It is early February and my daughter is returning to university after eight months at home, six of which she has spent on work placement in London. It has been lovely to have her at home and it almost felt like she’d never been away. When she first came home, in June, she didn’t seem entirely happy to be back. I think she had become used to eating what and when she wanted, coming and going as she pleased and now a little of her independence was gone upon her return.
Because she is doing a Business degree, two years of which involve work placements, she was unable to share a house with the friends she had made during her first year as they were all at university full time and I do think she felt that she was missing out socially. The Business students in Year Two and Year Three share the same student houses for a year. The Year Three Students have it for the first half of the academic year and the Year Two Students for the second half. In my daughter’s case, the contract with the landlady is for twelve students, it is all very complicated. Fortunately my daughter has made good friends with some people on her course and it is these girls she is now sharing with. In fact, this week, that are all heading off to Poland for somebody’s twenty first birthday.
One of my work colleagues manages some student housing in the city where my daughter attends university and she said they won’t enter into such a complicated arrangement and a friend said they discounted letting their son do a course with a work placement because of the difficulty with finding housing. To be honest, it really hasn’t been a big deal, this particular university offer a lot of courses with work placements and the students always find housing but their choice may be a little limited.
When I visit my daughter I usually take the train. It takes almost exactly the same amount of time as driving and you just step off the train into the heart of the city. Parking is near-impossible in this particular place as my husband and I found out the first time we drove. There are usually queues to even enter the car parks and, when you do, they are full, and roadside parking is mostly for permit holders only. This time we have to drive because my daughter is taking all her belongings back. Bed linen, pots and pans, clothes, sports equipment etc . I do wonder what students do if they have no access to a car. You can purchase bedding and kitchen sets from the university and arrive with just a suitcase but then all the household stuff will need to be stored somewhere during the summer. Or perhaps students enlist a parent or friend to help them carry it home on public transport. I’m probably overthinking it!
We arrive at the house, which looks small from the outside but the landlady has crammed six bedrooms in. The whole house is freshly panted in white and looks reasonably clean at first glance. My daughter’s is filled with furniture that most charity shops wouldn’t accept and the drawers and wardrobe are covered in grime, inside and out. We have to wipe down everything. There is a frayed extension cord and a filthy mirror which isn’t really a mirror but foil over some hardboard. The staircase down to the kitchen in the basement is a slippery death trap and nobody over 5’9″ can stand up straight in the communal living area. Even crouching, my husband hurts his head on the smoke alarm attached to the already low ceiling. The downstairs floor is uncovered concrete with an oily stain. My daughter is paying a small fortune in rent as are the other students and I feel that the landlady has done the bare minimum make the place comfortable. I am surprised the stairs even passed building regulations. I can see my agitation is annoying my daughter, she doesn’t want her friends to hear my complaining, so I keep quiet.
My daughter has chosen some bed linen from Urban Outfitters so we remove the existing, disgusting mattress cover and replace it with a new one. The room looks better once the bed is made. The wardrobe appears to have come from a 1930s boarding school and has hardly any hanging space but lots of shelves. Somehow we manage to find a home for everything. There are no locks on any of the internal doors, even the two bathrooms which are both downstairs, and my husband is understandably not happy about this. What if one of the other students has a party and my daughter is out. What is to stop anybody rummaging about or even stealing her things. Or worse still, coming into her room uninvited when she is there? He asks her to email the landlady and request locks but my daughter and her friends seem reluctant.
My husband orders a new extension cable and we take my daughter into town for lunch. We have to keep moving the car throughout the day as the only parking spaces we can find are for a maximum of two hours. After lunch we go to Lidl and buy my daughter some groceries. She buys mushrooms and peas neither of which she will eat at home!
When my daughter was on campus she had everything on her doorstep but now she either has to walk or take the bus. If she just has one lecture it is a lot of effort for an hour. She plays a lot of sport and has said it is a pain going back and forth . Some of the friends she shared accommodation with last year are in the next road which is nice. She will be in this house until June when she will be home for the summer. She will then return to the same house in September until around Easter next year when her second work placement will begin. I spoke to her today and she seems to have settled in happily enough and had just cooked herself some sort of pasta dish with the peas and mushrooms. They must taste different when she cooks them!
Thank you for reading,
Samantha
Silver & Blonde 