Day 18

Today is the last day of the school term. Knowing as you must that I ended school weeks ago, this might to you seem inconsequential. But to me it is a huge event. My mum works at school, so today is also her last day of work until September.

Still not with me? I'll try again. Since I finished my GCSEs, I have enjoyed the luxury of spending five hours every day all on my own in the house. This has given me great freedom to do whatever I wanted, for however long I wanted. If I wanted to sit on the floor of the living room and eat sunflower seeds for three hours, that is what I could do. I was at liberty to watch films to my heart's content, and bring my entire bed downstairs, pillows and all, so I could fall asleep on the sofa. No-one was going to tell me I couldn't.

But now, those days are over. Not that I begrudge my parents the right to live in their own house, but it's impossible to laze around all day when someone else is doing constructive things around you. It certainly never fails to make me feel guilty, and I am forced to heave myself up from the sofa/floor/table and go do something useful.

I have a friend who is terrified of being in the house alone. She sits in the kitchen armed with a frying pan and waits nervously for the burglar to approach, jumping at loud noises. Unsurprisingly, I take the opposite view. Although I did have a scare one night when my sister and parents were all out on the town. (That made me feel very frumpy.) Emma was due back at 10pm; my parents later. When it got to 11pm and she still wasn't home, I became very jumpy and ended up sitting in silence by the phone, waiting for the inevitable call. As it turned out, unbeknownst to me, she had phoned my parents and filled them in on the new plan of coming home later. But the incident does serve as an example of one time when being home alone was definitely not fun.

Maybe once I'm forced to rethink my lazy routine, I will actually get up and do something constructive with my time. But I would prefer to be able to choose when to be constructive and when not to. There are some days when you just don't feel right unless you're almost invisible beneath three blankets, watching season after season of Friends. Ah, summer days...