Our Adventure: A job, a visit to Queensferry and some yummy Italian

The stars came through for me this week...on Wednesday afternoon I got a call from an agency I'd tried to register with. I'd sent them my CV and spoken to them on the phone and had heard nothing further so had decided not to worry about them anymore. They invited me to come and interview for a 6 month receptionist position the next morning, so along I went. First I had to do an assessment, which I didn't think much of. But it turned out to be data entry and then a 'literacy and numeracy' test which got you to do things like put surnames in alphabetical order, put sentences into correct grammar, and what was 5 x 7 x 9. Part of me was offended that an EL 1 with a double degree was being asked to do such menial tasks and scared that it meant the job they wanted me for was suitable for monkeys; the other part of me was alarmed that I'd forgotten my time tables and long multiplication. Luckily it appears the test is just a standard thing and wasn't to do with the job I was there to talk about. The girl who interviewed me was gorgeous and wearing even more gorgeous shoes. That wasn't intimidating at all. We bonded over shoes and the fact that she'd been to Australia on a working holiday visa a few years ago. After a while she told me the job was actually for their office - I'd be the one putting people through the assessments! That answered a few questions for me, like the location, the company (I'd just watched Legally Blonde 2 and didn't want to end up working for a cosmetics testing laboratory or anything), and the dress code (I was really hoping to avoid buying a suit). I spoke to the deputy manager as well who gave me some more details on the position and told me they were a pretty social bunch, except herself who was never invited because she'd turned down too many invitations in the past. That was good to hear as I still don't know anyone in Edinburgh except Toby and I was hoping to work with some people who were happy to get together outside of work hours occasionally. The girl who interviewed me told me that the night before she and the payroll girl had gone out for 'one drink' that turned into a big night and it was lucky my interview was at 10am and not 9, because that wouldn't have been pretty. I will be sharing an office with the payroll girl - the rest of the team are two floors up in the offices - so that will be interesting.

All up the interview went for 2 hours, although the time went really fast. They told me they would confirm with the manager when she got back to the office in the afternoon, but otherwise they'd see me on Tuesday. I knew I had to cancel my job with the other agency ASAP, but wanted to wait until it was all confirmed. Unfortunately just as I got home, my phone rang and it was the woman from the other agency checking up on me for next week. I told her that I'd been offered another position with an immediate start, and I was very sorry to let her down but I'd accepted it. I can still hear her now, saying "Oh Dot please don't." I felt terrible and it really made it difficult to be too excited about the job, but I'm doing better now. As clever Leonie said, she probably thought evil thoughts about me for 5 minutes and then got on with things. Toby even offered to go and do the job for me but strangely enough she didn't take me up on that offer. So I guess that's one agency who won't want to hire me again, but I've got a job for 6 months so I'm really happy about that.

We'd booked dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant so decided to treat it as a celebration for my new job. The people who run the restaurant have opened a new one on the other side of town and I'd read a review in the paper that said their regulars from this one were following them to the new one to try their new menu, so figured they must be pretty good. It was a very authentic restaurant, with staff who even spoke Italian to each other. The food was great, the best meal we've had since we got here. We decided to just get a bunch of starters rather than the usual plates of pasta, so we tried their bruschetta, a plate of ricotta ravioli in butter, sage and nutmeg sauce (something I have tried to make myself, always unsuccessfully), a bowl of fresh seafood cooked in white wine, garlic and chilli, and a lump of provolone cheese baked in the oven in a tomato and oregano sauce. We would have enjoyed the cheese a lot more if either of us liked smoked cheese enough. It was a really good meal even though they forgot to bring us our wine. So one restaurant down, hundreds to go.

This morning I had an appointment to get my National Insurance number. I'm still not sure what it is; you need it for work but it's not a TFN. It has something to do with the welfare system and making contributions to your benefits. Nothing makes you feel like you live somewhere like dealing with the bureaucracy. In this case it was with Jobcentre; from what I can gather it's like our Job Network, only not outsourced. Luckily it was a very quick and painfree experience; I had to provide proof of address and proof that I was looking for work (luckily an email from one of the temp agencies was enough) as well as my passport. The lady filled in a form for me and said I shouldn't have any problems getting a number. She said Pertemps were a good company with a good reputation and that it was lucky I had a job. Apparently employers are really keen right now but everyone's busy with festival time and when that's over they all go off to the Greek Islands. They have high numbers of Eastern Europeans looking for work but a lot of them don't have the English skills required. There was a lady next to me who had her son translating for her; I felt a sense of guilty relief that I was educated and spoke English and hadn't gone to Italy like we originally planned.

A more travel-related story is our little trip to Queensferry the other day, a seaside village about 10 minutes away by train. It was such a beautiful day we decided it was time for a trip to the seaside, which we hadn't done before. It was a gorgeous little town, full of terraced houses along the harbour. We wandered along the high street up to the Forth Bridge which is a feat of Scottish engineering (apparently) although it's very expensive to maintain and Toby thinks it's the most inefficient bridge design he's ever seen (did you know Toby's an engineer? No, me neither). Near the bridge was the famous Hawes Inn, an old pub where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote part of Kidnapped, and where all the bridge builders used to drink - there were signs saying that the death toll of 57 men from working on the bridge would probably have been lower if not for the Hawes Inn whisky. We sat outside and had a beer and a bowl of chips - the bar girl told Toby she thought it was really cool we were having beer and chips. That still confuses me. What else would you have with beer on a sunny day, overlooking the harbour? Anyway it was a pleasant excursion and now that I've got a job I'm looking forward to planning some more.