Last Friday after work I took the train into London to get a haircut and to meet Matt and some of his work friends for dinner at a really nice Thai restaurant (Mango Tree). The reason that I was getting my hair cut in London and not locally was because I had signed up for this sort of promotion to get my hair done at a salon in Covent Garden. I maintain that I was an easy mark for the smooth talking salesman who approached me on the street in London pre-Christmas. The basic deal is pay money up front and then get a discount on haircuts at this salon for the whole year. You can also have a makeover and photo-shoot (unlikely).
I had an awesome hairdresser in Vancouver so I was nervous to trust my hair to a stranger. When I arrived and she tried to confirm with me that I would be having a full colour and I said no just a cut was not the best start. They found a junior stylist to cut my hair since I hadn't actually been booked in for a haircut originally. How do I know she was a junior stylist? Well for thing I used to work at a hair salon so I had a sense about it but the biggest clue was when she called over the receptionist to check if she had cut the back of it straight!! I like it now but I was really uncertain at the time.
After the haircut, I got on the tube and had my google map in hand to find the restaurant. I have a horrible sense of direction and can get very lost even with a phone. As I wandered around outside Victoria Train station I kept thinking how useful an I-phone would be at this time. I completely played the girl card and made Matt leave the restaurant to come and meet me and walk me back.
The dinner was great. There were eight of us including Simon and Clare (Matt was the best man at their wedding), Neil and Emma (Clare's bridesmaid and her boyfriend) and Adam and Sarah who work with them and are Australian. It was an extravagant dinner with drinks, bottles of wine, appetizers, mains and desserts and more drinks. The food was so good! The servers were wearing authentic thai outfits and our server had a small bag with a jamaican flag and pot leaf on it. I thought it was funny.
After dinner we went for more drinks but I had reached my limit as a non-drinker. There's only so much sitting around while everyone drinks that I can take. I'm also like a small child and get very cranky when I'm over tired. I practically stamped my feet around 11:30 and said I wanted to go home.
Saturday morning I was up early because I had a very important shopping date. My shopping mission was for a great pair of boots. I decided I couldn't avoid the skinny jean boot trend forever. I enlisted Amanda (girlfriend to Matt's best mate Steve) to help me out for the day. She has great clothes and loves to shop! It was a marathon shopping trip that was side tracked by a beautiful $300 dress that I just couldn't justify purchasing even if it looked amazing!
By 3:30 I had new work clothes but still no boots. We had been to almost every single possible shoe store but I knew what I wanted in my head and hadn't seen it anywhere. There was one final store - Russell and Bromley - that Amanda said was a really expensive shoe store. I wanted to check it out anyways and of course the perfect boots were there, on sale! One woman knocked over another pair of boots while she was staring at me wearing the boots. My first experience of boot envy. I wore them back to start breaking them in. I'm not usually a big fan of smart clothes and boots since I'm more of a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl but clearly living in England is forcing me to expand my fashion horizons.
Matt was nice enough to come and pick me up since I had so many shopping bags that I didn't want to take the train home.
Sunday I decided that I wanted to bake muffins. The recipe called for unsweetened applesauce which I hadn't been able to find in the store so I decided to make my own. How hard could it be?? It wasn't that hard just very messy. Now I need to find recipes that require applesauce since I have a freezer full.
Monday was back to work. The job is getting a little better and I can see the top of the paperwork mountain. Hopefully very soon I will be able to coast down the other side.
Today, groundhog day, might mark the start of a new job in the direction that I want. I received an e-mail asking me to come in for an interview at the end of this week for a job working in youth justice. This interview came about through persistent e-mails to the head of Youth Justice in Surrey. I thought he was ignoring me since I hadn't heard anything in a few weeks but he passed on my information to another woman who I will be meeting this Friday.
The best part about this is that I did apply for this same job through the proper channels and my application was rejected. It seems that I have managed to get in through alternative means proving that it really is all about who you know.
I'm hoping that this interview will finally help me crack Surrey County Council which has all of the jobs that I want.
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