Poppadom preach

When starting a late shift, the first thing to do is open up reception - log on to the computer, check emails and bookings, etc. On one particular evening, Sunday night I think, there was an email message from the Eskdale art group. It was inviting us to the last life drawing class of the summer, and asked that we please brought something to share for lunch. I couldn't shake the image of a village hall full of people, one of them naked, sat around eating quiche. It seems that full blown nudity week might well be on its way. 

There are several jobs at work that I find incredibly satisfying, almost therapeutic in nature. These include washing pubes down the shower with a watering can, wrapping cutlery in a napkin, and portioning vegetarian chilli (or similar). On this particular evening it was chicken tikka masala that needed putting in little Tupperware boxes ready to freeze. I had been doing this for a few moments before I noticed that Fiona was starring at me. I asked her if there was anything wrong, to which she replied, "Oh no. I'm just mesmerised by your spooning skills." 

This was nothing though, compared with what I said to Rachel. It had got to that point of the day where I was still wildly excited by just about everything, but tiredness was creeping in so I started to make sentences as short as possible. Rachel was putting the lid back on the mayonnaise (without looking), at the same time as mashing a cauldron full of potato. I was super impressed by this, but rather than vocalising the whole picture I simply blurted out, "Wow! One handed screwing!!" 

Amongst all the general noise, chatter, and hilarity that occurs in the kitchen, we occasionally engineer brief periods of calm. We were having our busiest night (in terms of meals served) since probably the Easter weekend. We had taken all the starters out, when Rachel said to us...."let's just be quiet for a moment, and listen to the sound of twenty people eating popadoms!" It is strangely worth experiencing, if you ever get the opportunity. 

If I were pressed to give an answer, something to explain all that happens here - the only plausible suggestion I could offer is that we are living in a parallel universe. Most of the time it really does feel like that, but every so often something will bring me back down to earth. It's usually a question I'm asked, such as how did you end up here?Well, I don't rightly know. How do any of us end up anywhere, I wondered. But I began a condensed timeline of the past five or so years - discounting anything before that as irrelevant (such as being born). It wasn't much of an answer, but it was a darn sight better than when someone asked me what I planned to do with my degrees. The more I thought about it afterwards, the more it puzzled, and troubled me. I know the question was only asked out of interest, but it reawaken in me a dislike of the idea that we should be following a certain path, that from an early age (or from any age) we need to have everything mapped out, & know exactly what we want to do. What bothered me most of all though, was how much I was momentarily upset by it. Feeling inadequate for not having an answer other than to say; "It was a long time ago." Feeling inadequate for not having some impressive tale of ambition which I aimed to fulfil. I wish I could have responded more boldly, more truthfully. I wish I had said, "Nothing - I'm not interested in that anymore. I don't like that environment. I'm happy here, just being in this place, meeting people, cleaning toilets, and writing a blog."