Well, its been almost 3 weeks since I moved into my first rental property in Reading. Immediately upon opening the door I set of the house alarm, which my house-mates had failed to tell me about. So after 20 minutes of trying to contact people I was told the code - not the first impression I wanted to give to my neighbours. The first few days I was alone, with no internet connection and only SOS signal on my phone. I explored and bought a little food - being a novice cook initially only things I knew how to cook.

A few days later 2 of my house-mates (Steph and Alex) came up; brilliantly timed to arrive with all the festival business. Alex bought the router with him so it wasn't long until I was back in touch with people without having to hang out the window or walk out onto the street for phone signal. It wasn't long either until I had my phone on the Wifi connection and using UMA as a gateway to my mobile network, so now I have full signal at home (I have heard that this will be on WP7 soon too). The connection itself is pretty good. ~18Mbit down and 1.2Mbit up. Which on it's own is fast, but considering it will be shared 5 ways, with frequent video watching I can see it becoming a little slow at times.

Living on my own hasn't been as bad as I thought. Essentially coping with it is all about finding things to do, doing them well and seizing opportunities to go out when they arise. Looking forward to the rest of the year. Glad to settle in before the start of term too. Should give me more focus in the coming year at University.

More tales will probably appear here again at some point!