Summer's over then...

So, I'm thinking, nice, have a wee holiday before the contract starts when I get a call, remember the job in Leicester, the one I interviewed for while on holiday, well, can I start tuesday? do 4 days, then possibly the weekend....and fit the remaining 4 days in somehow over the next month...er...OK...yeah, sure and at £300 a day I can't say no right?...sigh...there goes me break...oh yeah, I just had 2 months off right?...hmmm
So, went to see my sister saturday, gave the middle son his 18th birthday pressie, an eye brow bar for his new peircing and a tennah to blow on drugs, well, I'm all heart me. We then went for a nice 3 pinter at her local before dashing home for the missus to get ready for a fancy dress ball she's inviited to in Oxford. I chose to stay at home and worry about Tuesday! Today, she gets home and we pop out for 2 pints by the river, seems like I missed a crappy birthday party, well done me for being a miserable git and refusing to go.

Interview this...

Typical isn’t it, one week - 4 interviews, nothing doing then, out of the blue a call about a job, contract, with a start date, no interviews, no suit wearing, bullshit talking, swatting up, nothing, just a start date. Excellent.
It’ll keep me busy at least while I carry on looking for something permanent. Last week then, back from holiday and an interview in Leicester with a bank who wanted help with their intranet, specifically a controlled vocabulary for indexing content to it. All went well, except for the drive back when I discovered my brakes had gone and I was using the disc as break pads. (got it fixed next day, £500!! - thanks Dave, Nige and Nick).
They offered me the gig there and then but because they are at an early stage I think it may be a while before they get their act together.

Thursday, 2 interviews in the City, one for a business school as a fund raising researcher, the other for a charity who wanted to use Google adwords with their internet, or something. Both interviews went ok, the problem for me was the gap between the first one, 9:30am and the last, 3:30pm…talk about kicking my heels all day and it was very warm too, so a very unpleasant day. (I didn't get either, the candidates that beat me had, guess what?...fund raising experince and Google Adwords experience...or so they tell me. I'm not fussed though, I'm learning that I shouldn't say "yes" to all interviews, because I want a job, but to be more selective)

The weekend was dull, usual trip into town. The missus is busy re-doing the elder smashers room, out with Thomas the tank engine shit, in with camouflage curtains and bedspread and jungle walls…my son is growing up, next naked ladies and “keep out” signs, strange noises and funny smells…

Monday, another interview, this time local, good money and I was really looking forward to it…until I saw the library, sheesh, what a dump, quiet and dusty, staffed with a couple of lifers with a manager situated on the other side of the country who seemed to be in charge of reprographics, printing and the like, for the organisation and the library combined…not a good sign. He spent the morning, let’s say, in a reflective mood, moaning about budget cuts and the fight he has on his hands trying to keep the library open and funded!…I get home and an agency calls about a contract in Milton Keynes, start Monday week…I’m fed up going to interviews, sure I say…great.

Last day, a bit rainy, so we had a cream tea in Pately Bridge then went back to Lightwater for "crazy" golf. Later we had dinner at the Bull Inn, lovely end to the week. Xlnt. 

Day 5 Lightwater Valley theme park...sigh...birds of prey only wildlife on show fank gawd..full of Geordies pet mind like y'nah and the wee smasher could only go on 3 rides, but still..a couple more calls from agencies too..I should go away more often... 

Day 4. stayed in Rippon all day, the missus wanted to see where we were staying like, boring though, Rippon's dull, so we soaked in the hot tub all day instead and I went swimming in the health club next door. 

Day 3. York...had to be done. Later we went to the National Rail Museum and I had a call from an agency about an interview for next week... 

Day two and we're at Newby Hall for arts sake..later I had a job interview by phone, while sitting alongside a river...a mini train, full of kids, kept going past though, ruining me speel 

Here we are, day one of our holiday, on some frozen Yorkshire moor, on our way to Whitby... 

Signing on

Signing on day yesterday, I must ay I enjoy these days, it gets me out of the house, away from safari parks and I get to meet, well, come close to, another sort of wild animal, a Hertford yob. There I was, patiently waiting to be asked over to a desk to sign on when this yob comes in and starts pacing up and down in front of me, like, yeah, he’s busy yeah! But the staff were ignoring him, rightly. He turns to me and says “Oi, you waiting to sign on?”
Yes mate, I say, you think I’m sitting here for my health you stupid cunt?…Ok, I don’t say that, I just say…yes…annoyed he carries on pacing in front of the nearest signing on desk when one of the staff gets up, ignoring the yob, comes over to me and ushers me to his desk…"Oi, I’m waiting n’all mate” the yob says but is politely asked to sit down and wait his turn! Brilliant entertainment!

I had a few agency calls yesterday mostly a waste of everyone’s time, but hey! I got plenty of that. Today the missus and the smashers are off to see Noddy leaving me home alone. think I'll get me hair cut and have a pint somewhere, sadly the buy-one-pint-get-half-free offer is over at my local...I might try my UB40 card in a council estate boozah, I hear you can get 50% off a pint of mild in those places, mind you, I might run into that yob again...

wildlife

Yesterday, yet another wildlife safari park, this time Woburn, off the M1 which was ok, but I think I’m maxed out on wildlife for one summer. The kids seemed to enjoy it though, well, the bits where they could get out of the car and stop looking at animals! Expensive too, £50 for a family, thank-you Tesco for the vouchers and making my unemployed summer a little more tolerable. I got another couple of job specs through, some completely inappropriate, other nearer the mark, but I’m saying to all of them, yes! Put my cv through, let’s see what happens…only time will tell and I’m hoping this holiday we’ve booked for next week will take my mind off things, but I’ve a feeling it wont....and there's another wildlife park where we're going too....sigh

Ignore

So, I was doing some intensive staring the other day, mid-morning kinda stuff, lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling y’know? Oh for about 20 minutes I reckon, when the missus hoves into view above me and shoves a party invitation into my up-turned face..it’s for a fancy dress party for a mate of hers, no wait, a husband of a mate of hers, his 40^th no less, in Oxford…I drag my eyes from the ceiling, look at the details on the invite, sigh, then resume staring at the ceiling…I think I’m depressed, don’t you?

At the weekend, we went to Northampton to visit the brother-in-law who took us to a local zoo, for the smashers innit…wasn’t bad, he paid for everything bless him, to spare me from my social embarrassment of being unemployed. I know it affects people in different ways, some people want to visit you and buy you drinks, others totally ignore you, hoping you’ll get a job soon so that they can resume contact, spending time with a dolite isn’t my idea of fun I must admit but it’s interesting to see who of my so-called mates rally round and who do a bunk…I will remember this time and re-visit it many many times again….