CURRENT MISSION

Move to London, squat for a year while training as an electrician; qualify as an electrician, travel the world fixing people's wiring; continute to write a novel.

ABOUT ME

I have a reasonably busy life between writing, work, and various unorthodox ways of having fun. I scribble, doodle, make novelistic progress as little as my creative laziness can find ways to avoid, climb various parts of the scenery, talk to strangers and show up in places people don't expect to find me. I am actually rather less eccentric than this makes me sound (or so I like to believe - current rather isolated lifestyle is possibly changing this somewhat).
For the past year, I have been saving up money to do a college course in Electrical Installation. This involves putting aside pretty much all disposable income my job can bring in, then moving to London where I know enough squatters that the fact I won't have time to work for a living between writing and studying will pose less of a problem.
The course then turned out to cost less than I had expected, meaning I had enough money to actually live rather comfortably in London for a year (though still, in fairness, not enough that I could actually afford rent). Instead of which I decided to spend that money on travelling to Moscow by bus. Because I'm young, and there will be plenty of time to regret it later.

PHILOSOPHY

Do whatever makes you happy, if you aren't hurting anyone. I take both clauses very seriously.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I like meeting people, and once upon a time the University of Cambridge drew my name out of a hat (no, really) and gave me a room large past the needs of any human being, with a bed and a sofa in it. I also love to travel, and have no money ever, so couchsurfing was a rather nice way of converting unnecessary roomspace there into necessary roomspace wherever else I happened to be. I don't have that room anymore, and instead share with a flatmate who puts up with quite enough weirdness from me already, so sadly can no longer host, but am keeping my membership active as a harmless parasite, and hopefully will host again some time I'm not destitute.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have only once ever hosted, and only once been hosted by a couchsurfer via this website. I have many times in the course of my travels stayed with people I have met on a bus/train/bench/website wherever I happen to be, and since I have had a room of my own also frequently hosted people met in a similar capacity/friends of friends who need a room.

Interests

Reading and any other sort of storytelling, climbing things for the view or adventure, other types of adventure, doing things spontaneously (like, things which are cool - just doing things 'to be spontaneous' will irritate the crap out of me), irresponsible life-changing snap-decisions, and any number of other things I can't think of right now (filling this in is a wonderful form of novel-procrastination, but should stop soon).

• writing
• books
• environment
• dining
• cooking
• reading
• traveling
• eating out
• socializing
• rock climbing

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Well, I saved up most of my student loan, then supplemented it by cutting off and selling my hair (yes, you can still do that - for £1000, why yes I am happy to have a buzzcut for a few months), and used the money to set myself up in a town I'd been to once before, eating out of supermarket skips to make my funds stretch further, while I waited to get a job that would give me the working hours I needed to write my novel. I'm quite proud of that.

Teach, Learn, Share

I have a lot of stories, also a surprising number of practical skills and some helpful tips about surviving in various unconventional environments. I'm good at making fires; I used to be good at climbing things until I got too fat, and hope soon to be good at it again; I can tell you where to find food for free in just about any urban environment and also help you do it; I can cook reasonably well if I'm confident you don't mind me using your spices (sometimes if I'm tired it doesn't occur to me to ask so the food tastes bland because I was irrationally afraid to use the pepper without permission).

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United Kingdom

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