This is now my 10th week of unemployment. My previous record, if that's the way to describe it and I don't think it is, was 12 weeks. I fear a new record is about to be established unless someone offers me a job PDQ. And, as there is no sign of that in the offing, it will now be the New Year at least until I find something permanent to do. It will no doubt all sort itself out in time. It's that word 'time' - troublesome that word, lacks a precision in definition.
Today I've been shopping at Tescos and, after having swopped a few words with the very pleasant but English language challenged Polish check-out lady, have not spoken to anyone since 8.30. It's now 2pm. I feel I ought to make a sound just to check my voice is still working. I find it quite strange to spend so much time in silence. I'd have made a rubbish monk. Well apart from not being able to obey any pledge of chastity I'd have failed miserably on the vow of silence as well. I don't consider myself a naturally gregarious person, needing to be surrounded by loads of people all the time, but it is good to have a chat with one or two people during the day. I reckon the Postie will get nervous soon if, as soon as she delivers the letters, I metaphorically pounce on her and try and pass the time of day.
And that reminds me.
As a student I used to have a summer job as a driver for Advance Laundry in South Wales. This was a great job. I loved it. I drove a specially converted white Transit van, 2.0 litre diesel engine mind you, with an automatic gearbox. Very much a constant speed, variable noise sort of affair with it's very own waterfall into the cab during heavy rain. I'd set off at 8am daily with the van loaded with wicker hampers of laundry for hotels and pubs, racks of clothes for the well heeled of Abergavenny, Pontypool, Brecon and so on. I'd drop the clean and laundered clothes off and collect the soiled ones for return to base. What a great way to pass the summer, driving around the glorious Welsh countryside.
I had the small town of Blaenavon on my route. Hilly it was in places. In fact so hilly that my Transit would not go up some roads - there would come a point where the engine would be revving, the automatic gearbox would be turning but the wheels wouldn't and the vehicle would be in stasis - going neither up nor down. There would always be a girl watching disdainfully. There I had two elderly gentlemen as customers who sent in two shirt collars each a fortnight to be laundered. And when I went to deliver them two weeks later both would pounce on me and try to chat about anything, anything at all, and try to get me to stop and have a drink of squash, ' Such a hot day you must be parched walking up that steep road?' I would, as an unsophisticated teenager, do my level best not to get bogged down in the conversation and leave as soon as I could without being rude - but of course I realise now, after all these years, that they were just very lonely and I was probably one of the few people that they saw during the week. Both lived up a very steep hill so it wasn't the sort of place you might casually stroll past. Crampons, pitons, oxygen and ropes were needed plus a Base camp. Their wives had died and they had no phones. How sad in retrospect that I couldn't, wouldn't chat for just a while. What little difference would have made to my day - 20 minutes later returning to base? What a difference it would have made to theirs.
The house is not quiet during the day. It creaks and groans and moves and whispers. All sorts of noises come from it. I don't mean the electrical hum of the freezer/fridge or so on, but the other noises. During the summer I don't think I hear them so much. The windows are open, you can hear the traffic, people walking past outside, music from the boys if they are around. In Winter the house is hermetically sealed behind three layers of glass, the traffic is muted to just a swish on the road. But the rest of the house lives. There's a lot of wood in the house and it's always on the move, shrinking with the cold and change in moisture and then altering again as the heating comes on. Sometimes it is a if some little thing is moving around in various places, like tiny footsteps or a change in air pressure. Not that I'm paranoid of course. No really I'm not, but the house y'know, is just noisy and sometimes I can't figure out just where that noise is coming from. And just what's making it. But I prefer the summer if I'm going to be unemployed (and it seems I am). I find winter a real constriction. The cold and poor weather keeping you in and around the house - I want to be outside but not when the rain is coming in horizontally with the temperature just above freezing. Having just read that I sound like some sort of psychotic Labrador.
I see that I contacts live on Skype - I'll have to see if my voice still works and give them a call. They couldn't even do that in Blaenavon.
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