Home is where the heart is

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beforeAfternoon!  The sun is blazing high here in my little part of the world and everyone is definitely making the most of the great weather.  It’s days like this that I realise how fortunate I am to live in such a green and beautiful place and makes me question why I am preparing to leave the wide open spaces for the smog and bustle of cramped city living.  

Home to me is more about the memories I make with my loved ones and friends and I can take them with me, wherever I go in the world.  I’m lucky to know I’ll always be welcomed back and it’s a comforting thought that I am sure I’ll draw some strength from during testing times.

But I’m not away yet.  I just finished up working for a conservation charity and during my time there I got a real sense of how important it is for everyone to play their small part in protecting the planet.  Even the weakest mathematician knows that reduction in resources doesn’t equate to a positive result.

They’ve just launched a campaign called Giving Nature a Home with loads of ideas on how to easily create wildlife friendly habitats.  My mum recently celebrated her birthday and seeing as I’m now living on a shoestring I decided to take part in the campaign and give her a present I know will bring her a lot of joy far beyond her birthday.

I had my eyes opened when it comes to weeding!  Having asked me to weed the garden for the past two decades I finally relented and made a bit of use of my limbs and got cracking – just shows how a mother’s persistence will eventually pay off!   I could not believe that such a small area could take so long to clear – or have such a knackering effect on my entire body! – but I have to admit I felt a real sense of pride once I had completed it.

Then the exciting part: the planting!  Now I’m not much of a gardener but by the time I was finished I felt I could pose a legitimate threat to Alan Titchmarsh.  I sought advice from local garden centres and green-fingered gurus and picked up some terrific plants guaranteed to attract bees, ladybirds and butterflies to our garden.  I didn’t have to wait very long for them to appear – before I reached the far end of the rockery before bees were congregating around the primulas for a feed.

I’m really excited to see the garden flourish and become a hub for wildlife but beyond that I know that the garden will bring so much joy to my family in years to come allowing them a front row seat to a daily nature show.

Mum was delighted with her present so now it’s a case of fingers crossed the plants thrive!  Must dig out that watering can just to be on the safe side…

…Ta-dah!after

Day One: Applying for a real world job online

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Every adventure begins with a degree of uncertainty and I have to admit, late at night it’s prompted me to question myself a little.  Leaving your job in a recession isn’t looked on as a prudent move and I’ve found myself wince a little when telling my friends and family what I have done.  I can see an instant flash of fear across their faces when I break the news: that ‘holy-shit-she’s-lost-her-mind’ moment quickly masked by stretched smiles and wide eyes.  

It’s not that they don’t approve as such.  Of course it’s clearly well-intentioned concern and it isn’t as though it’s something I haven’t questioned myself on as well but deep down I know it was just something I had to do.  That said, the job hunt must begin.  Having nothing lined up is a sure fire way to prompt a person to action.  But where to start?

It seems the kids are doing it differently nowadays.  Gone are the days of printing off an application form (2 copies in case you mess the first one up), painstakingly completing it in your best handwriting, black ink and hot-footing it to the Post Office or better still hand delivering it.  Everything is done online, often through a specific online application form system that cruelly times out before you are quite ready to submit why you are the best person for the job.  It seems to be a case of ‘fastest finger first’ making it a bit tricky to take the time you would normally allow to properly go through an application form.  

After a bit of practice I began to get a little more confident and, perhaps foolishly, caught myself saying “hey, maybe this isn’t so bad?”  It was then my worst fears became real in the shape of the dual platform application form.  (N.B. This is just what I call it.  I’m pretty sure I’m not tech savvy enough to know the correct terminology).  The dual platform form – DP for short – struck fear into my heart.  I was drawn in by the excitement of the job description, and reading through the job spec I knew this job was right up my street.  The application form started fairly normally luring me into a false sense of security until I arrived at the ‘Additional Information’ section and there it was staring me in the face: Your YouTube video. YOUTUBE!  A 3 minute video of me answering 3 questions spending no more than 60 seconds on each answer.  Let me tell you now, this is very difficult to achieve when you aren’t able to simultaneously film your answers and time yourself.  

Finally, after what felt like 100 attempts, my video was ready to upload at 10pm.  With a midnight deadline for submissions I felt a smug sense of calm as I began to upload my first ever YouTube video.  Having uploaded videos to Facebook fairly quickly before I anticipated submitting my application with plenty of time to spare.  However, YouTube had other ideas informing me the upload would take 118 minutes.  I felt a searing pain in my chest and my palms began to sweat.  How could a 3 minute video take so long to upload?! What if my form timed out before the upload was complete.  Not the type of questions you want to be asking yourself before a deadline.  Eventually after what seemed like an eternity my 3 minutes of fame were online and accompanying the rest of my application with 2 minutes to spare.  

Phew.  I later received an email informing me I was unsuccessful but they’d keep me on file which was more response than I had received from other applications.  Looking on the bright side, at least I’m prepped for future applications but I can’t help but wonder if this type of process alienates capable potential employees and dissuades them from applying.