Busking Adventures and the Wonky Tan Line to Prove It

I’ve been struggling to add to this series for a while, not because I haven’t been busking but because nothing really seems worth writing about anymore. What with all the weird old men, quirky musicians, and grumpy market stall owners, I thought I had seen everything this high street had to offer. [SPOILER ALERT: I was wrong.]

So my friend and I were playing on a corner, when this couple came up to us and asked if we were both over eighteen. My first thought was that these were more of those people who thought we ought not to be busking if we didn’t pay tax and have a family to support; my friend thought they might have been asking us to play in a pub.

“We need two official witnesses for our wedding.” … I blinked.

They explained that it was quite a “spontaneous” thing and they didn’t have anyone else with them. Still a little confused we agreed and arranged to meet them in about an hour’s time when the wedding was.

As they walked off we looked at each other, not sure what to say. This must have been the weirdest encounter either of us had ever had on these streets and that is saying something.

Sure enough an hour later they turned up again and walked us up to the town registry office, chatting as they went. It turns out they hadn’t just not brought anyone else with them, they hadn’t told them they were doing this either! Friends, parents, family, all had been left in the dark, even their thirteen year old son, who was on a school trip at the time. In fact as far as their son was aware they were already married – his mother had changed her name by deed poll before he was born and they had exchanged rings at the time, but never actually gotten married. And this was how they wanted to keep things, their son would carry on assuming they had been married for years, and everyone else would carry on imagining that they would just never get married. It was a total secret – they didn’t want to tell anyone!

“It’s all about personal choice. For us it’s always been about the marriage, not the wedding” the woman explained, “We never wanted all the fuss of a big party”.

So me, my friend, and about three people who worked in the registry office were the only ones who would ever know; and weirdly enough, even though it was so unusual, their decision made sense to all of us.

“Yes, it’s fair enough when you think of all the money people spend on weddings these days – twenty grand some people spend!” the registrar remarked as we waited in the lobby, and don’t I know it. I’ve been invited to two weddings recently and one of these couples spent over a hundred pounds on postage just to send out save-the-dates. “I knew a couple,” she carried on, “who flew out to the Caribbean with just one close friend each to get married out there to save money. But when they came back and told their parents what they’d done, they insisted on having a blessing in a church and a big celebration and it ended up costing them just as much. So you just keep it a secret won’t you!” she advised them. And as far as we know, that’s just what they did.

The ceremony was a very surreal experience. It took place in a small but very smart-looking room, and the registrars were wearing fairly posh work clothes, but my friend and I – witnesses literally drafted in off the street – were in jeans, and our instruments were arranged as tidily as we could manage all over the floor.

His wedding suit was denim shorts and a t-shirt with some logo on it. He had a healthy amount of stubble, and flip-flops on his feet. Her wedding gown was a faded black summer dress with red flowers on it. Her hair was in pig tails and she had little to no makeup on her face.

It struck me that they were beginning their marriage as they meant to go on. Their vows contained the phrase “I promise to laugh with you, cry with you, and grow with you.” And sure enough right after they’d made them, she teased him for having his sunglasses on his head throughout the ceremony and they giggled as they struggled to put rings on each other’s fingers.

To be honest “you may now kiss the bride” was the first physical indication that this pair was romantically involved and that’s what I loved about them. These two weren’t about making a big show of their love – hence the lack of a big wedding. But they were so obviously in love. Thirteen years after their son was born and they still beamed at each other when one caught the other’s eye. And they basically ran away in secret to get married without telling a single soul – it wasn’t for anyone else, it was just for each other.

And obviously, as indeed the woman kept saying, it’s all about personal choice. Even my most unconventional of friends want to have a slightly more traditional wedding than this, simply as an excuse to have a big party, but it made me smile that this kind of marriage, one that was literally nothing to do with a wedding, could exist.

I was thinking about this hours later back at home when I suddenly realised something terrible.

The buttons of the plaid shirt I had been wearing that day were not lined up.

I had just attended a WEDDING (albeit possibly the most informal wedding imaginable) in which I was one of only TWO guests and my shirt wasn’t on straight. And I’ve still got the wonky tan line to prove it.

On Stranger Tides

“Walls came tumbling down in the city that we loved” this is what I was singing to myself on the train journey back home from university a few weeks ago. I have to say I wasn’t particularly looking forward to my first trip home; not because of home but because of the city and the people and the places that had become my new home. The Christmas holidays meant no more wandering down the corridor and instantly finding friends; no more staying up till ridiculous hours in the morning discussing everything from etymology to politics; no more being able to get everywhere I needed by walking; and of course most importantly, no more being able to clean my teeth without leaving the comfort of my bedroom.

Having said all that, how could I not enjoy four weeks off work, properly cooked broccoli (as opposed to the mushy school-dinner-esque kind served in the university canteen), and seeing muchly missed friends? Nonetheless being back home after 76 days away was strange to say the least!

People I saw over Christmas would ask me how Uni was going and I’d grin at them and say “great” because it was, but what I found more interesting was how being back home was going. In a constant state of shock about home still being home, I was surprised by everything: the fact that my muscle memory was still there, that I could still operate the lock on my bathroom door without thinking about it, and navigate my house with my eyes closed, that I still knew my way around my home town despite the fact that as I have mentioned before, I do not know my way around my home town.

It was a very sad day when I realised what that at least one thing has changed: my local Waterstones has close down.

I was so shocked I couldn’t say much other than “what even what?” for a full two minutes.

So many of the books that have shaped my teenage reading habits have come from that shop; when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released my family and I went at midnight to buy copies dressed as characters, I was Moaning Myrtle it was great fun; later on in life my friends and I used to leave notes in the front pages of books we particularly liked as if we were on some sort of reading evangelism mission; every time my parents used to take me and my brothers into town we’d pop by the Waterstones to have a browse and now, just like free eye tests and a life of not being in mountains of debt, that time is over.

Anyway, at university there are two fairly large Waterstones stores all in one fairly small city, so I can’t complain – that is where I’m currently heading after all.

Yes, I’m on the train again and although it seems like no time at all has passed, I’m sure it’s going to be just as odd being back as it was being home. The thing about university, as I’ve learned, is that you lead a sort of double life, and it’s brilliant, but it’s quite unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

Addressing the Elephant

There’s one story about my Live Below the Line experience that didn’t quite fit with any of my posts from July. It’s strange because for something that is so central to my life, I’ve never really spoken about it on this blog of mine. I think it’s time to change that.

It was Sunday afternoon, my last day of the challenge and I was sitting in church with my friend who was also Living Below the Line, when we realised that in this service we were going to be taking communion. If you don’t know what this is, it’s when people in the church each eat a small piece of bread and drink a small sip of wine. These things are supposed to remind us of Jesus’ blood and His body respectively, and how Jesus gave up His life to save us from everything we’ve done wrong. (This idea is in my opinion crazy difficult to understand, but I found this article helpful – sorry it’s so long!)

Throughout the challenge my friend and I were faced with the temptation of people offering us food. “But it’s free, it’s a gift” they would say “you’re not spending money on it so you’re still living off a pound a day”. But the truth is for people really in this situation, it’s very unlikely that a friend would just offer them free food, because chances are, their friends would all live in poverty too. The truth is, donated food isn’t free at all; it still had to be paid for by someone.

So, what about communion?

We discussed this in whispers for a moment but there was really only ever one answer. We decided to take part in communion for a few reasons:

Partly because anyone can go into a church and take communion, no matter their previous circumstances;

Partly because it’s not for the literal nutritional value but the spiritual value that we were taking it;

But mostly because literally anyone is allowed to take the bread and the wine because the forgiveness that comes with it is open to everyone. Communion is free because it’s already been paid for us – not just me and my friend but the whole of humanity, we are all free to take communion and the forgiveness that it represents because (I believe at least) Jesus has already paid that debt for us, all of us. Of all things communion is literally free of cost.

In hindsight the very idea of refusing communion on the grounds of a challenge is troubling. We were challenging ourselves to see what we were capable of and capable of going without, and although obviously this wasn’t what we were thinking of, the idea that we could go without God’s forgiveness is ridiculous at best.

I’m glad (actually I’m a little bit ecstatic) that communion was the one thing that I ate that I hadn’t (and couldn’t have) bought myself – it reminded me that however strong and independent I may feel, or however unfortunate a situation I’m in, even if all of humanity were to desert me and I had to fend entirely for myself, there is one person’s help I can rely on, and need to rely on, and am given freely.

Live Below the Line – The Midnight Dare Game

The last thing I ate before the start of this challenge on Tuesday evening, and the first thing I ate after the challenge this morning, was chocolate cake, so that’s rather fitting! Yes it looks like I made it: after five days of living below the line, turns out I didn’t die, but I’m not doing that again in a hurry!

What have I learned? A great deal about the difficulties faced by people living on less than a pound a day, a little budgeting, the importance of washing up after myself (something my dad is very glad of!), and a bit of cooking. Having said that I don’t think I remembered to look at the clock when I started boiling my rice even once, so a lot of guess-work was required but luckily it turned out alright!

My last day below the line was a little different, in order to use up the final pennies of my budget, I bought myself eight haribo frogs and a 16p tin of spaghetti bolognaise. A lot of people turn their noses up at such cheap processed food, and it’s true that they may not have much nutritional value, I certainly wouldn’t want to live off them full-time, but to be honest it was the tastiest meal I’ve eaten all week and after all, this is the sort of thing people donate to food banks, shouldn’t we at least be prepared to try it for ourselves?

After a triumphant last rice meal, I headed to bed only to get distracted by something that people living in real poverty probably wouldn’t have access to – Facebook! And so it was that at around half past midnight, after realising I still had two eggs left in the fridge, my friends dared me to go downstairs and make boiled eggs in the middle of the night. My dog, who sleeps in the kitchen and whom I accidentally woke up in the process, was not impressed!

So my challenge is now over but you can still donate to help out a local night shelter, because as I’ve said around 1.2 billion people around the world have to live on less than I have not just for five days but everyday!

Live Below the Line – Out and About

Today due to various commitments and an inability to say no, I found myself locked in a coffee-room over lunch time, with my penultimate banana, a Tupperware box of rice and no idea where to find a saucepan. After fifteen minutes of rummaging through all the cupboards, I was beginning to lose any hope of having lunch at all!

I did find one eventually, hidden behind some dishwasher trays, and was then faced with the challenge of operating an oven I’ve never used before with no supervision. After a worrying moment of realising the extractor fan wasn’t switched on and I could be steam cooking myself to death, I managed it in the end.

Leaving the house this morning, I rather felt like I was packed for a weekend away rather than a few errands a mile from my house. Origami paper, two uncooked meals, a change of clothes and a towel for just one day seems a lot but it made me think about how few possessions people who live below the line have to get by with. I mean when you see homeless people they don’t often seem to have much with them, do they? Considering they must have all their worldly possessions – there isn’t much ownership in a few blankets and perhaps some cardboard boxes! No origami to keep them occupied, nothing to cook meals on, no change of clothes if they get dirty, and no towel if it’s wet.

On the plus side some people agreed to sponsor me today (which, by the way, you can do by going to my justgiving page), although I did have to sit and watch them eat tea and scones before they signed my form, which was more than a little difficult!

Another difficulty arose after tea when I discovered that my little brother had made a chocolate cake to share and I couldn’t have any. That in itself was temptation enough but what was worse was when I was loading my family’s plates into the dishwasher, there was still chocolate icing on them. Just a tiny smear of chocolate, surely it can’t do any harm? After all I wouldn’t be getting any energy from it really, I just wanted to taste chocolate – but that’s the thing isn’t it – there’s no casual taste testing when you live below the line. So I made my brother lick up the remainder of the icing because I simply couldn’t stand to see it washed away!

On the other hand due to a miscalculation earlier in the week, I found I could have an extra 50g of rice this evening, and I can tell you it made all the difference – for the first time I feel genuinely full – it’s a feeling I’ve missed!

Live Below the Line – Unsustainable

I’m over half way through! Not only that but today I genuinely enjoyed my porridge! To be honest there isn’t much more to write about today; after very nearly caving and buying bread yesterday evening, it’s the first time I’ve enjoyed every meal.

Whilst I am beginning to get the hang of this now, I’m realising more and more that this isn’t a sustainable life style – I’m hungry nearly half the time and despite the fact that I’m having four small meals a day, I’m not getting the recommended number of calories, let alone fibre, vitamins or minerals. I think this is what we often forget about poverty – even if people have enough food to survive, the food they’re getting is often by no means healthy, or indeed pleasant!

I’m pretty sure I’m still running partly on the stored energy from before I started this challenge so it baffles me how people can survive on this long-term, I’m sure it would make you ill! And it does.

Live Below the Line – Sabotage

So because water porridge was so grim yesterday, I decided to push the boat out a little this morning and try just mixing raw oats with the yoghurt I bought. I have to say it wasn’t quite as bad as with water, but it was still pretty awful so I decided to mix it up with a chopped banana.

Seven bananas I started the week with, seven. I ate one yesterday and yet now there were just five. Now, either the reduced food is affecting my mental arithmetic or something fishy is going on here. I left my bag of bananas next to the family ones in the fruit bowl, but I did write my name on the bag and told everyone not to eat my food. I considered just taking one of the other bananas and adding it to my own but then I thought, if you really do live below the line, and someone steals your food, they’re going to eat it before you can steal it back, aren’t they?

So now I’m one banana down, and I still don’t have a real solution to this porridge problem, it’s not looking good! Clearly, I should have taken this as a sign to just crawl back into bed and try again at life tomorrow.

Lunch can only get better though, right? I boiled some water for a boiled egg, put the egg on a spoon to lower into the pan, and dropped it on the floor.

I looked at the smashed egg on the kitchen tiles and a slightly delayed “oh no” escaped my mouth. I couldn’t believe it, I don’t think I’ve ever accidentally smashed an egg in my life and now when it mattered most I had lost a banana and an egg on the same day!

So once I had gotten over this shock I was then faced with the problem of how do you clean up a smashed egg? I mean you don’t want to be mopping the whole thing up with kitchen roll! My dad’s only advice was “Well start off with a spoon”. And of course this is fine for scooping up the yolk but then you’re really just scraping at the floor with egg white sliding around all over the place, so it ended up mostly down to the paper towels anyway.

What have I learned from this debacle? Well in future I’m going to be more careful when handling eggs and I’ve now written my name in biro on each individual banana – I just hope tomorrow’s valuable lesson isn’t about the dangers of ink poisoning!

Live Below the Line – A Little Bit Grim

So I’ve been reliably informed by my brother that I’m going to die – I really hope this isn’t the case! Basically for the next five days I will be ‘living below the line’, buying all the food and drink that I consume for just £1 a day. And I’m starting to wonder why I agreed to doing this!

I joke of course – I agreed to this in order to raise awareness and hopefully funds for the 1.2 billion people around the world who live on less than £1 a day. There is an excellent further explanation as to the reasons behind taking up this kind of challenge by my friend the abmyster, and the only thing I want to add is that whilst we will only be buying food, we’re still getting our accommodation, travel, clothing, heating and everything else we could possibly want paid for. We’re also drinking tap water which comes beautifully costlessly flowing out of our kitchens, whilst so many people around the world have to walk for miles just to drink water full of diseases that will likely kill them. So of course it’s going to be hard, but we are by no means experiencing a fraction of the difficulties faced by these 1.2 billion people!

I’m hoping to give quick updates everyday, so please feel free to happily ignore my posts for the rest of the week if you’re not interested! But, essentially my plan was to get a kilogram of rice, and 500g of porridge oats, and then I would have all the necessary carbohydrates for the week for around £1. At this point everything else is a luxury really! To keep my brother happy, I’m trying to get something from all the basic food groups – some unfortunately battery farmed eggs for protein, some natural yoghurt, some sardines to have with my rice, and a kilogram of carrots because at 49p from Aldi, how can I possibly not? Something tells me I’m going to get a little tired of carrots by Sunday!

With day one over, I have to say I think the porridge was a mistake! I normally make porridge with milk and golden syrup; I thought it would at least be bearable with just water.

Oh how naïve I was. (Is there a pattern forming here?)

The only word I can use to describe water porridge is grim, and I think that’s a trend that will only continue as a week of eating exactly the same thing goes on. ‘Grim’ I would imagine can also be used aptly to describe the food of these 1.2 billion people who have to do this everyday.

The Goodness of the End

On the 27th of June, I finally started to fill out my details on the front of my exam paper for the 14th and last time. This happened so automatically by this point that, honestly, I could have been writing out my name and candidate number but it could have been ancient Arabic, I have no idea!

One thing that did break this monotony was a physics paper which we had to make an amendment to before starting. A ripple of even more intense quiet spread across the sports hall as we all pricked our ears to hear of this mistake we had to correct.

“Now all of you turn to page 23, question 14.”

You could cut the tension with a spoon seriously, never have we been allowed to open the exam paper before the start time – I could see people out of the corner of my eye sneakily looking at questions on previous pages as they flicked through to the right place, I’m just no way near rebellious enough for that!

“The second line currently reads N equals N subscript O, as in the letter, multiplied by E to the power of minus lambda T,” The invigilator said in his ridiculously posh accent, “However it should read N equals N subscript zero, as in the number, multiplied by E to the power of minus lambda T.”

There was a communal release of breath as we all stifled sniggers. “It’s not a big change, I know, but apparently an important one.” For sure!

But there you go, it’s over now.

This of course comes with the return of older siblings and friends from university. Now obviously I get to see people I haven’t in a long time and while that’s all well and good, in my family the return of my older brother is somewhat nervously anticipated. Basically he doubles our weekly food bill, but that’s not all. When a cake is made in my household, it’s a very serious affair! What people never seem to understand about my living with three hungry brothers is that it’s communism in the extreme – we have to have exactly the same size slice of cake. Of course this is impossible so we take it in turns to be allowed the honour of choosing first which piece is biggest. The thing is, none of us are sad enough to draw up a rota and so instead when such a confectionary item has been prepared, my mum will shout “CAKE ANYONE” and there will be a magnificent stampede down the stairs as we all race to the cupboard to get a plate and then fight for the first place in the ‘cake queue’. The first of these squabbles when my older brother is home is often a little fierce. This time it resulted in the smashing of two plates, and a rather hoarse voice for me from laughing so much!

My brothers never fail to make me laugh. The youngest one posted a Facebook status on Monday complaining about how all three of his older siblings have now finished exams but he still has to get up at seven in the morning for school, failing to mention that we all got up before seven that morning anyway – maybe that’s why he only got four likes 😛

I get what he means though, there is something very wonderful about knowing that you’re finished, it’s over for another year, and in some cases you’ll never have to study a certain subject again – after my last exam I was so elated that I ran around college running a last errand giggling to myself and grinning from ear to ear. I also sent a Facebook message to my friend which simply said “woo” but with 103 ‘o’s on the end. I asked if that was a little too much, his reply was “no facebook message woo can express the goodness of the end” True dat!

Busking Adventures – Miscellaneous Tales

As I’m veritably swimming in exam stress flavoured jam right now, I don’t feel particularly obliged to write a really coherent post for you all, so instead here’s a somewhat half-hearted bullet point list of things that have been said to me while out busking, that haven’t quite managed adventures of their own. Some are nice, some are not so much, and others are just plain weird. Enjoy!

• “The Monkees would be proud of you!” Considering I keep forgetting half the words to their song, I doubt it, but thanks!

• “Go home to your parents!”

I’m sorry, but do I look homeless? Granted I had my hair down and it can be a little wild, but I wasn’t even wearing my fingerless hobo gloves.

More to the point though, if I had been homeless, what gives this loser the idea that he knows my situation? For all he knows I don’t have any parents; or they could be in care, or mentally unstable; or they’ve kicked me out because I don’t share their beliefs; or they abuse me so I’ve decided to move out; the list of possibilities goes on and on. Why does he think that based on absolutely zero evidence, he is qualified to tell me how to live my life? I’m 18, I’m entirely legally responsible for myself, why should I be living with my parents anyway? Plenty of my friends already pay rent to live at home.

Honestly I’m not that offended that he thought I was homeless, I’m offended on behalf of the homeless person I could have been. There she was this hypothetical homeless teenager, trying to make the best of a bad situation, earn some money to buy food and such, and he thinks it’s a good idea to shout at her and remind her of whatever awful situation renders her unable to live with her parents. What a douchbag!

• “Have you got a licence?” “No, you don’t need one here” I wasn’t quite sure at first if this guy thought it was his responsibility to police the high street of illegal musicians but I later decided that he was just trying to make conversation. He said he was just tired and he did seem genuinely interested, he gave me some money. Just wasn’t the best at conversation it seemed!

• “You’ve got the look for it too, people look at you and go AWWW she’s so sweet!” Oh great, so there I was thinking I’d earned this money, and it turns out it’s all because of the fact that I look somewhat like a child. I wanted to growl at this bloke but somehow I don’t think that would have helped.

• “Turrah darling” as I was leaving to catch a bus. I turned back and waved, thinking nothing of it and then I thought, ‘hang on, should I have done that?’ I’m still in the state of mind where if an elderly person calls you darling, it’s because they are old, and you are a five-year-old child. It’s literally only just occurred to me that perhaps now, when an aging man calls an 18-year-old girl darling, it’s not quite the same. People have wondered whether wolf whistling originally became a thing because this one time a construction worker whistled at a girl and she turned around and winked at him, and now loads of men think that that’s an acceptable thing to do. What if I have accidentally become that girl?

• “Your wonky teeth make your face interesting” I think I’ve shared this little nugget before on here, but again: wow, what a brilliant thing to say to a stranger!

• “Oh nah mate, nah, you tell her to go away, I like her music!” sarcastically one market person to another across the street. I’m sorry you have to put up with me for an entire hour a few times a month, but you could just ask me to go somewhere else, there are other places, I’d be happy to leave… if you weren’t so rude, I am right here you know.

• “You have a lovely voice!” Never fails to make me fall in love with whoever just said it. Seriously this is so encouraging when you’re not getting much money or the market people are getting you down, I’m going to make a point of saying this to people!

• “Sing up dear” I’m trying!

• “And what are you collecting for today then?” usually followed by “Errr just my university fund” which is sort-of-not-really true. To be honest at the moment I’m just trying to pay back a loan from my parents. I never really know what to think about the idea that people assume you’re doing a charity thing. Obviously charity things are great but people earn money for themselves in their lives too you know.

• “Do you know any George Formby?” Okay, I get that he is possibly the most widely known ukulele player ever but have you heard some of his lyrics? Possibly his most famous song: When I’m cleaning windows is all about the various ways he uses being a window cleaner to perve on women. I get that it’s a joke, and it was very funny I’m sure, but just imagine me as an 18-year-old girl singing that stuff on a crowded high-street… hmmm maybe not!

• “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Yes, as it happens, yes I do. These Germans on a school trip had a sort of treasure hunt quiz to fill out in English but they didn’t understand the word ‘statue’ and they had to count them. I’m only doing German A level so ‘statue’ is a little niche for me too, but I was quite proud that I managed to explain to them that it meant “die Menschen aus Steine” – the people of stone. Helping real life German people with real life problems (this quiz was life and death, I’m telling you) Win!

• “This is going to sound a little weird but: nice to meet you” offering a handshake. There’s this guy who plays guitar, whom I’ve spoken to a few times and whom I always say hi to. One time I asked if I could do a song with him and it was ten minutes in before I realised that although I say hello to him on a regular basis, I hadn’t actually yet introduced myself to my new friend.

• “Would you like a cup of tea?” “I don’t actually drink tea but thanks anyway!” I thought he was a really lovely bloke until I looked at the business card he put in my case (bit cheeky!) and found what my friends and I could only guess was an advert for some sort of cult. Weird!

• “Excuse me, are you in a band?” “Well, sort of?” Turns out this woman thought I was in Keston Cobblers Club as I was playing some of their songs, proudest moment of my life!

Most people I meet are pleasant, polite and well-adjusted folk, honest!