Greetings from a cafe in Prague. I've been here for 5 nights: 4 in a cheap but fine hotel in Brevnov, and 1 in a slightly sad pension in Kyje. Before these nights I spent two nights in the (empty) house of a colleague/friend in Shipley, but I didn't get much sleep as the place was a dusty and cold building site. My eyes stung from the ambient dust, something that has never really happened before.

Why all the travels? I am technically homeless. Or between apartments. Or whatever you want to call it. My new tenancy in Bristol begins on the 10th but I can't physically get all my belongings there until the 12th, so I am floating around and trying to keep going wherever I can with one rucksack full of clothes, a laptop, some basic toiletries, and medicine.

The last counselling session I had, sat cross-legged on my Brevnov bed, was a difficult one. I was red-faced with anger, not really realising how much I had kept locked inside. My counsellor is nice, a good listener, possibly too much on my side. I get suspicious when people offer unbridled or unconditional support, chiefly because no one ever has before and no one ever does.

I've managed to get some work done and have kept things ticking along with supervisory roles and a couple of applications I am writing (Napier for a job, Antwerp for a postdoc) and I suppose the world is set up like this now. You can be nomadic and be in a cafe in Tashkent or Trowbridge and still be the same person. But I do love the idea of a home, a place, somewhere to settle and call it mine. Whether that is with someone or not is now to the gods. I cannot pursue it, and I cannot yoke someone to my dreams.

The next few days - I fly to Manchester tonight and head to my dad's in Wigan. Tomorrow I swap over my clothes in Manchester and then head to Sheffield for 3 cheap nights in a hotel near where the snooker qualifiers are being played. Alternate between watching that and doing some work. Then a big day of moving on the 12th and then, hopefully, the start of some security.

April 13

Am now in the new flat in Bristol. My room is still nascent, with a bed frame and a shelving unit short of being something you might want to call properly moved in, but it is large enough and yet reasonably cosy and bright.

Since returning from Prague I had a terrible night at my dad's (vindication for deciding to not stay there for the duration of homelessness, the place is dirty and boring) and then three reasonable ones in Sheffield (albeit with a sinus problem from staying at dad's). The move down was pretty smooth. Now I am just left with my feelings, and they have taken a turn for the melancholy.