A nomination for worst blog entry ever.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Stephen Says
So this is what happens when out roles get switched - E takes over the blogging & I go silent. So anyway, in bullet form:

Today: We did a mega walk along the canal, roughly 8 miles in all, and had some drinks at some pubs as well as a quick bite to eat. All very relaxing.

Friday: I got officially confirmed in post (My supervisor's final assessment: "He is good. He can stay."), which pretty much means that it's going to be very hard for me to lose my job. Hah! As a reward, I got to sit in on an area meeting with all the house managers & our area manager. 3 hours later, my brain was mush. I rounded out the day by slamming my head into the bottom of the medicine cabinet & tearing a big chunk of skin out of the top of my head and bleeding all over myself during the night.

Otherwise, it's work, work, work. I can't think of anything too exciting except that things at the house are gradually heating up and, after a quiet few weeks, some serious shit will be hitting the fan. You can see it coming. See? There it is.

I will be starting to bike to work instead of walking it, tomorrow.

I'm off to London on Wednesday to start my NVQ training. It'll take about a year, it's a nursing qualification (Though i have no idea what it means) and, once I've done it, I'll get an insignificant raise.

Then on Thursday, I'll be in Basingstoke for some more training.

Since coming back from Canada, I've become Mr. efficiency at work and it's freaking people out.

Deal with it. Rock'n roll.

My Lucky Pizza Day!
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Stephen's making pizza, and i'm the luckiest girl in the world. MMMMmmmm... This is all because he's not working this weekend...yay for sleeping in. Woking on a Saturday is something to avoid...too many people is what it boils down to. Nobody cooperates on the sidewalk, or in the mall, or navigating crowded stores. The worst is that no one says excuse me. For instance in Virgin Megastore (Cds/DVDs) Stephen and I were browsing, and buzzards descended expecting us to move away. We were having a conversation and actually looking at some DVDs and weren't ready to move on, and so this guy starts browsing through the titles in front of my leg, uncaring that he was rubbing against it at the same time. As if I were a pillar or a lint brush. A little "sorry can I just see the films under "Kk?" would have been sensible.

Anyway...perhaps tomorrow we'll go to London...depends if we sleep in or not...we'll see.

But we did buy Amelie (one of my favs) and Old School (unseen) with Will Ferrell. Add wine and cider, and you've got another winning Saturday night at the Allins.

BUSY! Oh Help!
Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: BBC4
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Ok...alarm went off at 7:30am...arg...I dressed in jeans and walking shoes & changed in the mall bathroom into skirt and heels. The interview went very well, but alas I was not impressed with the job...a 6 month contract at 8.5 pounds per hour, is not exactly what I wanted to get into right away. Even so, they were very nice women, the interviewers, and they seemed enthusiastic about hiring me. I thought long and hard...having money soon would be good, but it's not a fun/interesting job, and not good pay to compensate....so I called the employement agent, and told them no. Also, I asked them to raise my min. hourly rate to 10 pounds. I felt a bit nervous about this, until another agency called that is. They are offering a 10 pound an hour job in Guildford, for a high-corperate company doing general admin. duties. It's another 6 month thing, but at least it would be good experience, and a stepping stone up. So for this interview I had to change clothes again into my tailored shirt & trousers. Now that I'm home, I must do the laundry, dishes and cook dinner. Stephen'll be home at 5pm, but I'm going out for drinks at 7:30 with Innova friends. I am too busy!!

GIVE ME A JOB AND PAY ME LOTS OF MONEY!!

Keep on Truckin'
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: BBC4...it should go without saying
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Hello my friends. I've got a pretty good track record of posting blogs now that I'm unemployed ;)

Today I spent most of the day with Debbie (my ex-cooworker/partner in unemployed crime/South African spit-roasting friend) and once home, made a ratatouille, played some more on-line sudoku, and selected the outfit to wear for tomorrow's interview =black skirt, tights, black tanktop with gold beads & heels. Since we don't drive, and I get injuries from walking in this pair of heels (my only pair--2.5 years old now), I'm still trying to figure out how to get into town on my bike (unless it's raining, and then where to change...so I'll be setting the alarm tonight...

yes, Stephen is working again...

That's about it...cherioooo

Internet Addict
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: BBC4
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
I have been playing on-line Sudoku, and I think my eyes are damaged...

I applied for a 12 month assistant director residency at a london theatre today...exciting to hope anyway ;)

Also that phone interview I did last week has now asked me in for an interview on Thurs...gosh everything is so slow!! Stephen was absolutely right about the extraordinary length of time it takes a person to get a job here, and it's completely out of your control! I mean when someone says "I'll let you know tomorrow", you can't just assume they mean in 1 week? I was going to switch agencies today because I was getting impatient. Lesson number 1: Allow 7x the "normal" time to hear back from English employers/agents.

Stephen was called into work early today (boo...) and so haven't really seen him. If you know Stephen, you know that mornings don't count until the 10th cup of coffee's been had.

Ok--I just want to say that I now know that David Kronenburg's name is actually spelt Cronenberg. And does anyone else think that Viggo Mortensen is delicious? I do.

And yes, if Stephen posted that he thinks Olivia Newton John is delicious, I would probably be oh so upset, and this double-standard is so oh unfair...but we're talking about VIGGO man!

Moonstruck
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
I could'nt help myself, but this hardly captures it:

Broadband Land
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
We've got BROADBAND! What joy! Stephen has the day off, so after the broadband men drilled a hole in the wall and set up the modem, we strolled into town: recyceled our cans (thanks M & J for guilting us into recycling again), posted letters, returned library books, bought a book (Black Hawk Down, for Stephen), and returned a key to Stephen's work because they need it to open the knife drawer (don't worry, it was just a spare key). But it was really a good excuse for me to see the residence and environment. The room containing the office is like only 2 times the size of our bathroom (i.e. it is a very small room), but the house itself is an enormous victorian house with many levels, nooks and crannys. Stephen's co-workers and residents are all very nice...and one asked me if I was Stephen's daughter (just to wind me up I'm hoping ;)

In other news, Stephen thinks I need to "chill out" because I get annoyed when he's about to draw on me with a pen. How am I supposed to know that the cap is on?

Stephen's at D & D tonight...so I have BROADBAND all to myself. Actually, I'm going to drink my first Red Bull and do productive things...

Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: BBC: Your Gardening Questions Answered!
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
I'm home again while Stephen is working...this has now become a very pleasurable pattern...for me anyway. Stephen's working very hard, and I doff my hat to the boy.

In the meantime, the need to keep myself motivated and active has governed my actions in 2 surprising and revolutionary ways: last night, only 1/2 the bottle of wine was drank (i.e., I put the cork in the bottle instead of poring the contents into my glass over and over and over...); and this morning I went for a run in the quiet Sunday morning streets. What is going on? But the body is thanking me, let me tell you...

Today is also "Covering Letter" day, where I must churn out those nasty letters to accompany the CV when I apply for jobs tomorrow.

Last night we stayed in, ate pita pizzas (mozzarella, goats cheese, chedder, red pepper, red onion and mushroom), and watched Goldmember. "Mosha, Fasha!"

Tomorrow Stephen has the day off, and quite possibly we'll have broadband installed tomorrow...wheee!

BBC Gardening: "I suggest you pop down to the garden centre straight away...go down to the evergreen pot grown trees coniferous section, in other words the christmas trees, as they will be charging twice as much for them in a months time..."

6 out of 6!
Mood:  vegas lucky
Now Playing: E playing the piano
Topic: Stephen Says
What does 6 out of 6 mean? That's the number of serious incident's that I've been involved in at work since I began versus the amount which have taken place since I began. Yep, that's all of them!

1 act of physical aggression (Against me)
2 acts of verbal aggression (I was one of the people being threatened)
3 accident/medical emergencies.

And two of them took place last night. The moral of the story: Don't ever work on shift when I'm around. Last night I got to put my 1st aid training to work with a serious epileptic seizure (People 'round here still call them 'fits.') that took up about 90 minutes of my life and then, just past midnight, as I was getting ready to go to bed, the poor man had another, less serious one. At least seizures are easy to deal with.

It's the paperwork that results from it that isn't.

Cans of cider await!

Hours and Hours of Waiting Might Pay Off...
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Nothing
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
As mentioned, Stephen is sleeping over at work tonight, and I'm alone with THE APT..

After waiting with no response, I started making desperate phone calls to the landlord: "you really don't want to wait anymore, the longer it's not fixed, the more it's going to cost you..." / "...up at 4am for the second night in a row, and I have to tell you that my nerves are shot..." / "I'll be sleeping here alone tonight, and don't know what I'll do if it happens again..."

So a new plummer was called, and he made it over by 2 o'clock.

The verdict: Our immersion heater has two boilers, one general one, the other back-up for really hot baths & such. The back-up generally only comes on at night, and if you don't need it, doesn't need to be on at all. The legal limit at which a boiler's thermostat can be set is 60 degrees Celsius. Both of our boilers were set for about 80 degrees. They have been this way for a while. The thermostats had melted, and were no longer operational, and so were now replaced. What has brought this problem to a head is that our cold water tank being in the ceiling, is only supposed to have water levels up to 3 inches below the top of the water tank. Ours was skimming the top. If water flows out of the tank, there should be a working overflow which drains the excess water. Now. Some bloody builder didn't connect the overflow valves properly ("they're just jammed together") and was causing the leak. The lovely plummer-man corrected all of these problems, and then billed the landlord. As for the ceiling, it will dry, and then will need "a bit of white paint should do the trick."

The upside is that our thermostat is now 20C degrees lower, and should result in lower heating bills!

Afterwards I went to the library and for a lark checked out "A Modern Girl's Guide To Etiquette" by Sarah Evans, and here is some amusing English stuff:

Friends: "They're good for going shopping, eating chocolate, dancing, gossiping, watching videos, doing keep-fit, getting groomed and going on holiday with, AND they big you up and make you feel popular!"

OK, Bridget Jones, hello?

Clothes Shopping: "Remember, all shops produce different sizes, so don't get upset if you're normally a size 12 and today you're a 14- just buy what looks best and cut out the label."

Hygiene: "At all times keep a grooming kit in your bag or desk drawer containing deodorant, tweezers, a nail file, a packet of mints, spare underwear, ear buds, a mirror and a toothbrush. It may sound prissy, but it will stop you putting anyone off their dinner."

Question: What world am I living in? I generally keep deodorant (and if I'm particularly wealthy that month, a pack of gum), on me, but never never would I carry around all that other stuff. Does anyone else that I know do this? Have you all just been humouring me, and quietly throwing up your dinners?

OK--so I've stopped reading this book, definitely not up to scratch, and will now move on to: "Women Unlimited: The Directory for Life: A DIY Survival Guide for the Twenty-First Century"

I'm looking forward to getting out tomorrow now that my two-day sit-in and wait for the bloody plummer is over.

Ciao.