Days are darkening..

We’re starting to get those wetter days we all know and love. Job wise nothing much is happening; I had a chat with a recruitment consultant from Germany yesterday, and I quickly found out that my German could not be described yet as fluent. Ah well, plenty more study is required – and since time is the one thing I have a lot of now, I have no excuse. My hopes of moving to Nottingham, cruelly dashed a few weeks ago, are now potentially alive again. Is it really too much to ask that I live in a city I’m comfortable in? As for actually getting work, I fear that my working days are now over. Seems that those recruiting prefer to look at folk in their 20s, and when you get 100 or 150 people applying for each job, they have an easy choice to make. Doesn’t stop me being brought into the Job Centre for meaningless “help” sessions. I understand the next Conservative government are going to clamp even harder on those unfortunate to be out of work. So they’ll end up spending more on admin, surveillance etc when in reality the answer is to create jobs! Ah well, easy to see why I’m not a politician!

Fall

There’s definitely an Autumnal feel to the place now. There’s more cloud around, it’s been quite windy and yesterday the heating went on for the first time. I quite like this time of year (despite the darkening evenings) – it’s only the December through February part I can’t stand. There’s nothing like getting home after a brisk walk, making oneself a cup of tea and reading a favourite book. Time to turn off the computer I think!

Is there hope?

There’s a chance I may be able to return to Nottingham in the next few weeks. Although my employment record has been poor since I moved to Oxford, I doubt it will improve in Nottingham owing to my age. Another disadvantage is I will probably have little access to the internet. Even so, if it does happen my quality of life will be so much better – I rank Oxford as one of the worst places to live in the UK – there are worst places but they don’t tend to have such rip-off prices. I must admit that the lack of hills have a depressing effect on me. Anyway, if it doesn’t happen, I really don’t see myself surviving much longer, the place grinds you down. We’ll see, sometimes good things do happen! Will post next time I have better news.

A new month

September is a funny month. You can still get warm days, there’s loads of food to harvest even if you don’t have a garden (get down the park lane and pich some blackberries) and there’s still ne real need to put on the heating. Yet the roads become busy again – recession or no recession, those lazy kids still need driving to school – and it starts to become progressively darker in the evening. Will there be a job for yours truly this month? Hmm, we’ll have to see. In the meantime I must take advantage of my free time and get out into that fresh air. First though, I have to buy some shoes. Unfortunately my last pair have developed gaping holes. Not good.

Ah well!

I think I spoke too soon on my previous entry. Today we’ve got torrential rain. All that lovely sunshine has disappeared. Never mind – good for the garden! Elsewhere things appear to be picking up in the jobs market. I had a phone technical interview on Wednesday (didn’t perform too well unfortunately so lost out on that), have another telephone interview mapped in for Tuesday, and the possibility of another job interview in Bracknell. Still plenty of opportunity to fail them both, but at least I’m in with a shout.. I think

Sunny days..

It has to be said, July wasn’t the best month weatherwise. However August has (so far) been quite pleasant. Standing out in the car boot sale this morning I’ve changed colour quite dramatically. Makes up for not being able to afford to go to the beach this year! Plus the forecast seems to suggest we’ve got more sunny warm weather this week. Make the most of it folks – Autumn is around the corner!

Book browsing

There I was leafing through a book. At long last I’ve stopped feeling guilty about using a bookstore as a library – afraid I no longer have the pennies to fork out on luxuries. Anyway, my attention was drawn to a chapter on beggars – the book was by that jovial chap Jeremy Clarkson. He was advising beggars to leave the city and reside instead in the countryside. Apparently they’d avoid all that stress and pollution, plus be able to eat fresh fruit and veg. Now normally I enjoy reading or listening to Clarkson, but I was not amused in this case. Apart from the fact there’d be no-one around to cadge loose change from, I suspect it’d be a lot more dangerous in the countryside, what with all those gun-toting farmers determined to clear dodgy types “oRF their land”. Then I calmed down and realised I’d been had. Very funny Jeremy. Please stick to gags about British Leyland 70s cars in future!

In other words, I’m back blogging on this WordPress thingy. Will it last? All things end – let’s see what happens!

Ominous news

An Air France plane has disappeared over the Atlantic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8076848.stm

Thoughts go to all those who know travellers on that flight.

Tomorrow I die, apparently…

I started reading one of those chain-mail things yesterday. It stated that if I failed to forward on the message to at least 4 people, I would die within 2 days.  So, I’m afraid, my days are numbered, and I perish in the next 24 hours. Never did like those tagging/chain mail things…

Fight back!

Something inside me snapped. I’d got tired of hearing of job losses, jobs outsourced overseas etc. So I decided to do something about it. I set up this site (only started functioning today):

http://www.howtofightback.co.uk/

I’m hoping that it’ll give people help and encouragement  in looking for work, writing cvs or starting up on their own. Early days obviously, but I want to make it a great resource spot as well as somewhere for people to give their opinion and encourage others.

So, if you’re reading this, please take a look. Better still, join the forum and give your nuggets of advice. It may help one of us find a job some day!