The Adventures of Matt (in Leeds!)

On the 1st, just me and Hayley moved in. Lee was arriving a few days later, and Annabel wasn’t moving in fulltime till September or so, although she’d be coming up for a few days at a time over the course of the summer. I arrived about lunchtime and Hayley was already there, as she’d been in Leeds to collect the keys. My dad helped me unpack a carload of my possessions, which he helped me bring from the car to the door. I later had to carry these up two flights of stairs to my room, alone, which was, shall we say, a strenuous task. He then took me to Ikea so I could get a desk, since the one that came with my room was old and nasty. We also picked one up for Hayley, since hers too was awful. Once we got these out of the car, Dad left soon after, followed not much later by Hayley’s parents. This was it, we had our own house!

Before there was really time to settle into unpacking and stuff we had to get ready to go out. It was the day of the England vs Portugal World Cup match, and Hayley was meeting her friends from her football team to watch the game in Leeds’ Millennium Square, which had a big TV screen showing the game. I didn’t really care about the game, or indeed the World Cup itself, but since my options were either to go with Hayley, or sit in a new house alone for a few hours, I picked the social option. The game itself was alright, I got more into it than I thought I would, although the heat was oppressive. At the end, when we lost, some idiots (mostly, well, completely, drunken guys) started shouting and kicking things and getting aggressive, which is the side of football I hate. Besides that, though, it was better than I’d expected. After the game, we went back to Hayley’s friends’ new house, aka “the Football House” to check out their place. It was pretty good, bigger than ours and about the same, if a little more modern.

The rest of the first day was pretty quiet, we just ordered a pizza (no food in the house) and had some wine to break the place in. Day two was more of the same; although we got a taxi to Aldi, cheapest bulk-food store in the world, and stocked up on some basics. I made a nice lasagna for us that night, and we watched movies till we fell asleep on the couch.

Soon after that, Lee arrived to bring the numbers to three, and we had a good time with me cooking a big Chinese meal for everyone complete with nice (but expensive) crispy roast duck. We spent the next few days just getting the place organised and cleaned up, and making vague plans for the rest of the summer.

Annabel arrived for a few days in the second week, and it was nice to have us all there, although I think she felt a little isolated since the rest of us had kinda made the place our own in her absence. We got our cable/internet sorted out while she was down, and then a few days later, I left to go on holiday (see below) and Hayley left to go back to Nottingham (she lives about 3 miles away from me at home, it’s weird, we both knew the same people but not each other - she used to go to school with my last girlfriend, Naomi) to work. Poor old Lee was on his own for the whole time I was gone, besides a few visits from Annabel, but he works so wasn’t stuck in the house 24/7.

I got back to Nottingham and was, as usual, spoilt by my mum who misses me a lot when I’m away, probably because since the split, my old home is a much more female-dominated area. I guess she just appreciates me more now I’m there less. We went to see Romeo & Juliet at the theatre, which was good, and then I got packed up ready to fly to Majorca the next day with my dad and sisters.

We were flying to Majorca, an island off the south coast of Spain. I’d never flown before and was really looking forward to the experience. The flight was cool, at least, the takeoff and landing. I spent the first half hour like a child with my face glued to the window, absorbing every moment of the takeoff and taking in the sights from the plane. Although we were flying at night, as we left the UK the sun was just disappearing so the sky was a burnt orange mixed with this deep blue. When combined with the lights of the cities and the roads it was just beautiful and I wished I had a camera up there to capture it.

We arrived in Majorca around 1am local time, and walked outside to a ridiculous heat, 27C at that hour. We got a taxi to the hotel, on the other side of the island:

We drove from Palma airport all the way to Alcudia in the north-east. Dad did what became his usual taxi routine, which was to speak English to the driver in a louder-than-normal voice, slightly slower than usual, which obviously makes it easier to understand. The driver in turn spoke to Dad in Spanish, who was forced to just laugh when the driver did and hope this was enough in response. 40 or so minutes later, we’d arrived at the hotel and were being shown our rooms.

The arrival was less than epic. The rooms were crazily hot, even after we switched on the two fans. Spanish tap water is really not good to drink, but it was all we had so that made for a fun taste. Eventually we all settled down and spent a hot night in the apartment.

We spent the first few days just scouting out the area, including a memorable walk to a supermarket a few miles away, in heat which turned out to be 40C (104F) which was the hottest I’ve ever experienced. I was moody for most of the journey, partly because I was too hot to speak/move, and partly because we didn’t really know where we were going, suggesting there was no end in sight to the sweatfest that was the walk. We also checked out the beach, which was cool; Alcudia is set between all these mountains so they surrounded the beach, with white sands and very clear blue seas that were warm and nice.
The worst part of the holiday set in towards the end of the first week. My right ear began to ache, first in a merely annoying way, but this soon progressed to a stinging pain that caused a huge pressure on the side of my head that I couldn’t ignore. Friday night will go down in my mind as among the worst nights of my life. I lay awake, sweating profusely, a throbbing pain in my head that meant I could hear my heartbeat in my ear, and the noise of all the Spanish clubs opening up at 4am below the apartment, and all the Spanish people there shouting and cars driving by, revving up as much as they could. I don’t think I slept more than an hour or two, it was horrific.

The following night was worse; we’d been to get painkillers which did nothing whatsoever. At 5am, half crazy from the pain, and sick of lying awake, I went into the bathroom and began a painful experiment with a cotton wool bud down my ear to attempt to relieve some of the throbbing pressure that felt like it was being caused by trapped water. I was part successful, and stopped as soon as the pain became too much, and I was able to sleep without as much pain. In the morning there was a little blood, and the idea seemed a lot less smart, but I’m okay now, so…

For a meagre €70 (£47) the hotel’s doctor came and saw me. He looked in my ear for approximately 6 seconds and then told me it was an ear infection caused by sea water or pool water. He prescribed a range of drugs, then left. My dad, the hero, went out and picked up all the stuff he prescribed at 6PM on a Sunday, in a foreign country. He was a legend after that, he really looked after me and made sure I took all the drugs at the right times. I felt an immediate improvement after that, and after a week I felt cured. The worst part about the whole ordeal was the sensation that there was nothing I could do to alleviate the pain, a scary thought.

I was able to enjoy the holiday more then, and we spent some time watching the hotel’s entertainment squad. It was all cover acts, including a pretty good Elvis tribute act. We ended up making friends with the Robbie Williams cover guy, the best part was when he brought out his £1000 Takamine acoustic guitar he used onstage for one song (with four chords..) and got me to play. Sitting in a Spanish bar playing Oasis’s Wonderwall with a dozen Spaniards singing along is a memory I won’t forget soon, it was surreal almost. A Spanish guy asked for a go and started playing all this flamenco stuff, it was cool. Dad also did his Beatles stuff, and we were all there singing Hey Jude at 2am.
Before too long it was time to go home, which went pretty smoothly compared to the journey there (our flight was delayed 2 hours). Getting home to the nice, cool UK was wonderful, and I almost ran outside and kissed the soil when it started to rain the next day; I hadn’t seen a cloud in 2 weeks.

I spent the rest of the week in Nottingham just seeing friends and getting organised to come back to Leeds, and on Saturday I loaded up the car with more stuff (mostly my photography darkroom equipment, which I was gonna set up in the basement) and my mum took me back to the house to greet Annabel and Lee. Hayley came up too that day for a couple of days, but we hardly saw her.

I’m back for the rest of summer now, as far as I can tell, and I’m really happy up here just living a ‘real’ life (living in student halls isn’t really like anything else) and doing it on my own terms. My main priority is to get a job - I’ve been trying to since October and something’s gotta give soon. My money situation is not good and I don’t like asking my parents for handouts. I get my student loan towards the end of September, and I’m living on the edge of my budget until then. I have applications for a job at the library, a job at “Cex” (Computer Exchange, a gaming/movie shop) and I’ve put in an application for a part-time graphic design job that sounds really interesting - I hope one of these works out.

Anyway, I guess this brings us up to date! In the next few days I’ll do a picture entry with some snaps from the holiday, and a guided tour of my new house, if you’re lucky.