"I got a cutlery tray!" I beamed, with perhaps more excitement than is necessary under the circumstances. But we had been "managing" with knives, forks and spoons all mixed up in an old Kit-Kat tin (the mini Kit-Kats had long since been consumed), so it seemed like progress.

It had only cost a couple of quid, and had allowed me to compartmentalise the cutlery appropriately and neatly. I had noticed, when loading the tray, that some of the knives were slightly too long for the originally chosen compartment, so I'd had to move them to the longer slot, to the right of the spoons. From left to right: forks, spoons, knives. Teaspoons at the bottom, perpendicular to their larger cousins.

I waited for the reaction.

"Very good, dear..." said Big, dumping his coat and going upstairs to get changed from work. He hadn't yet looked inside the drawer. I returned to staring at my Scrabulous board, searching for that elusive "bingo".

Later on, when putting the cutlery away:

"No, love, this just won't do." he stated, shaking his head with some bewilderment.
"What?" I replied with an innocent air, yet knowing exactly what was coming.
"I'm afraid there's going to have to be a régime change in the cutlery drawer." He looked at me, with his school teachery look. I looked back questioningly and raised my eyebrows. Thought I'd humour him for a while.
"The knives. They're in the wrong place! It should be: knives, forks, spoons, from left to right"
He began shuffling the cutlery around.
"Honey!"
He stopped, momentarily.
"Honey, some of the knives are too long - they won't fit in the other slots, I already tried. I'm afraid they'll have to stay there..."

The look on his face was like that of a lost child.

"I'm sorry, love,"

I distracted him with a plate of food. Always works, at least for a while.

The next morning, Big had left for work some time ago and I began preparing my breakfast. As I reached for a spoon in my newly organised cutlery drawer, I noticed something.



The whole tray had been turned upside down and rearranged, purely so that the knives could take their "rightful" place, on the left.

For someone who is quite happy to live in utter chaos in so many ways, the man is surprisingly strict about cutlery placement.

... and it looks like it's going to be me.

You know that job that I was told a week and a half ago that I'd got? I found out today that actually, I didn't get it.

Now, either my recruitment consultant lied to me or someone lied to him.

So, with Christmas just around the corner, I have no job and no money.

F**k.

Astonishingly, people are still coming here. Not many people, admittedly, but people all the same. Of course, some of these are the people looking for a glossary of tennis club terminology, others are looking for pronunciation tips, but most of you come because you want to know how I'm doing. And that brings a little smile to my face. Thank you.

It's been a month since my last pathetic effort of a post, and a fair bit has changed. We have finally moved into our own house and we are loving it, although like any hundred year-old house, I can safely predict that, before long, it will become a money pit.

Which brings me onto the prickly subject of money. I have finally realised just what a financial disaster this year has been for me. Ten weeks off work with only statutory sick pay (I hadn't been at my new job for long enough to qualify for full pay), six and a half months of part time work, a house move, a car which had just about everything go wrong, two holidays, 3% stamp duty (ouch!) and the dramatic return of my social life have all taken their toll on my reserves, such that when I was offered an interesting looking job in the translation world (NOT as a translator, I hasten to add), after the most agonising weekend I have ever spent, I had to turn it down because it didn't pay enough. On that same day, I noticed an advert for a Systems Analyst not far from here, paying almost double the translation company position...

Alors me voilà, just about to jump back into the dull, meaningless (yet relatively lucrative) world of full-time software development. If my recruitment consultant (who has proved to be an idiot at most stages of this process) is to be believed, I have got the job, though I do not yet know on what terms.

So, where does that leave my so-called freelance translation business? Well, where do you think - simmering slowly on the backburner, exuding its tempting aromas from time to time while I cook my main dish on a more moderate heat...

My hair is now a good two inches long and I am stuck with the dilemma of whether to get it cut into a proper, short style or just leave it to grow. Big favours the latter, as he doesn't want anything to delay the return of my long hair, but I am finding it hard to deal with a style which is starting to look a little... well, mullety. Plus, I'm sure the texture has changed - coarser, possibly curly - which makes me wonder if it will ever get back to how it was...

Healthwise, I am doing fine (despite the refusal of any life assurance companies to offer me cover). Tapering off the steroids slowly, better sleeping (I don't have to get up in the middle of the night for a pee any more! Yay!) and the return of my periods are making me feel normal again, though the steroid-and-inactivity-induced weight gain is proving stubborn even faced with over fifty lengths, three times a week. I still find it hard to look at myself in the mirror...

Plus ça change?