Arctic Blast

Still nothing from home. Excellent. I’m just writing this while furiously downing toast. It has suddenly got marginally colder than Alaska in the boarding house. The hot water pipes are very good at making a load of noise but they don’t seem to actually generate heat, which is a fundamental flaw in my opinion. I mentioned it to Hargreaves but he just offered up a wry smile and said something like “You should try living through a world war. Then you’d understand suffering”. What that’s supposed to mean coming from him, I’ve no bloody clue. It’s not like he survived the death camps. From the look of him he was probably evacuated to an idyllic farmstead in the north of England and was force-fed currant buns and full cream milk.

Mother didn’t send me an advent calendar, needless to say. I wouldn’t mind. I realise that at 17 I shouldn’t necessarily want one but almost every other bastard in the house has one. Even Henry for God’s sake. Ralph’s got a chocolate one of course, but he’s always been spoilt. I might have to go and buy myself one in secret just so I don’t look like I’ve been abandoned. They can’t cost much. Just one with pictures for me. I might not be religious but I know that Christmas isn’t about chocolates that taste like they’ve been open too long.

First mock on Thursday. It’s Spanish literature, which should be okay. We’ve been reading Chronicle of a Death Foretold and fortunately we’ve also been shown the film so I’ve got the gist of the story without having to be too sharp on the old Spick lingo. Then it’s the first English Lit on Monday and then an exam every day that week. Uni application deadline is Friday and Hargreaves has to sign mine off before then so it’s anything but the season to be jolly. They should be paying us not the bloody other way round.