Musings: Things you learn from living alone

I cannot believe that I’ve been a proper ‘adult’ living on my own in my little flat for four months now – time is literally flying at the moment – and I’ve learnt a lot in that time.

In case you don’t follow me on social media and don’t know, I did the scariest thing of my life and move 80 odd miles up north to Manchester at the start of July – on my own!

What I’ve learnt since living alone:

When faced with scary looking insects, you get a lot braver at removing them than when you know your dad will come and send them back into the wild for you. Granted I haven’t, touch wood, yet had to deal with a bee or wasp (I’ve got my bug spray ready though). That will be the true test.

You’ll spend the first week or so jumping at every sound that may be a potential burglar or murderer, but you’ll soon become so tired that you just sleep through it anyway.

You check every lock and window at least twice before you go to bed. ‘Cause you know, the point above.

And you make sure everything is properly switched off. Because let’s face it, if the flat sets on fire – you can’t blame anyone but yourself.  

You catch yourself talking to yourself, out loud, a lot. And make inside jokes, with yourself. Moving to a new city on your own kind of means you become your own best friend.

After the third or fourth flat pack and couple of calls to your parents you become an actual flat pack master. Bookcase? Childs play. Wardrobe? You’ve got this pal! At this point I’m just waiting for Nick Knowles to get in touch to recruit me for the next series of DIY SOS.

You become a lot more aware of food waste – especially when you only have a small amount of freezer space. There aren’t enough meals that just serve one out there. I mean, I love leftovers, but I also don’t want to be eating the same meal every single day for a week, you know?

Taking out the bins really is a massive pain in the ass.

How one person can create so much washing is beyond me.

The fear that if you fell and hit your head and no-one would find you until your probably already being eaten by flies is definitely something you think about more than you used to.

Also, the fear of losing your keys and being locked out and having to sleep on the streets without your Winnie the Pooh is very high. – I’m putting my Weight Watchers 10% loss (lol) keyring to good use and attaching my keys to the zip part of every bag I use so that I know they’re safe (and then just panic that I’ll lose my bag). (And no, I can’t make a copy of the key before you give me the sass.)

Bills are a lot more expensive when there’s no-one to split it with… or your parents to pay for it all…

Your Google search history becomes a one stop shop for all things furniture and stupid questions like ‘how do I pay my council tax’ and ‘how do you unblock a toilet when you don’t own a plunger’. (Sadly a true story).

You realise just how much of a granny bladder you have by the rate you get through loo roll – and just how expensive your beloved Andrex is…

Mainly, though, you realise that actually, you can pretty do whatever you set your mind to. And that my friends, is pretty darn cool.