Changes

I’m back.

In fact I’ve been back for a while. A couple of weeks now to be precise, although it doesn’t really feel like it as, to be honest, my life is on hold. I’m back in Canvey Island, my childhood home. Only, I haven’t really lived there since about 2004, and I haven’t really spent any quality time there since about the time I finished secondary school. It’s all a bit weird. My vague plan to get myself a UK job before I left Canada died as suddenly as the British economy, and I’m now trying to find work in a slightly different field at a time when I’ll be lucky to get anything. I’m pretty skint at the moment, and most of my friends and my girlfriend are far away. I think it’s fair to say I’ve had better months. However, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for and things could be much worse. I’m not paying any rent, I get free food and internet, and Lucy is a cheap date!

One of the biggest changes is my parents’ house. No, they haven’t installed a pool or put in an extension. They have, in fact, decided to start fostering children. It seemed like a random idea to me, but it is of course a really cool thing that they’re doing. However, it does now mean that there seems to be a lot of kids around the place, in addition to the children my childminder sister looks after, plus my 18 month-old niece, plus any number of other friends, relatives and health workers. In short, it’s not a quiet place to be! My sister is pregnant too, so there will be yet another child around the place pretty soon. Having spent all my time in a quiet apartment in Vancouver for the last year, and a quiet house in London before that, it’s a bit of a shock to the system. Fortunately, months of staying in hostel dorm rooms has somewhat prepared me for the general chaos.

So my main priority is to find myself a job. I’m torn at the moment between being patient and waiting for a job that I really want to do, and being maybe a bit more realistic and looking for something that will at least get me making some money and back into the city so that I can carry on with my life. Either way, it will probably take me a while and it won’t be a pretty experience.

Wish me luck. I’m going in.