Monday 18th June

I'M BACCCKKKKK!!! It only took me ten days to get myself back online - not bad I thought, considering the lengths I have had to go to to manage it. But more on that in due course. I must say, it's lovely to be able to have the ability to update my own page again: expect to see naked Mr Z pictures here soon...only joking (grin)

So, I am back in the land of Marmite and Dairy Milk, of Onken Biopots and sausages containing a suspect meat percentage, of trains and horrendous traffic jams, of expensive cigarettes and expensive petrol, of Strongbow and correctly sized pints, of my own bank account and my own post. I miss Vegas Vic but my cat is quite unusually pleased to see me. I miss Father Hand but Mr Z makes up for that. It's nice to see some amusing adverts on TV again, and hearing Nasty Nick Cotton snarl "Say anyfing an I'll cut yer tongue out" whilst waving his crutch at Lisa on Eastenderz was music to my ears. When I landed, the weather was overcast and cloudy and it even rained a bit - bliss. Beccy and Zoe thought I was very strange and apologised about the weather, but it was 110 F when I left and I was more than ready for some cool British summertime. Mind you, it did rain most of the past weekend and I have to say that I got a bit sick of that constant clammy dampness that invades one's space so completely in weather like that. I am definitely missing the dryness, if not the actual heat.

Well, I suppose I should start where I left off really, but this is going to make for rather a long entry so I will try and keep it as brief as possible.
My last Tuesday in Vegas, Frankie and I were supposed to be going to see some strippers, but sadly Heidi went into labour that day so we didn't. She had lower stomach ache all day but thought nothing of it, since she thought the pain would be high up....oops! She got her husband, Brian, to see if she was dilated and when he tried, his exact words were reputed to be, "I can't get my hand any further, there's something in the way...." doh! When she went to the hospital however, they sent her home, and she hadn't had it by the time I left, so I still don't know the specifics - although I think she was having a boy.

I spent much of the Wednesday packing and fielding children who kept popping by to see if I could take them swimming, and giving me cutesie letters and the like. I'd got pretty much everything squeezed into two suitcases, after a couple of hours of carefully planned packing, and all that remained was to nip out for a few final bits and pieces. That done, we came home and Father Hand decided to test my bags, declared the larger of the two to be "far too heavy" and that I wouldn't be allowed to take it onto the plane with me, opened it up and repacked everything for me. Consequently, I ended up with an extra bag and having to leave some stuff behind (grin) but nevermind. It wasn't until after this that he said that flights out of Europe have a weight allowance whereas flights out of America only have a number of pieces allowance. I was like....so I repacked, why? Granted though, I would have had major problems lugging that bigger suitcase around, I could barely lift it.

Thursday. We drive to the airport, go to check in....and realise we're at the wrong terminal. So we haul everything across on the bus and get it all checked in, sit and smoke final father-daughter cigarettes together, have a bit of a choked up goodbye (on my part at least) and then, voila, I was on the plane. Sadly it was not one of the planes with the video games on it, but I did get to see three movies so it wasn't all bad. I was seated next to and English lady from Exeter way who'd been on the "holiday of a lifetime" with her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law and her grandson. She was quite chatty and very "helpful" - she'd only flown once before her American flight and was full of advice which I either knew or knew to be incorrect, but mostly I humoured her. It wasn't until the end of the flight that I started to get a bit sick of it, because by that point she'd squeezed quite a bit of info about me out, and turned to me and said, right out of the blue, "So that means you were 12 when your parents divorced I suppose...what a difficult age! Cos you'd already have been going through puberty and heaven knows that's tough enough, you must have had a terrible time of it...." I just did not know what to say. How unforgivably nosy! But, remembered that awful Indian bloke who sat next to me on my plane home from Camp America, who dropped heavy hints about marrying his son and then told me I needed to lose weight, and thanked my lucky stars. Got to Gatwick and had to put out a call for Zoe and Beccy who were hiding up in the gallery. They looked much the same as ever, Beccy's got a new haircut and seems thinner, but Zoe is just as she was, working as a supervisor in the Croydon Chiquito's now, if anyone wants to go and visit. Off I was whisked to Brighton for some cocktails at the restaurant Beccy works at, and then it was time to leave them and go back to Portsmouth and see Mr Z. I struggled onto the train, and sturggled off it at the other end, squinting around for the proverbial knight to help me, but there was no sign. This put me in a momentary panic - had he got sick of waiting and gone? - but no, he was just cunningly concealed outside the station. Can't really remember ever being so pleased to see someone, so that was nice (smile)

Home at last, I proceeded to cover the floor of my room completely with the contents of my suitcases and then went to the pub, where I managed to stay alert for one whole pint and then the necessary kebab (kebabs! that's another good thing about being back) before going home and falling unconscious and drooling on Mr Z. He didn't seem to mind, bless.

On Saturday, I bought a new phone (the old one which I had kept for so long refused to charge so I had no choice really) and revisited some old haunts and then Mr Z and I went out with Caroline and her bloke Dave, who she's planning to buy a house with soon. We had happy hour cocktails in some bar I'd never been in before, and then a pint at Fistful of Tacos, on my brother (bless!) and then we went down to the all-new Gunwharf to play some pool at the bowling alley. They had neon bowling! Apparently this isn't so out of the ordinary but I'd never seen it before - they turn out all the lights and the pins are illuminated with black light. Caz and I decided we'd book it and go at some point while I'm still here - we went bowling on Sunday lunchtime (I lost miserably, true to form). Gunwharf was quite impressive, in my opinion - all designer shops and the like, and there's a two storey car park which is apparently half built under the harbour.

Anyway. After all that it was sadly time to wave Mr Z goodbye, which I duly did, then came home and slept for approximately 16 hours, not counting breaks for phone calls and chats with Mother Hand. I maintain that this *wasn't* jetlag, just a knee jerk reaction to the pathetic amounts of sleep I had gotten over the previous week or so. I felt much better for all that and on Monday felt up to going into Office Angels to try and get some work. They arranged me an interview (which is tomorrow) but warned me they were very busy with all the students coming home. Hadn't thought of that and was a bit subdued for a while, or at least until Mother Hand treated to Macari's hot chocolate and bought me a new rail card. This involved also getting a new photo card *shudder* but surprisingly the picture didn't come out too bad - at least it's better than the amusing 16-year-old "I look really dopey and smiley" picture.

Tuesday saw me hauling myself across the country again, to London to visit Jen and others. Decided to walk from Waterloo to London Bridge on account of it being a sunny day and realised that, for all my thoughts on arriving back about how much I missed London, I really don't want to move back there. True, job prospects are slightly better - but only in the short term, really, and you've got to take into account the higher living costs and the massive distance from one side to the other, and all that stuff. Jen is feeling like she'd like to move away from the city and to a little farm with some sheep in Wales, so I don't feel too strange for not wanting to live back there. We went to the student's union and drank a lot (of course) and then went back to her and Richard's place with lots of amazingly good English chips and some wine and some hoummus ("MMM this hoummus is good!" - another thing Americans haven't quite got the hang of). On Wednesday I had lunch with Bernie, who has shocked me by actually going back to work at Edexcel this summer - now relocated to premises opposite Pentonville Prison, ironically. I think I'd rather be in Pentonville, personally, but he seems to be doing OK - he's in charge of making sure everybody does their B checking right at the moment. After he'd been called back into hell, I went to Alexandra Palace and sat for a while (very nostalgic - the last time I went there on my own was when I decided to go to Las Vegas) and then went down to Fenwick to catch up with the old colleagues. Nothing much seems to have changed, and I found some comfort in that - Roy is still gossip man, Giuliano and Pat and that bloke who started 2 weeks before I left are all still there, although shockingly Pat fired poor old Catherine who has been relegated to mornings only now. Suitcase Boy has apparently swanned off to Thailand for three months - remembered him showing me his holiday snaps before I quit and they featured prominently a Thai girl, who he seemed to be joined at the lips with fairly often. He explained then that he "couldn't afford to bring her to the UK" (had to bite back, "What, don't they do discounts for long-term contracts?") so I'm wondering if him being out there has anything to do with that. His best mate got a mail order Thai bride, if I remember rightly. Curioser and curioser!

Being back around there severely depressed me, I must say. I remembered how unhappy I was and realised how close I had been to actually staying in the area - I even toyed with the idea of joining the Fenwick graduate scheme *shudder*. It was like another and much less inviting life flashing before my eyes, only it was a bit close to home because it was so nearly the reality.

Enough if the deep and meaningfuls (grin). After leaving Fenwick I embarrassed myself severely by trying to catch a train to Hatfield from Mill Hill, only remembering at the last mintue that trains to Hatfield don't actually got through Mill Hill. You'd think after making that journey every week for a year I'd remember, wouldn't you?! No harm done though, I went to St Alban's where Stu picked me up and took me off to the pub for more drinking. I was on the soda and limes....must be getting old. Steve and Neil turned up and we had a good reminisce and natter about things to come. They poked a bit of fun at me about Mr Z and my not seeing him for so long but having so many plans and originally meeting him online (it *was* a bbs...this is my only defence) but then I suppose it was only to be expected since I was quite scathing about Gitboy and his Excite Personals girlfriend. It was good to see them again, I was quite surprised that Neil turned up, being aware that I'm not exactly his favourite person in the world (grin). Steve can't decide whether to sell good old Tessa and buy a new car this year, or buy a new house instead. Oh, to have such a choice!

Spent the night on the furthest edge of Stu's frankly enormous bed enveloped in a sleeping bag - managed to crack my head on the bedside cabinet when I woke up - and then the next morning we were off to Alton Towers. I was very excited to see the new ride, and we got there in good time, and the day was grey but dry and not cold so all in all it was a total success. We went on Nemesis twice and all the other necessaries - including the wonderful chairoplanes which I almost prefer to Nemesis (but not quite...) and the new ride, Submission, was pretty good but not very rollercoastery. We were queuing up to go on some other ride after that and these kids pushed past me to join their mates further up the queue - this had been happening all day, but most people were at least polite about it. These just shoved rudely and swiftly, so when a couple more of their little pals came up behind me I made myself as broad as possible (being fat has a few advantages) and refused to let them past. This resulted in much shrill, Scottish exclamations of "She won' le' me past!" but I stood my ground, much to the amusement of the other people in the queue. One of the girlies further up came back to try and get the poor unfortunates past me, only to find that I wouldn't let her past again either. God, I'm such a bully, I know, but I was really hacked off! And she was standing there with her back to me, all "Jus' push past, what's she gonna do? I'm gonnu, weatch me.." but then turned around and whispered, "Scuse me please, can I get past?" which I thought was pretty spineless of her. Pah. Youth of today, don't know they're born, etc etc.

So, the day was a whole lot of fun, and we got on the road home in high spirits, making amazing time to the M1 in spite of a nasty accident near the park. We were getting so far so fast I had visions of getting back to Jen's to pick up my monitor and making it back home all on Thursday night, and indeed this seemed to be a very real possibility, until we got 34 miles away from Luton. That was about 6.30pm. By 9.30pm, we had moveD approximately 10 miles. Stu was the closest to being pissed off I've ever seen him, and I was practically raging - no cigarettes, phone battery dying, and too many cola bottles. We never found out what caused that horrible traffic jam, but no doubt we will talk about it always. Luckily managed to get on a train out of Luton when we finally arrived there around 10.30pm, and made it back to Jen's at least. Pondered with no small amount of irritation why a single ticket from London to St Alban's is 2.30, while a single ticket from Luton (2 stops further than St Alban's) to London is 5.80, but it had been one of those evenings so I didn't dwell on it too much. I got myself up at the crack of dawn and made it down to Waterloo on the bus by 9.30am on Friday - much good it did me, the fast train home was delayed by half an hour.

England, my England, how I missed you.

From the point I got back to Portsmouth it was all mad dash again - I got home to find Tim asleep in my bed and in a foul mood when I asked him to vacate it so I could use my room for sorting washing and general hair doing and the like, which didn't help my nail chewing mood - job interview and meeting Mr Z's parents on the same day is not a recipe for a calm and serene Sally. Poured all the clothes out of my bag and threw in the few clean ones I had left, and then blew up my hair dryer doing my hair (useless piece of...mumble mumble) and rushed off to the job interview for the Playscheme, which didn't go badly if you don't count them asking me what autism is and me not really knowing (half the kids on the playscheme are autistic. Nice one, Sal). I had to fill out countless forms and give all my addresses for the past 5 years (I had to continue on a new sheet of paper - six in total *slump*). I also had to provide the name of my GP, which took a bit of creativity on my part since I don't know her name. I cleverly put down my old Portsmouth family doctor instead, only remembering afterwards that he'll have no record of me. Another oops, methinks.

After that it was a semi-relaxing trip to Bristol on the train. Managed to cleverly miss my connection by a matter of minutes so was not on the train that Mr Z expected me to be on. Hence, when the next one came in I was seized with an evil desire to sneak off the train and hide in the helpfully placed shelter, a plan which worked astonishingly well until I decided to peer around the corner and was rumbled. We went home to meet the cat. Oh, and his parents. The cat made quite an impression by hiding in some flower beds and then, when all had started wondering why he hadn't appeared, doing a death defying life leap out of a seemingly impenetrable clump of bushes and landing somewhere near the middle of the lawn. I fear I was more impressed with him than he was with me, since he spent much of the weekend ignoring me, but apparently I was a big hit with the parents so I suppose you can't win them all. Family dazzled, cat acquainted, only the friends were left so off we went to the pub.

I realise that I've always lived in a city, but strangely I never really considered myself to be essentially urban. However, there is definitely something unfamiliar to me about a pub where everyone knows everyone, and the correct drinks are already waiting for you when you get to the bar, and you can get the local "sprog" (as her boyfriend put it..or is he her boyfriend? what does a mirror reflecting nothing look like? the latter is the easier of the two to answer, methinks) to go off and make you coffee, and putting assorted coppers on the pool table constitutes reserving it, and nobody gets pissed off when 6 people play a prolonged game of...I forget what it's called, death or something, but everyone gets 5 lives and you lose one whenever you fail to pot a ball...so if you're playing good people and there's lots of them, it tends to go on for a while (the game...I got knocked out with predictable swiftness). I remember almost losing a limb for trying to finish playing a game after we'd potted the black in the middle in the King's once. Just had a thought - if Mr Z is a little bit country, does that mean I'm a little bit rock and roll? Fear I may be mixing up my lyrics.

Anyway, the assorted company consisted of Char (the "sprog"), Scott (Char's...whatever), Simon (Sibling Z), Barry (the barman), Matt and George (as in "Georgina") and, at a later date, Wayne (the door-to-door salesman). Having a distinct feeling these names might be popping up with increased regularity in future, so everyone make a mental note. Char warned me that she'd be interrogating me thoroughly on account of Mr Z's relative silence on the topic of me, but then didn't ask me very many questions at all really, much to my disappointment. George grinned at me as I happened past her in the toilets and said, "So you're Mr Z's...FRIEND are you? I'll try and be tactful.." (Obviously she didn't call him Mr Z. Am foreseeing difficulties in keeping his real name out of this for much longer). Matt invited us all to a party the next night and had slightly less tact when he came over and started congratulating Mr Z on his discovery of a woman "Not only pretty but who you can actually TALK to" ("Don't forget intelligent" added Mr Z, from behind the hand I clapped over his mouth) which I found amusing since he'd really said about 15 words to me since we met but who am I to argue? He then further endeared himself to me by waxing lyrical about the bad points of the ex-girlfriend of Mr Z, which I found listening to to be rather a guilty pleasure. I took myself off out of earshot when I found myself grinning too much (not good for my karma, surely), only to be reliably informed by George, as we choked through the black smoke of Wayne's popcorn-making attempts, that they were back to talking about me again. In Wayne's defence, the popcorn might have been on for too long since I switched it off half way through cos I thought he was doing it wrong, and then could only remember roughly what number it had got down to.

The party continued in the fumes and with some Pink Floyd which might have been to blame because shortly after we changed the CD, Matt came downstairs and told us that, he was very sorry, things had turned horribly sour, and none of us could crash after all. To say it went pear shaped would be a bit of an understatement...Char and Scott (whose surnames, coincidentally, are Garfield and Odie - too good to be true, isn't it) and Wayne ended up sleeping in the back of Scott's fiesta while Mr Z and I walked home with a rumbling Simon, who took the whole matter quite badly, perhaps because he had spent ages wandering around looking for the place only to be booted out an hour later, and possibly because he'd had a bit of a skirmish with one of the girlies there. When I nipped up to the toilet before I left, the rest of the partygoers, ie George, her sister, Matt's sister and assorted boyfriends were cowering behind a door looking quite scared. It was almost amusing to see them jump when I walked over, out of their line of vision (they were all peering down the stairs) and said, "Cheers for the party..."

Suggested that perhaps I invite them all to a party here in Portsmouth, and then tell them at 2am that sadly they cannot stay after all, and direct them to the pier. But get the feeling there was some sort of swirling undercurrent to the whole thing so, actually, more interested in finding out about that than wreaking revenge. Typical girlie, I know - gossip first. I thought Char was going to start scratching eyes out though, she looked more than a little annoyed.

Sunday was spent sight seeing at the famous office that Mr Z has spent so very long talking to me out of. It was quite an, um, *experience*, especially the bit where I got to drive the Zedmobile which is a rather Tarzanesque land rover with a spare wheel screwed onto the bonnet and is older than I am. I DIDN'T STALL! (Pause for applause) although I did take a speed bump at something which *ponder* well, I can't remember whether I was in second gear or approaching it but anyway it was too fast. I decided to stop after that. I was pleased enough with not having stalled it until Mr Z pointed out that it's a very difficult car to stall. He sort of made up for it by saying that I didn't bunny hop it and that's easy to do - but then, bunny hopping sounds like something a bit fun, really.

Thus, the weekend ended with a darts league in the pub (I swear those drinks were on the bar before we even walked into the pub) (I lost the darts MISERABLY and Wayne felt so sorry for me when we played pool that he offered to let me cheat). Char was much more subdued, thanks to her hangover, and got up at some point before closing to make cups of tea and coffee for everyone in the vicinity. All-in-all, I think I was a hit with everyone concerned, although there was this slightly hairy moment when Mother Z asked Mr Z what he had been doing to get the car muddy (it was all perfectly innocent - we went and ate lunch on top of a muddy hill) and Father Z winked at me, whereupon I started giggling in an incriminating manner and found it rather too difficult to stop. Thankfully though, it didn't seem to be too detrimental.

And now I am home again, and my cat Zig is behaving in a very unusual manner. She's being very cuddly - it's most unlike her - but she's fallen asleep now on the floor with one head balanced on my knee. Earlier she tried to crawl under my jumper and go to sleep on my chest but I had to evict her for clawing me, so she took to sticking her nose in my arm pit so hard that her back legs were scrabbling of purchse on the duvet, all the while purring manically. I don't know, I go away for a while and the whole world goes mad.

Tuesday 19th June

I realise that a new entry so soon after yesterday's monster might be a bit premature but lots of good things happened and I wanted to write about them. Zig is eating a chicken bone at my feet with her back to me - residual fluffiness was destroyed by my cuddling her directly after putting her food bowl down this evening - she's still hissy about my evil deprivation. I watched a truly fascinating documentary on the legalisation of heroin on Channel 4 and was actually impressed by the adverts, whilst craving a double chocolate magnum and knowing, for a change, that I was only 5 minutes walk away from one. I did partake of one after last night's toad in the hole (!! and they say English food is bad...) but it only really counted as my first one of the day, since the other one in the 3 pack (one went to Mother Hand) decided to migrate off of its stick and onto the floor after 2 bites. I swear I nearly cried.

But I digress. Here are the good things that happened today, in order.

• I went to an agency called Human Factor nearby and dropped off my CV, and they were so impressed they rang me up before I'd even finished the five minute walk home and offered me a job in their office, which I had to turn down on account of them wanting me until the end of October. Was very boosted, though.
• On my way to meet Caroline for lunch, the Playscheme people rang and offered me three weeks' work in August, so at least I have something solid to rely on.
• Office Angels were also impressed with my employment history, and gave me a computer skills and typing speed test, which, although I thought I'd done badly and had to guess a lot of the tasks in Word, I scored "good", "excellent" and "very good" on. Then, in spite of typing the entire first line of the typing speed test in caps and having to redo it within the time limit, I scored a massive 68 wpm on my typing speed test (with only 2 errors!), making my estimate of 70wpm pretty spot and reinforcing my title of Fastest Two Fingered Typist in the West. The Office Angel dealing with me looked awestruck. I smiled all the way home.
• The Office Angel who interviewed me also tolds me that, when I move to Bristol, I can just go into their branch and get them to contact the Portsmouth office for my details, and I can start working straight away without having to go through all the interview/referncing process again. Very useful to know.
• Went to register with the doctor and the nurse took my blood pressure and it was NORMAL for the first time in FOUR YEARS!!
• Mr Z realised that Friday is inset day where he works and managed to get the day off, so he is coming to visit this weekend a whole day earlier.

So, things are looking up. I'm off to London on Thursday to pick up a portion of my belongings - which portion exactly is a mystery, as I'm going not on what I really want and need (my white board, my extra plug sockets, my duvet, assorted mirrors) but rather on geographical location, and since Riikka and John's house - or John's house, as I suppose it is now since they sadly broke up - is being sold soon, it is the belongings in their attic that must be brought down first. If I remember rightly, those consist of various kitchen stuff, a bin bag full of blankets and another full of clothes that don't fit me but which I cannot bear to part with. I suppose I'll have to try and be brutal and get rid of as much as I can when I get it back here.

I never explained my computer saga, because there wasn't one really - just that it turned out that the one thing I needed - a monitor - was the one thing not present in working order at Chez Mother Hand, so I had to go to London and haul my old trusty monitor back to Portsmouth in an Ikea bag. Then, when I finally got it back here I realised it didn't have a 3 pin plug on it - just a plug for leeching its power from the machine, which of course it can't do from the laptop - so Mr Z had to sort me out with a new lead. Then the phone extension cord to my room stopped working so I am currently set up in a corner of the living room. But it's better than nothing!

Saturday 30th June

Typically, now I'm back, I'm finding less time to update this. But take heart - it's not just this - I've been neglecting email and ICQ and all that stuff to the same extent. I wasn't really busy last week - Wednesday was my day for slouching, and slouch I did, whilst on Thursday Mother Hand and I drove up to London to pick up the small portion of my stuff residing at Riikka's place, which is on the brink of being sold. Mr Z arrived later that night and we spent another lovely weekend together. He bought me flowers on Friday (awwww blesss) and we went out with Leila that night to a new club called Walkabout, which in spite of being in my least favourite area of Portsmouth (Guildhall) wasn't half bad - they had a live band, although it was very busy. While we were waiting in the queue for the cashpoint before going in, some Pompeyette walked past yelling, "Oi dahn't care if 'e's the biggest fackin player in the city, Oi'd still fack 'im" and I have to say it made me feel more at home than anything (grin). Inside, I saw an old friend I've not seen for (counts fingers) about six years, and the bouncer on the door was good old Bruno from Fifth Avenue (as was), who remembered Leila but not me, unsurprisingly. Leila's difficult to forget! She's not changed - still nutty on the dancefloor. On Saturday we went to pick strawberries and on Sunday, after Mr Z had gone home (sniffle) I made jam.

Which brings us to the hell of Monday. So desperate was I to get some sort of work that I accepted a job from Human Factor - which is an agency specialising in factory/unskilled labour. They offered me a temp position in a plastics factory in Fareham - with the possibility to go permanent woo hoo! What was I doing? I hear you cry. Well...I found a job more boring than booking in at Edexcrement (after giving it a lot of thought, I have decided it wasn't as bad as B-checking - which is making sure the examiners have added up the marks on the exam papers correctly - just goes to show how boring that can be). I was threading elastic through surgical masks. Yes, for 9 hours a day. I had my own pedal and everything. It could have been worse - I could have been standing up - but, and I hate to sound like a snob, I just couldn't hack it. It was just so demoralising and, dare I say, demeaning, at least to me. The people were nice - I was working with 3 other girls and they all agreed that I was very nice (feather in my cap, perhaps) but after my first day I came home and collapsed on the sofa and cried, it was so depressing.

Thankfully it didn't last long - on Tuesday the agency I registered with the Friday before, Classic, found me a 3 and a half week temp booking for a sail making company in Old Portsmouth. I didn't even think twice about taking it, even though it meant stitching Human Factor up, but I wasn't worried about that for several reasons. For a start, they totally misrepresented the job to me - they said it was 4.25 an hour (it was 4), they said it was an 8am start (it was 7.30am), and they didn't tell me that the minibus I took the first day would cost me 10 quid a week. I didn't take it again - I got the train. Also, Sibling Hand did a few days' work for them a while back and then quit because it was too early in the morning and they never paid him for it, so it felt a bit like poetic justice to ring up on Wednesday lunchtime and say, "I'm not coming back". Finally - would you credit it - the bloke at the agency who dealt with me, Neil, is none other than Neil "Am I thinning more at the front or the back?" that Beccy used to flatshare with. We used to take the piss out of him a lot, and the last time I saw him was when I fell asleep curled up on their kitchen counter and he woke me up because he was afraid I was going to fall off and break my neck. I think he had a bit of a vengeance thing going on because he insisted I be at the agency by 6.50am on Monday morning (urrrr...) and then didn't speak a word to me until 7.15am, tsdk.

After being up at 5.30am on Wednesday, Thursday was a veritable lie in - I didn't have to get up until 9am. I'm an office temp for Lucas Sails now - they're moving offices and need someone (me) to answer the phones, do invoices and filing and all that other stuff while they pack up to move. I am well on the way to making myself indispensable - Cathie, the office manager, told me to tell the agency that I was "marvellous" and they are really happy with me. The hours are only 10-4 - a little shorter than I ideally wanted but still better than nothing - but it goes all the way up to the three weeks' Playscheme work I've got. And today (today is Tuesday, tsdk, I got distracted from this entry) Human Factor's offices in Gosport rang to say they might have something more long term for me after all that work has finished, working with children in a leisure centre. I'm intrigued, especially since it came from their office workers division, but time will tell. Probably nothing will come of it, knowing agencies, but it would be nice to have something to go to.

Today I sent out 150 mail shots to customers with the change of address details - only another 400 odd to go! One of the nicest things about the place is that it's right on the seafront, so I go and eat my lunch at the Round Tower, although thanks to that and the sunny weather, I now have a big brown stripe across each foot from my sandals. Tsdk.

Mr Z, I will just insert here, came down for yet another blissful weekend in which we walked along the sea front for five hours, ate a frankly terrible lunch from Wimpy, kicked at crab shells, tried to win Bagpi from the grabby machines in the arcade (3 quid and no luck!), and eventually went and bought a Bagpuss from a card shop. It's really, really lovely to be able to see him every weekend, I have to say.

Monday night (I might as well write about it now..) I went back to my old school with Caroline in tow for a Higher Education evening. The school has changed a little bit - the blessed Ledger Library I was once banned from for not returning a book on time has now become the teacher's dining room, and for some reason when we were ushered into the hall for the talks there was no smelly drugget on the floor like there used to be. The chairs were uncomfortable as ever, though, and it was sitflingly hot for the hour we sat there. The whole point was, I was going back to extoll the virtues of uni to this year's Lower sixth and Caroline came along to catch up. But it meant we had to sit through a detailed explanation of the UCAS application process and then a lecture about the current loans available for students - all a bit pointless. Still, we were entertained by the teachers - all insisting we call them by their first names (it made me shudder - just so wrong) and discussing the fortunes of old classmates. Miss Hulse, the new headmistress who joined a couple of years after we left, had a long talk with us and, when I said I had been considering teaching as a career, offered me work experience shadowing a history teacher there. I can just imagine how overjoyed Mr Vale would be at that - he'd probably top himself by the end of the first week. He's started dressing decidedly more casual and had a mobile phone in his top pocket when we sauntered over to speak to him - but, in true tradition, there is still something slightly musky about him. He mocked shock when I said I'd given up Russian after my first year and said he probably knows more than me, having taken groups there a couple of times now - he also went to China with a school party this year. Brave man!

I did, as planned, take my controversial year book with me but there wasn't really an opportunity to show it to anyone - although one earnest youngster sought me out to talk to me about UCL - which was a bit of a shame since I couldn't really tell her much, having taken the smallest possible amount of interest in UCL after they swallowed my little university whole. A lot of mileage was had by the teachers over my being turned down by UCL when I applied but ending up with a degree from them anyway - they saw this as something amazing, and I started to see it as the same before remembering that actually I think I'd have preferred a degree exclusively from SSEES. Although there's no getting away from the fact that the majority of people have heard of UCL and a similar majority get SSEES confused with SOAS and think that they're the same institution. So all things considered, I suppose it's more of a blessing than not.

I'm sorry for my lack of diario motivation lately. No, that's not right...everybody at work keeps scolding me for saying sorry unnecessarily as well as Mr Z so I am trying to break the habit. I will make an effort to write more though - just don't feel like I've been doing much lately that would be of captivating interest to anybody except myself and those involved. Funnily enough, I was talking to office manager Cathie today (today is now Wednesday....I know, I know! slapped wrists) and she, like me, wants to be a writer. She was telling me that she's been taking this Writers' Bureau course that guarantees you'll make your money back by getting articles published or they'll refund what you pay, It sounds quite interesting. Am wondering whether to not be too picky about what job I take when I move to Bristol and thus make myself try harder at the writing thing in my spare time.