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...