A night out for the girls...

Off for dinner in Glasgow, arrive in Glasgow to be informed that I am staying over, not going home early as planned naively by me. The arm twisting was not excessive, I may add.

Slightly unconventional way to meet someone for the very first time: do come and drink wine in our hotel room and please don't mind if our toilet attacks you.

Yes. Attacked by a toilet. A torrent of water from a burst pipe, which was threatening to drown us all until we turned it off in absence of any action whatsoever from the hotel staff.

Room was pretty much unusable due to the several inches of water and now non functioning toilet, but unfortunately the hotel was full. Negotiations extracted a promise to be moved to another hotel "just across the river" at the end of the night. So off we went for a night out, procuring a free pizza completely unconnectedly in the process and returning as agreed to get a taxi to the new hotel.

Somewhat intoxicatedly negotiating a taxi and hotel with an Ian Fleming (that's not your real name?) we ended up in a taxi going a very, very long way away and depositing us at a rather posh castle hotel. Nice, but where the hell are we? Huge rooms, huge beds, fantastic televisions that didn't work. Our original hotel was being shared by Narcotics Anonymous, this one had a wedding party, and the bonus was that I was officially added to the party despite being a new addition. The strange man in charge provided us with coffee, wedding cake and about 1000 biscuits while trying desperately to put £1 onto a credit card "just because he had to put something through". A suggestion that he should be playing his flute damned near had me ending myself.

And from there on, it was perfectly normal...

To yay or to nay

Yays:

• Olives stuffed with jalapenos
• Galaxy Dark
• Gorgeous boys
  
• The internet

Nays:

• Windows Vista
• People who post endless youtube videos. We know how it works
• People who don't have small children, or any feasible reason other than sheer laziness, that take parent and child spaces. Child, incidentally, doesn't mean teenager or adult offspring
• The planners that decide that regular parking spaces don't need to be big enough to open all the doors of a car in anyway
• Hospitals
• Asda deodorant that makes me sneeze
• The whole recruitment process
• Being internetless for 24 hours
• Taking things too seriously
  

Scunnered...

Third unsuccessful job interview today, it really is soul destroying.

Worrying about the sick/stoical, and the stupid/hypochondriac.

Sick and fed up of people being the way most people are.
Sick and fed up of paranoia that those I am not sick and fed up of must clearly be lying/deluded/finally seeing the light.

Tired. So very tired. Need sleep. Need motivation. Need miracle.

gadgets

So I'm sitting here drooling over the iphone. Yes I need one. For the ten phonecalls a year I make and the 10 miles travel I do these days. Yes, I need one. It's just... necessary.

But wait...

No camera? What???????????????

One day, there will actually be a device that does everything and does it well. I think the Nokia N95 is just about there. We'll see.

Freak out

Arrrrggghhh. Today the children spent the whole afternoon flitting from one impending disaster to another. I did discover that both the dishwasher and washing machine can cope with being reprogrammed and turned off, they both valiantly continue on their intended cycles. I did however have an embarrassing phonecall from Fife Police to ask why there had been a 999 call from my house. They did figure it was children, so were very nice and just checking it out. Yikes.

So far, no job, I am an oaf. Nothing from the Council job I thought had gone well, eventually got an email to confirm that I had been unsuccessful on this occasion (a stupid trite phrase). Sky tormented me for a couple of hours before telling me I wasn't up to standard to answer their phones so feeling really shit hot now. Next week I have interview number three, again with the Council, this time as a receptionist. Hours aren't great, would need childcare for about 6 hours a fortnight, and I have no idea where I will find the energy to work after a day with the terrible twosome. And as to the Masters I am beginning any day - a ha ha ha ha ha ha. Methinks that is potentially a mistake.

I need longer days or a nanny.

Job job job

Despite my impatient ramblings, I ended up with two job interviews. The first of these was today, that of Leisure Attendant at a local primary school. Hours are great, pay is good, job is interesting, but lonesome, no colleagues to chat with - although my friend has a position as head in another school so may be sorted for online scrabble via the intranet.

The second interview is next Thursday and is with Sky's call centre, which would be a good laugh if mindnumbing. And I'd get free Sky Plus, which is almost worth it in itself. Well, ok, no it's not, but here's to positive thinking. Trouble with this is the 3-4 hour interview process. That doesn't sound like a good laugh.

But... today I did an interview and I DID NOT MAKE AN IDIOT OF MYSELF! Really, it went as well as it could have and if I haven't got it, I wasn't the right person for the job. Managed not to talk myself out of each question and at the "do you have any questions?" bit, all these intelligent things started coming out of my mouth. I was impressed, I didn't know they were in there, but I trust that the interviewers didn't notice that this intellect was all new to me.

I must be the only person on the planet who gets a confidence boost from an interview. Here's hoping I get the job as well.

Please cross all your fingers and toes for me.

Regression

I'm sitting here at the desk I got when I was 18, which I rescued from being a plant stand today. I'm next to the bed, back to the mirrored wardrobes, next to the bookcases overflowing with books, and I'm wondering why I've moved on many, many years in time and my bedroom looks exactly the same. It's not the same house and I'm certainly not using a Mac Classic II, but I've got a rush of nostalgia and memories.

I may add the decor and particularly the wall adornments (more art, less BMW) are quite different now, but I don't seem to have changed otherwise all that much. The main thing missing is the stereo and shelves of CDs (updated and part of the infrastructure of the living room), but the laptop, mobile and Palm are all additions I'd have killed for back then. The reason for my being in here is due to two little guys moving into the spare room and slowly spreading throughout the rest of the house, not because this is it, my entire living space.

It's strange. I've got it in the same corner of the room it lived in at home. The windows and wardrobes are in the same relative places. Spooky, somehow, the ghosts of my own past are looking over my shoulder. I hope they aren't too disappointed, I must point them down the hall to the ex-spare room...