I keep promising myself I will do this but live an extraordinarily grumpy life so have decided to make it more of an ‘occasional’ feature - hopefully weekly. So here goes…
1. The smell of rain on hot pavements.
2. So many people wrote really kind things on my leaving card at work. I was only there a very short time but most of the messages were really personal and when I look at them I can believe I’m good at what I do.
3. The Beloved picks some bright, sunny flowers from the garden and puts them in a vase in the kitchen to brighten up my day. I remember he can be so kind and it makes the tough times we often go through seem a little bit more worth it.
…and not mine!
I went for an interview on Friday (13th - was never going to be auspicious) which was really hard core and even included a mock ‘hostile’ TV interview (the joy!). The job is reasonably interesting although it would be something of a departure for me so I spent ages reading up about it all and generally trying to be professional in approach. Had the interview, seemed to go reasonably well, then got the phone call that ‘whilst they loved me, my skill set wasn’t exactly the match they were looking for blah blah blah’. Slightly disappointing at the time but fair enough.
So this morning get a phone call saying there had been a miscommunication and they had got me confused with someone else (hard to believe considering they gave their feedback within five minutes) so could I go to the second round of interviews?!
Perhaps I am too cynical but I think there’s something else going on and really don’t want to put myself through another tough interview if I’m already at a disadvantage (one theory is that they need to take x number of people through to the next stage and one has dropped out so I’ll just be there to make up the numbers). On the other hand they could have - belatedly - realised my various charms!
Redundancy is playing heavy on my mind - well more to the point, looming days of unemployment are filling me with dread. I’ve had some thoughts about things I can do but none of them seem particularly suited to paying bills which is a worry.
In addition, the vultures are back circling round my parents making odd noises about legal advice and other nonsense. Still no sign of the photos. If I was them I would not being drawing legal attention to the fact they have stolen photos from the Estate but there you go.
Have to go back to hospital tomorrow for a liver ultrasound. I am not looking forward to this.
I am also feeling fat.
Oh I do need to get a grip and stop being such a misery guts.
FOOTNOTE: would seem I’m not the only one on this fair isle feeling a bit sorry for myself - it’s part of our British make up
Monday morning and absolutely exhausted - NOT good. Largely my sleepiness is because I spent most of last night coughing - again. I just don’t seem to be able to shake this chest thing. It hardly bothers me during the day but as soon as it gets dark the coughing monster appears. I am getting mighty tired of it as is the Beloved who even decamped to the spare room at 5 this morning it was so bad.
As an aside, amazing how light it is at 4.30am.
I am still suffering from general malaise which has not been helped by being made redundant on Thursday. I am hopeful this is a temporary blip on the employment front but I have a strange deep, dark feeling about it (most of which involves signing on and the associated destruction of the soul). At the moment my colleagues still don’t know that I am only here for another three weeks, they are being told tomorrow which I can’t say I’m looking forward to - I’m not good at receiving sympathy.
I only went away for a week and meant to blog about it as soon as I got back but then I got sick (yes, I am - at the moment - always a very poorly child for some reason) and then it was back to work with a zillion things to do and in the evening catching up on those all important TV moments from the previous week. So, all in all, I just don’t know where the week has gone.
I will get round to blogging about the holiday but just wanted to blog about the FABULOUS live Honda ad on Channel 4 last night. Honestly the most exciting bit of British TV I’ve seen in ages. It takes a lot for this marketing-bollocks weary person to get even remotely interested in ads but Channel 4 came up with a cracking idea and Honda were brave to run with it. Probably also helped that it was sky diving which is guaranteed to make me jump up and down like a small child going “again, again!”
I’m very excited because I’m going to the launch party for the Real Food Festival this evening which promises a good deal of sampling of free food and drink plus I can learn how to skin a rabbit (okay I probably won’t take the opportunity to actually try it myself) and apparently there is ’sheep entertainment’, a concept which is highly exciting - although I would prefer pig entertainment as porkers are my favourite animals (sheep are slightly stupid).
Unfortunately I can’t get to the debate but I’m hoping that they will put it online or at least do something with the outcome because cheap food is costing the earth and there’s a lot of whingeing at the moment about the price of food going up. I’m not saying that people aren’t feeling the squeeze* but as a nation we are now spending less on food than 30 years ago, in fact just 10% of our disposable income which is also less than our neighbours in Europe (who spend on average 20%) - let alone the rest of the world.
I suspect ethical food is a very middle class preoccupation but it really distresses me that most consumers are so divorced from the reality of where their food comes from and have an expectation that they should eat meat every day and that they should be able to get apples (or tomatoes or asparagus or indeed anything else that is SEASONAL) 365 days a year and all for rock bottom prices.
I’ll stop before I really start ranting…
* I understand that a credit crunch is a specific economic phenomenon but I suspect the UK media are creating a self-fulfilling spiral of economic misery frightening people into feeling poorer than they actually are. Also - and I’m going to sound like a Tory here and I do apologise because I’m not - people taking responsibility for their own profligate spending/credit should not be bailed out by the government or the banks. Again financial responsibility (like social responsibility and where your food comes from) should be learnt as part of a holistic education from parents and in schools. Okay now where is that copy of Socialist Worker?
So I’ve started my latest contract and on the whole it’s okay - although everyone is very young so there’s a lot of hand holding (and feeling very old). However, I feel like I have been shoved in the office equivalent of the broom cupboard: my desk is under some ceiling windows - great for sunlight but I get absolutely blinded between 11 and 1; behind me is an ‘informal meeting area’ (read sofas) where vast quantities of people seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to talk VERY LOUDLY; and - at the moment - the whole office smells of burnt toast because we have an open plan kitchen. Hmmm…all in all not very feng shui.
Found this blog today and it made me laugh and cringe in equal measure. PR people, my colleagues, how can you get it so wrong?!
By the way, I realise it’s taken me three months to actually “find” this blog but you know I could spend all day looking at blogs end up not seeing them all (and likely end up jobless and friendless as well).
