Sorry!

For I must say sorry, as i've been very bad indeed! You know why? Because I didn't update my blog once while i was away. I've slapped myself on the wrist already, so please don't feel the need to do it for me... once was bad enough!

I did, believe it or not, have a reasonably good excuse for not updating you. There isn't much to tell! I arrived safe and sound at mum's work where I was supposed to meet her, and, shock horror, the trains actually ran on time so I was early! yes folks, you heard it here first, English public transport does occasionally work the way it was promised to!

"So, what to do?" I thought, having arrived a whole hour early. Well, there was only one thing for it. I sneakied into Burger King to wile away the time by having an intimate relationship with a chicken burger and chips... I think i've found my other half!

In the end I met mum, and, after she too had committed the hanus crime of indulging in a BK, we trapsed off home with every intention of going to a pub quiz. However, the leur of new laptops, cruddy old music, and a warm house kept us very firmly indoors.

The next day, we were supposed to cook but again, the cunningness of comfy beds, girlie chatter and turkey drummers and waffles beguiled us with honeyed words. We tried to cook, honest we did! But those wiley distractions were having none of it!

After some quick thinking and fast talking, we managed to escape their clutches long enough to hightail it to the supermarket for some essentials like: 3 bars of chocolate, coconut biscuits, rice crispies and sausage rolls. Well, it was such hard work choosing which type of chocolate to buy that we thought we deserved a drink. The pub was very close, so really, it would have been rude to just walk past it...

We did manage to make it home, and even to cook! We had yummy chicken supreme with some weird pasta/potato stuff that I can't spell, and rice crispy buns and banana bread topped it off just nicely. We also had a friend over, and it's her fault that I didn't sleep until about 2 in the morning!

The next day, the dreaded interview day, wasn't too promising. I'm not gonna go into mega detail here, as it still makes me cringe to think about it. I spent the whole morning biting my nails to the quick, pacing, and generally being a nervous wreck as I am before all interviews. The dreaded wrinkles in the suit were removed by hanging it for a while, and, once on, you wouldn't know it had spent the last 3 days of its life in a rucksack. My boots? Oh, I thought they were great at the start of the morning, but, by the time I got home, I swore i'd never wear heels ever again.

So, off I go in the taxi, after he's refused to knock on the door because I have a dog, and he's Asian (no, i'm not being racist here... Merely stereotypical!) We're about 5 minutes late, but it's Ok; i've left time for that. We even get to the hospital on time. But here's where the fun starts. The man, despite me telling him the name of the building repeatedly, doesn't know where he's going. We stop for directions no less than 3 times, each stop taking us about 5 minutes. By this point, i'm really panicking that we're going to be late, and wondering how the third set of directions will help him any more than the first. Each person told us the same thing and, each time, he drove the wrong way. In the end, he brought a woman to the car to drive with us and show us where to go... and he still couldn't drive the right way!

On the other side of the hospital from where we needed to be, and with only 5 minutes to spare, I asked the woman if she'd walk it with me. The taxi man even had the cheek to over charge me! So, out we got, and ran the 10 minute walk in under 5 minutes... Can you see now why I hate heels? But wait, it gets better! We arrived, just on time, to a deserted block. Yes, there was nobody waiting for me, and no clear signing as to where the interview was taking place. After a while, we disturbed someone's lunch to ask them to call for us... Turns out, HR, that oh so helpful and efficient department, had given me the wrong building for the interview! "Where were you supposed to go!" I here you scream (or is that the voices in my head again?) Can you guess? Yep, right round the other side of the hospital... Right where I was initially!

So, yet again, we ran the 10 minute walk in 5 minutes. By this point, I was hot, sweaty, out of breath, and 10 minutes late for my interview; so late in fact that one of the pannel was waiting outside for me. For the first 5 minutes of my very short interview, I could hardly talk due to breathlessness. The dog wouldn't sit still. I had my rucksack with me, through not having the time to leave it at reception... The list goes on. And I didn't know the answers to two of the questions they asked me!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they didn't offer me the job, although I was rather glad, as the rotations they offer are really rubbish, and not at all what was stated on the job description, and St George's hospital doesn't look the nicest place to work. Apparently, it also has a pretty bad reputation. So, stuff you Georgey, I didn't want to work there anyway!

But wait! Hold on to your seats folks! The fun isn't over yet. The tube trains are next. Usually, it's a breeze to get to the train station to go home to Oxford. Today, I jumped on the tube, and settled in for a long journey, which was cut short when the driver informed us of a signal failure. I was going to have to get off at an earlier station and change twice rather than once. "Typical," I thought, in a semi-jaded fashion, "But it's all right, at least i'll still get home." We were sailing along quite nicely, when they then told us that the train was terminating in 2 stations' time. Ok, so i'll just get off and wait on the next tube that's going through to my station. Which I did. Again, it was chuntering along, as tubes generally do, and then, it stopped. Yep, just stopped. For 10 minutes. We were told that, just in front of us, there was yet another signal failure and that we were stuck. We couldn't go forward because the track points weren't working, and we couldn't go backwards for some unknown, but probably valid, reason. So there we sat, for about 40 minutes while people tried to fix the track. Eventually, I did make it to my station, and even to the train station. I even caught the train to Oxford without a hitch! But, when I went outside to grab the taxi i'd ordered, turns out that the controller hadn't passed on the message that i'd have a dog with me. The taxis like to put a blanket down to keep her hairs off the car, but I was lucky. I knew this one, so he didn't argue and fight about taking me, blanketless as I was. Thankfully, I arrived home in one piece, at the end of a very long, very tiring day.

Ok, so perhaps there was a little more to update you on than I thought. And i haven't even got to the weekend yet! There really isn't much to tell here. Lazy days in the house, dog walks, fighting with my bank... But i'll leave the fight until tomorrow, as that's when i'll discover if i've been successful or not. Until then, comment, or else!