Right in after cat poop, farts, and Trump... hmmmm....
Friday Five:
1) It's Friday. We had tea. It was nice, although raining now and then on the walk home. The Daughter bought a nice hand-knit sweater at the resale shop for only £10.
2) I still don't know if I have a job offer or not. They contacted my references (who promptly contacted me), but have not gotten back to me about the salary. They are offering about £730 a month for a 40% position. Which is actually reasonable for the duties involved, which are not strenuous. It would mean I'd have to take a £400 a month cut when my SS was cancelled for every month I worked for them, though, which I'm not going to do. The HR lady was supposedly negotiating with the hiring manager to see what they wanted to do. That was on Tuesday when we had that exchange. So far, nada. I am assuming they won't be able to come up to my magic £1,000 a month minimum number. I guess I'll hear next week. We are going to be out of town all day on Monday, so if they contact me then for a 1st of May start, they're not going to get a reply until Tuesday (30 April). I'll drop her an email on Monday. This would be a "bird-in-the-hand" job, as it's scheduled to end at the end of January and I need to be working through a full year. Perhaps they can extend the job, or hopefully I'll be able to pick up something else for Feb - until.... It just has to be "meaningful employment" - which, apparently, translates into £166 a week or higher, averaged over three months. I'm not going to push it - if this one comes through I'll take it and then make a go of the "employed for a year" thing. If not, I won't be spending much time looking for other positions.
3) I am off to Ikea tomorrow to buy a tabletop to put on top of the workbench so we can start filling the new aquarium. We are having trouble finding black sand substrate, though. It has to be not a sharp sand or it will hurt the corys' barbels. I am used to just going into an aquarium store and seeing dozens of options as far as colored sand. Not here, apparently! Got the small tank moved to my bedroom from the living room and all the occupants are still alive and seem relatively happy. They get more natural light back here, so that should be good for them. We also have to pick out plants that don't need a lot of light or a C02 diffuser.
4) The Daughter made a dahl (sp?) out of carmelized leeks and tomatoes and lentils. I was expecting it to be something I'd just have to choke down, but it was actually really good! Apparently the secret to lentils is soaking the beejeezus out of them, repeatedly, and then boiling them to oblivion.
5) Where do all these dust-bunnies come from? I had to move furniture a bit, to move the aquarium into my bedroom. Thick coatings of dust on my boxes of genealogy papers, on the floor behind the shelves, under the bed... I just vaccumed under the bed like last week! At least there is some continuity in the universe. It's run by Dust Bunnies. Speaking of, I got my notice that I am to vote in the EU elections in May. I have not got a freaking clue about any of that, so I guess I'll be doing a crash course in "which is the lesser of evils". Which, considering Brexit, is sort of a surreal thing. But, whatever.
