Tomorrow

Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow. I’d do it tomorrow. That is today’s blog theme. Firstly however, I must do the necessary and talk about the festive period. I last left you with the knowledge that I had an interview on the 22^nd. ‘How did it go’ I hear you ask, well let me tell you...

The interview was scheduled for 330pm. I had calculated that I would leave the house a bit after 2pm to ensure I got a bus in plenty of time and found the place (it was a 40 minute bus trip away at least). As many of you know, I am messy so I had decided not to dress in my interview clothes or do my hair until the last minute. At 1pm I got a phone call from he interview people that went as follows

‘Oh, hello is that Morag Christie’

Yes

‘This *Blank Blank* from Blankety Blank’

Yes

‘I know it’s an inconvenience, but do you think you could come in an hour early, it would be great for us as we’ve had a cancellation’

I then had two choices.

1: To say yes to please them and run around madly to get ready

2: Say no and risk losing their favour.

I said

Yes, that’s no problem.

The next ten minutes I can only describe to you as a frenzy of unadulterated action. When they had called I’d just made cheese on toast (with Wooster sauce) and hadn’t had a bite. I crammed a few bits in my mouth, dashed to get changed, tore through my hair with a pair of (Sarah’s) hair straighteners and ran out the door, briefcase flapping (yes, briefcase, I’m a professional). I then faced an unexpected problem. I was wearing high heels. Many of you may have noticed, it’s been a wee bit snowy and icy lately and I then had to navigate my much ungritted icy road to get to the bus stop. I eventually arrived at my destination and quite soon my bus appeared. Hoorah, I thought, it’s going to get better now. But no. The bus was going very slowly, it was busy and snowy so I didn’t pay much heed. Then it got slower and slower and slower. Then it stopped. A wee voice came over the tannoy ‘Would everyone leave the bus please’ so we did and fortunately another bus was waiting. Now whether this was a scheduled bus swap (why though?) or the bus was in genuine trouble, I do not know, however the next bus seemed to whiz along and eventually I got to my stop. I then faced the high heel snow/ice dilemma again, but managed with little incident to get to the office. On my arrival the place seemed deathly quiet apart from the sound of sobbing, off putting to say the least. I checked in (albeit a very smiley man at desk, not sobbing) and sat down. It was then I located the sobbing- it was the TV showing the funeral procession of fallen soldiers. Moving, but not the soundtrack one needs before an interview. I had, I must mentioned, despite everything arrived 20 minutes early. It was then I noticed a sign asking you to use the hand gel to kill the naughty swine flues germs so being a good girl I put it on. This stuff was curious, it came out bright green and foamy and wouldn’t blend in to my hands. Rub as I might, I was left with a curious sticky residue. It was then of course, my interviewer arrived and I had to shake her hand. Cripes. As you imagine, by this stage I was beyond reason and I have no idea how the interview went. I still don’t know as they said they’d let me know at the of January.

Anyway, moving swiftly on to more pleasant things, Christmas. Now, I’m not going into go into too much detail here, as to be honest that would be dull. Basically, the 23^rd saw a new wave of snow descend on Edinburgh and on arriving at the bus station I discovered my bus would be leaving at least 3 hours late. Much dismay. In the mature way of all children I phoned my mum to whine, like she could do anything about it. Well, she could! She knew that my step-cousin was driving through from Edinburgh that very morning and after a series of phone calls I got hold of her and hey presto a mere 15 minutes later, I was dashing up north with tenuously linked family member. The Dingwall network saves the day!

I arrived home only to leave again. Not until I was reunited with my best girl Aimie the exotic teacher (she’s lives in Dubai= exotic, no dancing as far as I know) and did the Dingwall pub quiz which was controversially moved to the Picture house from the Mallard (Dingwall readers ‘gasp’, all else go ‘what?’). My team didn’t win, but more importantly my team beat Niall’s team. Grin. Niall did however win marshmallows and white lightening cider in the amazing pub Christmas raffle, so one wonders who the real winner was.

Anyway, after a flurry of hellos and goodbyes, on Christmas Eve, mum and I made the brave drive down to Richard’s in Killin. Yes, we decided to spend Christmas with the Borg and despite having to stop every so often to physically wash the crap off the windscreen as the washers were frozen despite near 100% screen wash, it was an uneventful journey. Christmas day was nice, food presents, dogs and wonderfully watching LOTR; Fellowship of the Ring in the evening. Due to the worrying forecast, we headed back early on Boxing Day and the next few days were spent with the rest of family, eating and drinking and the like. The journey back to the burgh was not nice, over 5 hours on a bus fearing for my life as the snow pummelled down on the 30^th, but I arrived safely, eventually.

Hogmanay saw a new set of plans arise. It was my intention for many weeks hence to go to a ceilidh in Glasgow with assorted cousins. But on wakening, I found myself shattered and feeling reluctant to go. Added to this was the knowledge kiddie doc Jen was having a small soirée to which a few friends including Karen from the Borders (whom I had not seen in quite some time) were attending. The previous night, my eldest brother had been lamenting his lack of plans and it was then I stumbled upon an idea. Why not give him the ticket, he’ll dance and be gay and I’ll stay in Edinburgh, see my friends and have a reasonable night’s sleep (any night out with my Glasgow cousins never results in a good night’s sleep). And this is what I did. Niall did indeed dance and have a splendid time and I went to Jen’s who fed us a huge amount of food, drank champagne and watched the fireworks at the bells. So it all worked out just beautifully.

Since then it’s been back to the grindstone of job hunting intermittently dispersed with having Andi of the Fort come round and pester me to get things and plan the decoration of his flat (which he’s yet to get keys for) as he’s on holiday in the burgh. I enjoy planning house decoration and sorting out; all those mornings watching ‘Homes under the hammer’ were not wasted.

Now we come to the title of today’s blog ‘Tomorrow’. Last night as I was watching BBC iplayer in bed (my landlady wife at work on nights again) and I was feeling a touch melancholy. Upsetting thoughts running through my mind like ‘I’ll never get a job’ and ‘what if when I get a job I don’t like it’ and ‘what if I get a job and don’t like it, but can’t afford to leave it so instead of living the dream I’ll end working in an endless 9 to 5 existence with no meaning or pleasure.’ That sort of thing. Then I began to think about all the things I keep meaning to do like take stuff to the charity shop, make a doctor’s appointment, work on my eportfolio in case I get a pathology interview and I was thinking that everything was just getting all on top of me, all these little things on top of all the big things and BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!

I keep saying ‘tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll deal with it tomorrow’ and then at midnight I have irrational panic. So I decided. No more ‘tomorrow’, it’s time for ‘today’ to start. So I made a list of things I need to do. Just a few little things, but today I did 5 out of 6 of them. And it felt good just to start getting the things I can control under control. Okay it probably won’t change my life or the world, but it makes me feel more in charge of my own life and as such tonight instead of ‘tomorrow, tomorrow’, I’m thinking ‘hoorah today!’ So my advice is to you, however small or big the worries are-

No more tomorrows, today is here!