Monday and the phone rang, and am I glad I hadn't started a bead yet. I turned the torch off, turned Thin Lizzy down on the radio and answered. My mind clicked into place as the caller asked if I was Catherine Francis, erm yes I am, thats me. I never ever get called Catherine, I was on my wedding day and my certificates from school and college say Catherine but I'm Kate. Anyway, it was it was the HR girly from our local hospital, asking me if the date and time for my interview were ok as I hadn't answered the email they'd sent me last week. What email, I have no email, I explain that 'Oh gosh it must have gone into my spam folder and yes the time and date would be fine. The time was 2.20pm and the date 2 days time. Fab, I applied for this job over 3 weeks ago, I race indoors to fire up the laptop and search the junk folder to find the email, yes there it is, part time clinic assistant in the neo natal unit.
What am I going to wear, and are purple painted nails the right look for the neo natal unit at the local hospital.
Yesterday up early, showered and off to the nail salon, nice tidy french manicure, shorter than usual but looking nice and clean. Over the road to get some black trousers, nothing, not a damn thing that will fit my humungous self so I gave up, went across to the bakers for a danish pastry and a roast beef and salad sandwich for lunch. They'll have to have me as me.
On with a clean top and my black jeans, well its the tidiest thing I have to wear and I'd already given up on the job anyway.
I'm shown into the parents room where 3 ladies are drinking coffee and theres a tv on a bracket on the wall. I start to chat to them and they are all Mums with babies in the unit, we chat about babies in general and then I'm called in.
Well it went ok I think, the two women interviewing were chatty, I think I said all the right things in the right place. They liked the fact that I made jewellery and wanted to know if I'd give it up should I get the job, I was honest and told them no, but I wasn't expecting to make my fortune in jewellery but quite honestly if I ended up making a grand a week out of it I would be off like a shot. They laughed and said good cause they could see that jewellery would be good for fundraising. I also explained that I was qualified as chef in a previous life to which they were very pleased as they could see this coming in handy for parties.
So, the jewellery is a plus point as is the ability to cater, but what about the other stuff. I do feel that I was maybe a little loud, I do have quite a gutsy laugh and my natural speaking voice is not exactly small and the whole unit was so quiet and I do think I may have goofed up a bit when I mentioned that I felt I was able to bring an emphatic approach to the job as a Mother myself and that I thought this was important to be able to do this, at which point the head sister announced that she didn't have children. Whoops. Anyway, I will recieve a phone call by Friday if I have the job, of which there are 2 available, they have someone else to interview. I get the feeling that after I left the conversation was a bit like, ' lovely girl but not for us' type of thing. Not sure if I want it to be honest but now I've been for the interview, I want it on the point of pride, does that makes sense, I don't want to be turned down.
Watch this space.
Thursday 28 February 2008
Monday 25 February 2008
Sunday 24 February 2008
Church Tea, Socks and Beads
Up early again this morning, the children have a rehearsal at Sunday school for the song they are going to sing next week on Mothering Sunday in church. Frankly as one of the recipients of said song I'd rather have fewer perfect notes and more lie ins. The PS is still unwell in bed so church on my own this morning. An uplifting service all about breaking the rules, Mmm. Then its the tea, why is it that people say 'there's one thing church is good at and thats making tea' obviously no one who has ever been to church and tasted church tea would agree. If you happen to find yourself on the 'tea rota' you have to carry a bucket of water from the tap in the sink in the loo beyond the vestry through the church to the urn at the back, fill it up and turn it on then set out the plastic cups. The tea pot sits next to the urn waiting for its ration of 6 teabags each Sunday, you can feel 3 sets of eyes watching and counting as you put them in. If you're really clever you can slip two in together if you use slight of hand, if you're not very clever or you had a few last night, you have to try and slip some extras in later, during the last hymn when you've slipped out of the congregation and before the help joins you to hand out the biscuits.
Home and the chicken in the oven fills the house with the aroma of, of, of melting plastic, why the hell does the chicken in the oven smell of melting plastic, I dash to the oven un-wrap the foil and there it is, a black molton lump of black which started out as the lid of the olive oil spray, how did I do that. It's not on the chicken, no one will know, I hoic it out making it shred like strands of black knitting wool and stick the chicken back in and open the back door to let the smell out. The PS is up and dressed, not happy but chatty, I make him some coffee and peel the potato's and while they're on I slip down to the shed.
I'm sitting there rifling through stuff on my desk and I'm drawn to my neighbours garden and their washing line. I'm not spying, its the view I have out of the window in front of my desk if I put a kink in my neck and stretch it 3 inches to the left, anyway the man next door (MND) is hanging out washing, but why is it all socks. the MND is Swiss, is that what they do, wash all the household socks together and hang them out, I start counting and get to 87 before my neck starts to hurt and he waves to me, he's a friendly chap, he talks alot, a very lot, (can you say very lot) and I find myself doing my best to avoid him most days.
Why do I find myself trying to avoid people. I once met this awful woman whilst doing a craft fair and we agreed to swap parties, I'd do a jewellery party for her, she'd do a hideously expensive candle party for me. We swapped dates but she cancelled mine the week before and I didn't really have time or want a candle party either but she was insistant. She knocked on the door one when I had a friend here for a morning of scrapbookig, we were in the kitchen and I could see her through the mottled glass in the door. 'We made a mad dash out the back door which is in a perfect line to the front door and then spent half an hour giggling like school girls rooted to the spot because she was calling through the letterbox to me, and the path to the shed is also in line with the front, and back door, we were stuck and it was raining, the dog was raving and the MND appeared to tell me there was someone knocking at my door. Half a bloody hour she stood there knocking and ringing and half a bloody hour we stood in the garden in the rain. After 5 mins silence we peared round the door and there she was writing a note. She assumed I must have been out and did I know I'd left my back door open. She would call again later. xxx
Where was I, Oh yes, socks, it was raining, why was he hanging out socks anyway the fool.
Made some nice beads after lunch Iris Orange (which for some reason comes out looking a sort of metalicy khaki) and cream, very nice.
Home and the chicken in the oven fills the house with the aroma of, of, of melting plastic, why the hell does the chicken in the oven smell of melting plastic, I dash to the oven un-wrap the foil and there it is, a black molton lump of black which started out as the lid of the olive oil spray, how did I do that. It's not on the chicken, no one will know, I hoic it out making it shred like strands of black knitting wool and stick the chicken back in and open the back door to let the smell out. The PS is up and dressed, not happy but chatty, I make him some coffee and peel the potato's and while they're on I slip down to the shed.
I'm sitting there rifling through stuff on my desk and I'm drawn to my neighbours garden and their washing line. I'm not spying, its the view I have out of the window in front of my desk if I put a kink in my neck and stretch it 3 inches to the left, anyway the man next door (MND) is hanging out washing, but why is it all socks. the MND is Swiss, is that what they do, wash all the household socks together and hang them out, I start counting and get to 87 before my neck starts to hurt and he waves to me, he's a friendly chap, he talks alot, a very lot, (can you say very lot) and I find myself doing my best to avoid him most days.
Why do I find myself trying to avoid people. I once met this awful woman whilst doing a craft fair and we agreed to swap parties, I'd do a jewellery party for her, she'd do a hideously expensive candle party for me. We swapped dates but she cancelled mine the week before and I didn't really have time or want a candle party either but she was insistant. She knocked on the door one when I had a friend here for a morning of scrapbookig, we were in the kitchen and I could see her through the mottled glass in the door. 'We made a mad dash out the back door which is in a perfect line to the front door and then spent half an hour giggling like school girls rooted to the spot because she was calling through the letterbox to me, and the path to the shed is also in line with the front, and back door, we were stuck and it was raining, the dog was raving and the MND appeared to tell me there was someone knocking at my door. Half a bloody hour she stood there knocking and ringing and half a bloody hour we stood in the garden in the rain. After 5 mins silence we peared round the door and there she was writing a note. She assumed I must have been out and did I know I'd left my back door open. She would call again later. xxx
Where was I, Oh yes, socks, it was raining, why was he hanging out socks anyway the fool.
Made some nice beads after lunch Iris Orange (which for some reason comes out looking a sort of metalicy khaki) and cream, very nice.
Saturday 23 February 2008
Beads, Ironing and Illness.
Saturday and my poor sod of a husband (hereby known as PS) brings tea, Abbie brings toast, no butter, just toast, but she's 8 not quite 9 and toast with no butter is good for the diet. Its made quite, quite obvious that today I am going to have to do the bloody ironing. It's been coming for a while, little hints from the PS about no shirts and worse no pants. There are 3 ironing baskets in our bedroom and he make a point of tripping over them most days with large amounts of huffing and puffing and grunts to make the point.
So anyway, having got the kids up, showered and dressed because they have an all day rehearsal for Aladdin with their drama club, breakfasted and teeth cleaned, I ring to check on the rehearsal time and there is no rehearsal, it's next week, ok so I'm a useless social secretary but then again it is only 9.15am on a Saturday morning and both my kids are showered, dressed, fed and watered.
So this ironing, it sits at the bottom of the bed, slowly multiplying and looking at me, it gets riffled though everyday by the PS in the faint hope of finding something to wear. I fold and tidy it most days, and add to it at least 3-4 times a week but theres never a damn thing there worth wearing.
I spend 4 hours bloody ironing, all sodding morning, and it's done, I'd rather clean the oven or defrost the freezer than do the bloody ironing. It will sit now, around the arms and back of the sofa like a trophy, won at the ironing olympics for the next 3 days so that it can be noticed by all and sundry that I have done the bloody ironing and the baskets go back upstairs till next months bloody ironing session.
The PS is ill, he's got a sore throat, hacking cough, headache and general lethargy, I gave him paracetmol and cough mixure and lunch then he went back to bed, he's like a barking bear with a sore head so I went to the shed.
I'm on pink beads at the moment. It's hard getting a good vibrant pink but I've found it so I'm making pink beads in their hundreds, actually I'm exagerating I've made about 15 but it feels like hundreds. Since I forgot to dip my mandrels last time I worked I have to do it now. When you make a bead, you make it on a mandrel, a stainless steel rod which is dipped into a pot of bead release stuff which is a bit like grey sludge. I do them all at once now days. it needs a good shake before use and I used to give it a shake dip a mandrel, lid back on, dry mandrel in flame, make bead, shake, dip, dry make bead, etc. etc. until the occasion when I forgot to screw the lid back on and gave it a shake and my life stopped before me as the entire contents of this £11 pot of grey sludge emptied itself all over the shed, all over me and all over everything in the shed. If that isn't bad enough its the only pot of bead release I have and theres an inch left in the bottom, and it costs £11 a tub plus £2 postage so there I am scraping it off my jeans with the trusty pallette knife back into the pot. I'm down on the floor on my knees dipping my finger into the grey sludge scooping it back into the pot, wiping it off the storage boxes into the pot, if I'd had a straw I'd have been sucking it up back into the pot, you get the picture, no sludge, no beads. So nowdays I dip all my mandrels in one go and either leave them to dry or dry them in the flame before I start to melt.
6 nicely pink beads and 2 rather unusual creamy, greeny, browny ones and its dinner time. Toad in the hole and bread and butter pudding yum.
So anyway, having got the kids up, showered and dressed because they have an all day rehearsal for Aladdin with their drama club, breakfasted and teeth cleaned, I ring to check on the rehearsal time and there is no rehearsal, it's next week, ok so I'm a useless social secretary but then again it is only 9.15am on a Saturday morning and both my kids are showered, dressed, fed and watered.
So this ironing, it sits at the bottom of the bed, slowly multiplying and looking at me, it gets riffled though everyday by the PS in the faint hope of finding something to wear. I fold and tidy it most days, and add to it at least 3-4 times a week but theres never a damn thing there worth wearing.
I spend 4 hours bloody ironing, all sodding morning, and it's done, I'd rather clean the oven or defrost the freezer than do the bloody ironing. It will sit now, around the arms and back of the sofa like a trophy, won at the ironing olympics for the next 3 days so that it can be noticed by all and sundry that I have done the bloody ironing and the baskets go back upstairs till next months bloody ironing session.
The PS is ill, he's got a sore throat, hacking cough, headache and general lethargy, I gave him paracetmol and cough mixure and lunch then he went back to bed, he's like a barking bear with a sore head so I went to the shed.
I'm on pink beads at the moment. It's hard getting a good vibrant pink but I've found it so I'm making pink beads in their hundreds, actually I'm exagerating I've made about 15 but it feels like hundreds. Since I forgot to dip my mandrels last time I worked I have to do it now. When you make a bead, you make it on a mandrel, a stainless steel rod which is dipped into a pot of bead release stuff which is a bit like grey sludge. I do them all at once now days. it needs a good shake before use and I used to give it a shake dip a mandrel, lid back on, dry mandrel in flame, make bead, shake, dip, dry make bead, etc. etc. until the occasion when I forgot to screw the lid back on and gave it a shake and my life stopped before me as the entire contents of this £11 pot of grey sludge emptied itself all over the shed, all over me and all over everything in the shed. If that isn't bad enough its the only pot of bead release I have and theres an inch left in the bottom, and it costs £11 a tub plus £2 postage so there I am scraping it off my jeans with the trusty pallette knife back into the pot. I'm down on the floor on my knees dipping my finger into the grey sludge scooping it back into the pot, wiping it off the storage boxes into the pot, if I'd had a straw I'd have been sucking it up back into the pot, you get the picture, no sludge, no beads. So nowdays I dip all my mandrels in one go and either leave them to dry or dry them in the flame before I start to melt.
6 nicely pink beads and 2 rather unusual creamy, greeny, browny ones and its dinner time. Toad in the hole and bread and butter pudding yum.
Thursday 21 February 2008
Glass Rods, Dried up Spiders and Wet Beds
So I wake up today to mutters of 'the cats wet my bed' as a sweaty pyjama'd 10 year old climbs in bed beside me in the space that my poor DH climbed out of a couple of hours earlier. The tinkle, jingle of a DS taking the place of silence as Mario races round a track in his cartoon car tells me it's time to get out if bed.
Breakfast had and dishwasher loaded with the remnants of last nights dinner, washing machine emptied into dryer and re-loaded with more dirty washing, where the hell does it come from. I make sure the kids are busy doing stuff (ok they are in front of the tv) and nip down to the shed. I say shed loosely in so much as it started life as a shed, a lovely bright orange shed from a lovely bright orange sheddy website but now painted forest green and erected in between the trellis and a yew tree, insulated throughout, floored and painted mint green and pink inside it's now my studio. But studio sounds pompous and proffessional so it's just 'the shed' But its mine and I can hide in there with my one cup of coffee coffee maker, the tumble dryer and a biscuit jar, containing a dried up small brown spider and a few crumbs. I'm on a diet.
There it is, in the corner of 'the shed' my torch, I don't have name for it, prehaps I should, I mean people name their cars and boats, why do people name inanimate objects? Should I call it Robert or Graham, would it perform better with a name. Anyway there it is, torch, screwed to the workbench via a nice tidy bracket that my Father in law made for it. Around the bench are my slow cooker, and jugs and jugs and pots of glass rods, all colours and types. and then theres the workbench itself, covered in more rods of glass and bits of broken glass and glass frit and steel rods and Ahhhh my trusty palette knife.
Switching on the torch for the first time each day is a bit of a ritual, I sit on my swivel chair, gleaned from Oxfam for a tenner, settle myself in for the long burn, bounce up and down, whilst kicking and twizzling the base round into position so that I can rest my feet on 2 of the 5 wheelie bits. I'm ready. I light the match and turn on the lamp and phoooooooooof off it goes roaring into life then phooooooof off it goes as it runs out of gas and I climb down from my perch to turn the gas on at the canister and start the process again.
Theres a lot to think about as you hold the glass rod in the flame, little bits of molten hot glass pinging off down your cleavage and into your lap. As that hot shiny red glob of glass turns liquid and I introduce it to the mandrel its wonderful to see a new bead apearing in front of your eyes. What am I going to do with it now, flowers, spots, stripes, frit. I reach for the stringer and start rows of dots then dots on dots and dots on dots and the phone rings. Now with the best will in the world I can't answer the phone while I've got a bead in the flame, for one the torch is noisy and I can't hear much over it and what I can hear is being drowned out by the radio blaring out Planet Rock in the background so I push the button and shout down it, 'ring back in 5 mins' and then hang up at which point it imediately rings again and I ignore it.
5 beads on and I have to stop. My feet are freezing and I need coffee to warm them. 'Get a heater' I hear you say. I have a heater, but I also have to have the door wide open and both windows open to diffuse the noxious gas that the torch makes so I don't keel over. So I don't have the heater on, my top half is lovely and warm. Anyway its lunch time and I've done 4 beads and a big mumma of heart which took a good hour to make, it will probably break in the slow cooker or when I take it off the mandrel but thats life and a kiln costs £600.
The kids have had enough of tv and are teaching the dog how to be a chicken. I don't think the dogs that bothered about chicken unless it comes with gravy and runs off down the garden when I open the back door.
It's half term and I decide to take the kids to Pizza Hut for lunch. Roll on Monday when I can be back in full swing and can spend the whole day in 'the shed'
Wednesday 20 February 2008
What Exactly Does a Jewellery Designer Do Every Day!!!
Well what does one do every day. You may well ask. Call in tommorow and I'll tell you.
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