This is Omar’s blog

The sounds are different. There’s the sound someone having to firmly shut the front door so it doesn’t pop open. Voices as they pass the bottom of the stairs. The pull cord light switch in the bathroom, the memory that will always be associated with it - of the girl who lived in the village and who lost a tooth pulling a light switch like it. The sounds curving round from the pub car park because the side windows aren’t double glazed, always seeming closer then they are and faintly threatening. They’re all gone, replaced by new sounds that are unfamiliar and that are yet to be placed or accustomed to. There are smells, some new and some that cause memories to sharply swim into focus. I think it’s the tobacco, it reminds me of my first student house. The whole house now hovers at the back of my mind when i become aware of the smell. The long hallway, the steep stairs and they’re always being someone home.