Category Archives: Jobs

Nom

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So I got a job! An actual real life job where I go to work and everything. I’m a Marketing Assistant and I think it’s going pretty well so far. Getting up early every day and not getting home until 7 is taking a bit of getting used to, but it’ll all be normal in a week or so I’m sure.

And on the back of having a job, I no longer have to panic about money – hurrah! I don’t actually get paid for a month, but I can totally spend it now so there.

So with that in mind I went for a potter around Chorlton today to find food-based goodness. I don’t think I’ve really even scratched the surface of Chorlton’s foodie delights, but my parents are coming to visit tomorrow and I thought we’d have a wander as well so I didn’t want to exhaust it.

The highlight of my day has to be the Chorlton Sourdough I bought from the Barbakan Deli on Manchester Road. It’s so good – soft and chewy and acidic and lovely. Yum. They were frying up some epic looking sausages on the BBQ outside as well which I gather is a weekly event, but I think I’ll save that one until next week when Duncan is with me.

I also discovered the Unicorn Grocery wholefoods shop, which has a nice range of fruit and veg but more excitingly (is that a word? Not sure) for me a really good choice of dried herbs and spices, including chipotle and ancho chilies. Hurray! Not cheap, but then when is organic food ever cheap? I think I will have to combine trips to these various shops with trips to Tesco and Morrissons. That’s until I’m rich.

So that’s my day so far. I think the rest of it will consist of watching Sherlock and Skins (not at the same time, that’d be weird) and sitting on the sofa. Things that start with S then. Good.

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So a while ago I decided to remove myself from Twitter. I figured I didn’t really have anything too interesting to say and I don’t own a fancy internet phone, so it didn’t make much sense to me. But now I have been advised that if I want to make friends, meet people and do things in Manchester I’d better get myself back on there. So I have. So far it’s a bit better than last time in that I’ve found plenty of food and book-related people to follow and already discovered a few new places to go in Chorlton for good food. I’m still feeling weird about having ‘open air’ conversations with friends on the internet though. And about following people I don’t know who now probably think I’m weird. Ah well.

No other news really; a bit of potential job-based luck today but not sure how it’ll turn out. It’s just so hard to know what people are looking for. Something will turn up I’m sure, I’d just like to to turn up sooner rather than later because I want to get exploring (when I say exploring I mean drinking and eating). Found out today that a deli literally around the corner holds a monthly supper club which looks scrummy, there’s a really good fishmonger near here and lots of good bars. Money is definitely needed. Oh and we have sheets at the window instead of curtains so it’d be good to do something about that as well before people start to think we’re squatting…

The Future has Arrived…

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Yes. It has happened. We have the internet in our flat. No more visiting the library to job hunt. No more sitting next to weird, smelly people who spend an hour looking at YouTube videos about the ‘coming police state.’ No more rushing to look at all the jobs in Manchester before my hour runs out. Oh and no more leaving the house during the week, which is probably not a good thing.

The internet isn’t the only thing to arrive in our house recently either. We are now back in possession of one Mr Hobbes the cat. He doesn’t seem to happy to have been moved, but we’re managing to bribe him with expensive cat food. He was even seen pottering around purring this morning which is a rare occurrence. Exciting times.

So our new flat is cool. We have all our furniture now, and my chairs are in situ along with the lovely table I’ve been wanting for about 5 years. I have yet to make curtains and cushion covers; apparently nice fabric isn’t actually cheap when you need about 10 metres of it. So the blankets that are up at the windows may have to live there for a little while longer. It’s a work in progress though.

My new dining room

As for jobs; still no joy but I seem to have been contacted by a few more agencies and other people now so I’m not feeling too down in the dumps about it. Went to sign on for the first time on Friday which was not a good feeling, but hopefully it won’t last long. Job hunting is sucky; the worst bit is that people don’t get back to you or give you a closing date for a lot of jobs, so you don’t know whether you’ve been unsuccessful or whether to just wait it out. I’m not entirely sure why it’s so difficult just sending out an automated email to let people know, but apparently it’s just not done any more.

Anyway, that is all the news I have for now. Bits of life are good and bits of it suck. Hopefully the bits that suck will resolve themselves soon because I want some money and to go explore Manchester. Please. Thank you.

I’m from Manchester Alan…

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Well, I’m not. But I will be soon. And I can’t resist an Alan Partridge quote.

Anyway, this weekend Duncan had our first go at house-hunting in Manchester. You’ll be happy to hear that we failed on a spectacular level. One of the houses we looked at had a drug dealer living next door. Unfortunately this isn’t a joke, unless you can take any other meaning from “no, I don’t have any, but try Dave at number 41.” Sugar perhaps? Or eggs? I highly doubt it. Also, the house looked out over scrub land and the remains of a street of terraced houses most of which had been knocked down. Lovely. We also went for some nice pizza, had a go on the tram and went for a drink. Oh and our hotel looked out over Old Trafford cricket ground which was weird.

So Duncan has a job and I don’t. I’m applying and keeping my fingers crossed for interviews. I was good at what I did in my last job and I would like to do that again, so hopefully someone will recognise my boundless potential. Also, I got some spiffy interview clothes today which need an airing.

A little, Aloud: A lovely book.

In other news, I got a lovely new book today in the post. It’s called ‘A Little, Aloud’ and it’s full of lovely poems and pieces of text for reading aloud. Now I just need to find someone who will listen to me… easier said than done.

On being completely underqualified…

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CrimeFighters

My lovely friend Miles is making a film in York in the next two weeks and I, like the flipping dork I am, volunteered to do the food.

We started last night, making sandwiches, biscuits (flapjacks = fail) and plenty of hummus for the troops. I had help from the lovely Miss Helen Batty and from Jonic. It was actually a lot of fun.

Tonight is a similar night but instead of 15 people to cook for, there are 40. Two of whom are allergic to eggs. When I was vegetarian I found it really annoying when people didn’t take that into consideration and I was a bit of an afterthought so I’m trying to make most things egg-free.

With that in mind, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make some oatmeal raisin cookies without egg. I’ve been googling and apparently you can substitute half a mashed banana per egg in a lot of recipes. I didn’t know that and I’m really intrigued to try it out. I’ll let you know if it works. If it does then that might be the first recipe I put up here. Exciting stuff!

I will try to take some photos as the catering continues. Fingers crossed that everyone enjoys it and I don’t poison them.