A little ray of sunshine...

So it turns out that blog posts are also like job interviews and buses, so here is a second for today.  My lovely friend Kirsti (A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings) presented me with my first Blog Award today, this Sunshine Award, being new to this I was pretty chuffed! Thanks poppet! 

 

So, apparently there are rules to these things and they are to tell you all a little bit about myself and then pass the award on to 10 other bloggers. As the only bloggers I know have already had it, I’ve decided to mush together the rules and tell you 10 things about me instead.

1.       I love lists – I write them about anything and everything and find it immensely satisfying to cross things off

2.      Trees are my favourite things, the older, knobblier and twistier the better. Forests make me happy. I once found a tree that was over 8m around and therefore about 1300 years old, just imagine what it’s seen!

3.       I own over 30 pairs of flipflops, and yes I mean flipflops not thongs or jandals weirdos!

4.       I wish Julie Andrews was my extra Granny, I have an unnatural love for singing nuns

5.       Tea runs through my veins instead of blood

6.       I love cake but mostly for the icing

7.       I was born and raised by the sea, I get off kilter if I haven’t seen it or smelled it for a while

8.       There is nothing more joyous on earth than popping bubble wrap

9.       I have been in love with the lovely Oscar winning Colin Firth for over half of my life *swoons*

10.   I am the Queen of Procrastination-ville, why do something now when you can leave it to the last minute?!? 

Fascinating insight huh!? 

The thoroughly miserable truth about job hunting

Job interviews are like buses, you wait around for ages and then two turn up at once. I’m pretty sure that Monday was sent by someone not very nice to destroy me. I hate job interviews, I’m rubbish at them. I’m not one of these people who can talk for ages about how wonderful they are, I’m not very good when I’m put on the spot and I’m just about the most nervous wreck in the world when I have to meet strangers, especially a panel that want to catch you out and are sitting there judging you, what you’re wearing and your answers.

On Monday I had managed to line up two interviews one at a school in the north of the city and the second in a town about an hour and a half away by train. Frightening enough on their own, I wasn’t looking forward to having to go through two of the dreaded things. If I had known what a horrible day was waiting for me I would have climbed back under the duvet and ignored the alarm clock.

 I am a terminal insomniac at the best of times; there was no hope for a good night’s sleep before the day of doom! I woke up after about four hours sleep feeling groggy and wrong and that was just the beginning. Phase one of the day went pretty well, I got to the first interview in plenty of time so wandered up the high street to get some hayfever tablets as I had forgotten to take some. By this point after walking to the train station and then to the chemist my feet were starting to get sore in my interview heels.

The first interview was awful; I couldn’t seem to get my head together to answer the questions. It didn’t help that I couldn’t really work out what they were asking me half the time and the other half they seemed to be asking me the same questions but worded slightly differently. There’s only a certain number of times that you can say that you’re really organised, efficient and committed without starting to sound like you’re either trying to convince yourself or that you’re a bit mad! I wasn’t holding out much hope by the time they actually let me go.

I was a bit early for the train to Andover for interview two so I thought I might as well go and get some lunch from the bakery to eat on the train. By now my feet were severely protesting (considering they are happiest in flip flops or bare it wasn’t surprising!) so when I got on the train I plastered myself up. Turns out they were actually bleeding. Fun times! I get to Basingstoke where I am to change to the Andover train. By a cruel twist of fate the signals near London had broken down and no trains were getting through, the guard couldn’t really tell me what was going on and thought it would be at least 40 minutes before things got moving again. I had an hour to get to Andover and to the office. After a minor fit of indecision I decided that the best course of action would be to hop on a bus and just hope that it would get me there in time. I thought I had better call the office to explain that I might be a bit late and it wasn’t my fault but when I tried the number I couldn’t get through, I left a message on the voicemail and called the agency that set up the interview, no answer or voicemail there at all. The agency finally picked up but the woman dealing with the account was off that day, helpful! The poor woman that answered the phone must have sensed my utter distress because she went off to sort it out for me, turns out the woman taking the interviews had had a family bereavement in the night and wasn’t going to be there...great! In the meantime the office called me back so I could apologise. The bus took the phenomenally long touring route of North Hampshire villages before finally dropping me off by which point I was bursting for the loo (fun fact about the Travel Trollop:  she has a tiny tiny bladder!) I arrived at the office only about 20 minutes late (via the shopping centre toilets) and rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. I rang it for about 5 minutes and knocked on the door. Nothing happened. Resisting the urge to scream I pop downstairs and ring the bell for a different department and get them to let me in. I met the people taking the interview and they were so nice to me I could have cried. They gave me a glass of water and made me take five minutes to gather my thoughts before calling me in. This one went so much better than the other one, no curve ball questions, no repeating myself till I was blue in the face. They seemed genuinely pleased with my answers and I could see myself working there with them. All good then. The ordeal seemed to be over.

Feeling slightly giddy with relief I hobbled through the town centre back towards the train station. I decided to stop at a cafe and have a cup of tea and a breather before getting on the train. All things were fine until I got back to Basingstoke where chaos was reigning supreme. The trains were still not really getting through and there were massive massive delays. One train was over 2 hours and 40 minutes late! I was lucky; mine was only running 57 minutes behind schedule! The long and the short of it is that it took me over three and a half hours to get back to Portsmouth and I’d barely crossed the county border! Luckily I have a very kind sister who came to pick me up from the station and drop me home, handy because I could barely stand let alone walk the twenty minutes home, where I had an hour to get changed and eat before heading out to see some friends (Brides 2 and 5) for a glass of wine and a good natter, my saving grace. An excellent avoidance technique for the parents, who were just being supportive, wanted to dissect everything and make a decision about which I’d accept if I was offered both. I just wanted to curl up and not think about it for a very long time!

You can tell that you’ve had a bad day when you sleep like the dead until 11:30 the next morning without even rolling over!  I woke up on Tuesday feeling hung over (strange considering I’d had nothing but tea), jet lagged and fluey and more than a little sorry for myself.

It turns out that I didn’t get either of the jobs so the whole day was a waste of time and money. I heard from each of them within minutes of each other which made for a not very fun Wednesday morning. But after many cups of tea, lots of chocolate and some lovely messages from my dear friends I felt infinitely better. Apparently it just wasn’t meant to be and something much better is waiting around the corner for me...great. I wish it would bloody jump out and let me know so I can get on with it! 

Easter Christmas – A new holiday is born!

You may remember that I was in Australia for most of last year and therefore missed my traditional family Christmas at home. I had a lovely Christmas with my adopted second family in Melbourne, The Grahams, but, eventhough I’m not a massive fan of the festive season, there’s nothing quite like your own Mum’s Christmas Dinner. So the long and short of it is, I made her buy an extra turkey and keep it in the freezer until I got home so that we could have a re-run on Easter Sunday. Now my family being as they are got a bit carried away. Not only did she buy an extra turkey but crackers and a Christmas pudding as well. We went up into the loft at my sister’s house and dug out their box of decorations, put up fairy lights and tinsel and decorated the mini Christmas tree with wooden eggs and a chick instead of a fairy. We sprinkled Christmas confetti and baubles on the table, sat around getting merrily tipsy in our Christmas hats whilst the neighbours walking past who happened to glance through the window smirked and thought we were mad! It was lovely, so much nicer than real Christmas; no ridiculous hype starting four months before, no rushing around trying to buy presents that people won’t like or need and having to feign some joy when you unwrap the awful whatever it is that they’ve bought you, it was warm, we didn’t have to go to church or to any awful office Christmas parties and we didn’t have to invite the family members that we only see at Christmas, in fact we didn’t invite anyone else, just Mum, Dad, me, my brother, his girlfriend, my sister and her fiancé. Best of all was the cold turkey, chips and salad that we had on Easter Boxing Day, quite possibly one of my all time favourite meals and an alien concept to our antipodean cousins....

A slightly deranged looking Easter Christmas Tree fairy

Mini chocolate marshmallow Christmas puds that I made
for those of us that don’t like yucky real Christmas pudding

How an Easter Christmas table should look!

Now if all Christmases could be like this, I would be a much bigger fan!

A progress report

The last few weeks have been a total blur of catching up with people, gadding about the country generally having a marvellous time. New houses have been visited, babies cooed over, engagement rings admired, fiancés met, vast amounts of BBQ/picnic/pub food and cider/Pimms/bubbly have been consumed, all helped out by the unseasonably beautiful weather that we have been blessed with over here. I’ve even celebrated Easter Christmas (a new family tradition that involves Christmas dinner on Easter Sunday complete with crackers and decorations because I missed real Christmas last year!) and been on a living room safari camping trip with my godson, George.

It hasn’t all been fun and games though, I have also put some serious hours into planning hen parties for weddings 1 and 3 as well as trying on 30+ bridesmaid dresses. The good news is that we have chosen a dress (well a skirt and top) for wedding 3 and they’ve been ordered, (and not in size 18s either! Hoorah!) and are well on the way to having a most excellent hen party for Bride 1. I’m 10 days into a 2 week kick start diet and have lost 5 pounds already, which unfortunately means that eating no chocolate or cake really does pay off and it’s not just a vicious rumour circulated to make women feel guilty and miserable.

Is it any wonder that job hunting has taken a back seat when there’s so much fun to be had? or that I’m no further along with my moving to London plan? In fact I’m beginning to go off that idea...

Two worrying realisations...

1. I quite enjoyed watching the Royal Wedding - I thought it was going to be an horrendous tribute to everything I dislike about Britain and the monarchy but it turns out that it was a tasteful, romantic betrothal of two people that clearly love each other. Everyone looked lovely (ignoring of course Princess Beatrice's tapeworm hat) and happy and London looked wonderful in the sunshine in all it's Union Jack-ed glory (or is it Flag-ed? I can never remember which way round it goes). All in all a good excuse for a party and nice to have something less miserable in the news.

2. I'm not finding being involved in 5 weddings all that painful. I thought it would be a never ending misery-fest but so far I'm actually quite enjoying myself. I love planning things and writing lists so it's not surprising really that hen party organisation is turning out to be quite good fun. Although that might all change as the blessed events draw closer...

Clearly I'm broken and need to find a job as soon as possible in order to reawaken my jelly-like brain and get some sensible perspective!

Wedding 0.5 - Royal Wedding themed mini-madness!

My Mum is officially mad – today she made me go into her class of 5 year olds and be the official photographer whilst they acted out the royal wedding. There was Will and Kate, Harry as Best Man, four bridesmaids and the father of the bride, a ring, a cake, flowers, balloons and bunting. She even managed to rope in our poor local priest to take the ceremony. They walked down the aisle to the wedding march in front of the whole school and cut the cake in the playground reception which involved crisps, pink wafers and jammy dodgers! She even made me wear a dress for the occasion. Needless to say the children loved it, I wasn’t so sure.....

Wedding 1: 21 weeks to go DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Wedding number one takes place on 3^rd September in Shrewsbury which is just under 5 months away.  Having been in Australia since the happy couple became engaged I’ve not really been involved in any planning. I was consulted over the bridesmaids’ dresses which will be floor length and, hunter green (otherwise known as St Edmund’s bogie green, the colour of my school uniform).

A week or so ago I received an email from my bridesmaid colleague stating that she had ordered her bridesmaid dress and that I should probably get a move on if I want mine altered in time for the big day. Grudgingly I dug out the old tape measure and did a quick 1, 2, 3 of bust, waist and hips. Balking slightly at quite how large they sound when in centimetres I called the wedding shop and prepared to put in my order. Now, I am not by any means skinny and I did put on a fair bit of weight, about a stone in fact, whilst I was in Australia (I blame homesickness comfort eating and my insatiable sweet tooth); but normally for a dress I would fit in about a UK size 12 so imagine my shame, disgust and outrage when the helpful and slightly baffled shop lady told me that I would have to order a size 18!! She clearly sensed my misery when she suggested that perhaps I would like to pop into the shop and have her measure me ‘properly’ (clearly I can’t be trusted with something so complex as a tape measure!) I reluctantly agreed and made an appointment for the following Monday.

I can, it turns out, use a tape measure effectively after all, those five years spent at university clearly paid off! Triumphantly I pointed out that those were the same measurements that I had given over the phone not realising that in fact that meant that I was indeed the dreaded size 18. The kind lady, still slightly baffled, pointed out that when ordering a dress order the dress in the size that fits your largest sized part so in my case although my bust is only a mere size 12, I have a size 18 waist and so the dress must be ordered in a size 18. I just don’t understand how, in the short space between my bust and my waist, and it is short I am only 5ft 2inches tall; I can jump up three whole dress sizes. It just doesn’t make sense. Clearly there is a conspiracy amongst bridesmaid dress makers to make bridesmaids feel rubbish and brides feel smug and skinny. All in all it’s very upsetting for a body-conscious weight obsessed permanent dieter. Contrary to all strong urges I didn’t give any creative suggestions as to where the dress could be shoved nor did I run to the hills screaming at the top of my lungs, I didn’t even scarper to the nearest airport and jump on the first available flight to a far flung destination. No, I sucked it up and dutifully handed over my credit card only flinching once or twice when the poor woman wrote out the receipt...perhaps I am developing a mature sense of inner poise, it is only a number after all...nah I went home and, rather counter productively, drowned the inner poise in half a box of Celebrations. HOORAH!