The Rough with the Smooth

Since my last entry I have fully embraced my pre-work life. I have been driving around testing out Simone, visiting folk and generally having a wonderful time. I could detail my every move, but I can’t be bothered and I don't think you'd be that interested. Instead, I am going to talk about 2 key topics- Costco and the M8

The M8

Last weekend I took Simone to Glasgow to see my cousin Esme. I was accompanied in this journey by the Glasgow savvy Karen, my cousin Malcolm’s girlfriend who since I have moved to Edinburgh has fast become a good friend. Now many of you may know that despite loving having a car, I hate parking and I hate motorways. I have only ever driven on 3 motorways in my life; one of these was the M8. Most of you will have driven on the M8 and will know it is a daunting affair to the unfamiliar. Unlike any other motorway I have encountered, the M8 appears to have little logic and is the only motorway I know of that has filter lanes blending into both sides of the road. As an unsure driver, one’s natural instinct is to go slow and get out of the fast lane. However due to the M8’s terrifying system, if you go to the far right, you end up turning off, but the middle lane frequently turned into the fast lane and you are constantly having to change lanes which I find is the most stressful part of it. However, what also confounds me about the road is that when you are in Glasgow, it seems almost impossible to get on it. On one occasion, despite correctly following all the signs, I ended up driving under and past the motorway several times exasperated that I was down below when I wanted to be up there when suddenly, for no known reason, I appeared on the road. I am convinced to this day I was beamed there by some sort of teleportation device. And am I not the only person that this has happened to. It’s definitely a conspiracy.

Going back to my original story, I was heading to my cousins with Karen as my navigator and despite a bit of tension, with her guidance we made it safely to Esme’s. However the next day I had to get back on the M8 alone to head north. I instantly missed my turn off for the motorway and ended up having to turn the car around in some stately home driveway (in Glasgow who would have thunk it?) and eventually found my way. However, I was then faced with a new problem- following the signs to Stirling. Just to mock me, the sign /road makers taunted me by constantly changing position of the lane I needed to go on to get to Stirling and I seemed to be constantly changing lanes whilst trying to ensure I didn’t miss my turn off- or worse turn off too soon and end up in some random suburbs with Glasgow ruffians. I thought as soon I got out of the main city things would improve, but alas not as there seemed to be never ending road works thereafter all the way to Stirling with a maze of cones and single lane traffic to contend with. I eventually after an accidental detour to Cumbernauld reached Stirling. I have never in my life been so happy to get onto the A9. I hate the M8 and I blame Glasgow for this hideous road. I hope to never again have to navigate this monstrosity, but know that because of the peculiar draw of people to the Weegie-land that I will have to someday. A sat-nav has been purchased.

Costco

On to happier things, my landlady wife took me to Costco on Sunday. I have once been to a similar type store called Macro (for some reason I thought was called Macroland which I think sounds far more exciting) when I was a young child. My abiding memory of the store was over sized tins of fruit and the doll ‘Pamela’ my parents bought me. Pamela was meant to be a life size child doll and even more excitingly she was supposed to walk! She was quite large and made of cheap thin, but hard plastic. The idea was you held her hand and she walked along side with you. However in practice all that would happen was poor Pamela would wobble slightly and then fall on you. Fortunately, she was not very heavy, but it was slightly alarming. Despite her not walking, I loved Pamela my life sized doll and along with Sylvia the ‘real skin’ baby doll, Esme and I would turn my bedroom into our ‘house’. The game consisted of Esme being my wife and me being the husband. I would come home from work and say ‘phew that was a hard day at work’ and then Esme would give me a fake cup of tea and fake dinner and then we would put our two children to bed. We loved this far from scintillating, gender stereotyping game until alas one day we made a grave error. We decided to give Pamela a makeover involving lipstick, eye shadow and a drawn on bikini with an eyeliner pencil (all with my mother’s make-up). She looked like a child prostitute. We tried to wash it off, but alas Pamela’s descent into the oldest profession could not be averted and our happy family game was truly ruined. You see, the sexualisation of children even affects dolls.

Anyway, the visit to Costco re-awakened strong memories in me and it was with trepidation that I entered. But what wonder greeted me- a vast warehouse of bulk buying of products you will probably never need! There were 10 of everything! The tins were comically over sized, the loo rolls were bundled together in unfathomable quantities and there were hunks of meat that looked like an elephant had procreated with a bull. It made me feel like a borrower. I got completed over excited and ended up buying a lot of things I didn’t strictly need including a box with 60 bars of fudge. The result of this is I now feel compelled to bulk buy- I mean why buy one of something when you can get 12?!

Right that completes my rambling. In summary- M8 bad, Costco good.

Variety

So I didn’t get the third job I interviewed for the week I got 2 other jobs. Shame. Well, not really, I didn’t want it. I didn’t want it because the interviewers were terrible! I have had probably over 10 interviews in that last few months and I have come to a better understanding what makes a good interviewer as well as interviewee.

For example, the job I have finally settled on (Clinical coder for those of you mot keeping up) they asked me questions like ‘why do want this job’ and ‘do you think you would enjoy working in a busy environment’ etc etc. The interviewers then went on to tell me some very important things like my wage, pension and the times and location of the job. They finished it off by telling me exactly when they would let me know and when the position would start if I got it. However the property job I went for made me fill out an ‘optimism questionnaire’ first to assess my ego and I guess, optimism. Indeed. The interviewers then asked me inane questions like ‘what is your greatest achievement at work’ and ‘how did this achievement cause a change in the workplace’. And other such wafflily beauties that have no bearing on why I would be good for their job. Also, I then asked about salary and possible progression, I got such an unintelligible answer back that I still don’t know what they meant, how much I would earn and if there was any possible growth to be had in that job. So, yes, happy with the job I took.

And on the subject of jobs, I am ever more grateful of the coder job as I very naughtily didn’t turn down the SAAS job until yesterday. Now let’s think about this. I interviewed for that job on the 22^nd December. I didn’t hear I got it till mid Feb and by early march I hadn’t yet even got an inkling of a start date. I know my references didn’t supply one for that post as I contacted them and told them not to, but no one in SAAS office chased me up and said ‘Oi references?!’ or anything. I mean in many ways, I should have continued the pretence just to see when eventually they wanted me to start. Next year perhaps?

Anyway, jobs aside now. Literally. I used to send 8 hours a day minus tea and ‘animal rescue 24:7’ aside and now I am free of that. So I did what any sensible person did and I bought a car and went home to test her out. Her name is Simone and she is a 2003 silver/blue Peugeot 106 with low mileage and a 1.2 litre engine. For such a wee car she is surprisingly nippy and my journey home was a pleasure and a delight. I then did a rather spectacular reverse park into mum’s driveway and got along side mum’s Toyota. I repeated with wonderful manoeuvre without assistance over the next few days *pride* Parking is not my strong suit so any sucessful manoeuvre is worth praise.

The visit was mainly focused around my little-big brother (i.e. older than me, but not as old as my eldest brother) Ian the murse. He will be ‘28 again again’ on Sunday (i.e. 30) but as he is going to a wedding that weekend, we decided to go something this weekend just passed. I say we, but actually biggest brother was in fact the organiser, only to be unfortunately pinged off-shore to Nigeria at the last minute and was actually not present. The evening was thwarted once again when the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed just for that week for renovation. Sigh. What to do. Well, fortunately my brother’s fiancé is a wonderful cook and instead she put on a feast of curry. And I mean feast. There must have over 10 dishes, maybe even as many as 20. All cooked from scratch and made just beautifully, along with my mother and my maternal cousins plus partners, we had a delightful evening of total and utter curry indulgent and beer (mine noon-alcoholic as designator driver, sigh). It was lovely night even though most of we felt full to burst and the next day let’s just say a breeze was needed throughout his house to keep it fresh....

I returned from this jaunt back to Edinburgh via Pitlochery as because due to a series of events Cat the Australian wanderer and Andi the remote Fort Willy doc were both residing there for the afternoon. We went on a jaunty walk to find the mystical frozen pond Cat was keen for us to see – we didn’t find it, but I did locate a frozen puddle. We almost became duck killers when a flock refused to move out of the way of Simone and Andi was despatched to chase them away whilst been laughed at hysterically by Cat and I plus 2 grannies sitting on a bench who were also amused by this sight.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I also went to my friend Simon’s book launch in Blackwell’s last week. Simon has written a book about his travels with the aim of going to visit every place in the world with the word ‘mullet’ in the title. No seriously. He gave a reading of the book and then along with my brother and landlady wife went for tea. Niall is actually Simon’s primary friend and is mentioned in the first 5 or so chapters of the book which pleases him tremendously. The book is called ‘Up the Creek Without a Mullet’ by Simon Varwell and is available on Amazon. If you Google the author’s name, you’ll also get info about him and his blog. Interesting there are only 8 people with the surname Varwell in the world (fact) so this means ensuring you have the right Varwell is particularly easy. Right, plug over.

Since then I have been enjoying lazy days in the flat with no obligation to spend hours on the computer trawling for jobs. So what have I been doing? Well, I’ve being playing on the internet for hours trawling through Wikipedia. Variety is the spice of life.

Buses

Jobs are like buses. No sooner did I receive word that I got that SAAS job, I got word of 2 further interviews. I had one of these yesterday. It was to be a clinical coder for the NHS (Google it) and if I’m being brutally honest I only applied for the sake of it and thought no more of it. I was then surprised when I received notification that I had an interview. I then forgot all about that as well as after my SAAS job victory I totally relaxed and left the list to one side. I went home and spent a weekend with my mother basically eating and doing lovely things such as meeting up with an old school friend (who by coincidence happens to be a clinical coder). I returned after this indulgent weekend and then spent the week doing, well, not very much at all. In fact I can honestly say last week was particularly uneventful, I did the pub quiz, met up with friends, went to the cinema during the day etc etc I also went to see The Sound of Music at the Playhouse and it was very good. On Saturday the majority of the Forsythian cousins and I went out for a meal and drank far far too much wine and in amongst all this I actually bought a car.

Aside- yes I know I don’t need a car in Edinburgh. Yes, I know they are expensive, I know they are a bitch to park, yes I know because of this, and my personal green house gas emissions will cause the world to implode. But you know what? I don’t care. I want one, I want one, I want one!!!! So I am in the process of purchasing a 2003 blue/silver 5 door Peugeot 106 with only 23,000 miles on the clock. This means all you people I keep saying I would visit; well now you can’t hide, I coming to see you.

Back to the man story. So after the cousin dinner party I was very unwell. I mean seriously unwell. I was unable to emerge from my slumber and filth until the mid afternoon and was unable to keep down solid food till the early evening. However, fortunately I recovered enough of that evening’s festivities –Andi’s birthday. Yes, my gay ex-hubby (we had painful and public face book divorce 2 weeks ago) was yet again on holiday from the Fort (does he ever work?) and along with kiddie doc Jen and my wife- whose birthday was on the Saturday (she went out with her family, I didn’t abandon her for mine, dinnae yea worry and I got her a lovely, but unfortunately broken present) ate lots of pizza and watched the wonderful ‘Up’. If you have not seen this film, do it. Do it now. The first ten minutes contain some of the most moving scenes in film history. And Up is a cartoon.

And then all of a sudden, it was Monday and I had an interview. For all my other interviews, I have been meticulously prepared, checked out the job, the company, spent ages getting ready etc etc. But for this one, I barely remembered I had to go for it. I almost cancelled going because I hadn’t slept well. I finally got my act in gear and spent a whole ten minutes googling the job online and then got the bus to the hospital. On my arrival I was stupendously early as always and had a leisurely cup of tea. I was uncharacteristically chilled out, maybe this was because I realised I didn’t need this one and I entered the interview arena with confidence, oozing charm if I do say so myself. The 3 interview panellists were all delightful people, it was more like a chat than an interview. They laughed at my jokes, didn’t seem to mind my wildly gesticulating arms and seemed to think I knew what I was talking about. I was then told that the job would pay more than I thought, there were casual Fridays and flexi time on offer. Also my pension from my years as an FY doctor would be carried forward and slot into this one. And I do love a good pension. It was over and I left the room where it dawned on me- gosh I want this job. It sounds more interesting and generally just better than the other one. I was told I had a 1/5 chance and they would phone me Thursday/Friday.

So it was to my great surprise whilst buying flour in Tesco today (I am a good housewife) that I got a phone call from one of the panellists to tell me the they had completed the interviews a day early and that they wanted to offer me the job. I was stunned and delighted. I was so happy in fact I ended up buying the most ridiculous things in the shop, far too heavily burdening myself, resulting in a spilt bag incident at a pedestrian crossing and being aiding by a passing stranger. However, this supermarket related incident could not curb my enthusiasm and I have been on cloud nine since returning back to my home. My wife is on nights this week so I was unable to whip myself into a cleaning frenzy so instead I sat in my sofa eating cherry tomatoes and hummus on crackers feeling generally smug.

And here I remain, my wife is up and left for work and I am now watching the Olympics feeling restless, but contented. I won’t be starting the job till April so intend to pack in a lot of visiting with my wee car (getting it on Friday!) so watch out people.

Oh, and did I mention I have another job interview tomorrow afternoon.

Buses.

Job

It’s happened. After 5 months/ 149 days/3576 hours (approx) of official unemployment; Morag Christie has a job.

Now, don’t get too excited. It is not my dream job by any means and technically until I prove I’m not a serial killing paedophile and get my disclosure Scotland certificate, I can’t start. But it’s an offer, it’s a job and I now can pay my rent (after March this was going o become an issue as on March 18^th my JSA i.e. dole money was going to run out).

Phew, phew, phew.

Thank-you Student Awards Agency Scotland (my new almost-employer) for taking a chance on me and allowing me to give advice to young poor impressionable students and deny them funding. I relish the opportunity to ‘advise’ them to get weekend jobs because its recession and the government spent all their parents’ tax money on duck houses thus decreasing funding dramatically and the 25% increase in post-graduates leading to an altogether strain on the financial stability of the organisation. Sounds like great fun eh?

Phew.

Sorry that is just how it feels. I had anticipated when I got the news I had managed to secure employment that I would feel elated and want it party, get drunk and dance on tables. But what I actually felt was like there was a mill stone around my neck that had been finally lifted from my shoulders and thunk loudly on the ground at my feet, sending mill stone dust whooshing around me. I had a sit down, phoned my mum in disbelief and then did what is fast becoming one of my favourites past times of late- I cleaned. Favourite is not the word. Compulsion in fact. Yes, on hearing the news I had got a job a felt the compulsion to clean. I polished the window sills and mantle piece then cleaned the kitchen. I even moved the cooker and mopped the floor. I would have moved the fridge too, but it began to topple in my attempt and I could just visualize the scene that would greet Sarah on her return form work of my rather attractive pink love heart slippers poking out from under the horizontal fridge freezer and decided to leave it be.

I’m now having a sit down and a cup of tea out of my new mug. Who says I don’t know how to have fun?

I must back track slightly to events prior to today. The last I wrote I was getting very philosophical and this was mainly because I was waiting the results of a job interview that I thought I’d get. And then of course didn’t. Fortunately, I got the news whilst visiting my mother in Killin, the home of her fancy man. Yes, my poor mother is still waiting for her house to be finished and had gone to dog sit whilst her hard working fancy man completes the work. We had decided to go to Calander for the day, a nice wee town near Richard’s house and were just looking round a nice 2^nd hand book shop- (but mainly just talking to the resident book shop cat) when I heard the news that I still didn’t have a job. So I decided that the best way to deal with this news was to buy an extortionate amount of sweets. I got vanilla fudge, honey roasted cashews, milk chocolate jazzies, sherbet pips and mixed fruit creams. I spent the next 2 days in the country eating these whilst drinking left over wine from Christmas and watching truly appalling true life movies and crime shows. By the end of it I felt much better, spiritually, but not physically.

The Borg also were there of course, the full complement of five. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned before, but of the 5, 3 are young siblings, the other 2 are slightly older mum and (honouree) auntie. Jet is the mum dog and is a bit stiff around the back legs, but still as enthusiastic as her brood. When giving them their afternoon constitutional, I play the game commonly known to many as fetch. When playing this with five dogs, the game talks a slightly different format that I would describe as manic dash. This comprises of me wresting the ball from Tom, having the dogs running around me in ecstatic pleasure, jumping with an insane amount of anticipation then the ball been thrown, the Borg tearing after it. The ball lands and is usually initially caught by Megan, the small (but most devious) yellow lab before it us wrestled from her by one of her siblings the black ones Tom and Sally. Pip the auntie has by this stage realised it’s all over and given up, ran back to me to see if I have another ball just for her to throw (I don’t). A then a curious event occurs. After all the excitement, all the jumping and scrabbling, barking and near death leaping off the garden embankment, which ever child dog has it, they drop it. They drop it and run off. Then Jet the mum dog picks it up and returns it to me. It’s a curious thing that I’m sure if I was in my philosophical mood of last week, I would reflect on.

Anyway, since then it has just been the grind of job hunting (mercilessly over- I’m not going to stop job hunting, but just take it down a gear, maybe 2) and of course socialising.

The pub quiz was missed last week as my cousin was ill (don’t worry, just a cold) and grave news was also received. I mentioned back in the beginning of the blog my aunt Moira’s cat Asti. A magnificent beast of white and tabby, a stalwart of the family and not totally in love with his cousin cat Edgar when he was staying. Well, alas after 16 years of bravely defending his home from interlopers, the occasional spider and the more frequent mouse, he sadly passed away last week. It’s hard to describe the sadness of losing a pet to those who have not had a beloved pet die, but certainly form experience, when Linford, the equally magnificent black fluff monster died several years ago I felt quite bereft. It was an unexpected grief, one I felt a bit ridiculous about. I’m meaning he was only a cat, was he not? But I think a family pet, especially one you have had for years can leave you quite profoundly sad because of the associations they carry. Linford had been in my life from an early age, he had been there during school, university, holidays, illness and death. When I would come home from school before mum got home from work, he would greet me with great enthusiasm at the door and accompany around the house as I completed my daily ritual of ripping off my school uniform and purging myself of the school day (school was not my favourite time). He was there where when I was studying at university- even when I didn’t want him to be. I recall on one occasion his persistence was so over whelming I had to eventually lock him outside of the house and close the curtains. So when my cousins and aunt expressed their great sadness on the loss of Asti, I could easily comprehend their emotions. RIP Asti, king of the Forsyth cats, you shall be missed.

Gosh this blog is getting long and I’m hungry. More socialising has occurred, but I’ll talk about that next time.

To end on a happy note, as mentioned, the quiz was missed 2 Mondays’ past. However last night, we made the quiz (without Niall who was until this morning in Ghana and missed the last few quizzes) and I am happy to report that after finishing last, then finishing 2^nd last that yesterday we finished 3^rd last. So a definite improvement.

Things are looking up.

Waiting

Sorry, you have been waiting for this blog. I did promise I’d write weekly and I’ve kept you all well, waiting. To be honest if you are a regular blog reader you’ll be aware that my life hasn’t been scintillating recently, the last Buffy themed entry being a testament to that. Plus, I’ve been a bit melancholy with the whole jobless thing neither of which is contusive to cheerful blog writing.

So today, the theme is waiting. I’m writing this as I wait for Andi’s bed to be delivered. For those of you unaware, Andi had just bought a flat in Edinburgh, but lives in Fort William. Fortunately for him he has an unemployed friend who has the time to sit about his house waiting for things to be delivered. Last Friday I also did this and was actually a little disappointed that by 1030 all the people had come, delivered their wears and were off again. It meant I had to go do something productive with my day and not just hole up in a corner of Andi’s unfurnished flat watching the extra features of my heroes season 3 DVD boxset like I had planned (don’t get me started on Heroes, while a silly programme with massive plot holes, it has become my new obsession, a mere pale comparison to Buffy of course, but nothing could ever fill that gaping hole in my heart).

Anyway, so waiting has become a major part of life recently and it dawned on me that waiting had been a major feature of most of my life in its entirety. I hated school, and spent my entire day waiting for the school day to be over. I then hated work and spent the day wishing my life away for the few precious moments I had at home before going in for another shift. And finally since moving to Edinburgh, I have been waiting to get a job. Now of course during my wait, I have been doing stuff. Seeing friends, decorating houses, moving a lot of other people’s furniture, but essentially in the back ground, waiting.

This concerns me. Should waiting define my life? But then looking around me and I notice a lot of my friends and family are doing the same thing. A lot of my medic friends are going through the hideous interview process again and waiting to hear if they have got the jobs they so want (and deserve). My mother is still waiting for her house to be finished! And it occurs to me that perhaps waiting isn’t a bad thing, perhaps in fact it us what it is all about.

Hmm how to explain what I’m getting at. I’ll use the medium of film as it’s the one I am most familiar with. When you are watching a good film or a TV series, you are desperately waiting to find out what happens next and how things will end. But when you do, it’s done, finished and even if you’ve enjoyed it, there is part of you that wishes you could go back and watch it all again with no memory of seeing it in the first place; to get that feeling back, the excitement of waiting to see what happens next. Will the goodies prevail? How will things turn out? Seeing things you weren’t expecting, surprises, delights, expectation. It’s all part of the process of enjoying the production.

And this is how I have decided to try and view my life. Everyone knows that the best part of a film is watching the protagonist going through a hard time and then in the end emerge triumphant. So I am nominating myself as the hero of my own life film. This is my difficult time, my cross roads, my period of transition. I will eventually get a job, things will change and for good or ill, I will and find out the outcome of this chapter of my story.

But until then, I just have to wait.

The Plan

So last week I told you about the list and not putting things off till tomorrow. This week I give mention to the plan. The plan has emerged directly from the list. The list was just the stepping stone.

The first few days of the list filled me with a great passion and I did things that I had been putting off for ages. Andi was still hanging about like annoying step-child and kept dragging me along to buy paint and mirrors and the like (I secretly enjoy this but don’t tell him, I might need favours in the future) so I put him to good use. I decided finally after all this time, it was time to get rid of Buffy. Yes, my Buffy VHS collection was going to dust. I must state here, I did buy Buffy the complete series on DVD box set some months ago so, never fear, I am not Buffy-less, but it was time I got rid of my mixture of taped off TV Buffy videos and bought VHS box sets.

For those of you who don’t know, Buffy was a popular teen fantasy drama that lasted for 7 seasons starring Sarah Michelle Geller. It was pivotal in re-starting the popular media interest in vampire lore and was also the first main stream TV series to have a strong female main character and mainly female supporting cast. It was shown very late on BBC2 and my passion for it could not wait for this to happen. Also BBC2 edited the crap out of it too; I mean sentences just cut off mid way through- intolerable. Now fortunately for me, I had two lovely neighbours the Crombies in my old (now sold) family home. They had Sky television and every Thursday/Friday night for over 5 years they either allowed me to come over and watch Buffy; if they were out they set the tape up for me or gave me the keys to their house so I could watch it in their absence. I know, amazing kindness to a desperate teen. However it didn’t stop there. When I finally went to university, they continued to tape it for until finally series 7 finished and they were released of their obligation to me. What lovely people, shout out to them.

Anyway, so the point of that little homage was that I had kept all these tapes for all these years, but as we know VHS is dead, long live DVD, so I have upgraded. Thus the Buffy tapes had to go. My landlady wife was on nights last week and was trying my darnedest to be quiet during the day so she could sleep in peace. I keep my Buffy videos on top of my wardrobe in a plastic box. It’s a high wardrobe that required me to stand on a chair and hand the box to an expectant Andi. Unfortunately, as I passed it to him the box completely disintegrated on his head and Buffy videos went flying everywhere crashing to the ground in a most alarming manner. I froze- had we woken my wife?! No. Phew. And fortunately, Andi was still conscious. I like to think of this as the Buffy videos final hoorah, a silent, but spectacular assault on an oppressive male (well, sometimes he tells me I look like I’ve not got any make-up on when I do just to annoy me; so not oppressive, but a bit annoying). Goodbye Buffy VHS, I loved you so.

Wow, that was far too much about Buffy. I think have a Buffy problem. I need to go to Buffy-holics anonymous. Oh, dear lord stop!

So the plan. Yes, the plan emerged from the list. The list was working well, but soon it began to take a life of its own requiring appendages and notes all over the edges. This was not orderly, so I came up with the plan. The plan is a list of ultimate goals and things I’m working toward. I cannot do all the things in the plan straight away so I write a daily list from the plan using it as a reference to keep me on track. Clear now?

I could tell you about the plan, but I think I’ve bored you enough with the Buffy story so suffice to say there is a plan and hopefully something will come of it.

Hmm, I feel this a particularly boring blog entry, but I’ve written it now and feel it would be wasteful to delete it so like it or lump it that’s what you are getting this week. It’s finally happened. The unemployment has won, I now officially have nothing to say, dullness has enveloped me entirely, the ‘fun’ part of day is watching an amusing clip on YouTube, getting a bargain in pound stretcher or seeing a minor celebrity in John Lewis – that was on Sunday last; Angus Purden famed for being the face of the Postcode lottery on STV and also one of the hosts of Cash in the Attic. He was wearing a blue puffa jacket and was looking at kitchen appliances.

Oh, heaven help me why do I know that?! Please, someone, give me a job!

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!