This Week - Part One - There was a lot going on!

This week got off to a lovely start on Saturday evening.  A neighbour was giving away cuttings from a houseplant and I picked up a couple from her on the way back from a dog walk. They are so beautiful.  Apparently, they are called 'tradescantia' and it s a trailing plant. My neighbour's plant had grown the length of her wardrobe and she needed to cut it down a bit, so lots of people from our street took cuttings from her which was very kind of her. 

Here's a picture:

We got some not so good news on Saturday night.  The washing machine was apparently what was tripping the electrics. Not sure why.  Possibly a mouse biting through the wires? OH managed to get the toaster going again, and later in the week managed to get the washing machine working again. Apparently, the real problem was a loose socket in LB's room. 

On Saturday evening, OH also took a look at my CV. I've applied for quite a few jobs in the last few weeks and not really had much success, so he took a look, to see if there was anything obvious that I could improve. As a consequence, I did change a few things and re-uploaded it and then I went on to apply for a few more jobs.  

On Sunday, OH was off cycling again for most of the day.  I had the car, so I decided to take myself off to a favourite car boot sale out of town. I took the dog with me and walked her whilst there. She wasn't very interested in walking around the stalls, so I didn't get to see much of the car boot sale to be honest. I still managed to spend the £15 I took with me though.  Most of it went on some glass beads for crafts. 

No item cost more than 50p and there were some lovely glass lampwork beads in amongst them. I ended up with a bowlful for £6, but I would probably have paid more for them on eBay. There will be a post coming very soon, on what I actually make with these beads. I just need to finish one item and then I need a nice sunny day to photograph them at their best.

Like last time, there was one necklace that I couldn't bear to cut up and use, despite the fact that the beads would have been perfect for suncatchers. It was just too pretty, so I might try to wear it at some point.

I also bought some new M&S gift wrap and bottle bags that were very well priced (50p each item) and some fruit.

The bottle bags we will probably re-use year after year to give alcohol to each other and the pack of small brown kraft Xmas tags has 100 tags in it, which will probably keep me in gift tags for the next 5 or 10 years. The two packets of birthday gift wrap will be useful, as I don't have any at the moment and it's always good to have some in the house.

On Sunday night, I got invited to a job interview first thing on Monday morning, which was a nice surprise. It wasn't too far from where I normally go shopping, so I went to the interview, which went okay and then went on to do the weekly shop.  

It was another relatively small shop, as I'd done a top up shop on Friday. I managed to save another £5 using nectar points at Sainsbury's, which helped me keep in budget. I also picked up a few reduced items at Lidl - some scones for 20p and fresh chillies for OH for 34p - and I also got a free pastry, which went nicely with our lunches.

On Tuesday, I went to my usual class at the gym, using my new membership, which was problem free and the class was good. Whilst waiting for the class to start, I checked my emails on my phone and found that I'd been invited for an in person interview and assessment on Thursday this week, which was great news.

When I got home, I jumped in the shower and got changed, as I had a Zoom interview in the afternoon, for some voluntary work that I'd also applied to do. I had to clear up in the kitchen a bit, so the background would look okay.

I received two items of happy mail today.  The first was a book I'd ordered on eBay for my birthday from OH. The second was a small cheque and some extra shares in one of the remaining few share holdings that I own, due to some sort of share consolidation, which was unexpected and very welcome. I've actually started reading the book, and I am enjoying it. Maybe I just hadn't found a book that interested me lately.

Anyway, the interview for the voluntary work went well and I'm booked in for an induction this weekend and should hopefully start volunteering next week, subject to references being satisfactory. It's only for a 3 hour session once a week at the moment, while I'm job hunting. If I get a job, I might be able to increase the time I can give once I know my hours, but I hope to continue regardless.

Well, it was all happening on Tuesday, as I also got offered another job interview for Friday of this week. I'll keep you posted with how things go.  That's three interviews to go to in the next week. I'm hoping that I might be offered one of the jobs, but if not I'll just keep looking.  Slightly better results on the job hunting front this week. 

I hope you're having a good week so far.