Interviews, brevity and Tom and Jerry.

I began this blog back in April never having read a blog before. Since starting though I have been reading other peoples blogs and have realised a few things:

1. I write way too much.
2. I need to work out how to attach pictures so that it looks prettier
3. I should break the text up more instead of using long paragraphs eg. by using bullet points!
4. Everyone else seems to write about a single topic (for instance food, travel etc) and although I started thinking I was going to write about redundancy it hasn't always ended up that way.
5. It's good to throw in a few quotes

So I will attempt to keep this blog brief, to the point, pretty and with not too long paragraphs.

Things have been happening on the job search front this week. I have had an interview, a phone interview and also signed on at the Jobcentre. All on the same day!

I was getting ready to go to the Jobcentre, checking that my jobsearch diary was up to date and that I had recorded all the websites I had looked at, where I had sent my CV and jobs that I had applied for, when the phone rang. It was someone from the garden centre that I had applied to, asking me to go for an interview the next day. This put me into a real panic as I think I mentioned last week that I am not a gardener. I sent a desperate message to my ex-colleagues on Facebook asking for (well demanding) help to prepare for the interview and for them to tell me everything they knew about plants and gardens. They promptly replied and tried to help. What soon became clear was that they knew about as much about plants and gardens as I did, or to quote Paul Daniels "Not a lot". What I learnt in summary is: some plants have flowers, some don't and some grow things that you can eat and apparently some of these fruit and veg can sing and talk (if Mr Bloom is to be believed).

My first signing at the Jobcentre was interesting. I told the adviser that I had an interview the next day and what it was for. He mentioned that it was a very different job to my previous occupation and then went on to tell me that he was being made redundant in a couple of weeks. The rest of the interview was about him and his plans (college for an access course, then hopefully Uni). He didn't ask to see my job search diary which I had laboriously recorded everything in, or ask what I had done to try and find work, just booked me another appointment for 2 weeks time.

When I got home I had another phone call from a seasonal job that I had applied to. This was more  like an interview with her asking me about skills and experience. She asked me about my availability and I explained that I had an interview the next day and agreed to keep her informed about how I got on in this.

The next day was the interview at the garden centre. I say interview but really it was just a chat. The manager seemed really nice but they had interviews for the following week planned so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

I should end this post here as it is brief, to the point, contains a quote, even it is from Paul Daniels, and has fairly short paragraphs. I still haven't managed to work out how to upload pictures to make it prettier but will keep working on it and you never know there might be some visuals to look at next week. For this week you'll just have to imagine a picture of a flower, maybe a tree and a grape vine.

Its a shame to end it here really as I wont get to tell you about the incident with me chasing my dog Billy, who was chasing the neighbours cat who was simultaneously chasing what I thought was a little mouse but turned out to be a vole. Or the moral dilemma this entailed, which should I protect first? The cat, the mouse or my neighbours cat flap which Billy nearly destroyed trying to reach the fleeing cat. But if I were to tell you about this I would be  straying from the point so I mustn't, but believe me it was a real Tom and Jerry moment.

I won't get to tell you either about this weeks foraging experience of picking wild strawberries and how I had forgotten how much stinging nettles hurt. Or how annoying I am finding the dawn chorus these days, yes the birds sound pretty, but 4.30am, really? No, none of this will be discussed by me in this new improved, succinct, ramble free post. Nice word ramble, as is amble but not scramble, no definitely not scramble.

Chelsea Flower Show, sorrel and unleavened bread.

A busy week this week. I've applied for 4 jobs now but not heard back from any of them yet. One of the jobs is a proper job and the others are ones that I think that I might like. For some reason I feel a bit more inspired about the non-proper/seasonal jobs than the proper career type one.

One of them is at a garden centre and I feel quite excited about this, probably due to an overdose of Chelsea Flower Show. Those that know me well will be surprised to hear about my interest in this job as I am definitely not a gardener. I like a nice garden but don't like getting my hands dirty and know nothing about plants. In fact until recently I thought that garden plants grew in muck or mud but have been reliably informed that they grow in soil and compost. 

I think  that instead of being a gardener I would in fact be more suited to hard landscaping as I love a nice wall, especially the dry stone variety. In a previous post I mentioned that I had walked Hadrian's Wall, now that's an impressive bit of stonework. Some people might be interested in the historical significance of it but for me its a beautiful, awe inspiring structure. I feel another perfect moment coming on.

 I remember one day whilst walking Hadrians wall, sitting up against the wall at lunchtime and looking out across an escarpment towards Scotland. The sky was the blue of a forget-me-not (please note the gardening reference there), there were fluffy clouds scudding across the sky, the curlews were swooping and I could feel the warmth of  the sun on my face and the warmth of the wall against my back.  It felt like we were on top of the world, masters of all we surveyed. A perfect moment and now a wonderful memory (at least until we stood up and realised that we had been sitting on a rabbits toilet and they hadn't even flushed). 

So anyway a bit of a tangent there but a busy week of job search. Which reminds me, a friend told me about a couple of websites that you could register on to be a freelance writer. It seemed genuine so I gave it a go. I filled out the online form, took the grammar and spelling test. Then I had to complete a timed writing task. For the first  I had to write a tourist piece about somewhere I had visited in 250 words, the second I had to give housing info about a town in 150 words. Its really hard to write succinctly and I realise how much I rabbit on in these blogs. The first website said it would get back to me in a couple of weeks and the other sent results the next day. I scored 75% and the reason they marked me down was because they said I didn't stick to the topic, they might just have had a point there. So I don't think that I'll be making a living that way.

A busy week cooking for me too. I've made 2 loaves of bread which have both gone straight in the bin. I can normally make bread OK but these were made with out of date yeast and it turns out that dried yeast doesn't work when it is 2 years past its sell by.

I mentioned previously that mum had been supplying me with veg but this supply has now dried up. The only thing she has that's pick able at the moment is from her herb garden, and the sorrel is doing particularly well. So this week I picked a load of sorrel and found a recipe to use it to make risotto. I don't really like sorrel but its free and I thought that at least it would help to ward off the scurvy that I'm at risk of since cancelling my organic veg box. The recipe said to use goat cheese and Parmesan.

Well I hate goats cheese, it tastes like goats smell. Its one of the few flavours I don't like. At the risk of starting an international incident another one  is Hershey chocolate which to me has a whiff of babies sick. Another is very ripe Camembert whose ammonia smell reminds me of stale nappies. So you get the idea; freshly baked bread, strawberries and coffee good; goats, babies sick and stale nappies bad.

I started making my risotto only to realise that I had left my Parmesan cheese in mums fridge. So instead of Parmesan and goats cheese I used cheddar. Maybe it was because I used the wrong cheese and maybe it was because I don't like sorrel but the risotto wasn't very nice, although it was a lovely vibrant green colour. Oh I miss my Riverford Box.

So a week of applying for work and cooking. I just hope that I am more successful in my job search than I have been in my cooking. Maybe then next year you'll be seeing me collect my gold medal at Chelsea and don't forget to look out for the sorrel risotto grouting that will be holding up my decorative wall, the stones of which may well resemble unleavened bread.

Scrabble, Flora Day and positivity.

Once again I need to start this week with an apology. Last weeks post was a bit miserable and self indulgent, sorry about that. This week though I have got my positivity back and don't plan to let go of it anytime soon. In fact I have positivity in a head lock and if anything I am likely to throttle the poor thing. Maybe I need to treat it a bit gentler, coax and encourage it to stay with me rather than twist its arm behind its back. But either way this week is a good week and again I feel that I could rule the word (if I wanted to).

Speaking of which the election results are in and the Conservatives have a majority. In his first Cabinet meeting Cameron stated that
"This is a Government for working people".
Well that's me stuffed then (get back here positivity)!

I have been looking for work properly for nearly 2 weeks now and so far have applied for one job. I still really like the idea of being self employed but just don't know if I am brave enough (ruling the world is one thing but running my own business might be a step too far). Job search seems to take such a long time, scrolling through websites, reading job descriptions and trying to work out if I have the necessary skills and if I can blag it if I don't and then filling out the forms. When I do rule the world one of the first laws that I'm going to pass is that there will be one, and only one, application form, every employer will use it for every job. It will save applicants hours, if not days and will also save employers time in designing forms. I could call my party the Uni-form party, cos who doesn't love a uniform?

I had my first appointment at the Job Centre yesterday to see about claiming jobseekers allowance. The advisor I spoke to was very nice but I couldn't help feeling that I was sat on the wrong side of the desk. I go back to sign on a week tomorrow and really hope that I don't have to claim for too long.

On a brighter note it was Flora Day this week. My home town is Helston and Flora is a big thing for Helstonians. There are various dances through out the day the first and my favourite being at 7 am. The best part of the day for me is getting to the Guildhall just before seven and jostling in the crowd to get a view of the clock then watching the hands slowly move. As soon as it is 7am the church bell strikes the hour and then nearly immediately the big drum is struck and the band starts up. Its that moment between the bells chime and the drums boom that for me is special, it only lasts for about half of a second but always moves me to tears. In a previous post I wrote about a perfect moment sitting on the cliff with my dog well this is another one of those perfect times, in fact its more precious as it only lasts for a fraction of the time. A special moment filled with anticipation, excitement, possibility and potential. A moment filled with the scent of bluebells, lilly of the valley, pasties and spingo (spingo is a local beer and yes people start drinking and eating pasties at 7am on Flora day). A perfect moment.

Flora day is a day to welcome spring and summer and to chase away winter and darkness which was a bit ironic this year as it was freezing. I danced the childrens dance and the Hal-an-tow when I was younger and now watch the dancers with a bit of envy. Every year when I was at school I danced with a lad called Mark. Each year when everyone was planning who they were going to dance with there would be a knock on our front door at home. On the door step was Mark, he looked a bit like a rounder and redder faced Milky Bar kid and he would ask me and my parents if he could dance the Flora with me (his parents would be waiting at the bottom of the drive). From the age of 6 till about 13 we danced together. We never spoke to each other for the rest of the year, in fact I'm not sure that we even talked when we were dancing but like clock work each year he would turn up to ask me to dance. Looking back I marvel at the innocence but also wonder why we never spoke, we could have got on really well. However after the first 3 years of not talking I guess that that was our relationship set in stone until I heartlessly ditched him to take part in the Hal-an-tow instead (if you've not been to Flora Day google it, it's bound to be on youtube).

A few weeks ago a friend introduced me to on-line scrabble and I love it. I've had a few lucky games when I've been dealt  with brilliant letters and done well. I started to kid myself that I was good at it and was destined to be a scrabble champion who ruled the world. Then this week I had a game against my Mum when for 4 goes I had no vowels and I realised that I was only as good as the letters I was dealt with. I guess life is a bit like scrabble, when you have good letters you can achieve and be a winner but sometimes you get dealt a duff hand and need to rely on others to provide vowels in order to make any words, even low scoring ones.

So spring is here, scrabble rules and somewhere out there is a polite, quiet, reliable, middle aged man called Mark. I hope that he has found someone that he can both dance with and talk to.

The future, the past and tomato soup

When my job role became redundant I decided to take a month off for myself. I have always worked full time and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a career break. Well that month is now over so it is time for the career break to end and for me to now begin to career fix. I'm a bit sad about this as I've enjoyed my month off but its time to start looking for my next challenge.

Having taken this time out I have rethought my priorities and would like to work part time in the future. Ideally I'd like to find something for about 3 or 4 days a week. I'd also rather do something different, however I was in my previous job for nearly 16 years and somehow can't picture myself doing anything else. I think when you've been in a job for a long time you almost get institutionalised and doubt that you can work for anyone else. I'd like to become self employed but don't know if I am brave enough.

So the plan is to spend mornings on job search and the afternoons doing things I would like to do (except for Wednesdays of course when I write this blog). I've emailed off for 2 job details and then had the frustration of not being able to open the attachments to read the job descriptions (thanks to my brother-in-law for sorting this out for me). My first day of job search and I was already getting frustrated with the process and I decided not to apply for the jobs anyway as according to the job description they weren't looking for me.

So its time now to start looking forward and to think of the future but I have found myself reminiscing about the past and things that have already happened. This has been caused by a couple of related events.

The first was that a drama has been on TV called the "C Word". Its a true story about a woman diagnosed with cancer who decided to write a blog to help her to come to terms with her diagnosis. It sounds as though it should be a miserable way to spend an evening but it is very good (not without a tear or two admittedly as she dies at the end).  It is available on BBC iPlayer and I recommend you watch it if you haven't already seen it.

The other thing that has got me thinking about the past is that earlier this year a former colleague died of cancer and yesterday would have been her birthday.  She was an amazingly energetic, committed and vibrant person. Caring, enthusiastic and just bonkers enough to be interesting

I  too was affected by cancer a few years ago and as my former colleague had already been through treatment she inspired me to try to be stoic through out my experience. Like the "C Word" I used to write about my experiences. I didn't write a blog at that  stage but used to write an email which I sent out  to friends and colleagues which I called my "Update". I found that the "C Word" rang bells for me in many ways although I certainly never saw a consultants office as nice as the ones on the TV show, to be honest most of them resembled broom cupboards.The treatment room on the TV show was also an upgrade to the one at our local hospital too.

Unlike the character in the show, my former colleague and many others too numerous to mention I am still here to tell the tale. I am of course grateful about this, I'm not ready to hang up my Jimmy Choos yet. But it does also raise other feelings as well. Feelings such as guilt as to why I get to survive and others don't (others who are maybe more deserving). There's also that thought at the back of my mind that the cancer could come back, it's not something that I think about for every waking minute but it is always there in the background. I guess it's a bit like tinnitus, when you're busy and having fun your brain is distracted and you don't hear the ringing but in those quiet moments you hear it all too well.

On a completely different note I went out for a meal the other evening. When I was searching through my handbag for my purse at the end of the evening in order to pay my share of the bill, I came across a plastic sherrifs badge spray painted silver. My friends questioned why I had it in my bag and for a while I couldn't remember why I owned it let alone had it with me. Eventually I remembered that I had worn it as part of my fancy dress on New Years Eve and I had just never taken it out of my bag. It made me think about all the baggage we carry around with us and don't even notice until someone else questions it. That baggage can sometimes be emotional or psycholological and can sometimes be physical items such as my sherrifs badge (or the carton of tomato soup which luckily my friends didn't spot lurking at the bottom of my bag).

So instead of looking towards the future this week I have been spending time looking backwards. We all carry around a lot of baggage but we wouldn't have got to where we are now without it. Sometimes bad stuff happens but sometimes things work out OK. And just to be on the safe side I recommend that you always carry a sherrifs badge and a carton of tomato soup with you, cause you just never know.