helenic

I'm in Cambridge again and everything's unreal. The last day and a half I have had more energy than in the last two weeks together. I have packed, unpacked, shopped, emptied suitcases, filled cupboards, blutacked fourteen posters and countless postcards to various walls, doors and oak panelling, moved furniture, done filing, alphabetised bookshelves and CD racks, collected mail, paid bills. I have drunk alcopops, red bull, white wine, cider and (with help) an entire bottle of Triple Crown Croft Ruby Port. Last night I had a long and fascinating chat with Yves in the pub, which got better as we each became less nervous; I walked her to Trinity and, fumbling in my bag for a biro, eventually gave her my phone number in eyeliner on the back of a receipt, leaning against the grainy stone of the wall outside the porter's lodge. I practically skipped back to college beaming all over my face, and ended up going to another pub with the guys from Downing until closing time. I was back in my room at midnight, making further progress with my packing, when Yves and Catriona turned up completely unexpectedly at the door of my room and didn't leave until 2.30am. The phone number had turned out to be very illegible, and they had decided to adventure into Downing instead. We made inroads on the port and talked about acting and sex and friendships and spirituality, and I felt as though I was on the outside of something extraordinary, looking in, and at the same time very much, in that moment, a part of it.

Twelve hours in this town and I'm a social animal again. I slept beautifically, waking now and then only to drink some water, smile to myself, revel in the absolute softness of my bed and effortlessly fall asleep again. This morning I went into town with Iain to buy lightbulbs and mushrooms and the sky was a brilliantly cold, pale blue, dazzling through the bare branches of trees. The wind whipped my skirt around my ankles and I had to keep pushing my hair behind my ears, shading my eyes against the wintry glare of the sun. I spent the rest of the day getting my room in order, decorating and rearranging the fairylights which Yves had helped me put up haphazardly at 12.30am last night, standing on the desk in my socks to dangle them over the curtain rail. My room is beautiful and warm and perfect. I feel utterly at home here, although it's already so different from last term. In it I have a pewter dragon goblet and cream pillar candles on the mantlepiece, a rosary above it and stars on the wall. I have five shelves of books, two desks, two unopened bottles of white wine, incense, a box of absinthe sweets, an artist's mannequin and a cup and saucer with the college crest in crimson, stolen from formal hall. I've played Quake and watched Withnail & I with Iain, and we finished the port and my dinner while the wind moaned between the walls. The wind is constant and so strong that locked doors blow open, including the outside door to our staircase which is meant to only be opened by security code. The lads are trying to wedge it shut right now with bits of cardboard; even the gusts between hinges and window-latches are freezing, and my gas fire is on full. I love the nights here, how the streetlamps in the quad are so incongruous and Narnia-esque, making you feel as if you should be in a park or a London street rather than a Cambridge college. I'm fuzzy and pink-cheeked with the port and listening to vintage jazz, loathing the superficiality and prettinesses of what I'm writing but not caring because it's true, this is where I am, this is what makes me happy. I'm surrounded by beautiful things and full of hope. I tried to take photographs of my room with my new digicam but they all came out blurred, probably because I was swaying too much to hold the camera steady.