Friday 15 May 2009

Hot Cross Nuns

Some time ago, shortly after I began my Facebook ban (it was Saturday 4th April if you like specifics) I spent an hour in the company of a bearded fellow who made me and a couple of his chums some breakfast before pootling off to Bristol leaving us to our own devices. Prior to departing he divulged a piece of information, that in a few months he would be driving to Mongolia. It was an interesting titbit but I thought nothing more of it. Later that day as I dined in Pizza Express with his last remaining friend, who told me of his travels in America and his plan to move to Canada one day, I realised I haven’t actually done a lot with my life, well, where being nomadic is concerned. And yet I consider myself to be a free-spirited sort of person. I remember when I applied to go to uni a friend said they were surprised as they saw me more as a wanderer. I feel I’ve let my inner wanderer down. These thoughts flickered through my mind for the remainder of the meal but all was forgotten once we left and started watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The next day as I walked from my flat to Primark on Oxford Street (doing this on a weekend just shows my state of mind at the time) I spent the entire time working out how I could get to Mongolia in terms of saving up and getting rid of all my crap. I’m not sure I could pay someone to take on my collection of dance-based DVDs and Britney Spears videos. I was working myself into quite an internal frenzy and got a bit of a headache as a result. Never before in my life have I ever thought about Mongolia (apart from when I went through a phase at the age of 14 when I called everyone ‘Mongolian monkfish’ – always been a fan of alliteration) let alone going there which just shows how easily influenced I am, and yet here I was mentally preparing to ‘do one’. That night sleeping was somewhat problematic.

Monday morning came and with it the confirmation that things always feel better in the morning - the urge to go to Mongolia had worn off. After a few hours in the workplace I was on the Internet looking for orphanages in Mongolia that I could help out at. Things may feel better in the morning but they soon sneak up on you after lunch.

Tuesday saw me abandoning Mongolia once more deciding instead that I should move to New Zealand and so I did a bit of visa research. It looks like I’m probably not skilled enough to live there permanently so I’ll have to do a plumbing course or some such thing that I’ve heard guarantees you a place in Antipodean hearts. By the afternoon I was seething due to my ‘training’ being used as an excuse for certain people to give me all the work they can’t be bothered to do themselves. And yes it only means having to watch DVDs all day but I’m learning nothing apart from how to make a dog behave (watch Dog Whisperer for more info) and that one of our clients deal purely in films starring Shelley Winters; that particular day involved her being incestuous with her sons. Lovely.

When I came back upstairs my supervisor Steve had sent me some links for farm jobs as I had been telling him the week before, in another bid for escape, that I was thinking about becoming a farm hand. When 6pm rolled around I called a lady from one of the adverts who was looking for a live-in fence painter/dog looker afterer but I think she was looking for someone a bit more foreign accent rather than merely a Portuguese surname. The position was immediate which didn’t work for me as I’d have to give a month’s notice at work. A couple of hours later and I had a voicemail from the same woman saying she’d been across to see her neighbour who was looking for someone to muck out horses and be a mother’s helper. I’m scared of horses and ‘Mother’s Helper’ is the title of a Point Horror book so I took it as a sign that it probably wasn’t the job for me if staying alive was something I wanted to do. She sounded somewhat hesitant when leaving the voice message as she’d spoken to a English Sonia earlier in the evening and yet had to suffer overexcited Australian Sonia on my answer machine. I’m under the impression she’s probably pleased I didn’t call her back.

I explained my farm based and general agitation situation to my flatmate Halley telling her my nose constantly hurts from London pollution and that I’m in exactly the same position I was in when I first moved to London nearly three years ago: in a low paid runner’s wage job and sharing a bedroom. I told her that the only thing keeping me in London was choir. This tickled her I think and she went on to suggest that I join a convent that has a choir, like in Sister Act. I told her I may as well do that given I’m practically already living the life of a nun. A few years back I decided I wanted to become a Buddhist monk in whatever country it is that Buddhist monks come from. I really should have known this information given the decision I was thinking about making, however I didn’t feel ready to shave my head so that didn’t happen.

A couple of nights later I found out my sightseeing chum Rob has decided to pack in his job and move back to our hometown to save money to go travelling and I thought maybe this is a sign, as I had been considering a moving home and saving money for travelling.

The nun option cropped up again on Easter weekend. Victoria Thompson and I had gone to visit our chum Phillippa Quinn in Cambridge for her birthday. Over dinner Phillippa’s mum suggested I become a nun due to my unnervingly brilliant knowledge of Bible stories, which was highlighted when P.Q gave us an Easter Quiz. I informed them that in primary school I got 100% in my Scripture exam. I do love a good bible story, and a hymn. In response to P.Q.’s mum’s suggestion Vic said, ‘You couldn’t be a nun, you like kissing boys too much.’ I would have to agree with her. Perhaps they’d allow me to kiss boys given my excellent bible story knowledge.

Since then another reason has come to my attention for not leaving London, other than choir, and that is my bed. It is so lovely that I can’t bear to get rid of it and I have nowhere to store it. Also London has been good to me since it found out I’ve been thinking of leaving so I may just stay a little longer. I feel I’m not quite done.

The moral of the story is Facebook bans lead to itchy feet, unrest in the workplace, obsessions with East Central Asian countries and secreting nunny vibes. Beware.