Oh my gosh so much has happened in a short space of time, where to start......

I am now in my own flat as many of you already know.  That in itself has been an interesting experience (thankfully I am flatting with Jules and Bob which has made it bearable)!  Lets see.....it cost us 1500 pounds (jules doesn't have that key on her computer so I can't put the sign in, sorry!!) each - 6 weeks bond and 4 weeks rent.  I had been budgeting on 1000.  I am eternally grateful to Corey and Jess for helping us move and get settled in.  Without them we would have been moving forever I am sure .  As it was it took 12 hours on saturday and a few more hours on sunday.  Anyway, when we moved in the place was great but in really gross condition.  I am talking vomit and faeces on the toilet, dead nail clippings/dirt/haid in the drawers in my bedroom and lightbulbs not working to name a few.  I was ropable and, lucky for all of us I think, I was unable to get hold of the property manager that afternoon.  Instead we cleaned for a while before moving in properly, noting all defects as good (or pedantic) lawyers do.  We then wrote a carefully worded e-mail to the letting agent and property manager to record the state of the house as there is a requirement that we leave the house in the state we found it...hmmm...we would be trying very hard to leave it in that state.  Anyway, we have now received the inventory (their record of the state of the house made prior to us moving in) and it states that the place had been professionally cleaned!!!  That aside, the flat is fab.  It is everything I wanted and more.  My room is massive!  In fact, all the rooms are quite large which is great, it is really light and gets plenty of air.  It also feels very homely - something that the three of us welcome having moved around a bit until we came here.

I am possibly going to be jobless again soon, although I am not sure yet.  Ok, story is this:

My bosses have been very clear with me that they want to keep me on but it seems they may not be able to pay me what I am currently earning on a long term basis.  This all started when I was having a discussion with them about needing more work.  Actually this was the third or fourth time I had asked for more work......each time they would give it to me, then I would finish that and ask for more (and so the cycle goes).  During this particular discussion, my boss said two things two that are noteworthy.

1.  They wanted to retain me but they had to balance that against giving me a whole lot of work that would give me experience for me to then go and get a job in London (go figure!!).  I informed them that I was bored, feeling a tad insecure about my position and that if they wanted to keep me they needed to give me work otherwise I would be looking for work in London.  They took that on board and things have improved a little since then.

2.  he wasn't sure that they could pay me what I am currently earning once my 3 month contract ends.  This came about because I raised with them (both my bosses), seeing as we were putting cards on the table, that money was an issue for me if I was to continue working for them.  I had a minimum figure in mind that I needed to earn to make it finacailly viable for me to keep working there (and paying 100 pound a week in travel costs to do so).  That minimum figure was what I was currently getting in the hand.  When I told them what that was, their faces went very pale.  it transpires that they had asked the recruitment agent to attract candidates who they could employ at the end of the contract (if they wanted to) within a certain salary range.  Somehow I am being paid more than that salary range, hence the current problem.  Both of my bosses have gone away to see what kind of package they can put together for me but to be honest I don't know that we are even in the same ball-park.  So it is all a bit uncertain at the moment.

Haven't yet had an opportunity to travel as I had hoped I would have by now, mainly because of the cost of getting into the flat.  However there are a few trips in the planning.  The first of which is a trip to Amsterdam which, as luck would have it, coincides with Juliet's 30th...luck? I think not!! So that is at the beginning of September.  I have also started planning my 30th which is a trip to Edinburgh for the weekend of 24-26 November so really looking forward to that as well.  I thought it only fitting to have my 30th where mum was born (which is the significance of Edinburgh for me).  So all of you back home who won't be able to be there too, please be sure to have a drink for me that weekend too!  I also have friends who are in the process of organising a trip to a cabin in the Alps for Christmas.  I am going on that cos it sounds awesome!!  We will be there for a week and apparently we pay a standard fee which gets us breakfast, dinner, booze over dinner (I am sure we will recover our costs through this means alone), a special xmas dinner and skiing as much as we want when we want cos the cabin is on the ski-field.  not that I can ski of course.  In fact I suck at it, but it will be heaps of fun anyway!  we are then moving on to somewhere else for new years although we haven't set that destination yet. 

They are the definites for my planned travel.  There are also a couple of other trips I would like to do if I can afford it (Italy and France), but one step at a time. 

So thats enough from me for now.  As you can see it is all go over here.  Am loving the updates from all of you so keep them coming!

lots of love,

A

xx