-honoured utility: Ye Olde Spotify. However, I have been doing this so systematically that it’s got to the point where putting on a podcast (or even music) no longer feels like a leisure activity, but like I am downloading data into my brain. Constant self-distraction has made me feel totally numbed.

I've reached a point where it's no longer just that I can't, but I also won’t quash my longing for these trucs familiers. By my totally unscientific calculations, the amount of time I have left here is exactly suitable for cultivating a manageable feeling of misery that will ultimately render my homecoming all the more joyful, without totally ruining my last few weeks. Only time will tell if I’ve been a bit premature with that (it's a fine balance), but if it does work, then my Minions advent calendar (kindly gifted to me by my 23 y/o sœur) will act as the perfect edible countdown to create a tension croissante for my ultimate rentrée 2019.

Other things have happened that make me more excited to leave. Various essential features of the household are taking their turn to break – the hot water, the heating, the electricity, the filter coffee machine... NGL, I’m finding it hard to care. Three weeks and I’m outa here, baby. An advert has been put up on La Carte des Colocs for someone to replace me. I cleaned the oven the other day then immediately regretted it as I won’t be around to benefit from its new impressive level of hygiene.

My period has synced with my original housemate, meaning that we argued totally disproportionately over taking out the bins one day and then didn’t speak for a week. Another has moved in who, to put it bluntly, I don’t like. The three of us spent one really bizarre evening together the other day. The new one (who is a #major #foodie) suggested this whole raclette thing, which the other hyped up to sound really great, so that despite dreading spending an extended period of time with my two cohabiters, I was low-key buzzing for some gastronomical delights. HOWEVER… it turns out raclette is just a fucking baked potato. The only difference is that rather than putting cheese directly upon potato, you get a (TBF, delightful) little gnome-sized shovel to melt said cheese upon. And – OKAY – the potatoes were boiled rather than baked. But it’s just fromage sur une patate… it’s all the bloody same.

The infamous raclette was consumed to a soundtrack of Rihanna’s Work and the like, blasted from our petit écran at a painfully high volume. “Mais non, Elsa, tu dois rester ici quoi,” New Roommate unexpectedly cried, filling my heart surprise at her affection, and shame that I didn’t like her back. Then she said, “Il faut que j’apprenne l’anglais” before joining the Original Roommate in belting the words to Mr David Guetta’s Sexy Chick (ft. Akon) with the thickest French accent I have ever heard. My heart deflated back to its former, empty state. The only thing she liked about me was my Englishness.

It was Friday night. I was slouched – rosy-cheeked from the raclette grill’s heat and a bottle of red wine – at a table groaning with boiled potatoes, jambon cru and a grill surrounded by cheese melting on 3 miniature shovels. The top button of my jeans is open, thanks to my over-consumption of surmentionnées patates (a result of just wanting something to do with my hands, rather than any unhealthy love of the cheesy spuds) and I’m sandwiched in by housemates who had spent the entire working week communicating as little as possible with me, screeching Damn you’se a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch. It wasn’t a remotely sexy scene.

On a more positive note, I haven’t felt this stoked for Christmas since 2012, when me and my BFF were into Pinterest, Rookie and all things DIY - young enough to still be teetering on the chasm of waking up to the soulless commercialism and deep unexplored family rifts the festive season so reliably unroots. I can’t wait to be made a cup of tea. I can’t wait to belt Away in a Manger unsociably loudly in a carol service. As I write this, my purse just got nicked at the train station and I have no access to any money whatsoever. I just can’t wait to be not in charge of everything. And I have a real hankering for some of that Sainsbo's-own mulled wine.

I really can’t wait to see all my extended family - even if I wouldn’t have normally seen them during the academic term anyway. I feel like I have more to say than usual, which will make family events more fun (being second youngest, reporting my activities sometimes feels a bit passé, and having not been the biggest fan of first or second year, I always worry that my ~updates~ are irritatingly negative). I’m looking forward to getting my 2020 Muji diary, even if I’m having trouble accepting that we’re genuinely a decade on from 2010. I cannot wait to slap on Chris Rea's Driving Home for Christmas when I'm crossing la Manche on the coach back from Paris.

Ho ho ho holy shit this term has gone so quickly. Peace and love xo