So I find myself at a loose end (not really all that loose, I mean obviously there's the washing up, the washing and cleaning the bathroom that I could be getting on with if I really wanted to, but hey), just me and a silent walkie talkie and my newly-dyed hair (light copper bronze, this time, thanks for asking).   I have dispatched the kids off to pick blackberries, which is exactly what my dad used to do to me and my sisters when I we were children (the difference is that he wouldn't let us come home until we'd picked a pound each, whereas I said they just needed to be out of the house for twenty minutes until I'd finished dyeing my hair). They have a walkie talkie with them, so they'll be perfectly safe in the woods near the abandoned world war two bunker beyond the big sign that says "Out of Bounds to non-military personnel" won't they?
Anyway, it's nearly the end of the hols and Hubby is back at work. Today I took the kids out out to buy PE trainers (at Evil Tesco Extra - not sure how I resisted the urge to buy seven tubs of ice cream, a new TV and some leather boots for only forty nine ninety nine, but somehow my willpower held up) and tomorrow there'll be hair cutting and pencil case finding and then that'll be it. I'll just have to hand in the dissertation and I'll no longer be a student, I'll be a writer and job seeker. Which isn't scary at all, given that it's seven and a half years since I last worked for anyone...it's not a threat, it's an opportunity (I'll just keep telling myself that).
When we first lived here (in a little house at the bottom of the hill on camp - now we live in a big house at the top of camp, such is army hierarchy), just me Hubby and Dog, I was also an unemployed ex-student struggling writer. I had just finished my journalism course and was making steps into becoming a freelancer, but in the meantime working part time in an organic supermarket and typing up pensions letters. Fifteen years on and I've just finished my masters course and I'm making steps into becoming a novelist and I'm looking for part-time work to keep me going until someone recognises my obvious literary genius and propels me to well-deserved publishing gold (alright, but making things up is what we writers do!). Plus ca change and all that...
Kids are on their way home now so I'd better go.
Take care xxx