The interview was early in the morning, so limiting the amount of time spent worrying. The people interviewing were very friendly and it was a very different type of interview. Very informal, but not lacking in questions, but it was relaxed. I’ve had past interviews by people who couldn’t interview themselves out of a paper bag, and instead of stressing about your performance you end up worrying at their obvious lack of ability. I felt content with how I answered the questions and came away with a positive feeling about the organisation. Whether I will be successful- who knows, but I’m glad to get one down.

The other advantage of putting yourself through situations like that, is that once they are done, you feel like your on holiday. So I’ve had a really nice afternoon- good lunch, even went to the gym……….Back to work tomorrow.

I first read of this series when I was flying over to London. I was then heading to Barnett House in Surrey, where unbeknown to me, was the actual filming location for the series! It is a fantastic stately home were, as Minette Walters points out in the first episode, it is said to be the place where Agatha Christie conceived her first novel.

In the BBC 2 series, crime novelist Minette Walters mentored 6 celebrities in the discipline of writing a crime mystery novel.  Each day, the celebrities had to submit work to Walters, where upon she silenced a celebrity day by day, until one remaining celebrity won an actual publishing contract! Garden Designer Diarmuid Gavin, Actress Angela Griffin were just some of the celebrities taking part. In the end Sherri Hewson ( Actress from Coronation Street and T.V chat show host on”Loose Women”) won and I have to say her writing skills were hugely impressive and I’m looking forward to reading it.

For those who missed it- check it out on the BBC website.

Am I alone in this, or does everyone go through stages, where everyone apart from them seem to be in the perfect job. At times I’m constantly surrounded by others that seem content and fulfilled and go to work each morning with a vigour, that I can only dream of aspiring to. Maybe I’ve been the product of poor careers counselling. ( In fact I know I was - Miss P was never going to be the kind of teacher that inspired ) Don’t get me wrong- I enjoy my work and the colleagues I work with are fantastic, there is just something missing. It’s hard to put into words but I’ve lost that burning excitement and my attitude to work is becoming dangerously complacent.

So, until this elusive and perfect job comes a-knocking, I’m currently filling out application forms, thinking outside the box and trying not to stand too close to that fence, because splinters aren’t the only things that can get under the skin.

After the kidney episode, I’ve been concentrating on getting back to normal and I had my first week back at work. It was quite tiring with just getting back into the swing of things, but I’m now feeling lots better and am fully back to normal.

I have also been filling in alot of application forms for new jobs recently All part of my New Years resolutions for 2008. I have another one to do for next Friday. My thinking is get them done and away and then I can forget about them. Talking of New Years resolutions- I came across a list that I had put together in early january which I had completely forgotten about. Guess what was at number 5. Drink more water. Seriously- were my Kidneys telling me something even back then??

I came to this documentary not fully believing the simple premise. I had heard that there had were vast differences between the people living in the 116 houses, along the street. I had thought that, yes maybe a few houses would tell stories, but I was surprised to see the huge differences in wealth, the variances in pain and the social chasms that lay between neighbours in their circumstances.

A talented Jewish family lived next door to a house crammed full of young Kiwis, who spent most of the time consuming large amounts of alcohol in their garden. At one humorous point the mother next door referred to them as ”feckless”. A 91 year old polish man lived alone in a huge house. With kindly manners, he spent his entire day living in the kitchen where he was never away from the things he needed and where he could feed his pigeons from the window.

Across the road, a father and son lived together in their house. The father owned next door as well, which the son cleaned and rented out. Bourne referred to them as the ” unlikely millionaires ” on the street as they later revealed they were more than likely sitting on over a £ million in equity. Further down the road a polish single mother lived with her young child in one room, but refused to let the cameras film there as she was embarrassed by her situation. Speaking later to the camera, she explained how hard it was to come from a nice house in Poland to a single bedroom with poor facilities, but this was the only way to save money. As her son rode his tricycle down the street, she revealed that her one dream was to live in a nice house, be able to send her son to a good school and to have a job.

A heart-aching story was that of a young 25 year old man who was suffering from Tourettes and O.C.D. He was crippled with this problem, which I still know very little about, but what was surprising was just how coherent he was when he wasn’t in the grips of this relentless illness. Bourne filmed him ordering a Pizza and as he cursed down the phone in a way he couldn’t possible control, he quickly politely apologised and continued to order in a clear and intelligent manner. At the end of the film, Bourne showed how his condition had become so bad that he had to be taken into hospital, where on his return and 2 weeks later he was found dead in his flat. It was a very sad reality. Here was a young man, who had spent so many years on his own, lonely, longing for some sort of company!

On the positive side Bourne filmed another family, where the mother and father were successful authors in their own right. The father had been diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer. Instead of giving into it, they fought in every way possible against the disease and against all odds the father was still alive. But what was genuinely heart-warming, was when Bourne interviewed the husband and wife, they revealed how the other neighbours rallied around them and made up a rota between themselves so that they could help in taking him to the the hospital for his treatment. A rota they have continued for over a year.

It was an amazing programme and my words cannot do it justice in any way. And it made me think- who are my neighbours and what are the stories behind the windows, or the problems, the joys, the misery and loneliness. All I can say, is that if you get the chance to watch this film, do!

Writing is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. For many years, I have endlessly thought up stories but did nothing further to develop them. I’ve read numerous books on how to write, on what makes a good novel etc. Then for the last two years I, like many others, read Louise Doughty’s weekly column  in The Telegraph. Now this was a great column for so many reasons; not only did it provide an insight into Doughty’s day to day writing life it also provided genuinely useful tips. But what really struck me was that writing seems to be pretty hard work. Here Doughty showed the difficult reality that exists within writing and instead of discouraging me I found it much more encouraging. Because, if I find it just as as hard putting pen to paper in the same way a published author and journalist sometimes can, well then maybe, with some more practice, I might be able to put together a believable story with interesting characters that could, one day be published. 

Anyway, thats the dream. It remains far off in the distance still but will hopefully get a bit closer. Before I fell into terrible pain this week, I was about to post off for info on a writing competition. That still hasnt been done, but will be posted this weekend and I’m just going to give it a go and see what happens. Watch this space.

Anyway- I am feeling much much better- thanks for asking. I have stopped taking the painkillers and it has now nearly been 36 hours of experiencing no pain whatsoever.  Welcome relief I can tell you. I am meant to go to my GP for further tests later, but on the whole it’s back to normal. Hooray!

The one good thing about being sick and being off is that your able to watch a ridiculous amount of T.V. Usually T.V is rubbish when you sick and stuck on the sofa or when you actually plan to stay in on a night, but I have to say I have been extremely lucky this week. T.V has been quite good. One thing I have really been enjoying this week, which unfortunately ends tonight is ‘Freezing‘ on BBC2 starring Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern. It has been called a “modest little comedy”, and it is exactly that. It’s not laugh out loud funny 24/7, but its tremendously well acted, with amusing characters and situations that draws you in. It reminds me a bit of Jack Dee’s ‘Lead Balloon’. Now I thought that was a great series, and whilst it made the move from BBC4 to BBC2, I’m not sure that it managed to set viewing figures alight, but it again was a very funny and gentle comedy with great performances, that I would recommend you all to check out.

One of the things I like about series like these, is that they come accompanied with such little pomp and ceremony, so that when you actually stumble across them and find that you really enjoy them, its like a personal triumph of discovering a hidden gem. Another programme which I have loved from the first series is ‘Jam and Jerusalem’. Now when I talk to colleagues at work or friends, more often than not, they reply that  they either didn’t like it or didn’t bother to watch. Co-written by Jennifer Saunders, it is such a great and ( here we go again with that word ) gentle country comedy that has such a great cast of actors that I think it must have been such good fun filming it. I think the second series outshone the first and you really got the feeling that everyone was getting more into their comedy characters shoes. Whether it is recommissioned for a third series who knows, but I genuinely hope that these type of really well written comedies continue to be made!

P.S I won’t even start on ‘ As time goes by’ – Genius!

Still on painkillers.

Still drinking loads of water.

but still enjoying day-time T.V.

I know- why don’t I wake up at 4am, Sunday morning with a stabbing pain down the right hand side of my abdomen. That should round off the weekend nicely!!

Honestly, I can safely say that I have never experienced such excrutiating pain and after a while of wondering whether I should go to the hospital, the pain became so intense, I realised that I had better get there quickly. So, I jumped in the car, managed to defrost the car windscreen (still in pain) and made my way through Belfast’s empty roads to the hospital. There is something incredibly eerie about a city’s deserted streets, that makes me think I’m in some apocalyptic movie.  But the deserted streets were an absolute blessing and I got to the hospital relatively quickly, parked the car and dragged myself into A & E. Not the most fun place to be on a Sunday morning, and judging by the other people in the waiting room, we were all in a pretty bad way! Shifiting around in my seat, feeling that I needed to constantly pee, but being unable to do so, was extremely frustrating and very painful. Then I vomitted twice.

Eventually I was seen by the doctor who took my blood pressure and asked the usual questions. Another nurse took a blood sample and I have to say getting a needle pushed into my arm, was welcome relief from the relentless pain in my side. 

The blood tests all came back normal and showed nothing untoward and after a while talking with the Doctor she came to the conclusion that it was likely to be kidney stones! It was at that moment I had to ask for pain relief immediately as it was now getting worse. After getting some, She then sent me to X-RAY- where on arrival I managed to get myself locked into a deserted wing of the hospital, where a cleaner had to let me out – it was not going well. The X-RAY showed nothing untoward but she explained that sometimes kidney stones wouldn’t show up on the x-ray. So after several hours in the hospital and finally feeling slightly better ( I think the pain relief was kicking in ) I went home clutching my box of pain killers and managed to drive back home through rush hour traffic.

After a few more hours of pain and intermittent dozing- I managed to go to the toilet- YAY! and the pain now has almost gone, with just a dull pain remaining in my lower back.

Now, one of the great things I have on top of a having a great bunch of friends- is a great bunch of doctor friends. Throughout University I lived with 4 Medics and whilst the talk around the dinner table could often get into areas not suitable for tea, it is definitely a plus when you are genuinely sick. So this afternoon I phoned my mate and told him everything. I had started worrying that it could be appendicitis, but he also thought it was more likely to be kidney stones which I think I passed earlier this morning. Here’s hoping- I definitely don’t want them to come back.

But here’s the interesting point. I did a bit of googling about Kidney stones earlier and they give some examples of food that can form calcium oxalate stones. And what was on the list- Sweet potatoes. Which I have been eating regularly for the past 3 weeks. So unfortunately I think I’m going to have to give that up. There’s always a downside to everything.

To be completely honest, I’ve had a pretty lousy weekend  ( until today ) were the unspoken actions of someone ( who will remain nameless ) cut so deep that I began to question my self worth* in its entirety! Now this was probably made worse, by the simple fact I had spent too much time in the company of my own thoughts -which is definitely a dangerous thing and should not be encouraged on a regular basis.

But what question struck me, was whether we are that aware of how our seemingly inconsequential actions can detrimentally affect those around us. I certainly don’t, and it has made me realise that I should at least try harder to be sensitive to the feelings of others.

Right enough of that- on to more important things. I am finally getting round to sorting out a request for further information, on a writing competition, but more of that tomorrow….

* despite first appearances - this blog will not become the regular home of sentimental rubbish….. bear with me!