So the interview/ presentation was not a 100% success, but it was definitely not a failure either, and though I’m not hopeful about getting the position, the experience I’ve gained from doing it has been invaluable.  And now that it’s over, I can stop dreading it and get on with life again.

I’m lucky in that for the last few weeks and also the next few weeks coming, I have been given overtime and that has been keeping my mind (as well as my body) active and focused.  Most of all, I’m enjoying work, now that the weather is getting better, it’s getting warmer and the days are now officially longer.  Bliss.

Last night was a late one, all the girls from work got together, donned glad-rags and tripped into the Big City for a night of dancing, laughing, drinking and clubbing.  This new-found social-life is new to me, as I am largely a solitary creature, but I’ve made some really lovely friends at my new job and getting to spend girly-time is good.

What else have we been doing?  Last weekend it was windy picnics down at the beach, making the most of a nice Sunday off, with no agenda other than meeting Frenchy and visiting the sea – and of course, going paddling in the freezing North Sea – whilst the weather was still bearable. I had missed spending time with Frenchy, as both he and I are busy with work and life, it was nice to spend time with my bestest-French-friend again (he’s the one burying my feet in the above photo!).

Tomorrow is a day off for me, and there are lots of things I hope to do.  I’d like to bake a cake and light the living room with incense and candles, I’ll spend some time looking at this lovely lamp below (bought in a much-loved shop in Glastonbury, which Mr. VP has adapted to work as an electric light, we’re now trying to find somewhere to hang it) and trying to relax.  Hot Lush-filled baths, lunchtime naps and the smell of freshly-laundered washing and incense mixing with cakey smells and Spring sunsets.  That’s what days-off are made for.

Oh and Elvis Costello, did I mention that he’s on my stereo?  Along with Doves and my favourite Coldplay record.  Wonderful.

Yesterday my horoscope in the Metro (I know, I know, I only read it because Mr. VP reads it on the way to and fro from work and brings it home) read:

It summed up what I’ve been feeling at work.  Since the hour cuts that have been made, many of the staff have felt a little second-class.  Sitting in the staff room we talk about our days and we all feel like we’re now pushing harder to do the same amount of stuff, just in less time.  We all feel over-worked and stressed  I have felt that although I love the place that I work in, the role hasn’t been using the best of my skills, or giving me room to develop extra skills.  I know I’m not alone in this.

So when one of our duty managers came ’round and showed everyone at the team brief a flyer from company HQ about a program for wannabe managers, my ears pricked.  Usually I wouldn’t ever apply for something like that, presuming that it was for people far more qualified than myself, but when I saw a copy of the flyer, all it said was something along the lines of “Dynamic, outgoing people with a passion for ____ _____ (the type of business we’re in) are wanted to join the training program, apply if interested” – obviously it wasn’t worded like that, but it said the same sorts of things.  It was so open-ended an invitation that I decided to ring the number on the bottom.  I got through to someone at company HQ, one of the Top Brass.  She was very nice and I threw all sorts of questions at her about this opportunity, still believing I wasn’t good enough to even apply.

We talked for half an hour.  She said apply, so I did.  And I waited.

The first letter I got on my arrival home was from Company HQ.  Asking me to interview, soon.  With someone from company HQ – travelling all the way up here.  I don’t think I’m good enough to get it, but I have an interview soon, and I have a lot to prepare.  In this interview I have to persuade them that me, this little person, could one day be good enough to be a manager.  I made it to interview but I’m not sure I’ll get any further.  I have to make a 10 minute presentation on a set subject (it feels like being summoned to the head-teacher’s office!) and then have an hour and a half’s interview on top.

Needless to say I feel out of my depth.  But nothing ventured, nothing gained.  And as my horoscope said yesterday “you’re the one who needs to make it happen, so…?”.

Indeed, indeed.

Though I’ve not yet been back a week, it already feels like Glastonbury and Somerset is a million miles away from Northumberland and the house we’ve come back to.  I don’t think either of us can stand to be away from there for too long.

Small signs of verdant life were everywhere, from the starlings in their massive shoal-like flocks to the new-born lambs we saw into the world.  We both had the loveliest time and felt renewed for the trip, though both exhausted when faced with the back-to-work regime.  For the last couple of nights, I’ve been in bed by 7pm, and have slept through until 6am.

Anyway, Somerset and Dorset.  We did the same things we always do, and some new things.  But perhaps the best things that can tell our story were the photos, so due to me needing to get some sleep (and now working my day off – at least it’s 9 1/2 hours extra pay!) I will leave you with lovely images of a lovely place.

Staying on a working farm, we saw a lot of this happening all around.  Lambs being born everywhere, and each given personal attention.

We visited this place a few times, too. Oh how we love Dorset!

We saw a fair bit of this (and survived)…

We ate – not enough – of this…

I did an awful lot of this…

…Mostly when climbing to the top of that!…

I contemplated life whilst watching these…

…I fell in love again whilst there…

…I watched these in the rain…

I didn’t see enough of these, but when I did…

…it took my breath away…

And I’ve used this a lot since we got home. It’s our new favourite thing, an Indian hand-block-printed, fair trade duvet set. It’s like sleeping on air.

The bags are packed and the anticipation is high.  This will be the first time we’ve ever visited Somerset/ Dorset in cold weather but we are not worried.  Jumpers are neatly folded, hot-water bottles are at the ready and bedsocks are tucked into our suitcases.

I cannot even begin to tell you how needed this holiday is, how full of possibilities it is and how excited we are.  We need some time just to enjoy the things we used to love.  Although we won’t be swimming, we’ll be visiting this beach and hopefully watching the sun set like we did on our honeymoon.

We’ll be visiting Hugh F-W’s old local farmshop (before he was a celebrity – back in the proper River Cottage days), sitting in favourite cafés and remembering every happy moment we’ve had there.

Expect photographs in a week’s time, but for now I will bid you adieu until then.

Work has been my main focus since I started The Job.  It’s a total change from my previous job, when I was only contracted to do a few hours a week but often got more.  This is different, I work more – set – days and I know what it’s like to come home and want to do nothing other than flop on the sofa. With a cup of tea and something hastily cobbled together for dinner.

As my work-life balance has changed (oh, doesn’t that sound very New Labour?) so has just about everything else and I find that my other, outside-of-work life is changing in ways that I don’t quite understand or approve of.  I agree that time is the thing I lack the most , and on my days off I’m usually found catching up on chores rather than doing the things I used to love.

One of the things I’m missing is writing.  I’d like to say that I’ve been keeping a paper diary if not being able to blog much, but the truth is as soon as I’ve had the aforementioned cobbled-together dinner and watched one of the three daily re-runs of Neighbours, I’m about ready for bed.  There are articles I’d love to write, I’m positively itching to get going again but my zeal for the garden and eco-warriorism has been replaced by a deep guilt at how unloved the whole place is looking and how panicky I feel that I just don’t have enough time to tend it the way I’d like.  It’s about as much as I can do to keep the house in some kind of bearable order.

When it comes to being green, a lot of the more time-consuming bits have gone out of the window in favour of quicker short-cuts, however I am adamant that this is a short term thing and already I’m getting back into doing things the slower way.

The other thing I haven’t had time for much of late is the chance to go somewhere and just disappear with camera in hand.  Today I did disappear.  I was driving home from getting a pair of new tyres on the car, when I saw a signpost down a little single-track road and I took it.  I flew down hedge-walled lanes, occasionally coming face-to-face with vans and having to move gingerly out of the way to let them pass and at the end of my travels I was rewarded with a view that could have been torn straight out of a Victorian picture book.  A book describing the idylls of the English countryside.  It was beautiful, yet the camera was left at home.

I know that I will eventually work myself a routine out which will afford me the chance to get back to where I want to be, it’s just that I’m not the most patient of people.  We go on holiday soon and we’re going back to the place I call my “reset” button – Somerset/ Dorset.  I can’t wait to have a bit of time out, just Mr. VP and I, so we can both reset and start again on a fresh page, with a better outlook.

There’s nothing quite like a blank page that begs to be filled.