Leaving Home

I thought today I might talk a bit about how I came to Cornwall...

I lived in a far off city where I had originally gone to study Physics (yes I am mad) but glandular fever caused me to stop doing that and the realisation that degree level physics is a little detached from every day life prevented me from going back. I still wanted to study though and my Mum said she could see me doing something Environmental. I thought about this for a while. I thought about going back to Uni in the city...

Time passed and I fell out of love with my boyfriend of the time and we split up amicably enough. Someone pointed out to me that I didn't have to stay in the city particularly as I wasn't a city person and I always began to get fidgety if I didn't get out somewhere with green at least once a month, minimum. This made sense....

I left.

A friend in the city had talked about Cornwall a bit i think. Somehow, maybe from her, this idea of Cornwall appeared. I can't remember really.

I set about it all very properly and scientifcally. I got the book we have in the UK for undergraduate courses. I knew I wanted to go South. I knew I wanted a small town or country Uni. I knew I wanted a Uni with a good name, old and respectable. I made a list and then I started crossing off ones that didn't meet what I wanted. I had been disappointed to note that Cornwall had no University listed in the book.

I was left with very few places on my list, in fact I was left with nowhere that really met the size of town thing. I ordered some prospectuses. And then, sometime later, it arrived. Exeter University prospectus. While looking at their Environmental Science course I made a discovery. This course wasn't taught in Exeter but at the Camborne School of Mines, in a small town, in Cornwall.... Exactly what I had been looking for....

I moved back in with my parents, got a job (or two) went back to the Young Farmers Club, got back in contact with old friends and made new ones. I delayed applying and slowly settled back in. There is a venerable agricultural college near my parents and slowly the decision came to apply to them but still I delayed. In fact I nearly left it too late. I went to get a prospectus and was told they had had to stop doing undergrad courses from September and now only did postgrad courses.

Eeeek!

So there I was, having left it almost to late to apply to anywhere and the old Cornwall plan suddenly came back into my mind. I rang the College and they said come for an interview, we don't need to wait for your application form, come down on such and such a day, which happened to be about two days time.

I went.

I had never been there before. I was a long way from home. The interview went fine. I was in. I went to stay with some family friends up Bodmin way over night. The next day I went back to the area near the College. I was in a strange grey granite town. Everything was different. I felt alone. I felt out of my depth.

This was a place I had been before. I remembered that feeling from the day my parents drove off and left me in my new home to start my gap year job. After they had gone, I went to my room and put on some music. The song I put on was Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohen. It has always held that feeling for me. Fear and sorrow mixed with a very healthy dose of hope and something else....

So here I was feeling like this again. In a strange place, all alone, facing a huge challenge and change in my life. A long way from home. I had randomly picked this strange place out of a book and now I had to come and live here.

I wandered the main street looking forward for somewhere to get some food. There wern't many places. The places there were didn't feel welcoming, nowhere felt welcoming. Eventually I found somewhere and I went in. I sat down and as I sat down a song came on the radio. And suddenly I knew I was doing the right thing, that I was supposed to move here....