Utterly, totally pooped this evening. I shall retire with a hot mug of tea, a husband and a documentary. I leave you with this repost from this time last year: courtesy of The Sisterhood.
You can always tell a really effective cold. It induces a feeling one is hovering about a foot off the ground.
One might be, if one believed one’s senses, one of those Hovering Nuns. You know: that running spooky visual gag, the mother superior who doesn’t actually walk.
She dispenses with the customary bobbing up and down, that us everyday gentlefolk take for granted. She has a floor-length habit which hides her holy legs.
She’s both very funny, and deeply unsettling. She can be found in horror and ghost stories, and in comedy classics.
When I began to try to recall where I had encountered her, screeched with fear or howled with laughter, I came across a sinister development: I found I was unable to source a single appearance. I could not, for the life of me, recall how I knew about her.
So, how did I remedy this all this? Reader, I googled her. I typed in Hovering Nun, and I pressed return.
And it all came flooding back, thanks to the miracle of modern communications.
For humour, try The Blues Brothers. The nun in this cult classic does not walk: she glides. Doors open and close simply because she approaches them.
And if you watch that spellbinding tale, Death Becomes Her, carefully, you will see three of the creatures pass Bruce Willis on his way to the morgue.
Real fear: look no further than The Omen, where a nun denies Gregory Peck information before rising silently out of sight in an antiquated paternoster lift. Or the dark gliding spirit of Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Normal nuns have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Mine generally wore blue, the habit of the Marist order. They were usually Irish, and often so steeped in the life of the church that they carried a vacant quality around everywhere with them.
They lived in nice houses and when you went to tea with them there was always a fig roll somewhere in the pantry. Some of these figures- who generally bustled rather than your standard hovering- stand out in my memory.
There was Sister Oliver, with whom for some reason I decided I would like to live. I told my mother so, in no uncertain terms, but I can’t for the life of me remember why I was so eager to pack my case and leave.
There was Sister Mary Margaret, who spent an entire year teaching me almost nothing except country dancing. Once I brought my favourite vinyl single into school. I had a sweet, open face and Sr Mary Margaret liked sweet, open faces so she consented to put my record on the school record player.
This good lady never looked beneath the surface of her pupils’ personalities, which was a shame, because she did not realise I was a little rocker. The single was Puppy Love, by Donny Osmond: but its B side was a loud and deplorable pastiche of rebellious rock called Crazy Horses.
She played it all the way to the end, but wore the expression of a prune throughout.
I went to two convents during my secondary school career. The first was in another one of those fabulous old houses. It had been commandeered by Eisenhower for his British HQ during the second world war. A wonderful backdrop to one’s teens.
By the time I was in sixth form I had graduated to black and white nuns: the Bernadine Cistercians, lovely, open-hearted, down to earth Englishwomen. And Frenchwomen.
One day I strolled through the corridors of the pretty mansion from which they ran their school, whistling happily. Not ladylike.
A tiny rotund French nun, half my sixth-form height, stopped me. She remonstrated sternly: “Oooooo eeeeez zat weestling?”
I hitched up my baggy socks and thought on my feet. “Me, Sister”, I replied with as much earnestness as I could muster.
“Whistling is a much undervalued instrument”, I continued. I took a deep breath. “In fact, I am, right now, in the process of composing a whistling concerto.”
I continued in the same vein for a while, waxing lyrical about tone and timbre, orchestration and tempo. The nun’s eyes began to glaze over: and because irony can be in short supply in the corridors of a convent, I got away with that one.
I wouldn’t have got away with it had Father Superior been stalking the corridors. One of those impossibly mannish women, she towered over nuns and students alike, giving the impression the heavies were only just round the corner if one stepped out of line.
The butch exterior hid a heart and spirit of incredible kindness and wisdom, and she was much beloved. If healthily respected.
These days I don’t see many nuns. Are they recession-proof? Once upon a time they were everywhere I looked, but now they’re as rare as those red telephone boxes which sat at the end of every street.
Perhaps they have finally solved a problem like Maria, and cluttered off to celebrate.
Image source here
Kate Shrewsday 
I also was a convent-girl. 12 years with the same order, created for Africa (Nigeria originally, then a little offshoot came here)
Some years ago I was on a plane to Kenya and chatting to the chap next to me was horrorfied to discover he was a Nigerian. (Ask almost any African and we all believe Nigerians are all crooks – see how the bad eggs give a nasty reputation). AND a bishop to boot. Immediately I realised I could out him.
So I started taking about how he must hnow the order. Yup! he’d been visiting them and mentioned them by their names. He WAS real 😉
A Nigerian AND a bishop….gracious….the religious world can be a very small one! Good to touch base with another convent girl, Sidey 🙂
No doubt the fig rolls were part of Sister Oliver’s allure? You’re right, nuns seem pretty thin on the ground these days.
You just can’t get them for love nor money, Cindy….
Great post Kate – sadly the only nun i know was the irreverant Whoopi Goldberg Sleep well 🙂
I loved her 😀 I knew a few like her, too. Singing nuns, party nuns, etc, etc..
I did not grow up with nuns, but my husband (of Irish descent) had two aunts who were the real thing. One of the nun-aunts was a ‘maid’ for a priest. She lived with him until he died. The other lived a more solitary life and died of lady-issues.
Because of my husband’s many nun-memories (he calls himself a ‘recovering Catholic’), I always enjoy trying to understand them, to see them through the eyes of others with that experience. Maybe this post helped me know my husband a bit better. Thank you.
Andra, I have manymanymany more nun stories where this set came from, and most of them are highly amusing because the nuns I knew were unfailingly eccentric. Love to hear some of yours sometime…
Nuns are a bit out of my orbit . . . but I do wonder if they seem to be fewer in number because thei habit of wearing a habit has changed.
Perhaps they stand out less when wearing black slacks with a white blouse?
Feel better, Kate1
I’m sure you have a point there. Plain clothes nuns. You just have to watch for the hover.
You habitually write such engaging pieces, Kate.
I had nothing to do with nuns while growing up except through occasional insights from my neighbour who went to the local convent. Sadly several of that group seemed to be rather vindictive and I didn’t like what I heard.
More recently I have had contacts with nuns, through my nursing: supporting those who wish to die in their own homes – and through that getting to know some of those in their order who are caring for them.
Several different places with which I have had involvement (I can think of two very specifically) are slowly winding down and having to move to smaller premises as their average age rises and their numbers dwindle. I have met some wildly different characters, the best being those who have a brilliant sense of humour and a dry outlook on life.
Wonderful comment, Pseu: to me it seems that the religious life allows attributes to become more marked. My favourite bumbling garden nun was almost a caricature; the singing nun I knew as a sixth former every bit as blu-sky as the ones one the air plane movies. And those who are humorous are wickedly so:_)
I was raised pentecostal, and never had much experience with nuns. Those hovering nuns scared the living daylights out of me. I’m so glad you re-posted this! Rest well…
Thanks, Selena….Nuns are one of my specialisms 🙂
We have an order of French nuns hereabouts. I’m not sure of the name of their order, which doesn’t particularly matter because they seem to be the only ones around in habit and they don’t speak English. They are adored at Farmer’s and French Markets and even had a coffee shop in a library for awhile. They are also referred to as the baking nuns. Like the Keebler elves (Keebler is a brand of cookie, supposedly made by little elves in trees) they seem to bake all night and their pastries as so delicious. I, and most of the area, can resist them as long a I don’t make eye contact. Once that happens, the guilt light comes on, “thank you, sister” and several pastries follow me home. They are a charitable order and most of their proceeds benefit the poor of Chicago. Now, I’m hungry and tired from so many run-on sentences. Another great post, Kate.
A nun who works for the poor in Chicago is, in my opinion, a frontline nun, Penny, and has my undying respect.
(I also cannot resist a nun with a French accent)
My favourite post. And I’ll never watch The View or either one of Whoopi’s Sister Acts without thinking of you.
😀 There is nothing like a nun…
A re-post is great for some of us who have only recently entered the blogosphere! I once asked my mom if there was such a thing as a Protestant Nun. There are several convents nearby and I loved to watch the Sisters. This was lovely! I hope you feel refreshed! Debra
Thanks Debra. If you look at footage of the Royal Wedding you will see that two nuns get to sit closest to Will and Kate. Investigated them at the time. They’re from a protestant order 🙂
I only met one nun and I was surprised she wore normal clothes with the head thing. She was a good woman.
Sounds like we’re going to have to get a nun database worked out here, Tilly. Their attributes are many, it seems.
What a fascinating slice of your life!
We have two small convents within a short walk of where I live. The Poor Sisters of Nazareth and The Good Shepherd Sisters. The latter was originally one of the Magdelene Asylums where women spent large parts of their lives laundering for schools and prisons and were abused. Nazareth House currently provides care for the terminally ill and elderly. We also have a Carmelite Friars community.
I remember the Nun in the Blues Brothers very well – that was so funny 🙂
Finally, a quick joke from when I was at school. A Teddy Boy sees a Nun waiting to cross the road. He rushes up and escorts her through the traffic. When they get to the other side she thanks him and, looking at his attire, askes him why he has helped her? To which he replied ‘Any friend of Batman’s is a friend of mine’ 😉 Ok it’s a very lod one…
Hope you get over your cold soon.
😀 It’s brilliant Martin! It seems that while we don’t always notice them, you’re never more than a few miles away from a nun. In the UK at least.
The kids and I score points if we see a nun, the weirder the situation (a Mini, on a plane) the more points you get… I guess that’s how rare they are now.
A new game. Excellent. Airports seem to be good places to see nuns. I wonder why? Do they fly more than the rest of us?
I don’t know – possibly… but today I saw one in the organic shop! She had a whole trolley full of goodies. How many points d’you reckon?
I’d say an eighter. or even a niner.
I see brothers more often than nuns, and not many of those – just sometimes when I’m walking in a certain area of town. But can one necessarily tell? The only practicing RC sister I’ve ever known well was a plainclothes nun… not that the clothes were that plain. 🙂
You can’t any more, Ruth. They might be anywhere. It’s quite spooky.
Absolutely dig the Blues Brothers, it is a Chicago/ Cab Calloway thing. Sigh…is still wish to be Maria on some days, but only if I can be saved by a singing Captain ~
Ooooh, yes, that would be nice, Angela…
Nun so scary as those who do not walk?
The two daughters and their mother attended convents, to the universal horror of the poor nuns who tried to convert such pagans.
Either nuns have disappeared in our part of the world, or they have outgrown certain habits! *insert groan here*
*Groan* 😀
*greatly encouraged* I have since developed this mental picture of a nun gliding over the carpet giving off a humming noise, and leaving a dust-free swathe behind her. A hoovering nun.
🙂 Oh, to see a photograph….I think the hoover nun might me my favourite type of nun of all.
Come to think of it, Kate, you don’t see many nuns nowadays… years ago, I used to see loads of (I was going to say nun clusters) groups of nuns in threes or fours, and I can’t remember the last time I saw one!
And you are so right about their ‘hover’; they do (or did) glide with grace and elegance. 🙂
….and a sinister air, Tom 😀 I adore the idea of nun clusters. i wonder if you can get an app for this?
Kate, my nuns wore blue too
The Marist Order!
Honest.
Were you at Sunninghill? I was in the final year of West Byfleet. We had a reunion last year with Mother Columbiere, Sr Dominica and Sr Maria.
I WAS at Sunninghill, and there surely can’t be two Sister Columbieres! And is this the same sister Maria who grew heavenly geraniums in the Marist greenhouse? Well, Nuvofelt, there’s a turnup for the books 😀
No, there aren’t two Sister Columieres, and I bet it’s the same lovely Sr Maria. I was (I’ll whisper it) a Protestant! But still taken into their hearts. I bet I could mention other names too. Sr C was headmistress at W By, She moved on to Sunninghill and then became Reverend Mother. I forgot that Sr Lawrence was there last year too. I’ll see if I can find a photo.
Such a coincidence! Amazing what a nun can do….
HI, I wonder if anyone know if Sister Dominica is still at Sunninghill. I knew her years ago and for the first year ever have not had a xmas card from her. Ive tried writing to the address but have had no reply? Anyone know if there is a seperate convent? Im not from that area?