New life in the old town

 Menial kitchen jobs, & a taste of the city so dark and foreboding that I probably still need counselling to come to terms with it. The thing was, I didn't expect a catharthis of the soul by moving there, but this is exactly what I got. I feel this was down to moving back home, so I wasn't hiding behind being a student in a foreign town. This was my city, familiar ground. But at the same time, it wasn't. I'd never had a pint in Leicester until I was 28; I went on a date with a muslim girl when I was 20, and I had a hot chocolate in the Last Plantagenet at 12am. But it wasn't called the Last Plantagenet then, because the discovery of the remains of Richard III was 5 years away. She urged me to drink, but I explained it was too early. So what I experienced during my time in the city was an accidental cleansing of the soul, and I never thought this could be. Toward the back end of it, certain factors came into play which changed me for good as a person, although ...

         Decision made on the back of a close friend moving back to the Midlands after he got tired of his job. Problem was, I wasn't from the city-I'm from a town 13 miles away. I'd been living up north for 7 years. Still trying to be a student, pretending everything was all right. Moving to Leicester was like a false homecoming after nearly a decade; didn't have friends there, or family, but wait, I did, but we'll get to that later.    The house I moved into was chosen on the basis of being near to a job I thought I'd secured-a miserable, low position in a chain eatery in a separate part of the city, not even sharing the same post code. In fact, my house was a 45 minute walk from the city center. The eatery used me for a trial shift, and didn't pay me.  Before moving down there, I resided in Wigan, a satellite town to Manchester, an ancient milltown, pleasant, charming. I lived with a Chinese woman whom I met whilst working in a Chinese rest...

A piece of brick whizzing past your head as you return from the shops at night. A car pulling up with the occupants making threats about knicking your bike, the strangers entirely full of anger as they hear a southern accent. Being spat at when you refuse to give a stranger money. Would you want to live here? This is a post-script since leaving Skem, after having been in Wigan for four weeks. Leaving behind the grim concrete buildings, a populance full of hate to any one perceived as an outsider, or heaven forbid, someone who works. I suppose you might ask me what the plan was, moving there? Simple-I wanted somewhere with cheap rent, not wanting to waste my inheritance, so thought I was being ever so wise. Deep down I think it may have been my equivalent of the wool shirt monks used to wear as a self imposed sufferance. I had that sufferance for a year and don't intend to return. An airless, noiseless vacuum is what it feels like. It's neither a town, village, city, but a s...