Sorry not to reply sooner, we are in that Nodnol and have only just got connected again after a day of trains and shops and stuff.
It is a course admin job at Uni of Portsmouth, so back where I used to be and reunited with my pension - hurrah!
Yesterday was interview day and went something like this:
08:45, getting ready to leave the house and walk to the station to get a train to Pompey that gave me a lot of time in hand for problems. Phone rings, 'tis Vernon saying "You'd better get up here fast there's a tree on the line going south and it's chaos." Jump on bike in interview gear but with skirt in bag and waterproof trousers on, pedal through the rain to the station with my face slowly reassembling itself around my chin and my hair laughing in the face of pwoduct and hairdrying.
09:00 get to station to find it isn't a tree south of here it is, in fact, a fatality north of here, nothing is moving, there's crime scene work to do. Vernon is on the train sat at platform 1, he gets off, relieves me of my bike and heads for home. I stand at the bus stop. I realise I have very little cash and chase Vernon down Lavant Street to lighten his wallet.
09:20 the train at platform 1 moves up the track, a mass of people rush into the station expecting it to return as it can't go north. It returns. It doesn't stop. We dash back to the bus stop and get on the Waterlooville bus.
09:40 call HR at UoP to tell them I will be late, they put me on hold for about 5 minutes then tell me I have to call somebody
else give me the number and ring off. I call the number "You do not have enough credit to make this call".
10:00 Waterlooville, time to change buses and time to change clothes, in the bus stop, I won't have time when I get to Portsmouth.
10:10 I try to put more credit on my phone "You do not have enough credit to put credit on your phone"
10:45 Still on bus, in Fratton.
11:02 leave bus on Queen Street.
11:05 arrive in office looking a tad flustered
Explain the situation, there is a massive re-arranegment and I get interviewed and do my test. I completely ditz out on the interview as things I know or have researched leave my head en-masse. I do OK in the test.
12:40 dash off to see both my referees and tell them they won't be being bothered for references this time, stop off at Deli Too for a small baguette which I munch on my way to Commercial Road. Some fat imbecile calls me a greedy piggy as I wait at a ped crossing I ask if I know him and he says no not at all so I tell him to f*ck off.
14:00 ish try to get train to Petersfield, there is a broken down train on the up line.
15:00 after two failed attempts to find a cafe in Petersfield that is open so Vernon can have lunch and I can grab a coffee and cake combo Vernon says "Well what do you want?" I stamp my feet and say "I want just one thing, just one thing and I don't care how small it is, I just want one thing to go right today."
15:15 we are sat in The Black Sheep with a cheese platter and two pints of the eponymous beer
Fast forwards to this morning, a phone call at 09:20 to tell me the job is mine if I want it.
There were moments yesterday when I was thinking "If I ever get my hands on the bastard who was the fatality I'll bloody kill them."
