Pastures new

I have just preordered the latest offering from Loreena McKennitt. It's a DVD and double CD package and a snip at £15.00 so I look forward to its arrival. I am sure that my young musical friend will be interested in borrowing it at some stage, and of course she is always welcome to do so.

Now - where was I?

Oh yes, I was off to become a teacher and could look forward to heading south for the next three years. I should have felt nervous I suppose, but I felt no trepidation there at all. All I can recall is a sense of relief. I had an escape route and i was going to take it. My only regret was that I'd be leaving my girlfriend behind, but we'd keep in touch of course we would. The rest of the year swept by, and then it was the exams - meaningless and pointless for me. Once the exams were done, school was over, and all the routine rituals of cap and tie burning gone through. A long summer holiday lay before me, and then - the unknown and unexplored.

It was a hot summer and full of parties and music and of course work. I took a job in a hotel bar in town, which meant a 4mile walk back home at 1am. Not a great prospect after a long day in the bar, however I managed it for a while, and then moved into a spare room in an Aunt's house. That worked out well for a while as the walk there was much shorter and I was left more or less to my own devices. Things fell apart a little when she came into my room one night, wearing very little and quite drunk. I think she wanted more than i was prepared to give, so I moved out again.

Much of the rest of that summer was a blur and it was soon over. My relationship with my girlfriend had developed into a real relationship for the first time in my life andI was getting reluctant to go away. I knew that if i stayed that I would be trapped into the routine existence of village life and I could not face that, so I went.

I left for college with a small amount of cash, some textbooks that my mother had bought for me, my puny wardrobe, and little else, packed into a tatty cardboard suitcase. I left the house and walked a mile or so to where the coach would pick me up. No-one came to see me off and I felt quite alone as i waited for the bus to come. Alone but exhilarated - I knew that I would never live here again, and as the bus pulled away I didn't even glance back.

It was a long journey, as coaches stop everywhere en route, but eventually I was there, in the centre of the City of Portsmouth. I felt alive and thrilled to be there amongst so many people. there were others at the coach stop, seemingly of my age and also with suitcases. I struck up a conversation and soon found someone to share a cab to the hall of residence.

This was a newish site and I was consigned to the twelve storey block, known as Barnard Tower. I had arrived!