Pancakes

I have been struggling with what to write after reading a “creepy Christmas” murder mystery that isn’t worth talking about and stop-starting my way through a non-fiction.

But my new cookbook has inspired me to write something real.

Hour break

I’ve sat back now at my kitchen table, on a call with a colleague who has been thinking about my commute, licking maple syrup and pancake remnants from my mouth.

It’s funny what just is, like the kitchen table. Those who have visited the creaky floorboards and old/new sofa at my flat know there is not a table in the kitchen. The table is by the window in the living room. But it’s never been a dining table as long as I’ve been living here. It just categorically is a kitchen table.

And I categorically know what I like and what I don’t like. As previously said, living outside of a (horror) house-share has given me the mental space to reconnect with my likes and my happy things. I like being able to cook pancakes for breakfast when my flatmate is away for Christmas and being able to share that act of happiness (cooking alone) with a friend who is living 9000 miles away.

Only 3 days away myself from going home for the holidays, all the things I’ve not yet done in this flat have come to the front of my brain. Like taking liberties in the shape of wonky morning pancakes. Or hosting our friends more, making memories that I’ll remember and not – paranoid and hungover – shy away from.

The unexpected call from my work colleague ended with her wanting to make sure I wouldn’t be scared away from the job, due to (sometimes) tedious and (largely) pointless trips into the office. “I’d be sad to lose you” was said. This was an unusually sentimental start to the work day considering the heavy doses of maple syrup just five minutes earlier. And it’s made me think about the potential cut-off to life in this flat.

How to measure a well-spent month? In the amount of home-cooked meals? The stealthy mid-week takeaways under my flatmate’s nose? Feeling youthful walking the aisles in the Cheltenham M&S? Resisting the urge to make a bin rota more than twice? I worry that if I am permitted to live here just one calendar year, ignoring the straggly months at either end, that this flat will feel like a fever dream, along with the leaky windows and living room door that doesn’t quite shut properly.

I am just one person on this two-person ship, trying to scoot past obstacles and icebergs as best I can to get us beyond the measly one-year mark. But I fear the lookout is a bit of a futile and lonesome job.