Catch of the Day

One thing I predicted correctly: that I would be running about all over London, sweatily, in August, looking for work.  Today it was Finchley to Tooting, some 18 miles apart and, fortunately, joined by the long black leg of the Northern line.  I wish I could tell you everything is working out OK.  At the moment, I have no idea what is happening, where I'll be next week, or what I'll be doing.  I have not had this level of uncertainty in my life for decades.

There have been four agency interviews and two actual job interviews in the last two weeks.  Once upon a time you turned up at a temp agency, flailed away at a keyboard for a bit, and then they sent you to a job.  Now, it's pretty much like going for a real job in that you have to be shortlisted and interviewed by the employer, even for a two-month booking.  Today I had what seemed like a very positive interview for a six-month booking.  I can no longer tell if I've done well at interviews.  The agencies, on the whole, seem very keen to place me somewhere and think I have a great CV.  But it's like someone telling you what a great catch you are, and yet somehow you never end up in a net. 

Still, I am pleased to be back in London.  Brussels, for reasons I cannot explain, never felt safe.  Here, I can happily stand in Holborn at night, waiting for a bus to take me to the northern reaches of the city, and it just feels like home.  This huge, unwieldy, messy city is where my roots are deep.  London is my universe.

Java Jive

This morning, I woke at 5.29 and watched the sun rise over Upminster.  From the eighth floor of a block in North London, London is huge, its villages mapped out in spires and council blocks.

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing yet, but I have various balls in the air.  Juggling has never been my strength, so something might get dropped.  Life hangs currently on small things:  finding excellent coffee shops and charity shops, Noodle the bonkers cat who lives here, seeing old friends, doing insane new stuff like stand-up comedy.

If there was any doubt that returning to London was the right thing, that doubt no longer exists.  Despite my fears about what the political climate would be like (mainly due to a shameful habit of reading the Mail online), people of all races, faiths, languages, genders, appear to be living and working alongside each other, just as they have for a long time in London.  This is my genetic and ancestral home.  As much as some feel that London is too much and alien, for me it's an embrace.

Not much else to say right now, but I'm sure things will be happening soon.

One Down, One Across

I had a couple of bits of business this morning, so took advantage of being out to go to Exki in Place Lux.  Had a half-pint of coffee (what a luxury it is when you have none at home, nor the wherewithal to make it) and something moist and chocolaty.  Made a pig's bollock of the New York Times crossword.  It wasn't even a cryptic one; I'm just shit at crosswords. 

I realised, having transacted the final bit of business, that I was on the very same corner on which I stood almost eight years ago, on my first ever day in Brussels.  It was for an interview (for a job I'm pleased not to have got) and, as I'd made a day trip from London, I combined it with two internet dates.  First date picked me up on the corner of Place Lux, right by the bank.  Yes, I got in a car with a strange man and he gave me sweeties. 

Tonight I will dine out as everything is packed and anyway I can't mess up the oven.  Everything hurts - all the arthritis seems to be shouting just fucking stop.  But I can't yet.  Thankfully the list of things to do is mercifully short now.  Just as well - tomorrow morning at 8am, the men will be here, and then I'm on a train under the Channel.  See you on the other side.   

Post-Impressions on a Hot Day

I've hit the Van Gogh stage now.  I remember this from last time.  Basically all I have left is a bed and two chairs.  Oh and a computer.  I'm sure Vincent would have had a computer.  He'd be on Facebook all the time arguing with tossers, and posting cat videos. 

It is one week today, my departure, and the terror does not subside. The only thing is, in this heat (today was around 40 °C and tomorrow likely higher) it is hard enough getting through the day, so the terror becomes a sort of subsidiary theme.  It feels like something you've forgotten to do.  Of course, I may well have forgotten to do something.  At least the extreme heat gives me an excuse to stay in tomorrow and go slowly through my undone tasks.  I will be mainly naked and sitting next to a fan.  

This week, my friend S was so amazing I cried.  I asked if she would help me take stuff to the dump, and move boxes down to the garage.  The dump was great fun, hurling stuff into a massive skip.  But the boxes:  it seemed I just could not go down the stairs with them.  Just after I moved here I fell going down the stairs, carrying a box.  Missed my footing and went down very hard on both knees and one elbow.  Fortunately nothing was broken.  But now, standing there with a box, I froze.  So S said I should just get them to the top of the stairs and she would do it.  All 25 boxes, carried down and stacked in the garage.  She was like a superwoman!  So grateful to her.

You Want That To Go?

What does a sensible person (who has packed her cafetière and has no coffee) do on a hot day?  Why, she goes to a dim, air-conditioned Starbucks, and orders the smallest fuck-off huge mug of Americano they have, along with a big cookie.

I cannot tell you how comforting this was.  OK, so I was in the bowels of Schuman metro.  Let's ignore that.  I have exactly two weeks to get everything done and - while I do not doubt I will manage it - the sensation of absolute terror about a millimetre below my surface remains.  It shrieks.  Dogs prick up their ears.  I am terrified about this move.  Globalisation has come to my rescue.  A Starbucks coffee is the same everywhere and so I sat on a very low armchair with a dubious arse stain while Dolly Parton keened about something in the background, and I necked a half a pint of coffee.

A woman who knew the serving staff laughed too much, for way too long.

I have about 35 boxes packed and two items of furniture remain to be disposed of.  Today I was whipping cobwebs off the ceiling with a towel. I fear some sort of hysteria might have taken hold.

  

Order, Order

My phone, which is on the way to being wholly fucked, keeps chirruping like a hungry bird.  The battery disconnects while charging, approximately every ten seconds, hence the hungry chirrup.  I hope it will hold out until the UK as there simply isn't time to get a new phone.

I have, I think, packed 25 boxes.  You would not think it to look around the place, but it is some comfort to know I've probably got only another ten to do.  The calendar is against me as there is a sinus operation (minor) booked for 17 July and after that I'll be unable to lift things for a while.  And then to Paris to see my new grandson.  To say that his birth has brought light into my heart is an understatement.  The longing to hold him and be part of his life is stronger than ever I could have thought. 

My daughter had a horribly long, horribly painful labour and I am so proud of her, and relieved that all is well.   Childbirth is an everyday thing but when it is your own flesh going through it, it doesn't seem like that. 

The only other news is that I did not get the job I went for.  This knocked me on my arse a bit.  Well, really quite a lot.  I will get something, but to be turned down by the place I really wanted to work is very sobering.

Packing beckons.  It doesn't really, but putting things mindlessly in boxes is surprisingly calming.  Order from disorder.  Order from ordure.

Going Back

To York, for a job interview.  Three of the four trains I took, I was facing backwards.  This is what comes of booking train tickets in a state of high excitement, and at the last minute.  I plunged into a Kate Atkinson and tried to ignore the fact that I appeared to be reversing into my own future.

If someone asked me to design the city I want to live in, and the job I want, at the place I want, I would come up with this job, at this place, in York.  So, half an hour early for my interview, I sat in the beautiful campus gardens, my arms buzzing with adrenaline.  Normal language seems to desert me during interviews, therefore I'm sure I talked a lot of shit.  I have absolutely no idea whether it was a good interview.  All three on the panel kept nodding, but that might have meant, "Yep, yep, call security."

I met the Vice-Chancellor and the thing she was most interested in was that I had worked for Sir Howard Davies.  And then we talked about student satisfaction.  Oh shut up.

I have heard nothing yet, which makes me sad.  And yes, that is stupidly impatient, seeing as it's been only a day.  If I have not got the job, that's ok.  This is just the beginning.