Having not yet exorcised the ghost of Freshers’ Week, I find it hard to visualise a time when I won’t be haunted by small talk’s favourite double-act: “What’s your name?” and “Where are you from?” To then witness the blank faces every time I’d hesitantly reply with “Lincolnshire” made this rite of passage make me want to pull my hair out even more. “Near Nottingham” and “just below Yorkshire”qquickly became a reflex, both vying for the top spot in my repertoire of descriptive fall-backs. You might even have heard an exasperated “it’s the second biggest county in England!” slip from my lips after an especially tortuous geography lesson.

“I didn’t realise how rare it is to go on a dog walk in your pyjamas, safe in the knowledge that you won’t see a single soul”

So, what’s it like to go from, quite literally, the middle of nowhere to a bustling city campus? Even people who live in Lincolnshire rarely know where I’m referring to when I tell the name of my village, which is so ridiculously small that it barely even warrants the name (we’re talking sixteen houses kind of small; a hamlet, really). It was just me, my mum, our animals, veg patch and occasional neighbourly contact over the fence for a very, very long time. Evenings after primary school were spent eating KitKats in trees, hunting for flowers to press and following around two somewhat bemused donkeys, usually while reading aloud to them (they loved it really). We used to keep horses too, and some of my fondest memories are of long late-summer hacks, returning home in the twilight, parched but happy, and polishing off a whole tub of lemon sorbet with my mum. As GCSEs and A-Levels started to eat up more and more of my time, I took a step back from the countryside that had been such a big part of my childhood and began to resent the fact that there were no buses, no trains, nothing in walking distance, not even a corner shop. I’d take every opportunity I could to scrounge a lift into town and remind myself of what civilisation looked like.

But now that I’ve moved to Cambridge – which, while it hasn’t been as much of a culture shock as moving to, say, London might have been, is still a big change – it makes me sad to think that I was so desperate to leave. I didn’t realise until I came here how rare it is to have lived in such an isolated rural community, how few people get the chance to see the stars in the night sky with absolute clarity, or, most importantly, go on a dog walk in your pyjamas, safe in the knowledge that you won’t see a single soul. It’s funny to think that I dress up more now to leave my room and make a cup of tea in the shared kitchen than I did to leave the house for a couple of hours back home.

“I find myself quite happy to trade the drunken hooting of my accommodation for the hooting of the owl”

The concept of ‘nipping to the shops’ is still foreign to me (as opposed to facing ten different dirt tracks, five gravel paths and eventually an A road to pick up some milk), and the thought that I’m probably an unwitting extra in the background of an number of tourists’ photos is slightly embarrassing. It will never not feel strange to be able to simply walk upstairs to see my friends, rather than spend weeks planning the logistics of a meet-up, and I think I’ll always miss driving my car. While I love living in Cambridge (the recent closure of the Hollister store in the shopping centre aside), it’s also made me appreciate my village when I go home in the university holidays, which is something I never would have expected. As it turns out, I find myself quite happy to trade the drunken hooting that bounces off the staircases of my accommodation after a night out for the hooting of the owl that always seems to be outside my window.

So, I now say that I’m from Lincolnshire with a little less trepidation and a little more confidence, more sure of myself that asparagus and a lack of hills aren’t the only things that it boasts. Cambridge has given me my dream of living somewhere that makes in-store returns a possibility, but it’s also made me grateful for what I have back home.

Want to share your thoughts on this article? Send us a letter to letters@varsity.co.uk or by using this form