Handmade Parade

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be uplifted by our very own Handmade Parade.

Children and adults get together in the preceding weeks to make costumes, then parade through town wearing them.

Only two rules - no logos, no vehicles. The theme was journeys, in honour of the 500th anniversary of our (oldest) bridge, so we had migratory birds, trains, horses, aliens, sea creatures (including L)...

... a giant lollipop lady...

...oh yes, and a vast pair of feet!

Hop, Skip And A Jump

Mired in bleakness again.

Going to take off to my Mum's for a day or two on Monday, to settle in on her sofa with Wimbledon, cherries, and cool white wine... Distraction the order of the day right now, and she and I have a long tradition of watching W together, which we haven't been able to uphold for a few years, so it's all good.

For today though it's the Handmade Parade in which L will be appearing as a sea person. An attendant of Poseidon I like to think...

Flowers

Here are the flowers we bought for the party from a local business that specialises in home-grown blooms. The peonies just keep opening more and more every day. They were actually quite tightly closed at the party itself.

Longest Day

Yes, it was the Solstice yesterday, as others have noted. We went and sat outside the Hare and Hounds with friends to watch the sun set behind Mitchell Brothers' Mill at 9.17pm (according to S). The sky then did wondrous things for another hour or so, involving long feathery wisp clouds, some constructed from vapour trails, and a glorious palette of shining pinks and bruised purples. We watched until we began to get cold around 10.30, though it was by no means dark. Heading for home, we saw bats for the first time up here.

Our party, to warm the house, welcome friends here, mark the centre of the year, was lovely, if tiring at the end of the rollercoaster week I'd had with the interview. Good food and drink, beautiful flowers, dragonfly lights, and about 25 friends. We sat outside only for the first half hour or so, Saturday being the one cool day amongst scorchers the last week or so... Ah well.

I worked on another job application today, for a job I'm not at all sure I want, and which is poorly paid. I get confused really about what the strategy ought to be, when there are so few jobs to apply for that are even slightly relevant to my skills and experience. Hard work to write a convincing statement when I do not feel much enthusiasm for the work, but I got the job done, and have been reading The Lacuna in the garden for the last hour or so.

My Back to Work session yesterday was the non-event I anticipated. At least they aren't pressurising me to apply for entirely inappropriate jobs... yet. Having been informed when I first signed on, that I would be able to claim travel expenses to job interviews, it transpires that the process for doing so is as follows:-
1. Take letter inviting you to job interview to the Job Centre (6 miles away) before interview date (travel expenses for this journey cannot be claimed)
2. Job Centre telephones prospective employer to confirm (presumably in case of forged job interview invitation letters).
3. Attend interview
4. Attend Job Centre again (travel expenses as 1.)
5. JC telephones prospective employer to confirm that you did in fact attend. ('Unlikely that you wouldn't go' I said - 'yes, but, some people...' my advisor tapered off here, suggesting by his tone that there are no limits to the lengths some people will go to to make a fraudulent claim for a few £££ in travel expenses.)
6. You fill in a 6 page form, attach tickets etc etc
I got quite cross when my 'advisor' told me this, but I don't think he noticed, glassy-eyed and numb like all the JC employees. I told him it seemed unlikely anyone would bother with this palaver, and that I imagined that was probably the idea... No comment made by advisor.

Sun

The sun is pawing at the windows, but I am inside glued to a hot laptop, working on another job application. I'll work for an hour or two, then take coffee into the garden.... Seeya later!

For Those Who Are Following The Drama

I did not get the job, and have just walked up to Heptonstall for tea and cake with my old friend J, and we decided I'd had a happy escape, as counselling young people (for this is what the job was) would have been a tough assignment. So, although rather weary from the amount of nervous energy expended in the last few days, I feel sanguine, and hopeful. I look forward to hearing something next week about the latest job - this time it's management, but only 3 days a week...

L is mowing the lawn, and I am about to make the sponge for my trifle. 'We know our roles' said L. 'Yes, you're the daddy' said I.

Waiting

I'd rather almost anything than this waiting. If I don't get the job, then I don't get the job, and I'll know, and start thinking about the next one in the pipeline. But being kept in suspense like this is making me feel tense and exhausted. I think it is reminding me of various stages of the 'investigation' of the complaint made against me last November, when all I could do was wait to hear what was going to happen next, without any understanding of what might be going on. I think this 'change of circumstances' is reminding me of when there was a delay to the 'outcome' of the 'investigation', as the HR Manager decided she needed to 'look into' other matters, whatever they were. Since the complaints all hinged on the fact that I'd written the blog, and there was no doubt that I had, it was hard to know what else there was to investigate, once she'd heard my story (much good that did me). I waited another day, maybe two days while she did whatever she was doing. The final 'outcome' was the summons to the disciplinary hearing at the final stage - 'dismissal', which I received on my BlackBerry, on a bus in the dark and pouring rain in Manchester. It was an attachment and attachments are very hard to read on BlackBerries, despite a supposed 'zoom' function, so I could barely make out what it said. It was exactly the sort of thing I have nightmares about. I could see the words disciplinary, dismissal, and gross misconduct, but not the specific counts of treason I was being tried for, nor the time and place of my trial. If all this is being brought back, no wonder I feel so awful.

I'll post again when I hear...

The Day After

It seemed to me that the interview went well, though I know there are gaps in my knowledge and experience of the client group. I felt calm, articulate and professional, and I think I came across well, especially in the presentation. The room was very hot, but I didn't get flushed and flustered, which tells me I was comfortable. They told me I'd hear the verdict either late yesterday or today, then phoned to say there'd been a 'change of circumstances' and now they'd be letting us know by Friday lunchtime at the latest. Lord, Lord, the waiting continues! I can't quite imagine what this change might be, but one is powerless in these situations, so I'm just trying to enjoy the holiday mood instilled by this hot summer weather.

This morning I went to sign on, and was given an appointment on Monday afternoon for a Back to Work Session. Another reason to hope I get this job!! While I was over in our neighbouring town I bought some paper plates and plastic glasses for the party on Saturday. We have almost but not quite enough real ones for the 20 or so people we are expecting. I also bought cumin, which filled the car with its glorious aroma, and made me realise just how right I was to buy it to replace the many years old half jarful we had before! I also bought quinoa, with which I shall experiment as an alternative to couscous for a non wheat-eating friend, with the roasted vegetables. They were so yummy the other day, I'm doing them for the party... in vast quantities. And I bought some very expensive tuna steak for L's and my dinner tonight. Feeling reckless in the heat and uncertainty!

There is cleaning to do before Saturday, but it can wait... Too hot to sit out right now, but my plan is to read my book - The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - in the garden this afternoon.

The Day Before

So this is the day for nerves. And sunshine, and going to the Co-op to buy fruit for a big trifle and a big fruit salad, and wine for our housewarming party on Saturday. I am happy to have things beyond the job interview to think about and plan for. I had a phonecall yesterday to ask me if I could come an hour earlier for my interview, as one of the candidates had dropped out. Yes, of course, no problem, I replied, thinking, well the odds just improved significantly of me actually getting the job, so thankyou very much. And I'm happy to get it all over an hour sooner...

L has just painted the front and back doorsteps, and very black and shiny they look, and there is a salad spinner on the doormat to stop me stepping on the paint - or this is the idea. Let us hope that it works...

Better go and practice my presentation some more. I'm a funny mixture of too blase and too anxious about it, so another run-through now that L's out of the house and I don't feel so self-conscious, would probably not hurt. This morning I was trying to do it in the garden, but our garden is close to the road and just opposite the post office, and there was a flurry of vans and pedestrians and dogs barking, just when I was getting into my stride, so that didn't really help with the judging of the timing. It is supposed to be 15 minutes long, but I think going over that would be more of a crime than under. If under, I'll just invite them to ask me questions. Gulp!

Lost

Sunday evening and rhubarb and custard have followed a little bit of cheese eaten with a third glass of wine, after the roast chicken and new potatoes, spring cabbage and gravy. I seem able to manage self-control only for short periods. I have lost a pound, maybe a pound and a half, depending on the time of day, the day of the week... And remembered how good I feel when I don't drink, and how good it feels to drink moderately... and forgotten... or the memory has been overridden once again by the creeping desire for more. Never mind (though I do) - it's all a big cycle after all.

Job interview on Wednesday, and another application off in the post tomorrow - good to have another iron in the fire - not all the eggs in one basket... so to speak.

Inclement

One of the things that was so especially agonising about the revelation that my blog had been being read by the colleague who made the complaint last October, other members of my team, and various senior management bods, was the discovery, upon re-reading the entire three years' back pages, of just how many times I had written about PMT. I felt no shame whatsoever about the posts that were actually being complained about, stood by them, and by the account I gave when challenged of the unacceptable stress I was under, which had led to these uncharacteristic outbursts... But somehow, in the atmosphere of humiliation generated by the whole sorry episode, one of the things that hurt worst was thinking of all these people reading repeatedly about my PMT. (Thinking of them reading the posts about my Dad's suicide hurt more, I suppose, but I disssociated from that as fast as possible...) Anyway, I thought of this when rereading yesterday's post this morning. Nuff said... Hormones suck. Oh, and the weather, which is frankly incomprehensible. A fascinating concoction of fog, rain and wind, unusual even for these parts in June...

Anyway, I have rediscovered excitement today in the shape of (in no particular order) a Kit-Kat (how can you better this ancient and simple rectangle of confectionery?), a cup of strong decaff coffee with frothy milk (IKEA frothers are clearly first cousins to vibrators, but give me a cappuccino any day of the week), the Be-Good Tanyas (Blue Horse sounding joyous after a long long time), and a Delia recipe for a roasted vegetable and couscous salad with harissa style dressing, which I plan to make tonight. Sadly the Co-op in town couldn't rise to a firm goats cheese, so I'm doing it with feta, but I see no reason to imagine this won't work ok. Simple pleasures all. Sensual pleasures designed to cheer on this day when I can't even see the Red Horse from the kitchen window.

As a coda to the first paragraph, I would like to say (again) that the blog posts that got me fired (or would have had I not found the door of my own accord) were in fact righteous and accurate rants about the parlous state of child protection services in the area where I worked, the horror of the impossible lives faced by many of the children we were working with, and (as subtext) the shameful lack of supervision support offered to me and my colleagues facing this kind of pain day after day. What I said needed to be said, since not enough was being done about the former, and nothing at all about the latter. As you can intuit I am still angry about that.

Bored

Oh, the relentless ongoingness of life. Day after day, all these hours, minutes seconds. No respite except sleep. I nodded off on the sofa, my head lolling forward, and woke with a start, falling off some pavement, to see my neighbour walking by in a blue tee shirt. Oh and the guilt the guilt for feeling like this when life is short and precious, and I know and fully subscribe to all the live in the moment, live every day as if it were your last philosophies. And sometimes I am closer to that ideal, sometimes further away.

It's the same felt experience as the 'boredom' of my childhood. A feeling of lethargy and longing (but for what?) that would take me shuffling to my mother moaning 'I'm bored. I don't know what to do'. My mother would always say the same things 'how on earth can you be bored? You've got a cupboard full of lovely toys, shelves and shelves of books, a wonderful big garden, records to play, paper to write or draw on....' etc etc. That's probably where the guilt started. How indeed could I be bored? How ungrateful I was for all the gifts life had bestowed on me. I think then, as a child, the missing gift, and what I really wanted when I went shuffling to my mother, was her company, her attention, like Jake's recurrent 'play wi' me Daddy' in Bleasdale's Jake's Progress.

This afternoon, alone in the house for a few hours, I could of course be writing, could be listening to music or an interesting talk or programme from the internet, could be going for a walk in the rain, could be cleaning the bedroom, or hoovering the stairs, could be reading, could be doing some more work on my interview presentation. And on and on... Instead I feel lost and alone. Have lost access to my own inner resources somehow, my ability to be the parent who would 'play wi' me', or listen to me, or sit me on her knee and cuddle me. I know all this, am apparently, and at times am actually, able to apply these insights helpfully. So it is a matter for boundless patience, repeated forgiveness, to understand that again and again I return to this lost place, and feel myself drowning in minutes and hours, long for the oblivion of bedtime, the comfort and respite of sleep.

What's missing in my life at the moment is of course a job. And here comes the guilt again - oh the envy of my freedom experienced by the employed, oh the apparent boundlessness of the delight of our retired friends in their entirely work-free lives. But for me too much unstructured time has always spelt trouble. When I gave up work in the '80s 'to write', I swiftly fell into depression. There is a fine balance for me in the matter of busy-ness and writing; I need neither too much (like my last job) nor too little (like now). I need to feel the rhythm of activity and rest, of stimulation and assimilation, go and stop. And some of it does need to come from outside myself, be imposed, contracted, like work. I struggle to build substitute structures to my time in a non-work setting (like now).

Footings

I am drinking Earl Grey tea from my bucket-sized red and white Keep Calm and Carry On mug. This mug was a joke shared with one of my team in the last job, who initially bought one for herself, and then got one for me ('ideal for a cuppa and ideal to reassure when things go tits up'...). For various reasons I ended up with one at home and one at work, and when I left my job, I emailed the Head Teacher at the school where I was based and told her I'd like her to go and find it in my office, as it was my parting gift to her. I never saw her or my office again, after I was suspended on full pay last November, so it was important to me to pass on this talisman remotely. Somehow it never ceases to be a relevant slogan...

These 18 days (between being invited for interview and the interview date) are seeming rather long, and it is hard to sustain the optimism, enthusiasm and confidence consistently at all times. 9 days to go. I am struggling with my 15 minute presentation this afternoon while L is out with her walking group. I am trying to give an engaging, coherent and impressive account of a piece of work I did with a young woman several years ago. It's awful trying to work out what will be impressive... I hope my reflections on the work, my honesty and realism about the success and shortcomings of the work, will come somewhere close. I also spend time reading books about matters closely related to the job. I would like to tell you more, but paranoia, or well-grounded caution (not entirely sure which) dictates that I cannot. Anyway, it is extremely interesting and a bit scary.

I doubt we shall see the sun today. It is entirely overcast, and very muggy. As soon as you exert yourself - as I did this morning, walking down to drop address labels in at our other house for our tenant to redirect our mail (still a few stray items trickling in where we haven't yet managed to change the address), and then to the decorator's house to drop in his final final cheque - you break out in a muck sweat. I had to keep taking off my glasses and wiping my face to prevent them falling off my nose.

In one of the fields we look across to from the front of our house there is a horse in a red coat. There are other horses in the field too, but they don't wear coats. We speak of it as the Red Horse. Its field and the field above are coloured in in patches of yellow by the buttercups.

L had a good time learning how to build dry-stone walls on Saturday, and came home exhausted! She reckons she could now have a go at building a garden wall for us out of the pile of stones outside our hoouse, that were once our kitchen wall. She uses lovely body-related words like footings, cheek-ends, heartings. The heartings are the smaller stones used to fill the space between the two layers of wall, and are what we haven't got. L is hatching plans for raiding parties up onto the moors to pick up bags full of the stones of various sizes, that work their way up out of the ground.

Summertime...

The door is open, a pleasant breeze tickling my bare calves and ankles, as I sit here at the kitchen table. L is hanging washing on the line. The sky is clearest blue. A fly walks across the window opposite where I am sitting. On top of the radiator lies the purple fly-swat we bought for £1.50 on Todmorden Market yesterday. It was adorned with a strange pink daisy-shaped flower - artificial obviously - big enough to cover the business end of the swat entirely. It was easy to remove. The woman who sold it to us expressed the view that it was 'gross' but unfortunately this was the only one she had to offer us. Was it some sort of prudish attempt to conceal the murderous intent of the weapon? Well, the flower went straight in the bin as soon as we got home, and soon the windowsills were strewn with small black bodies. I am intrigued by my cavalier attitude to the deaths of flies, whilst always carefully rescuing and freeing bees with a small glass and a postcard or bus timetable, with encouraging words and kind wishes. Obviously I am making a value judgement about which insects are dispensable and which worthy of preservation. I feel fine about it, but I do feel very aware as I swat and remove bodies, of my power over these minuscule, to me deeply irritating, life forms.

Entertaining

For dinner tonight - salmon steaks fried so the skin is a bit crispy, served on a bed of home-grown lettuce, rocket, mizuna and mibuna, with sliced red onions, cherry tomatoes, black and green olives, and anchovies, with a lemon wedge on the side, and Jersey Royal potatoes served warm. To follow - rhubarb upside down cake served with creme fraiche or ice cream. Rhubarb is from the garden and the allotment, cooked with honey and grated orange. There will be white and red wine (though I'll be drinking tropical fruit juice or Schloer as an aperitif, and fizzy water with lemon and ice with my meal, as I'm having a spell on the wagon). The day is hot enough to imagine we might sit in the garden for our pre-dinner drinks.

Leisure

Front door open, vases of poppies and centaury on the table, from the garden and the lane. Flowers everywhere. We went to local beauty spot Hardcastle Crags this afternoon to catch the last of the bluebells before they go over. Intermittently reading and preparing my presentation for the job interview, but it feels pretty luxurious to have two weeks still to go. Trying to feel at least some of the time as if I'm on holiday. The weather helps. Lovely sunshine today after yesterday's murk and rain. L is going on a dry-stone walling course on Saturday, and then hoping to build a garden wall out of the stones that used to be the kitchen wall, which are still sitting in a big pile outside the house...

Dreary Tuesday

It's the first of June and the heating's on...

**********************************

The room is sealed yet full of birdsong
peppering the weight of silence.
I can't move - my legs are some
dense material, metal or stone,
and my mind is a clear liquid,
hydrochloric acid, into which
thoughts swim only to die
an ugly death, eaten, dissolved.