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!!