In between the bursts of inspired conversation about the meaning of life and the bright career potential the future holds, during which friends helpfully interject with "Oh you are SO much better off out of that place. It wasn't right for you. It was a joke" there's a grey area that I was not prepared for. In normal life, when a person has a job and a flat and an independent, solvent life, this time is called social life. This is not to say that, back in the northern mothership I am friendless. I am not. Many of my friends are still here. However, before now, I had made only fleeting trips back, arriving in a whirlwind of post-Oxford/-Spain/-London/-Edinburgh febrile excitement, bringing with me my anecdotes of life over the border/down south, my new London haircut or my new Spain boots. Coffee, night out, coffee, then I would get the train back to wherever was home at that time. Formulaic fun. Now that I have been here for over a month I have realised that these people have lives outside of cafes and clubs. And not only do they have lives, but they have begun to acquire permanent jobs and, more frightening still, mortgages. No number of southern haircuts or pairs of foreign footwear can compete with that. I lost my house deposit long ago to Richard Branson's over-priced Pendalino service. A friend told me last year that he thought I was a bit bisexual; half of me was in Edinburgh and half of me was in London. Although not at all the meaning of the word, I enjoyed the application of it to my situation. 2009 is fast becoming the year of trisexuality, since I now find myself forced to stir the Wirral/Liverpool into my twisted nomadic soup of a life.
So I find myself back at home, struggling to fashion a studio flat out of my old bedroom and sharing most of every day with my father, a man whose situation appears to be the polar opposite of my own, since he is retired and therefore at the end of his career while I attempt to kick the big fat bottom of my fledgling career out of its armchair. Although seemingly opposite situations, there are depressing similarities between us. My father does crosswords to delay the onset of Alzheimer's and I do them to give myself the best chance of not developing a premature version brought on by idleness. We are also obsessed with BBC News 24 (a feeble attempt to invite drama into our lives) and food on toast (preferably something with Omega-3, like pilchards - for the lagging brain cells).
When the sense of having my life melded with that of a 63-year-old becomes too overwhelming, I go out exploring. I have become a tourist in my own town. Ok, not town, rather suburban maze. Through these wanderings, I have discovered a gem in my local library. I've been spending quite a lot of time there this past week since I have found a few job vacancies that I hope will drag me out of living the life of an OAP and so have been feverishly filling out application forms. The library allows me to fill out these applications in peace as well as peruse the papers (among which often lies a well-fingered copy of The Mature Times. No joke.) without parting with a penny and generally keep abreast of what's going on in my local community. It has, after all, been a while since I really connected with this area and its people. Let's find out what's going on here, what makes them tick, I thought. The library is typically 1960s by design. And by fragrance. It has a flat roof on which is perched a Christmas tree in the month of December and quite a way into January each year. And it has very cold loos. It is a library, yoga and pilates club, doctor's surgery, internet point and, of late, a cafe. Well, that's an exaggeration, but there is now a coffee machine behind the till so the librarians now ask if you would like a latte or a cappuccino as well as telling you how much you owe on that overdue local history book. As I stood in front of the 'Events' board on my latest visit, I was given an insight into the rich and varied social life of those who frequent their local community centre. 'Wood Carving For All Levels', 'Learn Scottish Country Dancing', 'Chinese Yoga Classes', or if you were feeling really energetic, you could offer up your dramatic skills to the local production of RUMPELSTILTSKIN - THE MUSICAL. I was horrified. How did these people spend so much of their non-working time learning, creating, entertaining? I was exhausted just reading about it. And it made me feel about as active as a sod of earth. Fearing that if I hung around too long at that message board, I'd be targeted by the director of the musical and recruited as Wicked Sister Number Ten, I made a hurried exit. Not before making a note of the times and venues of a couple of the activities for my pensioner housemate.
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