My Flat

One day last week I was sitting on the sofa that had been left here, along with the bed and a table. Most of my stuff was still in a friend’s studio and I had yet to engage on the first of the three trips to IKEA (and yes, I did lose the will to live halfway through the first trip) that furnishing this place took. The previous tenant’s stuff had all been moved out, I had cleaned and painted what needed painting and was just sitting enjoying what I had already come to think of as home.

And then I panicked. Even all clean and white there was no avoiding the fact that there is no room to swing a small kitten, never mind a full grown cat. How the fuck was I going to get all the shelves I needed to store the stuff that I had brought with me into this tiny space and still be able to doing the morning stretches without contorting myself over the furniture and causing strain to muscles I had not been introduced to yet?

The panic grew worse when the boxes and the furniture arrived, especially when I was trying to put together the wardrobe. I had foolishly started doing this after a glass of wine and after the second major mistake, decided to call it a day and head for bed, leaving the half-built monster taking up all the available floor space. This was alright when I went to bed. It was not alright when I had to get up for a pee in the middle of the night. My neighbours may have unwillingly been introduced to a few new words in English, polite usage, not for purpose of….

I have now finally managed to get all the furniture built and in the right place and all the boxes unpacked and now the flat is still tiny but full of my things, in the place I want them and that only make sense to me but that shouldn’t be a problem as there will be mainly only me in this place. Indeed, there is not really any room for anyone else.

It’s an attic room, with a kitchen in a cupboard and a shower in another cupboard, but hey, it’s home for now. I have bought a tiny oven, a tiddly kettle and am using my travel iron (knew it would come in handy when I bought it all those years ago, didn’t quite know how though). I have stocked the kitchen cupboards with essentials, arranged the kitchen stuff I brought with me and it all looks lovely. I have even cooked several meals in there, on the two electric rings, and had a friend round to lunch.

But, and I don’t know if this is a good thing or not, it feels like I am playing. Everything being so small, there being so little space, the household appliances being for gnomes, I feel as if I am in a doll’s house, playing at pretend tea-parties. Even though I have to plan everything I cook carefully if I am using appliances as there is only one spare socket, it still feels like it’s not real. I suppose it’s a matter of scale but it does feel very odd.

Another aspect of this whole tiny living, is that I feel as I have gone back in time, to being a student, or squatter. Tiny living space, check; books in heaps in corners, check; having to go to the launderette, check; being careful about noise on the stairs after 10 pm, check; living on an appropriately tiny budget, check. I keep looking in the mirror to see actual physical signs of this regression but unfortunately it would appear that this step back in time has not affected my wrinkles. Bugger.