9-5, what a way to make a living!

The reason I haven't updated in a while is that I got the job (why, of course I did!). Dynamic is the word: I get to open the mail, answer the phones and make tannoy announcements. I'm considering doing the tannoy announcements in a different accent every time: that way, people will think the temp has left yet again. And who could blame her? It's rather dull!

Oh, how I yearn for the days when I could spend my time knitting and making jam! Why didn't I appreciate them more at the time? Why did I curse my jam for being too hot and not setting properly, berate my knitting for looking like it was done by a mentally-deranged under-achieving monkey? Why?

My brain is missing Tripos. I've been googling courses in Latin, Medieval French and ancient Greek. Not quite as bad as James, however, who is procrastinating (when he is supposed to be finishing his book) by learning all about quantum cryptography. It's a good job we found each other: who else would have either of us?

Back on the Chain Gang (ooh, aah!)

The recruitment agency finally sent me for an interview. It has been a frustrating few weeks, registering with an agency for a specific (and, I must say, rather shite) job which for which I was subsequently rejected due to being over-qualified. Undeterred by this ruling, my rep then proceeded to put me forward for a series of increasingly shitty jobs, culminating with an offer of work "doing customer service for the caaaancil", which meant taking telephone enquiries about such fascinating topics as rubbish collections etc. Despite the fact that this is obviously a fulfilling and worthwhile career choice, I'm afraid I snapped, and promptly fired off one my infamously snotty emails. The Foreign Office taught me well.

I was then put forward once again for the original job and this time I made it to the interview stage!!!

The most memorable part of the interview went something like this:

Her: As you know, our offices will be relocating at the end of the year. Morale is rather low. Can you suggest any group activities we could do to boost team morale?

Me: Yes, you can all pretend to kill each other!!

This was met with a stunned silence by my two interviewers, who simply stared at me, open-mouthed. I felt further explanation was necessary, as they were obviously not able to see beyond my simple suggestion to the complex workings of the activity I had in mind...

Me: You see, it's a game, called Assassins. Everyone is given a target in the company, who they have to kill, and everyone is therefore both a potential assassin and target at the same time!!

More stunned silence, accompanied by obvious signs of agitation... I pursue, digging myself deeper..

Me: You see, you all PRETEND - that's right, PRETEND - to kill each other with plastic knives, water pistols .. oh! and pieces of string with which you can garrotte each other!

I sit back, rather pleased with myself, only to be met with disconcerted looks from my two interviewers. They look at each other, eyebrows raised. I suddenly realise, with a slight amount of horror, that I have used the word "garrotte" in a job interview.

Her: Well, we have another person to interview at 12, so we'll get back to you through the agency.

I come home rather deflated. Jamie asks how the interview went. "Well", I explain, "I think I inadvertantly suggested they all kill each other in an attempt to improve morale...".

Animal Crackers

It has been a strange day here in Norfolk. I always took it for granted that the humans in this part of the world tend to act rather strangely, hence the saying "normal for Norfolk". But the animals, it transpires, aren't much better.

Take, for example, my sister's pets. She has a cat who, having been brought up from kittenhood with two dogs, believes he is a black labrador. Even when he was a kitten he would kill and bring home adult rabbits twice his size. He walks like a labrador, helps the dogs to steal food by knocking it from the kitchen work surfaces, and play fights with his canine friends. When we took the dogs for a walk this morning, he followed us. Perfectly normal stuff. When the dogs took a crap in the field, he did likewise. We threw the ball for the dogs: he chased it with them. Still fairly normal stuff, so much so that I was perfectly expecting the cat to join us on our walk and join in with the games. Then I looked round and saw we were being followed by one of the chickens. The chicken then proceeded to chase and try to attack one of the dogs. Apparently, she does it all the time. She has just taken an irrational dislike to Murphy, who is rather perplexed at being repeatedly stalked and bullied by a chicken. And who can blame him? By this stage, I'm wondering what we would look like to strangers, two humans taking two dogs for a walk, accompanied by a cat who thinks he's a dog and by a chicken hell-bent on beating up a black labrador.

Then I went to see my friend Jo. Jo lives on a big secluded farm surrounded by fields and orchards. She had offered me free fruit with which to make yet more jam. We take a walk around the grounds so that she can point out all the gazillions of fruit trees to me. Her black labrador (Murphy's grandfather, in case you were wondering) accompanies us. He runs ahead, positions himself below a branch of a bramley apple tree and then launches himself virtically into the air, deftly catching an apple off the branch as he does so. Now I know where Henry's apple-thieving tendencies come from - he has been bred from a long line of apple-thieving pikey dogs (and expensive ones at that). We continue our walk, which takes us past Jo's flock of sheep. There in the corner, far away from all the other sheep, is the black sheep of the family. Her name is Ba Ba Black Sheep and she was hand-reared after her mother died in child birth. Hand-reared in a house full of black labs. As we walk past her she runs over to the fence, sticks her head through the fence posts, wagging what remains of her tail as she waits to be stroked by Jo and nuzzled by the dog. This sheep thinks she is a black lab and can't understand why she has to spend her days in a field full of white fluffy animals.

And this reminds me, the first time I met Jo she was living in my parents' village and she was walking her pet sheep (Lollipop, as her friends knew her) on a dog lead. Lollipop lived in the house, liked to get on people's laps for cuddles and also thought she was a dog.

I have one question for the people and animals of Norfolk: what the fuck is going on??

Night Terrors

James is starting to accumulate evidence of my mental demise, so that it will be easier for him to have me sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Apparently, it's just his way of showing he cares. And he is, after all a doctor, so must know what is best for me.

Last night, I provided him with more evidence.

The time was approximately 3 am. Our peaceful sleep was broken by a yelp, which allegedly came from me. I then sat up in bed, hyperventilating somewhat, my heart racing. In my semi-conscious state I was terrified, and desperately looking around the room, trying to locate the window for a source of light. In the midst of my panic, Jamie's calm voice asked me if I was okay. "NO!" I said, extremely agitated, "I have absolutely no idea where I am!". He gently told me that I was in my bedroom, at the cottage. "Oh", I said. And promptly put my head back on my pillow and fell fast asleep.

I told my sister. "Night terrors", she informed me: "children get them all the time".

Well, I bet children don't preceed their night terrors with dreams like mine. I dreamt that I was in an open prison which was rather like a secondary school. James needed to talk to me in private and the only suitable place for our conversation was a toilet cubicle. Like the toilet cubicles they have in secondary schools, all linked up with gaps over and below the doors. A nice setting in which he chose to inform me that he considered me a whore. "A whore?!", I asked, obviously rather upset and confused, "but why??". "Because", he growled at me, "despite all my explanations, you still can't remember how an air rifle functions".

Worrying, very worrying indeed.

And when I woke up this morning, there was a bunny in my garden, munching contentedly on a clover patch. "God, I wish I had an air rifle", James said, as my eyes widened in terror...

Wildlife

One thing about living in the country is that we live in close proximity to all sorts of wild critters. We have tawny owls nesting in the field behind our house - and who can blame them with all those bunnies that graze on the field every afternoon and evening (I swear, it's like Watership Down) - we have bats snapping up the insects that hover outside our living room window, attracted by the light, and I see water voles, stoats and hedgehogs in the country lanes at night. And then there are the spiders. I'm trying to remain calm about the spiders, as I have a husband who jumps on the first sign of a phobia (ask Simone - he's threatening to post her his dismembered toenail). In an attempt to be friends with the spiders, I have started naming them. All the really big ones are called Simon, the spindley ones are called Stephen Greenblatt and we also have the occasional Arthur and Brian. You can't be scared of something called Arthur, right?

Well, let me tell you something. You fucking well can when it's in your fucking bed at night! Oh yes, last night, just as I was dozing off, my whole body wrapped in duvet to protect me from the freezing summer night-time temperatures, I feel something move on my arm. My arm that is UNDER the duvet! It is a spider! An Arthur sized spider! (I am grateful, incidentally, that it wasn't a Simon-sized one - praise the Lord for small mercies.) A spider in my bed!! And there was me, still glowing in the warm aftermath of a particularly satisfying muffin-baking session, feeling rather smug about becoming a country girl. Well, no-one mentioned there would be spiders in my bed. I'm sure I didn't sign up to that.

I am going to write an immediate letter of complaint to the Women's Institute. Something, my friends, should be done. Well, it's just not right, is it?

In the Dog-House

I am still making jam - batches and batches of the stuff - to sell at the farmers' market tomorrow. It's what's known as a cottaging industry, or some such like.

I have a fridge full of fruit from my dad's allotment. The fresh sweet smell of the blackcurrants, an intense odour like concentrated Ribena, takes me back to our fruit-picking days last year, when dad was ill in hospital and when James really became a member of our family. He threw himself straight in, head and heart first, comforting, supporting, entertaining, hugging and harvesting. And at the end of the summer he got down on one knee in my parents' flower-crammed garden and asked me to marry him. Ah, memories. The smell of blackcurrants makes me say a silent prayer of thanks that Dad got better, and makes me want to hold James a little closer.

I multi-task. I put on a batch of cooking apples to cook and turn to pulp, which I then strain through a jelly bag. I'm making mint jelly, you see. I have the mint freshly picked from Megan's garden, where it grows as a weed. Fresh mint smells of Kuwait. Cooking apples takes me back to my childhood home in Barnehurst, where they could be heard thudding to the ground every summer as the branches of the trees strained with the weight of so many apples.

While the apple pulp is straining, I start to top and tail the blackcurrants. The ipod is on and I sing along to the Great Big Sea, the band that will always evoke memories of my first year at Cambridge, and my shiny new friends and my wondrous new life. As I sing I hear a thumping noise. It is Henry's tail, wagging against the carpet in excitement at my voice. He looks at me with his big black labrador eyes, and and I smile serenely. There's something calming about the presence of a black lab in the house, like a positive, warm and cuddly charge in the air. I'm glad I borrowed him for the day.

I start cooking the blackcurrants. Bam. The smell reminds me of Nanny, the long summers of my childhood when she would collect all the fruit from our garden and make enough jam to last us until the following summer. Her hand-written labels, shakey old granny writing on deep red jars of jam made from home-grown strawberries, the smell of sickly sweet fruit cooking upstairs, her singing to the radio as she worked. I feel a lump in my throat and suddenly realise how much I miss Nanny, and especially the Nanny of my childhood. My knitting and my jam-making often feels like a way of connecting with her, saying hello, smiling softly, reaching out.

I carry on cooking, finding myself surprised at the philosophical and emotional experience it is becoming. I think to myself: I must write about this in beautiful, sensuous, evocative prose, the sort of writing I admire in other people's blogs that makes me wish I had more of a way with words. Yes, I think, I must share this experience with everyone. My train of thought is then disturbed by a strange slurping noise, and I jump out of my daydream to find Henry, the little fucker, DRINKING my freshly-strained apple juice. I screech at him, call him words that only Satan should say whilst sat on the toilet, jumping up and down in anger and frustration as Henry stares at me in bewilderment.

Then I realise, my blog isn't one of those blogs. My blog is a blog where things like this are reported, where serene moments are a mere pause in the general insanity of life whilst living in a family crammed full of confirmed lunatics. Henry is a BAD, BAD dog. And he's going straight back home where he belongs, and where there is no cottaging industry for him to bring to financial ruin in one fell slurping swoop.

In future years, when Henry has gone to the Great Dog Home in the Sky, will the smell of cooking apples remind me of him, I wonder?