I have a special affection for nuns. I grew up in a house in a village just outside of Jerusalem that belonged to the neighbouring convent. We lived in a gorgeous red house that we rented from the convent and there was a path that ran between our house and the convent.

We were good friends with the nuns. The nun working in the kitchen would often bake cookies for us, the nun working with the chickens would give us eggs, one of my brothers even had piano lessons from one of the nuns and apparently loved her because she smelled nice. The nuns would let us camp in the fields they did not have in use and they would let us play soccer there or play war (we lived in Israel after all…) with sticks for guns as my parents refused to get us any toy guns. The nuns were of French origin and I learned my first French words from them (alas, my French has not improved much since).

My oldest brother died at age 7 after an accident, a year before I was born, and he is buried in the convent graveyard. The nuns had offered my parents a place to bury my brother in this most beautiful, peaceful spot. My parents had asked the abbess whether it was a good idea, whether the mother-house in France would allow a child to be buried in what was strictly a convent graveyard. The mother abbess had apparently replied, “We only have to ask permission when we are in doubt. And we are not in doubt!” So, there he is (small white grave with white cross on the right in this picture), the only child that rests there amongst nuns and a few monks.

There are many more tales to tell of the nuns (for instance, my mom even held bra-fittings for them in our house from charity bras she had received through her charity work!) but that will take too long. Suffice it to say that when I left Israel at the age of 10, it was very difficult to say goodbye to the nuns, we loved them so! This is a picture taken just before we left, with blond little me in front of the nun who always made us cookies. 🙂

I was so enamoured with nuns, I even had this idea of becoming a nun myself one day, as they are so much fun! It was only later, when I realised what becoming a nun actually meant, that I decided that such a path would really not suit me after all. However, one of my brothers continued to tease me about it for years and even made me an “Esther for nunnery” banner that I had up on the wall in my room for a long time (from my late teens to early twenties)!

By the way, that’s a real guinea pig I am holding there!

It was still up on the wall when my now-husband first visited my room… luckily he never felt threatened by it. 🙂

So, nuns always hold a special place in my heart and then two days ago Richard tweeted about watching #golfnuns on German TV while he was on his treadmill!

Source ‘Me + Richard Armitage’

Oh, how I loved that tweet and for once I even responded directly to @RCArmitage (which I rarely do) about it! I mean, how could I not react when Richard Armitage speaks of nuns? My mum always watches this particular German show (called “Um Himmels Willen” – click on Me+Richard Armitage link above for more info) because they always remind her of the nuns we lived so close to for many years.

To my dismay I found that yesterday this #golfnuns tweet was deleted, along with some other ‘naughty’ tweets Richard Armitage had posted. Apparently it was too offensive for some and a “Cybersmile ambassador” is not allowed a sense of humour for fear of offending, well, anyone on the planet? For me, Richard was very much ‘cybersmiling’ in these tweets. 🙂 Anyway, I do not want to speculate on why they were deleted and without a statement from Mr. A. himself it’s useless anyhow. They could have been deleted for any number of reasons… All I really want to say is: what a huge pity that the nun tweet has gone and that other joke-tweets have disappeared as well!

I love nuns and I love Richard Armitage and I love to see the two connected! Which leads me to Strike Back…

… and to a Twitter account called Sister Alex @NunsLuvArmitage. That account, set up two days ago, just has me in stitches!

I hope the fun and ‘naughty’ tweets from @RCArmitage will return… a girl can hope, right?