Observations

I am looking forward to starting work by not doing all the things that I really ought to do before I start having only two days off per week. Here are some of the things I have done instead.

I have watched a real live auction, but online. It's amazing. Mum and dad have been unearthing our family heirlooms, and we went through the treasure trove ages ago (in 2009) but stupidly didn't give the stuff immediately to the member of the family who would be most useful in disposing of it. That has now happened, and some of it went into a real auction with an auction house. You can view the catalogues - the pictures made our items look a lot more glamorous than I remember them - and then view the actual auction, either text and images, or with sound, or with video too. It's amazing. Bids are placed in the room, by telephone and online, and it's quite exciting.

And another thing. Completely unrelated. Jamie Oliver's salads are terrific. I bought a Jamie Oliver cookbook for Mr A because he seemed to gravitate towards JO's online recipes when looking for something to cook. The stuff can be a bit over-fiddly (e.g. he grates everything for the fish pie) but usually turns out splendidly. I thought I'd try one of his salads, and his technique, which is to chop everything up quite finely. The first one (cucumber, lettuce, cress, avocado, basil) was astonishingly good, so I tried another this week (carrot, radish, fennel, chicory, lettuce, dill) and together, the ingredients provided a flavour than was far more than the sum of the parts. Wonderful.

The freezer is in its place, but has slightly reduced capacity compared with the built-in one - not surprising, given that there is a space all round this one where the previous freezer completely filled the hole. We are adjusting well to the challenge. It appears to freeze food very well. The new washing machine washes clothes better than the old washing machine. We continue to use our special remote control when we watch TV, and look forward to the next household item that fails.

Last unrelated observation: I noticed some green shoots in the garden, and remembered that I had planted daffodils. Until they sprouted, I had completely forgotten. The joy of gardening. Soon it will be spring, but the forecasters say we have an arctic February to look forward to first.

An ordinary weekend

The weekend's news is not exciting. Mr A and I celebrated my new job by going out for a meal in a nice restaurant on Saturday evening, and then suffered all night from the effects of too much rich food and a salt overdose. We decided that in future we would celebrate at lunchtime. We took the old freezer to the dump, and watched films ('Attack the Block' and 'Kiss Me Kate'). I played in a badminton match, caught up with the laundry, and completed the plethora of forms for starting work. Mr A continued to grapple with website design, and bought some birdseed. We talked about our trip to London in a couple of weeks, and about a possible camping holiday in April.

When we moved into this house, exactly ten years ago, it came with a number of recommendations from the surveyor, and a few things we thought we might change. We made three lists: 'Now', 'Soon' and 'Eventually'. We've reviewed the lists a couple of times, and did so again at the weekend. I can hardly believe that we've very nearly done all the 'Now' and the 'Soon' jobs, and some of the 'Eventually' list was plainly fantasy, so there really are only two or three structural things to put right and the rest is cosmetic. Not that there isn't a whole lot of cosmetic stuff, but it's nice to know that the infrastructure is probably sound. I still qualify that statement with 'probably', because something may fall off tomorrow. I don't think it will.

I haven't yet started the next phase of DIY. It may happen this week, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

Not doing it myself for a bit

I thought I'd take a short break from the shower project, so I cleaned everything up nicely so the room was usable again. Then I thought I'd celebrate by actually having a shower, but when I pressed 'go', absolutely nothing happened. Drat.

I hadn't turned off the mains power except when unscrewing and screwing back the base plates from the shower and the light pull-cords, and the light still worked. Mr A was working upstairs using his computer so I couldn't turn the power off to investigate. Later on when Mr A had finished for the day, we contemplated the situation. We knew it had to be electrical, probably a fuse, because the motor wasn't even trying to pump water. Suddenly I realised that there was another isolation switch, although I don't remember ever touching it. It was off. Turn it on - problem solved. First thought: 'thank goodness'. Closely followed by: 'what an idiot'.

Instead of decorating I have re-entered my comfort zone for a couple of days, and am focussing on normal household tasks for a day or two, including trying to work out which plan to choose when our gas and electricity contract ends. I booked train tickets for the next trip to London and contacted various people I'd like to see when I'm there. There was badminton, where it turned out that there was a men's match against the club I used to play for, so I could catch up with two of the nicest chaps from the olden days. I've been out looking for a mirror, and this one caught my eye - for the name, not the price, which is over £100. Ikea mirrors are a tenth of the price, and my reflection in them is pretty much the same.

I also got my clarinet out of its case for the first time in ages. Lola II and I have enrolled in a Woodwind Playday, so I have to become semi-proficient by January - there should be enough time. And finally, I was called upon for 'childcare' yesterday, picking up our friends' two children from after-school club and walking them home. I impressed upon them at the start that I wasn't a proper parent so they would have to take responsibility for not getting killed on the way, given that we were walking directly through town with rush hour traffic. They kept their side of the bargain perfectly. I would have been in terrible trouble if I'd let them get run over.

I should get the call about the interview today. Or tomorrow. They promised definitely by Friday. Gulp.

Done It Myself

The interview went well, I think. Or possibly, it didn't; I really have no way of knowing until they offer me the job (or not). As usual in the car on the way home and throughout the afternoon and evening I had many ideas about what I might have said or how I might have done better. I shall find out next week. It is unsettling.

Otherwise, the tortuously slow pace of decorating continues, with purchase and application of paint, consideration (but not acquisition) of light fitting, mirror, towel rail, loo roll holder and toilet brush. The paint colour is Auburn Falls 2, a dark orange-red, and looks wonderful - even Mr A thinks so. There are only two small orange smudges on the white ceiling, although a bit of white ceiling paint came off with the masking tape, and I shall consider whether to address this fault or not.

After my interview we went for supper in the pub as a treat. It has become quite difficult to eat there, because the menu lacks anything at all that might be considered healthy, except for jacket potatoes. For example: three sausages in a Yorkshire pudding with gravy and potatoes. No vegetables at all. The vegetarian options apart from jacket potatoes are hardly better: bean burger with chips, or vegetable fajitas, which arrive swimming in oil. The largest vegetable accompaniment with some dishes is a small pot of peas, or a minuscule salad garnish. Even the sandwiches come with crisps.

On this occasion Mr A chose a pie (with chips) and I asked him to get me a lamburger (with chips). Unfortunately a combination of his diction and the barmaid's hearing resulted in us receiving a pie (with chips) and a 'Combo' platter, which contained battered fish, pie, sausage, chips, onion rings and fried chicken (and minuscule salad garnish). We took most of it home and had another meal out of it, where we could add vegetables to balance the protein, carbohydrate and fat. So I think we may choose other venues for impromptu and inexpensive dinners, unless we can wield some influence on Smurf's catering department.

A trip north

I took a whole day off decorating duties yesterday to travel north to visit H and B, which was a great trip (apart from the M6 around Birmingham). They were kind enough to allow me to sit in on B's appointment with a dietitian, which made me think "Yes, I really can do that, and maybe I can even do it better." Good timing, what with tomorrow's interview. Then we took off to the Italian restaurant round the corner for lunch. I helped H to move a desk, and even assisted him in emptying the apartment in a small way by relieving him of one litre of Damp Seal paint, a lint-removing roller, a can of polish and several bedsheets. It all helps, he says.

On the way back I detoured to Ikea, ostensibly to look at their bathroom lighting and mirrors, but ended up buying a pepper grinder and two light bulbs. It's been a long time since I've been to Ikea, and I was impressed all over again at the great ideas that can be found there. Mostly in the kitchenware department, since that's what I'm most interested in - I would like to rip out my entire kitchen and replace everything using some of the ideas that Ikea comes up with. Even the storage jars, graters and chopping boards are lovely, and often have some feature that makes them so much more usable and useful.

The shower room decorating activity is therefore progressing slowly (especially as today's priority is interview preparation). Two coats of primer and a coat of matt white on the ceiling took a few days, interrupted not only by the trip north but also by the visit from Lola II and another job application. I have made a decision about the main colour, but I have yet to buy the paint or start applying it to the walls. Mr A has had his first exam, which he reported as 'OK', with the second one in a week's time. Revision continues.

Today is heavy duty interview preparation, and I have also learned a bit about the history of the destination town, its hospital and a little about the county's population demographic. And whether there are any badminton clubs there. All essential information prior to showing immense enthusiasm for the job, the department, the location and everything associated with it.

Breakdown and disease

In between all this decorating stuff I've had some other challenges to face. I got in the car to go to badminton on Monday, and it promptly started to beep furiously about its alternator. "Ow, ow, ow, my alternator hurts! You're hurting my alternator! Stop it! Beep beep beep beep!" I bravely continued to drive, thinking that I was only going a couple of miles, I really wanted to play badminton, and if the worst happened I could abandon it, walk home, and sort it out tomorrow. The stupid car shouted and beeped at me all the way home again, and further desultory research on the Interwebs suggested either a replacement alternator (expensive) or that a tensioner or belt needs tightening (not quite as expensive).

Off it went to the garage on Wednesday, and they phoned to say that a) the alternator does need replacing and b) they wanted to keep it overnight, which gave me palpitations in terms of labour charges but turned out to be because the supplier sent the wrong part. Anyway, that complicated life a little more because Wednesday night was when I wanted to go to my first local Diabetes UK group meeting. Mr A was kind enough to make my neglected bicycle more roadworthy and lent me some lights for it, but after a day's painting I was not really looking forward to cycling, and took up the neighbours' offer to use their car. I'm glad I did, because it absolutely chucked it down with rain. We have very nice neighbours.

The Diabetes UK meeting featured a podiatrist talking about foot care, and as seems traditional in all the diabetic foot care lectures I've been to (quite a few) the pictures they use to illustrate the various perils of neglecting your feet are second in their gruesome nature only to images of patients with burns. This is probably because diabetic foot ulcers and their consequences are the second greatest cause of amputation, I learned, nudged from top spot by trauma (car accidents and the like). So it's a serious topic. I learned two other interesting things: what Charcot Foot is, and that there is no effective treatment for verrucas - you just wait until your body deals with the virus that causes them.

After the meeting I chatted to a couple of people, and there was a cup of tea and the sort of raffle where there were almost more prizes than tickets, including such treasures as a bottle of bubble bath, a pair of rubber gloves, a tray of four pears and a scented geranium. Having me attending the meeting probably reduced the average age of the attendees by quite a few years. I would like to go again, though - next month there's a speaker talking about the very latest advances in treatments for diabetes. And it's great fodder for job interviews.

Then there has been the failure of the TV, which has never been quite right since the switchover from analogue to digital. We put it down to the antiquated nature of the digibox, which I am sure was a contributing factor, but then all signal was lost altogether and we think it's probably because of the aerial. It wasn't a big deal except we do like to watch the news now and again, so after a modicum of research I was dispatched to Argos where I picked up the cheapest Freesat box that exists. Miraculously, the satellite dish left by the previous house owners ten years ago still works, so we now have 175 channels to choose from, and we'll still only watch the news and QI.

Lola II has been visiting, and accompanied me on a mammoth trip round town visiting charity shops in order to upgrade my interview outfit as per the advice previously received. Leamington really has some high quality charity shops, and there are an awful lot of them. For just £8 I now have an extremely smart tailored jacket and a shirt to go with it, so I'm not sure how they will be able to resist giving me the job.

Actually doing it myself

I am being constructive, and fully occupied, with this shower room project. I have taken all the horrid wallpaper off - some was hanging off already, but it's all gone properly now, revealing walls and a ceiling. As you might expect, there are four walls and a ceiling, but one of the walls is fully tiled, and the ceiling has a horizontal part and a slanty part under the sloping roof. So there are three wall surfaces and two ceiling surfaces.

The surface of the horizontal part of the ceiling is wood, and not chipboard or MDF but proper wood with a grain, and so is a box section that contains some of the pipes to the shower. The sloping ceiling surface is plasterboard, some of it painted and some bare where the paint peeled off with the paper. The three walls are old and pitted plaster, or possibly breeze block, with remnants of old and pitted paint or possibly plaster clinging to it.

After the minimum of research on the Interwebs, I wandered off to the Dulux trade centre in town (near the vegetable shop), and discussed the options with them. Although there is a 'primer/sealer' product, the nice man reckoned it was unlikely that I'd need anything as drastic as this, and ordinary primer would probably do. We talked about bathroom paint, I picked up a couple of colour swatches and came away feeling almost competent. Then I attacked all the surfaces with a wire brush, and covered myself and the whole room in flecks of old paint and plaster and dust.

I filled some of the worst cavities and cracks, and sanded it all down a bit more while ingesting more dust in the process. Are you bored yet? I was, so of course I returned to the Interwebnet and played with an online app from Dulux that lets you pretend to paint a virtual room with any of their paint colours. To start with I thought I'd like an icy blue-green colour, or a purply blue to blend with the touches of blue in the room, but I couldn't find anything quite right. So now I'm thinking more of a statement in a contrasting colour: Mexican Mosaic 2, Auburn Falls 2 or Flame Frenzy 4. Tester pots are on their way. And you can take a photo of something using their colour template and upload the photo to the website and it will tell you the closest colour in their range. Modern technology, it's amazing.

Next day was sanding and then cleaning up, then a coat of primer, which promptly revealed how inadequate my wall preparation had been. One wall presented bubbles under the newly applied primer, which has meant a morning of scraping and working out whether to ignore it or do something about it, and a decision to look into the possibilities of paint stripper before going any further. This job looks set to run and run.

Do It Yourself

The weeds have been vanquished (for the time being), and now the kitchen ceiling is white and (almost) immaculate. Over a period of about three days (i.e. an inordinate amount of time for any decent worker) I have prepared and painted the kitchen ceiling, missing only one small and almost invisible patch. This is a shockingly small and insignificant task for any able-bodied individual, yet I am as proud of it as if I had completed the single handed restoration of a listed building.

In the protracted tea breaks, lunch breaks and any other breaks between my puny decorating efforts, I have continued to monitor job vacancies, and applied for another post. At last my unceasing barrage of applications has been rewarded, and I have been offered an interview for a job that I applied for more than two weeks ago. In fact, there are two jobs with the same employer, one unadvertised, doubling the chances of selection.

Flushed with this double success - kitchen ceiling and interview - I took the irretrievable step of starting the rehabilitation of the shower room, with its sagging and mouldy wallpaper. Who puts wallpaper on the ceiling a foot above a shower cubicle? Anyway, it isn't there any more, but some of the walls aren't in a very good state, and it will certainly be a more challenging operation than cleaning and painting an essentially sound kitchen ceiling.

A diversion

Some readers may be interested in the fate of Mr A, who is mostly revising for his exams at the moment, and enjoying it about as much as I remember enjoying mine, which is: not much. He continues to entertain me, however, with his latest interest - the construction of a balsa wood model plane, which he is carrying out on a large board on his lap in the evenings. And his other indulgence - an evening class he has signed up to, which he tells me is better than any he has ever done in the past. It is a welding class at the local college. He is currently practising his TiG welding skills with a view to constructing a ski-bike and bits and pieces for his motorbikes (e.g. a sump guard).

Otherwise, life goes on. The garden has never had so much attention, and the paved area is now vegetation-free, although the lawn is a dreadful mess of moss and various other weeds. I still haven't embarked on any DIY around the house, but it is becoming more difficult to put it off. Still no word on any of my job applications, but I went to a BDA¹ local branch meeting and fed my brain with presentations on vitamin D, psychological approaches to behavioural change, and IBS². I'm still playing badminton twice a week, and the newer club is becoming slightly more friendly - or more accurately, I've started to identify the less friendly members and avoid them.

And that's about it. No adventures or misadventures, no excitement, just niggling frustration that repainting the plasterwork of the kitchen ceiling is something that I really should get started on.

1 British Dietetic Association
2 Irritable Bowel Syndrome, aka Functional Bowel Disorder

Thoughts on interviews

Forgive me, it is many days since I last wrote my insignificant thoughts. There has been a weekend, I have had a slight cold, I have planted daffodil bulbs, and we are having trouble with the TV.

The aerial cable seems to be dodgy, and the second-hand Freeview box has turned out to be rather temperamental - it takes several seconds to acknowledge any command it is sent, if it acknowledges it at all. If we want to watch a program (and there have been just a couple) then we need to start trying to change channel about 5 minutes before it is due to begin. I think Mr A would do something about this if he were not revising full time, but I don't care enough about broadcast TV to get involved. I'm happy with our DVDs, which are terrific - we finished the last series of The Wire, which was incredibly good, and are in the midst of the BBC version of I Claudius from the 1970's, which isn't bad, and surprised us with a young Patrick Stewart (with hair), and how much better they can do makeup nowadays - the old Claudius looks like he's wearing a Halloween mask.

I have been working on my teaching session, and yesterday I discussed it with the main tutor of the course I will be contributing to - she likes it a lot, and suggested how we might do the role play, as she has plenty of experience in that area and I have none. I also spent an hour with two experienced dietitians, talking about how I might improve my job applications and interview technique.

I am getting myself a bit worked up about interviews. Recruiting basic grade dietitians through a 30-minute interview seems to me to be a way of selecting the people who are good at doing interviews. Acting skills are rewarded almost as much as depth of knowledge, and I am not and have never been able to act. I can think of many people who would be a nightmare to work with, but whose ability to think on their feet and come up with a confident answer is outstanding.

This view may be coloured by the horrendous last interview I had before leaving my previous job, which took the form of an 'Assessment Centre' - a whole day of different types of activity designed to test different aspects of personality. The only thing that it didn't seem to test was a sound knowledge of the area of work involved, which was what I knew best, having done the job for some time. The successful candidate was the internal 'ringfenced' candidate who had been made redundant from another area, and she did a pretty bad job for as long as it took her to find a way to get out. One of the candidates had had enough by lunchtime and didn't stay for the afternoon. I met another of the candidates a few weeks later, and he told me that not only would he not have accepted the job if it had been offered to him, but he wouldn't even consider applying for any others in that organisation based on what he had gone through.

I have been on the other side of the table, as a recruiter too, and I'm not much good at that either. It seems to me that with a huge pool of unemployed graduate dietitians, all of whom will meet the essential requirements of a basic NHS post, it would save an enormous amount of time and effort if applicants just submitted their names and referees and one applicant was picked at random from all those meeting the essential criteria, given the job on a 6-month temporary basis, and then kept on if they turn out OK. We wouldn't have to spend ages on writing applications and undergoing stressful interviews, recruiters wouldn't have to spend ages reading applications and interviewing people, and I bet that 90% of appointments would turn out OK.

Anyway, the outcomes of my discussion about applications and interviews was mixed. They thought that I could be more succinct in my application, but suggested that I be more specific about why I want that particular job, even though both I and the recruiter are well aware that I don't really care what job I get at this stage. They thought that I was perfectly presentable, but perhaps should dress a bit smarter, to the extent of wearing low heels and a suit, even though this was understood by both sides to be an interview thing and any dietitian wearing heels or a suit in the real job would be classed as probably slightly mad, and definitely overdressed.

In terms of 'model' answers to questions, which seems to be the essence of interview success, I struggle. Of course I know a lot of stuff, but it might actually be easier if I knew a bit less, because I have trouble picking out the stuff that the interviewer actually wants to hear. Of all the things you might tell a person who has been newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, what are the two most important points? My first reaction is always: 'It depends'. Tell them to cut down on sugary drinks - what if they don't drink any? But my reservations apply to the real world, not to interviews. In interviews, you have to say what they want to hear, in black and white, and not enter the grey and murky world of 'it depends'.

So I have all the answers in my head, and my main problem is that faced with a question, I have trouble retrieving the answer and delivering it as required. Of course, all this deliberation is hypothetical until I actually get an interview - there have been no suitable jobs advertised since the run of five last week, and although four of those five vacancies are now closed to applications, I have heard nothing yet.

Food, drink and TV

The Food and Drink Festival was back at the weekend, and better than ever. I couldn't be bothered to go on the Taste Trail this time because neither Lola II nor Mr A would be with me, and all that food doesn't go well with weight loss. They've learned from previous years, too - the Trail was free the first time, then we paid a pound for entry last time, but this time they're charging a pound per restaurant, which is only right.

There were more stalls than in previous years in the Pump Room Gardens, and most were mouth-wateringly attractive, although the produce was not cheap. We met some neighbours and got talking about pheasants, and I now have the opportunity (when the season starts) to learn how to draw and pluck a freshly-shot bird. I bought a couple of things (German salami and Warwickshire sausages) and came home, then enticed Mr A out again for lunch. He chose paella, I had a very tasty vegetable Thai green curry with rice. Mr A bought a couple of things (a venison pie and a pork pie, local cheeses) and that was it.

In other news, a job vacancy came up over the weekend which I applied for, and we attempted to install Freeview. Our turn has come for digital switchover and the removal of analogue terrestrial broadcasting to our area. It should have been straightforward, but our analogue TV is old and there is the added complication of the BARB monitoring device which is wired in to our setup in a manner that I couldn't fathom. So they are sending a chap round this week to sort us out. In the meantime we have some extra BBC channels and we have lost ITV until the second phase of switchover in a couple of weeks. It hardly makes a difference at all, and we can still watch our DVDs, so everything's fine really.

'Busy'

I have been 'busy', in a relative way, over the past few days. Not 'busy' like someone who has a proper job and family commitments that include children, for example. That sort of 'busy' is in another league - my sort of 'busy' means that I have done at least one thing off my list every day. Which isn't very much. I am very lucky to be only this 'busy', but am aware that it cannot last for ever, not least because the fuel bills are rocketing ever skywards and I am starting to become very slightly envious of people who go out for meals. There haven't been any suitable jobs advertised for a fortnight, but I remain hopeful.

Things that I have crossed off my list include the wildflower meadow that was the paved area behind the house. It is mostly weed-free now, although a few remain to taunt me. I bought a glyphosate squirter that has made a good deal of difference, although given that it only kills weeds and not seeds, I think I will invest in larger quantities of glyphosate and a watering can, so that the green menace can be kept at bay over the longer term.

I have sorted out my dwindling collection of house plants, binning those that were really showing no sign of life and repotting the few that are left. I have planted up a trough with some new plants for the hallway, and split an aspidistra that had pretty much already divided itself into two within the one pot. I also treated myself to a Venus Flytrap and an African Violet for the kitchen windowsill. We'll see how long they survive.

The houseplant endeavour led to a foray into the garage where my collection of plastic plant pots has lived for, oh, ten years. Before that, they lived happily in my previous residences. It is, however, time for us to part. They are now sorted into two groups - I shall keep some, and have already advertised the rest on Freegle. Nearly everything relating to organic matter is, at last, somewhat under control, and I am slowly emptying the house of unnecessary junk.

I have also spent a day working on my teaching session about visual impairment and communication, and badminton continues twice a week. This morning I dropped in on the group of visually impaired people that I tapped into for my university project, just because I can and because they are rather nice. After that I dropped in at the Oxfam second-hand book shop, and for £3 I bought a guide to garden birds and how to attract them. We are lucky to have sparrows in our garden, as they have become relatively rare.

I'm now off to attend to the next task - our area has started to move from analogue to digital TV, and we have started to lose the few channels we have. I'm going to attempt to install the Freeview box.

Nothing much

I am in need of another guest blogger. Mr A says he will write something, but can't seem to get started, and he has a lot of more important things to do. This time, then, just another brief account of mundane Lola life.

• The loft insulation went well at mum and dad's house, and with its new load of insulation, the loft now has a peculiar smell which I don’t like very much. The fibreglass also bit me on the arm when I switched the light on and off without sleeves. The man who installed it all was very nice, helped me take down some of the larger boards that weren’t needed, and did the whole job on his own in not much more than an hour.

• Two of my job applications are still viable, although the closing dates were 25 and 31 August and I haven't heard anything about an interview from either.

• I have been fiddling about with my email, contacts and calendar, because many of my messages were routinely not reaching Lola II. So I've transferred from Outlook and am now completely in thrall to Google, and am in trouble if for any reason Google dies or takes a dislike to me.

I think it is time to get back into the garden - that ivy won't trim itself.

I am considering DIY

Given that I have time rather than money at the moment, I am considering the jobs around the house and thinking about doing them myself. Either this will come to a messy end, or immense satisfaction at having achieved something practical will result.

Mr A has a large manual of all things DIY, which is very helpful. I know that my skill set includes whatever it takes to re-hang a door or replace a small carpet, and preparing and painting walls is not at all difficult. I don't know how to repair/replace a door frame, but how hard can it be? I also know that the results are likely to be better than when we Get A Man In. But I think that I will find it frustrating and annoying.

It started with the wall lights, which required drilling. I am not bad at drilling; I did quite a lot when I was living on my own in Manchester. I did quite a lot of DIY in that flat, including mending the pump on the basement toilet macerator unit, which I felt was quite an achievement. But Mr A has taken over my drill, and when I asked him for drill bits he brought two, one of which turned out to be bent and the other a bit rusty. If I take on this set of DIY projects, I will have to reclaim the drill and keep my own bits. Mr A did the drilling for the wall lights in the end, and I felt like a pathetic wifey, even though I asked him to do it.

So it isn't difficult, but when Mr A and I were both working it was much easier to get a man in. That tactic wasn't necessarily the right one in this old and temperamental house, and some of the results have been much less successful than if we had done the work ourselves - while our current choice of plumber is probably competent at installations, I'm not so sure about their troubleshooting and repair.

But before I start on any rash DIY projects here, I am off to assist at a loft insulation event at mum and dad's. This will include some possible ebay and Freegle activity, in order to avoid replacing the contents of the emptied loft. Wish me luck!

Underemployment continues

I have been trying to remind myself of all things dietetic, while fruitlessly applying for jobs. A vacancy came up not too far from Lola II. The notification arrived in my inbox at midnight; I saw it at 9 a.m. and started to put my application together; by 11 a.m. when I was ready to submit the completed form the vacancy had already closed. I think this might be typical of job vacancies in London.

I have since submitted another application, and notified my referees as usual. One of them emailed back, reassuring me that everyone was finding it difficult to get a job - her service in GNT had received 100 applications for each of two temporary jobs.

Meanwhile I have been sorting through university files, and doing some relevant reading. I found that the abstract relating to my conference poster has been published here. I have asked for some help with some of the questions that let me down in my last interview, according to my feedback, and confirmed that I will be making a contribution to teaching an Advanced Communications Skills postgraduate module in September.

I'm reaching the end of my long list of things I should be doing, which I drew up at the start of this period of underemployment. This means that only the less attractive and more boring or unpleasant jobs are left (although at least the oven is still clean). I gave blood and didn't faint, finally installed wall lights in my room that I must have bought about a year ago, and have even started the process of clearing the jungle of weeds that used to be an area of paving outside. I will have to think of some bigger projects if I don't find a full time dietetic job soon.

A short announcement

I Have Cleaned The Oven.

There is still quite a lot of black stuff inside it, but much less than there was.

I have done absolutely nothing else of interest to anyone, so that's it for the time being.

Enjoy the pictures.

Garden, birds and diet

I've been 'gardening'. You will be aware by this time that 'gardening' is not an activity whereby a 'gardener' carefully nurtures and tends delicate plants, creating a display that is attractive to the eye throughout the year. No, it involves cutting, slashing, lopping and generally creating havoc in the garden before packing tons of 'green waste' into rubble sacks, piling them into the car and taking them down to the dump. So far, we have made four such trips (with approximately ten sacks each time) and there's another lot waiting for a fifth run. And I haven't really started on the wisteria.

I have been aided this year by some new equipment. Mr A bought some long handled loppers that will cut through branches up to about an inch and a half, and thanks to the demise of mum and dad's elderly neighbour, we also have some shears. Almost everything in the garden has thorns, so my arms look like I have been in a fight with a particularly angry cat. The poor sparrows are wondering what on earth has happened to their world, but they still scurry about in the bare rose branches. We have also seen one of our teenage robins out and about, although it doesn't yet have its red breast, and we briefly saw a bullfinch.

I have put in one more job application, but that's all there is to report about dietetics. Apart from the fact that I have remained at the weight I achieved at the end of my placement in GNT, despite efforts to shift those last two kilos. I suspect that it is not within my power to get rid of them unless I go back to GNT.

Interviews

So I've had two interviews, done some hoovering, and hacked down a load of stuff in the garden.

First interview went well, maybe too well. They didn't ask me anything difficult and probably had already decided not to offer me the job, given that they had advertised for someone with experience. It was a useful experience though, because it meant I was less nervous at the second interview.

The second interview was much harder, with genuinely testing questions. And they had a good look at my C placement portfolio, and asked me a question which genuinely floored me: "Would you accept the job if we offered it to you?" Lola II said I should have just given them an enthusiastic "YES!" but I'm not used to acting impulsively, and I really didn't know at that point if I would. After all, an interview is for both sides to decide whether they will get along, not just an opportunity for the interviewee to do all she can to suppress any off-putting idiosyncrasies and provide the answers that the panel is expecting. It may be more than two weeks before I hear the outcome of this interview.

I have been more ruthless than ever in the garden, reducing most trees to the size of shrubs, and then Mr A followed me out and took out a lot of rose bush and ceanothus. The ceanothus had suffered badly in the cold winter, but was showing signs of recovery with green shoots on lower branches and the trunk. In the hope that these would sustain it, and because it keeps threatening the integrity of the garage roof, it is now a very much smaller tree than it was. I would be out there now, decimating more vegetation, if it weren't pouring with rain. So I am indoors at my desk, pretending to be making further job applications, but actually blogging and listening to an audio book: almost anything is more fun than applying for jobs, except perhaps pruning and weeding in the rain.

Unemployment

There have been many small achievements and enjoyable aspects of this round of unemployment. Nothing that makes particularly interesting reading, though. I have an enormous list of things that need sorting out around the house - tax return, cleaning the oven, pruning and weeding, scanning old photos - but I don't propose to tell you how I get on with those.

We held a family gathering which included a celebration of three birthdays altogether, and comprised a welcome visit from H&B from the north and the rest of my immediate family from the south. The weather was too unpredictable to sit outside, but we all squeezed in around the table for lunch, some of us went out for a walk around the Peace Festival, came back for tea and birthday cake, and I enjoyed it a great deal.

Lola II and Mr M stayed on afterwards, and helped me try on a huge bagful of hand-me-down clothes from one of Lola II's friends (I'm not proud). Surprisingly, most were too big, although there was a beautiful dress that does fit. Maybe I'll wear a dress again one day. I have shortened one pair of trousers so far - while the friend is nearly the same circumference as me, she is 10 cm longer.

I have put in a further two job applications, making five in all (with just the one interview so far). I've also been in touch with my tutors to follow up on the research idea, but that will be slow to develop. Nothing else going on in the work department.

There's been badminton of course, and I pootled over to see a friend who is in town for the week, training with his new guide dog. I couldn't whisk him away for a night on the town because he has to stay in the hotel with the dog, but we had a chat and a drink in the hotel bar.

This type of mundane diarising is tedious. I'm not that interested in writing it, and don't believe it's all that much fun to read. I have some ideas for future posts, so unless something happens that includes dietetics, the next few weeks may diverge from the usual routine.

Final exam

Shall I talk you through the end of my student life? Actually, not quite the end, but as I drove onto the campus at 7.30 a.m. on the day of the final exam, I thought it might be my last visit. Then I met one of my fellow students, who reminded me that we have to submit our coursework portfolios and I hadn't brought mine. So I'll have to make the trip at least two more times: once to deliver it, and once more to pick it up again and/or attend a viva. I haven't signed up for the graduation ceremony.

The night before the exam I had the worst night that I can remember, with about 3 hours uninterrupted sleep followed by about 3 hours dozing and wishing it were morning. On campus very early, because with a 9 a.m. exam I have to leave at least an extra hour in case of trouble on the motorway - missing the start of a lecture isn't usually a problem; missing the start of an exam is unthinkable.

I was pretty tired, and at about 10.30 a.m., halfway through the exam, I had to mentally pull myself together and carry on to the bitter end. It wasn't a bad paper, although even at three hours they give you so much to write that there's never enough time. One lecturer pleaded with us to try and write clearly - after three hours writing non-stop my hand is so cramped that clear handwriting is the last thing on my mind.

Lunch with a friend, a meeting with my tutor about possibilities for research in future, then I drove home on nothing but adrenaline and went to bed. Since then, I have been smiling, and the best part: walking about aimlessly. I went into town, and to Warwick, walked about in the sunshine and just enjoyed the fact that there's nothing I HAVE to be doing, although of course there's lots I could be doing, and quite a bit that I should be doing.

Today among other delightful prospects, I will be treating myself to a trip to my favourite greengrocer. Last time I was there, the manager told me all about his staffing problems since he'd taken over a second shop, and the plans he had for refitting the shop, and the trouble with the tills, and his plans for a day off to go to Bournemouth. Then he gave me a hug. I wonder if all his regular customers get this treatment?