The last book on the shelf

So tomorrow I am finally leaving my Nottingham home of three years and moving back to sunny Watford. Yes, I will still be a postgrad (with Mr. Dissertation needing some attention) and yes, I'm certain I'll be back up here for various visits, meetings and library sessions, but nonetheless, I will no longer be able to call anywhere in this grubbily charming city my home. For days I've been stripping my room down to its constituent parts, so that now it is frankly a slightly depressing place to be. You know that bit in Friends where Monica goes and stands in Rachel's empty room after she's moved out? That kind of vibe.

However, I'm not here to moan, or even to provide a university retrospective. Let it only be said that these past four years have been the best of my life - I've done some incredible things with some incredible people.

No, what I'm here to do is to look forward, and I'm doing it via what has turned out to be the last book left on my shelf, Charles Portis' True Grit.

The novel - resolutely what the recent Coen Brothers film was based upon - follows fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross as she recruits the unglamorous, middle-aged US Marshall Rooster Cogburn and attempts to bring her father's killer to justice against the dusty backdrop of post-Civil War America. Mattie is smart and headstrong , with courage, religious piety and a sense of duty beyond her years. Rooster, burnt out and a little flabby, nonetheless appeals to the girl with his similar preoccupation with wit, bravery and hard justice - true grit, as it were. Mattie is less than impressed by his preoccupation with whiskey, however:

'I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.'

Like Mattie and Rooster setting out into the unknown void of 'Indian territory', I leave Nottingham not quite knowing what's going to happen. Sure, it could conspire that I get back to the ol' Watford homestead, saddle up and go about town lassoing no-good villains with regular breaks for a rye and soda down at the saloon. However, in lieu of there being a person I can send my CV and covering letter to for this kind of job, I'm just going to have to go full throttle at my other, less-yeehaw career aspirations.  And, like Mattie and Rooster, I'm determined to get done what needs to be done. Nottingham may feel cosy, just as Yell County, Arkansas must be to Mattie, but, simply put, it is time to move on, and anyway, there is something ever so exciting about the unknown void of new territory. I'm thinking less Heart of Darkness, more Treasure Island.

For now, though, it's time for one last pub visit with friends, where I plan to heartily welcome several thieves into my mouth, show them where my brains are hidden, and ask them if they'd like a cup of tea in the meantime. Sorry Mattie.