A vioLENT homecoming

As the family volvo pulls up to the drive, you can literally feel your independence being sapped from your veins. Goodbye to the 2AM group chat messages begging to be let into the house – here come the desperately needed explanations as to why your bedroom looks like the London 1940s Blitz.

Yes, being back at home has its perks. But you begin to wonder whether they outweigh the cons.

Whilst you browse your friends skiing in the Alps or visiting their family's Tuscan villa on snapchat, your life has regressed back to TFL buses, family dinner time and siblings listening in to your phone-calls.

Should I stay or should I go??

The journey home from Cam was one water-boarding short of a torturous interrogation.

'How is the workload?'

'Are you coping?'

'Have you found a boyfriend yet?'

'So do you really feel half-way through your degree?'

To avoid the cross-examination you fake passing out into your luggage… but that doesn't stop your family members feasting on your dead carcass.

'Obviously she isn't coping, did you see the state of her bedroom!'

'Of course there is no boyfriend on the scene, that was way too optimistic'

You eventually fall into a deep, deep sleep. Only to be awoken by the sounds of your parents smashing their android against the wind-screen as they've managed to get lost AGAIN, and they start rooting through the glove compartment to bring out the trustworthy A-Z.

Show me the way to amarillo

Back in your bedroom, the torment continues.

On your dressing-table your unopened bank statements rest with the nuclear potential to destroy your holiday plans. You concur that ignorance is bliss and utterly evade the reality of your drained overdraft and think happy thoughts of ASOS spring orders and Deliveroos.

Your bedroom has also now become a halfway-house for all the random crap your family no longer can be bothered to find a place for.

Most notably, your sister has declared your boudoire as her personal 'walk-in closet' and has decorated it with countless strewn tops, bras and skirts.

No room to unpack i guess !

Collapsing on a heap on the floor, you discover your old school notebooks and reports. Ah the good old days of As and positive feedback.

The nostalgic times of controlled assessments, the memories of when you pretended your goldfish died in a last-ditch attempt to boost your exam strategy, or when you would encourage a weak comrade in your class to sound the fire alarm in the exam hall so that everyone passed.

You squirm as you realise that those days are well and truly behind you.

But instead of dealing with it, you settle on a solid plan of ignoring that Easter exams are a thing and get started for 5 weeks of pure netflix and no guilt.

I'm strong and stable, strong and stable !!!!

You eventually tuck yourself in for a casual nap.

But you're disturbed by the beeping from your phone.

You crack a smile as you assume it's from your chums who are sending sonnets about how much they miss you.

Instead it's your Tinder adjusting to the fresh meat of being back at home.

Obviously you out-swiped Cambridge in a matter of hours. Totally unfruitful there.

But this untapped environment is definitely a whole new world.

Get ready for some super-swipes from a nearby '22' year old balding Gary who most likely did did GCSE's during World War Two.

YAAAAAASSS

After you've ignored your family for the appropriate amount of time through continuing your nocturnal existence, gorged on home-cooking and lapped up the fresh laundry, home comforts have well and truly lost their shine.

Yes it feels good to wake up at midday without the stress of missing a meeting/lecture/class … but suddenly you're plunged into a sea of judgement. A lie-in at college garners you envy from your essay-bound friends, respect from your pals and occasionally a fist-bump. Yet when you stroll downstairs at home after your over-compensated beauty-sleep, you are met with hostile "good afternoons", and a harsh "what time do you call this?"

And of course you enjoy the home cooked meals, packed with the nutrients your body has been starved of for 8 weeks. But you do long for the days where you could have a late night gnocchi sesh or casually grab some cheesy chips after an essay hand-in. You miss the pure spontaneity of not knowing what your next meal would be, instead your bombarded with the family WhatsApp group informing you that tonight it's meatloaf !

Ice-cream is a viable dinner meal Mom!!!

And guys, it's snowing… in March.

I just want to reiterate children, this is very dangerous. Mother Nature has tricked you into thinking that it's Christmas. The snow outside, the obscene number of layers you're sporting and your heightened inability to leave your room is simply a smoke screen.

This is not Michaelmas break. We are not in December.

Exams in Winter?!!

I repeat, this is not a drill.

I know the Northerners who brag about marching off to Cindies in nothing but some nipple tassels will argue that this isn't real snow. They remember the days back at home where their outside toilet was frozen over.

Yes we are aware that the snow is thinner than our self-confidence during your last DoS meeting, but it's still here. Climate change or not, it's snowing in March, in Lent holidays!! And this has totally messed with our work-schedule.

Snow equals blankets, hot chocolate, and movie marathons, whilst sunny weather means two things: exams and added anxiety. It's physically impossible for our brains to register that its time to revise if we're not sweating. And that's a fact.

So everyone let us all join virtual hands, and cast off these dreaded Lent Holls. And just like in Peter Pan, if we shout 'I do not believe in Exams/Easter', they will just disappear!