Settling In

It’s been two weeks today since I moved to Leeds. Two weeks in and I honestly feel as though I’ve lived here forever. The streets familiar, the dodgy neighbourhoods avoided, the housemate’s cat in love with me. The local  coffee shop owner now all too familiar with my face. I’m practically a local. A northerner without the northern accent. 

Since moving “24 hours north” from Australia to Northern England, I’ve realised just how amazing the United Kingdom is. How precious life here can be. How cosy, comfortable, yet edgy and exciting things are. 

I moved to a little neighbourhood in North Leeds called Meanwood. The name sounded dodgy when I replied to an ad for the house. It was a bit further from the university than planned, but I have always valued comfort, safety and wellbeing over locality. And it turns out I hit the jackpot. My house is warm, homely - there is a redeemable garden bed that we took time on our Saturday afternoon to weed and clean. The kitchen is a social place with a wooden kitchen table in the middle of the room. Everything in the house is familial. Already it is not just a house but a home to four girls from different parts of the world. Myself from Australia, Anna from Austria, Cynthia from France and Kate from England, we all get along like a house on fire (touch wood) and are at the same time quite different from each other. Cynthia is one of the oldest, is quite active and swears in French a lot. She loves the nightlife but you wouldn't think it - she's such a homebody and quirky offbeat character, full of surprises. Anna is my age - studying speech therapy, and is so selfless. Quiet spoken, but a strong character, she takes me outside of the house and drags me along to the Meanwood Valley farm where we sit and eat cakes and walk and talk with animals beside us. She introduces me to her friend Jude and we go berry picking in the woodland near our house. She is completely infatuated with food and I love her for it. Kate is older than us - doing a Phd In linguistics, particularly studying behaviour and dialogue of pregnant women and about pregnant women. How she found such a finite and niche topic as that is beyond me but she is very interesting. She’s got a wild sense of style and is effortlessly fashionable. It’s good to live with someone from England and to learn about its culture and absurdities and I am slowly picking up on them.

So the girls, the house, the beautiful surrounds of 5 Bentley Grove where we can disappear into woodland or ascend towards a hill with long grass and memories of breezy summer afternoons laying back with a book or watching the world slowly dribble on with its day below, where we can feed horses crab apples and stain our hands blood red with blackberries, it’s all very wonderful in this little part of the world. I am falling in love with Leeds very quickly - perhaps because of the ease of escape into nature - but I think its a culmination of the good vibes of people, of the air, of the feeling of knowing you’ve made the right choice to give yourself time to figure things out, of executing opportunities. I am, day by day, allowing myself to change my perception on things - on people, places, regrets, past adventures, upcoming ones. I’m doing a lot more of this saying “yes” business and it’s working out well. Though I miss friends back home, I drag the goodness of that past adventure into the experiences I have now. I am a very lucky woman. I am very, very lucky. 

Have a little wander into my neighbourhood below, it's quite the treat.