Oh yeah, blogging…

Been a bit remiss really haven’t I?

Tuesday – Bit busy really. A couple of months ago I decided I needed A Plan. So I made one. A multi-faceted one really but with one element being that I wanted a second pop at a career at some future point and having decided that 40 would be a good life crisis point I’d decided that by 40 I’d be ‘available for work again’ whatever path the whole Home Ed life led us along. So I’ve been looking at further education courses, doing lots of physcomatic tests and thinking about myself in the 3rd person ‘who would Nic like to be?’. When I was little I had several career ambitions based on nothing other than snapshot ideas of what that job might be like – for a while I liked the idea of hairdressing due to the highly satisfying noise the snipping scissors make. I also really wanted to work in a post office for a while because I quite liked the idea of stamping things with a big chunky rubber stamp – and having occassion to use one of those finger moistening sponge thingies they have. But I have, slightly hilariously even I can agree, often thought I’d quite like to be a librarian. So with this Plan in the back of my mind I went to the library a couple of weeks ago and saw a sign advertising a Library Assistant vacancy. I looked into the position and with a little help from my friends decided that being so very part time it would be a possibility to do, so I completed an online application form, updated my CV and applied. And was offered an interview. Which I attended on Tuesday.

Lucy had offered to mind Davies and Scarlett and with a sense of foreboding ahead I deputised Ady to do the actual dropping off of the children at Lucy’s and headed off in my best Librarian Interview Attire. 🙂 The interview was a very strange experience. Way back long before children I did a fair amount of flitting about career wise and never stayed happy in any one job for more than about a year. Ideas about breaking out of Retail Management coupled with lots of easy come, easy go positions within Retail Management meant I applied for, and attended interviews for a hell of a lot of jobs. I must have been to well over 50 job interviews and there was a time when I almost interviewed as a habit! 🙂 But it’s been a long old while. My last *real* interview was for the job I had while pregnant with Davies – so nearly 7 years ago. I had a fairly high profile job with Miranda up in Manchester but as the interview for that consisted of her inviting me out for lunch and told me ‘I think you’re great, I’d really like you to work for me. Think up a job description, a salary and what you’d like to do and I’ll take you out for lunch again in 3 days to discuss it’ – I can’t really count that! 😆

So I had the job interview, which for some reason hadn’t occurred to me might be with the women who run the book group I go to at the library once a month. So once we’d all gotten over our slight feelings of oddness about being in an interview situation with people we debate books with on a monthly basis it was a fairly straightforward interview. My main task was not convincing them I could do the job, but convincing them I was not too ‘over qualified’ for it and would not be bored or fail to be challenged by it. I think I managed to do that and explained to them that it was very much a challenge by virtue of being a whole new career path for me and something I would one day hope to turn into my ‘next’ career when the children were no longer my chief responsibility.

I went back to Lucy’s to have lunch and see Davies and Scarlett. Davies had not been at all happy about being left although Lucy had done admirably managing him and he was soon over it. Scarlett seemed utterly unbothered and was having a great time playing with R & R. We had a nice couple of hours there and then came home for one of those evenings where time seems to get sucked away and none of the things you intended getting done seem to happen!

Wednesday – up Very Early Indeed to pack (one of things which dropped off the night before’s to do list) and head off to Merry‘s for a couple of days. We took a slight detour so Ady could visit a garden centre on the way up there, arrived in time for lunch and then Ady headed off again for some more local garden centres up there. Chris and Helen were already there and the children wasted no time in getting stuck in, making themselves at home and having a great time tearing about, digging about in the garage for things they really shouldn’t be touching (sorry again :oops:) and generally being children. I overheard at least two pretend wedding ceremonies 😆

Helen, Merry and I busied ourselves in thorough testing of Merry’s latest product line on BeadMerrily.

In the evening after Helen and Chris went home, Ady and Max went off to the pub, the children collapsed and Merry and I set to work on a whole montage of fimo making. 🙂

I heard from the library on the way up to Merry’s that I had been unsuccessful in the job, but was assured it had been a very close decision and offered the chance to join their bank of relief staff who they call on to cover sickness, holiday, busy periods etc which I accepted and once my paperwork and CRB checks etc have gone through is something I hope to get at least a little bit of work from. So not the decision I’d have hoped for, but not a total blank either.

Thursday I had the tour of the hub of BeadMerrily including being allowed to mix and weigh some bead mixes. Then I got to use probably my favourite of Merry’s business ‘toys’ – the postage label printer! I’d brought some of my own ebay parcels which Merry kindly allowed me to print labels and pay her for rather than send Ady to the post office :-). I was saved from looking after six children on my own when Merry went to the dentist by the well timed arrival of Chris who came to collect Helen’s forgotten handbag from the night before and left only a few minutes before Merry returned again. 😆

In the afternoon Merry and I played with more fimo while the children mostly entertained themselves, except Tarly who insisted on sitting with us and chattering constantly which veered between endearing, charming and cute and downright bloody annoying! 🙄 She did eventually go off only to return wiping her face with perfume from an air freshner 🙄 again!

In the evening we had a beautifully cooked meal ;-), set up a studio for the fimo photographing, drank wine and chatted. Ady and Max left us to it very early and I was driven to bed in the end by streaming eyes which probably had a bit to do with the air freshner from earlier.

Friday We left Merry’s fairly early having had a lovely couple of days – thanks again 🙂 – and yes, we did leave having made purchases! 🙄 A very straightforward journey home although it tipped with rain all the way down the country. My car had it’s MOT in the afternoon so I popped out to do that and wonder round the local shops to the garage. I was convinced it would fail on something costly this year as two years ago it scraped through according to the garage who really put pressure on me to have the exhaust seen to and told me it wouldn’t last for another 2 months – when it was still going strong last year I took it somewhere else for it’s MOT which it sailed through so I went back there again this year and except for a tenner to fix a clamp (no, I have no idea either, I was so relieved to get away with a tenner that I didn’t ask!) it passed again! Hurrah 🙂 🙂 :-).

Today This morning Lucy came round super early and we headed off to meet my Mum at the local NCT nearly new sale. We jostled and elbowed and grabbed and filled our bin liners very full of clothes. I’ve been previously with Julie a couple of times and followed the same technique – grab anything remotely interesting looking and when your arm is about to fall off from the weight of the bag and it is splitting from being so full, find a quietish corner, tip it all out and go through it ruthlessly deciding what you really, really want and putting back the rest. Mum was gathering on my behalf so we had two brimming bin liners and actually not a lot made it back to the sale 😳 Mum did pay a third though, which is probably about what I would have put back if she’d not been encouraging me (I so get my mad shopping ways from my Mum :roll:). Then we came back home for a big trying on session. As usual Tarly got far more than Davies – boys clothes just aren’t so inspiring – or indeed plentiful in the larger sizes at NCT sales, but Tarly did really well with loads of posh brand stuff for a couple of quid a piece. And now I know that the right brands will fetch money on ebay when she’s outgrown them too I am quite happy for her to have a rather bulging wardrobe at bargain prices, knowing when she outgrows it selling it will fund the next size up.

We had lunch, then Ady headed off to my parents to help my Dad cut the hedge while Mum played with the children and got a masterclass in Xbox from Davies. I made some millionaires shortbread (not as good as Layla’s by a long way, but not bad) and then made our Christmas cake. I’ve never made a Christmas cake before, actually never made a fruit cake before but for at least the last two Christmases I’ve meant to and not got round to it in time. I used a recipe online as a guide and added a few extra ingredients and left out a few I either didn’t have or we don’t like much. We all had a stir and made a wish, including Mum and Dad who were both here. We’ve just taken it out of the oven and onto a cooling rack where we needed to perform emergency first aid with tin foil as it started to bulge a bit at the sides – the crumbs taste lovely though, so aslong as I can keep it together through it’s weekly injections of alcohol between now and Christmas I reckon it will be good :-).
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Mum and Dad left, we watched The X Factor, which this year the children, particularly Davies have gotten into. It’s funny how he is starting to develop viewing taste beyond Nick Jr and ‘children’s programmes’ and heading into ‘family viewing’ that bit more. He likes programmes with the competition element and has really enjoyed the last two series of Masterchef too. I let him stay up a bit later to watch a bit of Ant & Dec tonight (I wasn’t watching myself you understand, I was internet surfing!) but that didn’t hold him.

And I think that’s me about caught up.