Well, I appear to have a job! Subject to satisfactory references and a medical (hmm...) I'll be working in the East of Gateshead, library to be specified. Its a maternity cover, which means initially it only runs until March next year, but I reckon that'll give me time enough to see if it's really something I can be happy doing, so I'm not too worried about the fixed term. And of course if the post-holder decides not to come back...
I'm pleased! Delighted, in fact - would never have thought getting back into the workforce could be so painless. :-)

What would you do if...

Interview went as well as I could have expected, I think. Lots of scenario questions, 'what would you do if...' which are always a pain as they dream up such difficult circumstances it's hard to pick the right course of action. But it was OK.
Now I just have to wait till the end of next week to hear. I was the very first one of 4 days of interviewing. Should I take that as a compliment or just bad luck? They'll have forgotten all about me by the time they get to the end!
Piece in the paper yesterday about the massive numbers of Daddy Long Legs this year, apparently the conditions have been perfect for them to breed in enormous numbers. YUK! I hate them! The only creature I will kill, even spiders, who I'm frightened of I capture carefuly and put outside unharmed. But DLL deserve to die! The way they scrape around the room at the junction between walls and ceiling, ugh! The other night I got up for a drink, didn't put the light on, and was just about to take a big gulp when I saw something floating on top - a DLL! Makes me shiver just thinking about it!
Oh, and to continue the 'wildlife' theme, just found out that my Dad, who is great with all animals, is scared of frogs...he found a teensy one in the garden the other day and gave up his weeding immediately. Said it was staring at him in a funny way...

Bring it on!

OK, so I'm as prepared-out as I'll ever be for this interview tomorrow. First person that asks me a question may well get the whole routine vomited up all over them!!
But basically I know why I'm the best thing since sliced bread, and I know WHY I know that, so I guess that'll have to do. Gateshead Libraries, do your worst, I'm ready for ya!
:-)

The week that was

Well, I have an interview with Gateshead libraries on Wed. Yay! I thought it wasn't going to come to anything as its 3 weeks since the deadline, but I guess they just take their time. My only problem is that I'm supposed to take evidence of my qualifications and all my exam certificates are in store down in London. So I'm going to try getting in touch with UCL to see if they can give me a letter or something confirming what I've got...otherwise it's going to mean a trek and virtually emptying the store as I know the certificates are in the boxes of books and stuff right at the back!
Now I just have to prepare for the thing, gosh, it's AGES since I had an interview! I often don't do much work for them, prefer to wing it, but I think I'd better put in some time for this one given that I've been out of the loop for so long. Wish me luck!
The proofs arrived for my Selkirk Lapwing pieces this week. All OK. Funny though, I know the pieces indside out but when it came to checking them for errors I had to go over them loads of times before I convinced myself they were right. I probably won't make the launch do as its a weekend when Mum and Dad are away so I don't know how I'd get there....Bound to be a train, though? I'll check it out as the day does sound interesting. But its not the end of the world if I do miss it as they're planing other launches for next year - one hopefully in Newcastle.
Excitement this week as our Canadian rellies turned up on the doorstep! We knew they were due over sometime soon, but they decided to surprise us. Good to see them, they're always full of fun. Here til the end of the month so I'm sure we'll catch up properly once the dust has settled.
Strange and very heavy counselling session this week. I was reliving some unpleasant memories and got into it so much that I almost felt I was in a trance. The whole experience was very like being hypnotised (been there, done that) even though we did nothing special to 'take me down' I think I was just re-living it so vividly that I really felt I was back there. I was exhausted and very spaced out afterwards. Like normal then, really...
Fabulous Roald Dahl posters in the Torygraph this weekend - the BFG and Matilda. Usually when we get freebies like this we send them on to my Godson and his brothers, but no chance with these! I'm keepin' em! The BFG has to be one of the great characters of literature, and I totally believe his dream theory. Now I can have him on my wall - whizpops all round!

No entries whilst Paul was here, too busy doing very little! Lovely break, even just wandering round the Toon is great when you have such good company.
We scooted up to Kielder and saw the birds of prey - fantastic! I stroked a tiny owl and had a harrier hawk sitting on my hand. Light as a feather, but I could feel the grip of its talons even through the leather glove. And there was an utterly stunning golden eagle, such a beautiful creature but she had a murderous stare!

We even braved The Bisley. Let me explain. It's part of our so far fruitless task to find a local pub worthy of patronage...they are all such pits! We've ruled out The Board and The Rifleman and the Geordie Ridley has died (think it was a mercy killing). So The Bis. it was....Best thing to say about it was that the drinks were cheap, though the locals were quite friendly, too. Hard to work out which was the Lounge and which the Bar and I was fascinated by the kettle on the mantle-piece, but I'd go back, I just wouldn't tell anyone, that's all. Oh, and I got bitten by a Bisley flea, attracted by my alien gin-soaked blood, I guess.

Things are quiet on the poetry front, though I've something in my head which might develop. I'm awaiting proofs from the two that were accepted by Selkirk Lapwing press, they're overdue now so I think I'll contact them and see what's up. Still no news about the Mentoring project - perhaps no-one wants to take me on! I'll give them to the end of the month and then try pushing it a bit. If the project is supposed to take several months and the booklet is to be produced in Spring next year, all the time we lose at this end pushes that date on a bit.

Found another couple of jobs that I could possibly go after - both based in schools, seems I can't keep away. Must admit to a pang or two realising that they've gone back this week, being around the young sems to be oddly addictive, even if its also a pain in the ass at times!
I've also braved applying for Jobseekers, quite painless in fact, though when I got the forms to check I had to laugh that the guy has put I've got no qualifications! Bit of a no-hoper, then! There musn't be a box to tick for us poor postgraduates! Got to go for an interview with an Advisor next week, so that should be fun.

Poem-time: This one first published in Poetry Monthly, No120, March 2006.

Hockney Gallery, Salts Mill, Saltaire, August 2004

I want to tell you something about the yellow-skinned houses stretching in the sun,
the mill like a cathedral hull, cool and waiting. And though the water seemed to ripple out
and over me, I didn’t like the pictures; the colours were so bright, too bright to bear.

I wandered by the canal, on the blind-white towpath, relentless as some desert way.
Then it rained, skipping away as I turned my back, falling softly later, like grey. I sat
by the lock, watching holiday-makers struggle with the gate, counting the green of trees.

You danced round my knees, leaving me desolate without reason. And in a season when fire smoke pearl-tinted the sky, flat fingers parted my flesh. I held on, held on,
drawing what was killing me closer, the scent of blood so bright, too bright to bear.

On rain and Betjeman

Just had an amazing rain-storm. I love it when it rains really hard - pulsing down! Like the feeling I get when an aircraft is revving before take off, so much power and a feeling of real joy, almost.

Not much on today. Bank Holiday bore! Though I'm sure once I'm working again I'll enjoy the BH's as much as any other worker. 'Once I'm working again' said with great confidence! Hope it's justified. When I completed the application I have current at the moment, I thought ' there's NO WAY they can't give me this job!' But then I looked at the employment history section and my periods of ill-health and saw that it wasn't quite as clear-cut as that! Still, positive thoughts, eh?

100th Anniversary of John Betjeman today. Have to say I don't know his work very well. Despite doing him as one of my 'O' level poets, I can't remember anything beyond:
'The village inn, the village inn
so ancient, clear and free from sin'
not much of an obituary for the old guy!
I kinda put him in the same class as Philip Larkin in that they both seem the kind of men that would give me the willies - upper class, patronising and with a bit of a thing for young girls in 'slacks'...I'm probably doing him a real injustice there! And despite my misgivings about Larkin I recently read his 'Whitsummer Weddings' and loved it, views on young girls and M&S nighties excepted!

Paul comes on Thursday for a week - can't wait. Not sure what we'll do, but I don't really care as whatever it is we'll be doing it together!
:-)

Later that same day...

I was right about The Lovely Bones - finished it. Thought it was excellent, very moving and an effectivley and consistently realised portrayal of the afterlife as it could be...in fact, if it IS like that I'll be very happy to be proved wrong by it's existence!

Three health appointments next week, God, I'm falling apart...but, as they say, it's all in your head. With me, that's actually frighteningly accurate! But I'm better now, and intend to say this at the relevant points over the next few days. I want life back! Quite a statement for someone who this time last year didn't really care much one way or another.

Heard from mate Nazmun today about good results in A levels. What a star! If she reads this she'll curl up in shame, but that's one of the things that's so fantastic about her! She's come so far since we met when she was in Year 7 and I couldn't be prouder if she was one of my own. Lots of changes coming up for her over the next few years and I hope we can stay in touch. So lovely watching someone blossom!

Time for another poem? OK, you forced me:

The Farmer's Child

Lately her dreams are all child-shaped.
Broad-limbed, sure footed, leaping, laughing
with dog and stick across the stubbled field.

The level dusk seems to hum, punctuated by crows.
How like light he shines!
How soft-brown his hair!

She bled him out of her, great red rushes
that came at night, that had dark substance,
til she wondered which part of him she shed.
Her memories are all of blood and vomit and tears.

The wife wants a child
The wife wants a child
Eee-ay-adio, the wife wants a child

Better memories than dreams.
Better blood than brown hair.

God it's early...

9.25 on a Sunday morning! Woken up by the delivery men at 7.30 with a new fridge-freezer, how's that for an exciting life?
Still one of the plus-points of getting up at this hour is that I get toast and Marmite, very yummy and very more-ish. Might go and have another piece...

Started two books last night. One by Charlotte Bingham, a new writer for me, I'm bored with already. The other, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is brilliant already. I tried to read her memoir about rape, Lucky, last year but couldn't cope with it. But I think I'll fly through this one in record time.

Solved the missing line problem from yesterday, or at least I THINK I have. Only problem now is that I've got two ideas and don't know which is the best. Funny how sometimes poems work like this. You fly along with the initial writing, do it almost in one session, but then get stuck on one small point and spend ages on it, never really sure if you've got it right in the end.

Off for more Marmite....