One month in

It's hard to believe that I have been back a month but at least for the majority of that time, the weather has been glorious and the job market seems to be more buoyant that it was a year ago. Recruitment consultants (on my 'necessary evil' list along with estate agents and bankers) are actually ringing me back when I apply for roles and I've had two interviews as a result.

Sadly, I didn't get the role with the American law firm but to be honest, I was a little bit pleased since the guy who interviewed me wasn't very receptive and asked me the two biggest 'no no' interview questions: how old I was and whether I was married. Clearly my martial status has some bearing on my ability to do my job as a lawyer and silly singleton me for not remembering that. Surprisingly, the role went to a younger male lawyer but, hey, I am not bitter! I am contemplating a discrimination case as we speak.....

I cheered myself up by joining a photographic club and went along to the first social group where we were sent on a task of photographing the area around Brick Lane and Shoreditch. It was all rather cleverly done and we had to pick 7 letters from the game Scrabble, create 10 words out of the letters and then head off to take photos of the words we had formed (i.e. heel, line, nerd etc). I thoroughly enjoyed it and the group comprised mostly of creatives in their 20s and 30s and whilst our group didn't win the competition overall but we did win the best group name: 'Snap my bitch up' (those into urbanite music will see what we did there)

Round Two (see what I did there?!) of cheering myself up comprised of going to see some tennis at the Wimbledon championships and it was much easier to get in than I expected. I queued for about 1.5 hours, paid £20 and had access to all the courts (except centre, no.1 and no2) and the practice courts. There was a mixed bunch in the crowd and it did crack me up that people get dressed up in their tennis whites to go and watch the tennis! Are they hoping that someone will say 'Oh, I see you play tennis? Well, come and have a knock about on the centre court then!'

I do not follow the tennis as much as I did when I was younger and since my unrequited crush on the Swedish tennis player Mats Wilande,r so I wasn't fussed about who I saw although Federer was due to play court no.1 late afternoon. The system at Wimbledon is egalitarian and after 3pm in the afternoon they sell any spare tickets for courts 1 & 2 and centre for a fiver and the money is donated to charity. I got myself a decent spot in the queue and waited for the tickets to be doled out but as to be expected, most people in the queue were hoping for a Fed ticket and it was estimated that the wait was going to be another 2 and a half hours so I opted for a ticket for court no.2 and watched some great tennis and boiled in the hot English sun (that is not a sentence that I thought I would ever write!). As recommended, I went back to join the queue to see if I could get any tickets for court no.1 but by then, Fed's game had started and it was probably going to be finished by the time any tickets were released and besides, no one was going to leave now and give up their tickets. I watched a bit of the epic battle between Isner and Mahut and then headed home, feeling very cheered up indeed!

Last week I had an interview for a Swiss role (boom, boom) based in Zurich and I think it went well and I am waiting to hear whether I am through to the next round, so finger's crossed as I really, really want this job and the opportunity to move to mainland Europe and be surrounded by clean air, mountains and lakes, chocolate and Rolexes (not necessarily in that order)

I am taking part in a medical research study tomorrow called 'Rubber Hand Illusion experiment' and I'm hoping that it isn't some fetish club in disguise! (although it would liven things up a bit) I am looking forward to getting to the hospital and saying 'I am here for the rubber hand experiment', if nothing else!!

Back to reality

My two and a half months of peace, happiness and serenity were eradicated by British Gas within half an hour. Unfortunately, it took them 5 days to fix the boiler but it's now up and running and I could have a shower for my birthday! A friend came over for dinner to help celebrate my being able to bath and I went to Oxford for the weekend and the weather couldn't have been more perfect and it was warm enough for us to sit outside until midnight.

I caught up with M for lunch and we took his narrow boat out for a quick spin and I then got the train back to London. The train was already running 20 minutes late but no sooner had we got 10 minutes out of Oxford, we ran into trouble. I was engrossed in my book but the train started to sound its horn and the driver began dabbing on the brakes and then it came: the thud. The collective look of horror on everyone's faces could only mean one thing - we had hit something or worse, someone. Everyone sat there in silence and the train came to a standstill and then the announcement came that there had been a track side fatality. Again, gasps resonated around the carriage and some people looked very shocked.

We had to wait for the emergency services to arrive and one insensitive woman saw the police collect a shoe from underneath the train and proceeded to ring her friend to tell them and also said '..I think they are looking for body parts.' I am pleased to say that someone told her off and pointed out to her that there were children on the train and neither them or anyone else wanted to her what she had to say on the matter.

Eventually, the train started again and I got in London feeling a bit worse for wear but I haven't managed to find anything on the incident on the net. Whoever it was, my thoughts are with their family.