friends of friends...

another week of job hunting, and it's not gutting me like it has in weeks gone by. the frustration remains, but i'm so used to it that it's become routine. bizarrely, things seem to be looking up. i had two pimps fighting over me for a role last week which is always gratifying and while there are less jobs going i somehow seem to have more traction. i had a great moment earlier today when one of the pimps i met with last week called me up. she put me down for a role on Tuesday which was junior, and underpaid, but not so objectionable that it'd kill me, so i was surprised to hear that the client had revised the job description, £50/day. great news - more than enough to bring me from grudgingly accepting to really quite interested. with any luck i'll have more news come monday.

monday's going to be good for other reasons too - Lou starts her new job on monday. we got her contract sorted through the same Umbrella Company i'm using so everything from here should be easy. while it's not a complete life-saver, her two week trial will cover her for a month's rent and expenses and that that's golden for her right now. if those two weeks go well and the work continues she should be well sorted for the near future. here's hoping.

a week or so ago i got an email from Ali - a friend of Sandra's. i'd completely forgotten she was coming through London for a week before heading off on a Contiki tour of Europe. i sent her some useful information about how to get from Heathrow to where said she was staying, addresses for the transport websites and my home address so that she could get an Oyster Card to make it easier for her to get around. we met up on Tuesday afternoon at Oxford Circus and i took her for a walk down Regent St, through Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square, then down Whitehall to Westminster. we crossed the Thames and passed the London Eye before crossing back over at Blackfriars Bridge and took Fleet St and The Strand back towards Soho. she'd gotten off her flight at OMFG that morning and my goal was to keep her out in natural light for as long as she could stand and keep her exercising so that she could beat the jet-lag and guarantee a good night's sleep. worked like a charm, she told me later, apart for the blisters on her feet. i took her out for another wander today, wandering through Covent Garden, past the Australian High Commission (where, she said, the Gringott's Bank scenes were shot for the Harry Potter movies), then up Kingsway and down High Holborn back to Oxford St. i'd dropped my coat back at the shop earlier in the day after discovering that the lining was starting to come apart and they promised it back mended before 5. it was great wandering around the streets that are now familiar to me while seeing it all through the eyes of someone Fresh Off The Boat - all the time reminding me what it was like when i first arrived two months prior.

two months. that's fucking insane. i can't believe i've been here for two months now.

either way, we had a pleasant time shooting the breeze and me playing tour-guide until we parted company just before 5. i grabbed my coat and, now feeling complete and not to mention: warm again, i headed back down Oxford St to grab the tube up to Archway - north of Camden. Moonbug was having Part 1 of her birthday party up there later in the evening and with time to kill i wandered into a couple of book shops and came out with an Omnibus containing all three of the Dexter books which i proceeded to read on the tube north, and more so while leaning against the wall next to a girl collecting for Breast Cancer research, waiting for Lou to meet me up.

we were early - 45 minutes early in fact, and since i'd already had a beer donated by a californian guy who struck up a conversation (he asked for a cigarette and while i had none we got chatting. he explained that he was a recovering alcoholic while he swigged at the tinnie of beer in his hand, and he was out and about trying to change the world for the better.

".. and if i die trying then it was worth it," he said.
as long as you don't die with a Kronenbourg in your hand, mate, i'm sure you'll be fine.
"Hey, I've got a spare in my bag if you'd like one."
Mate! i'll never say no to a beer!

and so it was that i had myself a beer with this pleasant, if misguided, american lad) while i was checking the streets outside, so we hit the pub across the road from the tube station.

tea was pleasant - Moonbug's friends are an entertaining bunch. amusingly, two of the girls there were, like Moonbug and i, also from Perth and we had a long remembrance of some of our favourite places in the Old Town - UWA and its Tav, The Last Drop, Broadway Pizza and Fish & Chips, Banana splits at The Moon Cafe, South Perth Foreshore and skinny-dipping at Swanbourne Beach - those places you know because you grew up there, you were taken by someone, or you found it by accident. poor Lou was thoughtlessly left out of the love-in. still, we had a good time there, and later in Camden at a bar which specialised in belgian and trappist beers.

it's been pleasant of late. i'm spending many an evening quietly lying around playing games or watching tv shows on my laptop. Lou lies around with her isolation-earphones in watching movies or listening to audiobooks or talking to Paully. she's been sick as sick. Friday was her first night out in a couple of weeks. hell - it was the longest i'd seen her out of bed in some time. i'm getting bits and pieces of news from home. people are being thoughtful enough to keep me informed as to current affairs and gossip which either doesn't bear mentioning here, or will need its own review when i've more time. i've only been writing for two hours now (some posts get back-dated or written out of order. i don't like to make a big deal about this, but it bears mentioning. the bug bit me tonight so i wanted to catch up while i had it in me) and i'm not about to tackle another topic right now. all in all it's been quiet, although pleasantly so. i'm getting out on the weekends and for now this is enough. come xmas i'm thinking of biting the bullet and doing a trip. i don't want to spend the money, but i know that it'd amuse me sufficiently that i wouldn't feel so bad about lying low again afterwards. i'm considering Scotland, but i'll see how i'm feeling in a week or so.

right now i'm going to head for bed. there's no more job-hunting to be done until monday so i'll put it out of my mind until then and maybe do some hacking of a couple of interesting automation and customisation scripts i read about and have been meaning to play with. getting my geek on helps keep my mind in gear. i've also been designing the home media and entertainment network i'd build when i settle down. it's amusing, if only as a mental and research exercise - finding the components, working out how i'd mesh it all together and costing it all out. honestly, this can actualy be more fun than actually building the thing because once i build it and it's all running the real fun's all over. the rest is just using the thing and that's never quite so exciting.

either way, i'm doing well - much better than a couple of weeks ago. i'm alive and grooving and finding my way and my mood is certainly improving. i can't help but feel that something good this way comes and i think that's a feeling that i can live with for the next little while.