interviews May 08

We are all in the process of interviews.

The most fantastic, exciting news is that J1 passed the physical part of his officer entry test – no scratches, no blood poisoning – very high score, came first in many of the exercises. This is the first bit of a long long process to try and get accepted for the Marines officer course in September. He has to pass the intellectual bit next and then compete with some 3,000 for 50 places.

A* is house share hunting, but is finding it stressful as people are never as exciting when you meet them as they claim to be, the houses are often dirty (even by our moderate cleanliness standards) and of course it is expensive and will give her much less disposable income for socialising. She doesn’t want to move in with James yet because it is early days, they both work together so she feels one of them would have to change job and she wants to have fun.

J2’s AS exams are imminent and he is wondering where this year went. He is stressed. He does seem to be doing some revision although I am not around enough to really see how much – the test will be in the outcome. I hope it will not be as upsetting for him as last year was.

We have moved office at work to a much smaller space (about one third of the size) and I am now hot-desking. I can do this although I was quite happy with my special mouse mat, Oxfam calendar, plants, desk accessories etc. It’s a rambling, very unfit for purpose community building for the over 50s with museum style ladies’ toilets, brown whirly tiles that look like geometric print dresses that were fashionable last year and brown toilets and wash basins with matching plastic seats. Can you imagine it? Topped off with the pungent smell of perm fluid as there is an elderly person’s hairdresser in the room next door. However, our area is state of the art revamped with government money. Most of the furniture in our last fantastically expensive refurbished offices went to charity. I don’t really understand why we had to have everything brand new all over again.

I have embarked on phase 1 of the grand redesign of the house and scaffolding will be appearing front and side next week to remove a chimney and replace facia, soffits, guttering and windows in poo coloured plastic which will outlast my lifetime. There has been enormous humming and haa-ing about insurance and who is sufficiently insured to remove the chimney. The hassle is stressful before I even start.

I have picked up my first ever pair of varifocal glasses, been to a lovely wedding and christening (the families really pushed the boat out to ensure very tasteful events), undertaken 2 courses in Excel, failed to get another job (though did I really want to be away from home 3 nights a week? – no) and re-joined a pension scheme.
The 2 day interview was a bit like the apprentice series – knock outs after every task. I got down to the last 6 and actually ended up in a gay club in a not very salubrious part of east London with the eventual winner who was in pieces because her married lover was prevaricating about staying with her. The woman was about 15 years younger than the rest of us, obviously very bright and it was her second job – she had various post grad training. She even insisted they paid her more. As A* said when I told her ‘vive the graduate diva!’ it was quite surreal in this club – us two and the male cast of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ doing karaoke. I have never done karaoke in my life, but I was tempted. S**t wine, but it was better than nothing at the time!