A Big Move

I have just moved house. It's true, we didn't go far (about 300m up the road, actually) but it feels like a big move for me. Kind of strange when you think that the last time I moved house it involved 24 hours of travelling. But maybe this move has seemed bigger because I seem to have accumulated so much stuff in the couple of years I've been here. Or maybe it's because I managed to stretch the actual move out over the course of nearly 2 weeks, carrying bits and pieces down the road every day and starting to sleep here once I had more than half of my things in my new room.

I love my new flat. It has a lot of things going for it. It's far quieter than the old one, for a start. I'm less likely to be woken in the middle of the night by a drunk, lovelorn Polish man yelling up to his girlfriend for several hours as she ignores him. It doesn't feel like the building is going to fall down whenever a train goes by, or a bus pulls up outside. It's also a crucial distance closer to the tube, meaning that I have yet to be late to work since I started sleeping here, in spite of silliness like moving without the hairdryer. There is a large living area, open plan, which is great for relaxing in, given that there's a couch each. The bathroom is spacious, to say the least. As for my room, I am able to stand in it, stretch my arms, and not touch wall. I can walk around my bed, and I can finally push my bed right up against the wall. The best part, in my humble opinion, is that we have a courtyard all of our very own, a slice of teeny open space that, whilst not being the lush garden I would rather have (complete with a gorgeous gardener, of course), should manage to calm some of the craving for space that happens. The flat is so much larger than the old place, that it is really twice the size. It has only one disadvantage. My flatmate seems to hate it.

In fact, her emotions about the flat are seemingly so strong that she has been in a sulk for over a week now. Under normal circumstances, she is a fairly happy person, easy enough to live with and friendly, or at the very least courteous, to all she meets. The person who has taken her place for the past couple of weeks is a taciturn, rude grump who barely acknowledges someone else's existence. It has me more than a little worried. Yes, her room here is smaller than the unusually large room she had before. But there are pay offs, if she would stop her tantrum long enough to see them. It's almost like there's been a visit from the bodysnatchers, leaving a replacement for her who looks just the same. She didn't even speak to the friend I'd asked to help us move the heavier stuff yesterday, in spite of the fact that this person was not only driving our (mostly her) belongings up the road, but was helping us carry them down the mountain of stairs that lead to our old flat.To not say hello, let alone thanks, is totally out of character. The only time I've seen her in a strop to rival this was after she'd been dumped by her boyfriend for the second time. At least then she had an excuse.

So as it stands, I'm having doubts about our big move. Nothing to do with the flat, everything to do with the state of mind of my flatmate. Because there is no way I can live with her while she's like this. And nothing I've tried so far has managed to jolly her out of it. Right now, she's taking the last lingering look around the old flat and, truth be told, probably giving the white glove treatment to every surface I've cleaned, given that she has no faith in my housekeeping abilities. Without doubt that is why it has taken her an hour to go and collect her last couple of things. But if things don't improve soon, something - or someone - is going to break. I just hope it's neither of us.