Counting chickens?

Don't go taking me for an optimist, but I'm having a great time at the moment.

On Saturday I had my first paid plumbing job. I left the house at 7.30 am to drive to J the plumbers' in Berinsfield. He made us Marmite sandwiches and we got in the van with his stepson and all headed off to a job in Watlington. The sun was rising, the roads were empty, and Suzanne Vega's first album was on the CD player. I couldn't have chosen a better album with which to enter a new phase of my life.

The job went well (I was changing taps in the bathroom while J did the kitchen sink and some electrics, and T jet-washed the patio). I was slow, but I wasn't incompetent, I bonded a little with the owner of the house over the sounds on the stereo and how it is being a girl, and (possibly as a result) we got a tip! How long is it since I had a tip?

I proudly bought M a drink with it down the Zodiac, where I headed later for Audioscope. I think he and A were a bit disappointed with the music overall (with the honourable exception of Parts and Labor, who were utterly wonderful), but I was unsquashable. I was right at the front for the Magnetophone / Sonic Boom collaboration and I was blown away. I went to shake Sonic Boom's hand afterwards and he ran his finger round my neck and said 'like the necklace'. How many people have fixed someone's taps of a morning and had their jewellery admired by a psychedelic legend of an evening?

Woke up on Sunday with a hangover, aching legs from gigging and aching arms from wielding tools at awkward angles. Proceeded to the Netherlands for a conference about sharing learning between NGOs. Heathrow is now officially one of the circles of hell (thanks guys) but the conference is being held by the sea. The hotel is right on the sea front, the wind is high, the skies are sunny-cloudy-sunny-cloudy, the sea is blue-grey-blue-grey, and last night I put on my flowery pyjamas, got into a clean white single bed and went to sleep to the sound of waves crashing.

Today I have been having conversations with people from many nations, walking on the beach into a stiff wind, eating smoked fish and drinking free wine. Truly I am a lucky person to have so many stimuli with which to engage my little brain.

And to top it off, there are only nine working days left until I can come home and pogo round the middle room to 'You're Not The Boss Of Me Now'.

Life is unfair. But sometimes it goes your way.

joella