Fat-mates

Last Thursday marked exactly one month since we moved into the new flat, and so I find myself with little excuse for the idol telly-watching, chocolate-scoffing and wine-guzzling (oh yes, I'm back there again), that routinely comes with the 'holiday-period' following a move.

Since you ask, the move went delightfully well.  The two bedrooms are ample sized, and have been fitted out in a manner which appropriately conveys the singular personalities of their respective occupants.  My flat-mate's pink and green floral boudoir channels on-trend girly chic, and mine looks like a library.  We've met somewhere in the middle for the kitchen/living room, have swept-up and furnished the balcony with pot plants, and established where the fit boys live in the block opposite.  In fact, in these penniless, work-governed weeks, lounging on the balcony with sunglasses on, peering inconspicuously into the flats opposite and judging their occupants has become an established weekly bonding ritual for my flat-mate and I.  As we retire to our rooms on a Sunday night, Monday morning looming threateningly before us, we could almost call-out, 'same again next week?', and expect to find each other there, 9am next Saturday morning, sunglasses on.

Another thing I have noted with interest since moving into this new residence is that most people in this day and age have little contact with geese.  I, however, can't seem to detach myself from the tempestuous fowl.  I had envisaged awakening for the first morning in my new bed to be an almost heavenly encounter.  We had been looking forward to the move for so long that my mind had occupied otherwise redundant hours by conjuring an image akin to the opening scene of Cinderella - I would wake to the happy chirrups of birdsong, basking in rays of sunlight streaming through the window, before my woodland friends merrily made a start on the chores. Instead I was woken abruptly on a grey Manchester morning to the brash tones of Canadian geese just outside the window.

So we've been here a grand total of 32 days, and other than spying on fit boys, wishing sudden death upon the geese, and drinking £2.99 Aldi wine, we have focussed most of our attention on eating.  Such is the joy of selecting an equally food-friendly flatmate. Or fat-mate.