15/06/14 - Hull End of Year Ball 2014

If you’ve been reading this blog for a little while, you’ll know how I feel about Hull.  I don’t know if everyone feels this kind of connection to their university city or if I’m just lucky but every time I catch a glimpse of that big beautiful bridge over the Humber, I feel like I’m coming home.  All the terrible rumours you’ve heard about Hull being a bit of a hellhole are…only partly true.  It has dodgy areas, but so does everywhere.  It’s actually a wonderful place with so much going on and it’s the cheapest place in the country to live so it’s amazing for students.  If Hull was a slightly bigger city or there were more interesting job opportunities there, I would’ve been happy to stay after graduation but alas, the best thing about it is probably the university.  It was the university, the place I called home for the best three years of my life, that dragged me back last weekend.  As an awful lot of my friends are graduating in the summer, this year’s End Of Year Ball was a chance for a big group of us to be together again for one last time.  And everyone knows that I struggle to pass on an opportunity to get glammed up.  It was really nice to get the chance at a third EOYB since I didn't go to my second year one - you can read about the amazing time I had last year right here.

Despite an utterly hellish journey that involved getting to the halfway point of my journey after the time I should’ve reached my destination, climbing aboard the world’s most rickety rail replacement bus and finally arriving at one in the morning, the weekend was certainly worth the effort.  Saturday dawned miserable and wet, and there was much debate over whether it was worth attempting to do anything with our hair if it was just going to get rained on.  Thankfully by the time the evening’s preparations were fully underway, the sun had peeked out and from that point onwards the weather was pretty glorious.

It was a wonderful night.  Everyone was dressed to the nines and it was brilliant to catch up with a lot of people I hadn't seen for ages.  Hours of laughter ensued as we sipped fizzy wine and danced until our feet were sore.  Somewhere between the dodgems and the chocolate fountain, it suddenly occurred to me that this would almost certainly be my last act as an honorary student.  It’s been the best part of a year since I graduated, but having so many friends still at university is a great way to have a little foray back to the good old days several times a year.  You get all the best parts of the student lifestyle without the library all-nighters, essay deadlines and Pot Noodle diets.  I’m definitely going to miss having weekends where I get to pretend that I don’t have real world concerns like council tax, but maybe it’s time for me to become a proper grown-up.  And although the prospect of that is a little terrifying, I was able to push the thought aside to enjoy one last night with some of my favourite people in the world.  At least they’ll all now be joining me and we can take the next steps into the adult world together – bleurgh, cheesy!

Naturally Sunday morning featured the obligatory carb-heavy brunch and a dissection of the previous evening.  I didn’t get any photos of it unfortunately, but we ate at one of my favourite spots along Newland Avenue in the heart of the student area in Hull.  Normally Tofts is my favourite cocktail spot but they also do cracking bistro-y type food for those mildly hungover mornings when cocktails just are not on the menu.  We devoured endless glasses of juice, gorged ourselves on all kinds of bread, potato and grease, and chattered non-stop until I suddenly realised that I needed to dash off to catch the train home.  The briefest of goodbyes as I hopped aboard the bus into town didn’t seem like nearly enough to round off such an amazing weekend, so I of course took a cheeky bridge snap out of the train window which I’ve set as the wallpaper on my phone to induce some nostalgia every time I check for new text messages.

And now it's back to the daily grind of work...being an adult isn't quite all its cracked up to be, especially after having one last studenty weekend!