sweet temptation © Lilly Schwartz 2011

I lived alone for 5 years before I decided to go to England. The latter involved staying in student accommodation for about 1 1/2 years and in shared houses for probably the same amount of time. I have to say that I didn’t care much for living with other people. Flatmates can make your life very annoying especially when they turn their unbearable “music” up in the middle of the night, steal your food or leave their dirty dishes out while they’re gone for a holiday, basically inviting rats and cockroaches for dinner.

In university accommodation it was usually loud and smelly from cleaning products and you were thrown together with people that you either liked or not. I had to change rooms once, because my flatmates were just unbearable and after that I still had problems with people stealing food. In shared houses in town I wasn’t very lucky either and ended up with random people. I didn’t have much in common with them and there were always arguments about the heating.

However, sometimes it was also different. Although there were always aspects that I disliked about living with people, I had some great times too. I was glad that I could talk to someone and sometimes I also didn’t have to eat alone. And with a few flatmates we would even watch a movie, go out together or have long conversations over a cup of tea. Then I could forget that many of my belongings were back in Germany and that I had given up a lot to be in England.

I had a real home once. It was a flat which I didn’t have to leave in a matter of months with all my books and my belongings. I had a life with friends close by, goals and – as it seemed then – a reasonably clear future. I also had my peace and quiet and didn’t have to deal with flatmates.

Almost all of this is still something I have to rebuild. These days all apart from the living alone bit. Ezequiel left a few days ago, so I’m back to my solitary existence alone in my flat with just my computer and a few books for entertainment.

Isn’t it ironic sometimes? All of a sudden I don’t care much for my peace and quiet anymore.

The picture is a macro of a halved fig. They are not quite as tasty as they were back when I used to live in Spain, but nevertheless they are still quite nice.