Long overdue

It was pointed out to me that I haven't written my blog in ages, and it's shamefully true, I've fallen behind ever since London.

So, here's a quick update:  London was awesome!  We went to see Kate Rusby in the Regents Park Open air Theatre, which is lovely - a wee small venue set in the trees and surrounded by fairy lights.  Kate Rusby was loaded with the cold but soldiered on and played a lovely set, and even the rain kept off for her set (though we did get a wee bit rained on during the support act).  Here's a pic of the stage/theatre and of Kate Rusby and band playing.



We also went for a curry in a wee place in Tooting Bec, where KH lives and it was tasty and hung out in a nice pub which was surprisingly quiet (i.e.: we managed to get a table) for a Saturday night.  I was sure I knew how to get to KH's flat when I got off the tube but I ended up going the wrong damn way and getting a bit lost. Very annoying.  Never mind, I made it in the end! 

We went to Spittalfield market, where I got a lovely red polka dot scarf (which went on to dye the collar of my mac red but never mind) and then went for a tasty roast lunch.  And on the Monday we went to Portobello Road market which was cool.  Because it was a week day it was quite quiet but it was nice to be able to wander about, and it's a lovely area with all the wee houses painted different colours and the funky signs advertising different shops and cafes.  This is a pic of me outside the bookshop as seen in Notting Hill.  (Wearing my new scarf, too!)  No sign of Hugh Grant though.

I called up The Wright Stuff (a news/chat show on Channel 5) and got me & KH a place in the audience so we went along and watched that being filmed.  It was a bit cringe cause there were only about 20 people in the audience  but I thought it was fun.  Not sure KH was impressed but to her credit she didn't complain at all!  We had to leave the flat at 7:30am to get there on time (I say 'on time' - we were still 20 minutes late) and the show lasted about two hours. So afterwards we popped into a nice wee Spanish/Italian cafe and then on to Portobello.

I had booked myself a ticket on the Greyhound bus to get home because it was only £12.  Well... on their website it makes it sound luxurious and comfortable, and frankly, it was neither of those things.  My seat didn't recline, I didn't notice any extra leg/arm space (in face there was no inside arm rest) and the air conditioning wasn't working.  I got there with little time to spare so got on almost last and ended up sitting opposite the toilet, whose door wouldn't stay shut.  So, all in all, I would not recommend them.  On the other hand, it was only £12, and probably no worse than the Megabus, so if saving the pennies is your biggest criteria then go for it.  Personally, I'll be flying next time.

I do love London, and I'm very grateful to my amiga KH for putting me up every time the urge takes me to go.  Not only does she put me up and often provide food, but she also takes me about and steers me through the Tube and tried her best to stop me getting lost, though this is really too big for one person to manage alone!

Thanks, KitKat!



Amethysts, and Emeralds and Sapphires, Oh My!

My mum got a bit of money through as part of her pension payment and she decided to buy my granny a nice new ring, as she's always really good to all of us.

So today we all (my brother, too) went in to peruse the gems on offer in the Argyle Arcade!  Let me say right now, that if I ever get married I'll definitely half to go halfers on my ring cause I only really like the Art-Deco style platinum rocks that go for about £7000.  An investment though, eh!

Anyway, my granny narrowed it down to three rings, one a lovely pale sapphire-and-diamond banded number, and the other two both bright amethysts.  We're going to go back tomorrow and get it, to let her sleep on it.  I know it's kind of a weird thing to say but her hand really suits the amethyst!  I guess it must be her colouring.

Then we went for lunch in Sloane's - three portions of the epic Mac 'n' Cheese, please! - and then for a quick coffee.  Very nice day out, en famille.

My dad got the bus into town to meet us at the end.  For those of you don't know my dad, it might be hard to convey how big a deal this is - my dad drives everywhere and has used public transport maybe once in the last 25 years.  But he now has his free bus pass for over-60s (but don't tell him I told you) so today, for the first time, he got the bus into town with it.  All on his own, and he made it!  It was quite sweet, he was all quietly chuffed with himself when he arrived, telling us all about what you do with the card and how they scan it for you.  I don't think he'll be making a habit of it, but I was quite proud of him for giving it a go!

Not long til I go down to London now, I'm getting quite excited!  I've talked KH into coming to see the Tracy Emin exhibition that's on, which I think should be really interesting!  There's also a pub I'm dying to go to for lunch, Inglots Cosmetics which I want to go to in Westfields Shopping Centre and a feminist film screening about women being abused within the porn industry. (Cheery.)

All this in... 2 and a quarter days!  I arrive in London at 6pm on Saturday and I catch the overnight bus home (Greyhound, not Megabus, don't worry!) at 10pm Monday night, arriving back in Glasgow at 6am.  So it'll be action packed and I'm sure I won't get all of it done - the most important thing, of course, is the Kate Rusby gig on Sunday afternoon which is the whole reason I'm going - but I'll give it a good go!

We're having feminist film night chez moi on the Friday night, so I'll have to make sure I'm packed and ready to go as these civilised film discussion groups often descend into wine-fueled drunkenness resulting in serious hangovers.  I plan to drink a glass of water between each glass of wine but you know what Robert Burns said:

"The best laid plans of mice and feminists/

go oft awry!"

Sunday chat

Just been to the gym and for some reason it felt much harder going than usual!  Probably cause it's a Sunday, there must be some kind of built-in laziness clause.  Still I did my hour of cardio, though I gave up on the cross-trainer after 10 mins and switched to the bike.  I went running on the treadmill first so then when I hit the cross-trainer I just couldn't hack it!

I suppose I'm glad I made the effort to go cause the more I get into the way of it the less likely I am to fall of the bandwagon. (Or treadmill.)

My dad's away out but I'm hoping when he comes in I can get him to make a pot of soup - his soup is legendary, just what you need on a blah grey day like today!

I was out for a few drinks last night in Boteco do Brazil in Merchant City - one of my favourite places in Glasgow!  The food is cheap and unbelievably tasty, and the drinks are quite cheap with cocktails for £3 during the week.  I'm also happy to report that there's a really hot waiter who I've never seen before.  Maybe he's new, I think I'll have to go back again and check...!

Today I think I'll just be chillaxing and mulling things over - still thinking about going to Italy, and still thinking about doing a make-up artistry beginners course and saving up to a professional one down in London.  I think I'd actually love that but it's a bit daunting to think of breaking out and doing something so new and completely different...  So much to think about, so little idea about what would be best!?  Argh.  At least the beginners' make-up course would be funded by ILA, so I might as well do it and see where it gets me... If I hate it then at least I won't have wasted the money on the longer course in London.  Then again there's the whole thing: where would I stay when I was doing it in London, how would I support myself, would I stay down there permanently after I finished it?  Who knows!?

And, of course, if I did decide to go Italy, none of this would even matter.

My brain is now fried.  I'm off for a strong coffee and a shower before I self-combust. 

"Sorry... no matching jobs available."

That's what it says every time I do a search on S1jobs recently.  Today I've tried:

• Fundraising/Charity - 1 non-voluntary post that was a management position for Scottish Opera, no good.  
• Heritage/Cultural/Library - 0. 
• Admin - only crappily paid reception jobs (which, I'm not just being fussy here, I've applied for before and never get because I don't have 'reception experience'), plus
• 1 job at Glasgow School of Art that I'm applying for, though this is only a 9 month maternity cover, which would put me in the same position I was in with my last job, and we all know how that worked out. 

I'm debating whether it's even worthwhile applying for a temporary job that's not going to lead anywhere, but I probably will anyway if only to make me feel like I've managed to do something constructive today.

Haven't heard back from Woman Kind, and now I don't think I will.  It's amazing how quickly the positivity seeps away, really.  But there it is, it's all gone, and today I feel crappy. 

That's right kids, it's not all shopping and wine-filled lunches when you're unemployed - there's also the rubbish flip-side where you sit in the house filling out forms for jobs you don't want or are over-qualified for, or watching daytime TV and drinking coffee.  Then, once in a blue moon, you find a job that gets you really excited and you know you could do well, and you spend ages applying for it and then you don't even hear back about it.  Not even a rejection email, because most places are "eliminating surplus admin costs" which means they can't spare 20 mins of some admin assistant's time to stick your name and email in a Mail Merger and send out a standard email telling you didn't get the job.

Definitely, today is not a good day.  Maybe it's hormones, or the come down from the huge excitement I felt for the Woman Kind job, or maybe it's just boredom, but today I'm feeling really shit and can't snap myself out of it.  For some reason, I just feel really upset about everything and that's stupid because it's not going to change anything, and all it does is make me not even get anything done, like redoing my CV, because I feel crap and can't concentrate.  I might go and have some coffee and sit on the patio for a bit of fresh air, and then come back to it.

I've also got my jobcentre appointment coming up again, and I always go in feeling like I haven't done enough, or like I should have a job by now.  And then when I'm there the 'advisors' don't even give a shit anyway, and there must be tonnes of people who go in and actually haven't even bothered trying to get jobs, but I still feel like I'm being lazy or complacent cause I haven't even had any interviews yet.

The weather's very strange today, uber foggy, I can hardly even see the other side of the street out my window.  It's kind of mirroring my moods (or maybe I'm mirroring the weather, who knows?) - yesterday was a lovely bright, cheerful sunny day, even though it was quite cold.  And today is grey and cloudy and foggy and quiet.  That's kind of how my head feels just now: fuzzy and full of cotton wool, and grey, negative thoughts.

I'm meeting HM and KM later today, about half past 5, so that'll probably help cheer me up.  I don't mind wallowing in my own thoughts but I don't tend to talk about it much, really, and I think that's a good thing.  I can kind of explain how I feel but I don't want to go on about it when I'm with other people, and then, I guess, just thinking and talking about other stuff gets me out of my own funk, a bit.  On the other hand, maybe I'm actually suppressing all the crappiness and will end up with an ulcer or something, ha ha.

Think I'll go for that coffee now and then come back to the jobs.  I'll look up the London websites, instead of the Scottish ones, and maybe I'll feel a bit better to see there are actually some jobs going and it's not all hopeless...

It's really too early for this

You know you've been unemployed too long when getting up at 9:15 feels like 'early'.  I know it's not really that early but it feels worse because I'm off to the dentist.  It was meant to be my granny going but she doesn't want to go out in the snow and ice so her appointment is free, and my mum's going along anyway so I might as well take my granny's spot.  The problem being that my dentist is in Milngavie (my mum's cous, we get it fo' free!) which is a fair old hoof when you know that a polish and potentially drill, is waiting at the finishing like. Ho hum.  Still, better to have nice teeth than not I guess.

Thought I'd stick up a link to a pub I want to go to in (you guessed it) London. It's called the Hansom Cab and it's in Kensington, which by all accounts is quite posh.  Not really my scene, except that this particular posh pub happens to be owned by Piers Morgan and his stupidly named brother Rupert and is generally meant to be full of more celebs than you can shake a stick at.  Granted, that doesn't make it good, but worth a look anyway, I reckon.  Apparently they do a very nice ale, too.

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/pubsandbars/the-hansom-cab-gallery-11829.html

And now, I've just realised I have 30 min to get ready and out the door and instead of frantically brushing the teeth, I'm blogging and talking crap. To the bathroom!