Quest and Woolloomooloo

I am back from Thursday Quest one, which was a rehearsal for all the independent travel I'll be doing in Australia.

I can navigate the underground, overground (wombling free) etc. all fine and smoothly. Unfortunately to actually get myself around actual London I rely heavily on print-outs from Google maps, but I successfully found both the National Gallery and the National Theatre, and had a browse around. Unfortunately once I had looked around both of them I did not have the map for how to get to anywhere else. But I had a good time in Foyle's bookshop, and reading some of Jo Brand's autobiography in the National Theatre bookshop (avoiding, of course, the books which give hideous drama exam flashbacks.)

Apparently, my Dad has somewhere 'cracking' (his word, definitely not mine) lined up for next week. That will either mean really fun or impossible to get to. However I am now getting really excited about Australia, particularly as my Lonely Planet Australia book has a map of everywhere so I will always find something to do and how to get to it. And because there is a place in Sydney called 'Woolloomooloo,' which is the only place name in the world with 8 letter 'o's.

Fish Pie.

My Mum is cooking fish pie from 'The Dairy Book of Family Cookery'. There is no escape. I like fish, I usually like pie, but whose idea was it to just put bits of fish in mashed potato? I can smell it from here, and later I have to eat it.

I discussed with Mum how 'The Dairy Book of Family Cookery' sounds overly wholesome and would be better suited if Jack and I were called Janet and Roger, and if I was any good at needlework. We have the internet and iPods; we should be using 'The Lady Gaga Book of Family Cookery.'

Except that is not yet really a book.

Stephen

I am reading The Fry Chronicles, which is Stephen Fry's second autobiography. I'm only on page 42, but I've flicked ahead and read some good parts (page 100 made me literally weep with laughter.) Then I put the book down to watch TV, and during an advert break heard Stephen Fry's voice on the direct line adverts. The TV was blaring next to the Blackadder box set, which was still sitting by the television from when Laura and I watched some of it last Thursday.

After I'd finished watching TV, I went upstairs to my room. To get to my room I need to walk up my stairs, where Stephen Fry's book The Liar, which belongs to my parents, is still sitting on the landing from when I took it to Corfu and never got round to actually reading it. Once in my room, I put The Fry Chronicles back on my bedside table. Sitting on a tiny chest of drawers next to my bedside table are assorted pebbles, some jewellry, and Stephen Fry in America.

I carried my laptop up from the study and plugged it in at my desk, using the same socket I use for my CD player. I almost never ever use my CD player, except on the rare occasions when I can't sleep and feel like listening to some Harry Potter, read by, you guessed it, Stephen Fry. And then I have to stop because he's at the bit with all the death, and that does not make for peaceful sleeping.

If I turn around and look over my left shoulder, he's looking at me from the front of his book. If I extended my arm and pressed play on the CD player, I would hear his voice. At Zanny's house there was a joke that I had brought Hugh Laurie along as my date and he was just outside parking the car. Well, if I went to the front door right now and Stephen Fry was there, perhaps holding a packet of chocolate digestives as I have run out, I would not be all that surprised.

If by some hideous chance Stephen Fry just googled his own name and, after reading about 5000 million other results (because he's not, you know, busy or anything), stumbled across this, then I am not stalking you Mr. Fry, you appear to be stalking me.

Breakfast and Religion

The Breakfast Club are unable to give me a regular shift for the time being, which means, while I am still technically an employee, I will be looking into alternative possibilities. I am going into Cafe at the Abbey to 'have a chat' with them on Thursday about a potential job. I hope I do not need to be religious to serve food to passing worshippers.

This is a little bit sad, because I was just getting the hang of the Breakfast Club, and was almost able to tell all the blonde, ponytailed staff members apart. Not that I will not be working there anymore (double negative ahoy), just possibly once in a blue moon.

Obviously Cafe at the Abbey is not exactly like being an Amish farm hand or a Baptist priest, but it just so happens that both breakfast and religion are almost entirely non-existent in my regular day to day life. They're things that other people do, like sport and buying lottery tickets.

Oh well, come February I'm taking myself out of the St. Albans job scene to go and help endangered dingoes in exchange for food and board, or something along those lines.

Crazy Gets Crazier

At 1.30 this morning, I couldn't sleep. I heard people shouting in the street but, not realising that one of them was Kathryn next door, was too scared to go and look.

At 10.30am, as I was still in pyjamas and dressing gown making coffee, Sara from other next door knocked on the door, holding part of our wing mirror, and explaining that our car had been vandalised, along with about seven others down the street, and that I should probably not tell my parents yet so I don't worry them.

I went to go see Kathryn next door, and she said that she had been up at 1.30, seen teenage boys running down the street kicking cars, and had gone outside to yell at them. Seeing them kick our wing mirror so it dangled off the car, she chased them down the street and then called the police, who said that each car owner had to report the crime individually. She asked if I could call on my parents' behalf, being eighteen. They said yes.

So I went on a hunt for the car details and found them in an upstairs filing cabinet, then rang the police from Kathryn's house (not 999, the local police station.) That part was pretty cool. Reporting the crime and giving them the car details, my Dad's details (it's in his name) and my details and everything. And now Kevin next door is trying to fix my laptop (I'm on the home computer) in exchange for me providing part of their lunch, as they did not have any bread.

I am not telling my parents until a couple of days before they come home, because I want them to know before they actually see the trashed wing mirror.

Part of the wing mirror is on the dining table. It's bizarre.

Sneaking Suspicion

My MSN is not working; it crashes my laptop every time I try and use it. Everything else is fine, just being kind of slow to turn on.

The house phones are not working, they say they're engaged, but I've hung them all up and they're not.

I had to organise my Australia travel insurance while my parents are in Spain. My Dad supplied me with his credit card details- but his credit card is not working so I paid it from my savings account.

There is only one possible explanation- my parents are being arrested in Spain (probably for murder or drug trafficking or something) and so the government have hacked into my laptop in case I use MSN to communicate with the criminal underworld, cut off my Dad's credit card and discommunicated all our house phones.

This is probably not true, but then my parents were recent victims of credit card fraud, and all their old cards were cut off. And now, apparently, a new card.

Communication is a little tricky. but my mobile is working fine (although rapidly running out of credit due to lack of house phone, but my parents have given me permission to use some food money on credit), as is facebook, and yahoo. And my parents instructed me to get the neighbours to ring BT tomorrow.

WHY DOES NOTHING WORK? WHY?

At least I have the main computer if I need MSN, and the TV, and the microwave. But this is still a little bit like the beginning of a horror movie. Going to Company of Teens in 15 mins will make me slightly less freaked out.

Nostalgia

It is just beginning to dawn on me that I am sort of a grown-up now.

I mean, I am going to be alone in the house for 2 weeks, I have driven a car (admittedly not without a lot of prompting,) I now have a job, although saying that makes me feel anxious that I'll turn up tomorrow and the other staff will be like 'ha, just kidding. Go home.' I have stopped growing. I can legally purchase alcohol. I do my own laundry and go to the bank by myself and tick the box saying 'I am over 18' to watch the Inbetweeners on 4od without having to lie.

This is weird, because it feels like about three and a half minutes ago that I was upset in Resistant Materials because Zia said in a patronising way 'Anne, have you ever even been out with a boy?' and then laughed. And now that just seems kind of stupid because that shouldn't really have worried me much at thirteen. I found a diary that I wrote when I was thirteen to fourteen (and might have to burn) which made me realise that it was a lot longer ago than it actually feels like. All the REALLY SHOCKING gossip from 2006 or whatever is actually really, really mundane.

I am kind of hoping that when I get back from Australia I will actually feel a bit more like a real grown-up, because I will have wrestled kangaroos and fried shrimps or whatever it is people do in Australia.