Doing the Milkround

required a trip to deepest darkest Welsh Wales in order to man a recruitment stand at Cardiff University. Manic day with a good few hundred potential grads wandering round looking for jobs or sandwich year placements. Hard on the legs but the years in retail have stood me in good stead for this type of thing...had to be one advantage ;o)

Struck by how few of the students had actually done any research about the companies who were recruiting...somehow thought with the recession and jobs on the scarce side they'd have been a bit more prepared...maybe I'm just getting dull and boring in my old age...

Career path

They start them early on the path to achieve their aspirations nowadays. Miss Sensible has been to see the careers advisor and undertaken some assessment tests to ascertain what careers she might be suited to.

In my day the 'penguins' at the convent didn't hold with such things. If you were a bright girl you would be a teacher, less able, join a bank or go into nursing....anything else you were doomed, which may well be how I ended up in retail management...or "working in a shop" as Sister Jennifer disdainfully described it :o/

Fortunately things have improved as I could see when Miss Sensible showed me the feedback recommending journalism or broadcasting…only a slightly competitive field then...

Royalty

has descended on the site. I couldn’t get into the café at work other than by a back exit this morning. We minions are not allowed to be visible today. Everything has been cleaned, polished and tidied to within an inch of it’s life. Decided to go home to work ‘cos I somehow don’t think my dress-down Friday approach will be favoured ;0) As I left the office there was no sign of staff leaning from the windows, waving flags and cheering, merely a cleaner brandishing a duster;-) Well he's hardly first in line to the throne - can't believe the amount of fuss and security :o/ The guard dogs were out and there were loads of men in suits with walkie-talkies about the place - talk about over-kill!

Is there a protocol

about posting re. a cremation and memorial service :o/ Suffice to say...it went as expected - pretty harrowing.

If I pop my clogs please can someone give all the valuable bits to those who need them, ensure medical science gets anything else of use and should there be anything left, dispose of it quietly, preferably with no one looking on. Most of all I would like everyone to have a really good party with the odd story about me with some of my exploits (good and bad), music ('80's naturellement), dancing (but you'll need plenty of space for Jon's flailing limbs especially if you play Blancmange tracks) and sustenance in the form of bacon butties or fish & chips.

Extreme gardening

session over the weekend requiring chainsaw, hedge trimmer, & pickaxe as well as the expected spade and fork. Almost nine hours hard graft later ably assisted by Mel (aka Green Fingers) we'd removed a ceanothus, buddleia, yukka and massive pampas grass. Not sure that gives any idea of how major a task it was.... the root ball on the pampas grass was about 18" deep and circumference, the yukka was 10ft high and some of the roots on the buddleia where about 4" girth you maybe get an idea of the amount of effort to get them out! Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "girls with power tools" ;o)

Putting life in perspective

Just before I went on holiday I saw one of my friends, Sue. regular get-together where we chatted about life, the universe and everything... joked about her upcoming 25th wedding anniversary celebrations and her son going off to Uni. I came back from vacation and heard the news she'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It's indescribable what a major shock it was to everyone, and the progress at which the disease spread was terrifying. I managed to see her and despite the enormous pain she was obviously in she was remarkably brave and positive. Within the week she was transferred to the local hospice & this morning I heard she'd passed away. She was just 48yrs old. The adage 'life's too short' doesn't begin to describe it....

How to scare your mother

Strident student's off doing voluntary work tonight - an out-reach scheme for prostitutes! She couldn't get anything to do with refugees which is what she initially wanted to do, so decided to offer to help with this programme and at a homeless shelter. On the one hand I'm pleased she's so keen to help people, and on the other I'm worried sick about what she might come face-to-face with. She's getting training/briefings from various agencies before she's sent into the red light district. Tonight she's with a policeman talking her through some of the things they deal with. I guess they become pretty jaded with what they come across and the fact they can't make a difference. I know I can't wrap her up in cotton wool but she's still so niave about life. Needless to say she's got strict instructions to let me know she's home safe and to ensure she gets her inoculations (Hep C etc.) up to date.