It was a long, but not unexpected, story of a foolish and misspent youth combined with an interest in spiders. I told her about the wonderful spider that lived in my garden at Gang Rengali.
I also mentioned Cambodia and she thought the chance to go and live there was better than any boring job in the UK and I should grab it.
Sometimes going to the Jobcentre + is not the tedious and depressing experience you might expect.
While at J+ I also mentioned the fact that I was waiting for the result of my interview in Hereford. I will know the result today but with every minute that passes my hope decreases.
The interview had taken up most of my time for the last week. I was asked to come up a presentation for three different arts projects aimed at differing groups of older people across rural Herefordshire.
The presentation was only to last 15 minutes. It is almost impossible to present one project in fifteen minutes, let alone three.
So I did a lot of research and build up a good bibliography concerning the current state of therapy, the arts involved and funding. Just to prove that as I raced through the fifteen minutes all I said was based on solid ground and not just gabble.
The interview began on Tuesday, at nine thirty and finished shortly before six that evening.
It was a very long, exhausting and hot day. The hottest day of the year so far, I think.
We began with a trip around the the theatre and arts centre. A beautiful steel and glass structure containing two boxes that housed the theatre, the studio theatre and workshop and gallery spaces. Being separate spaces meant that there was no problem of background noise, and the natural light was strong enough inside to illuminate the galleries. It would have been a very nice place to be based.
After our tour of the theatre we, there were three other candidates, gave our presentations. Mine seemed to go well, except for the inevitable Norman Wisdom moment when the door handle came off in my hand as I left the room.
I am trying to erase that from my memory.
There were two young women and one man in his mid thirties also applying for the job. I was by far the oldest but also the most experienced, and I felt that, unless the others were exceptionally good in the interviews, that I was in with a very good chance.
After presentations came a written test: draw up a funding bid for a project in one hour. Another completely artificial task, especially as drawing up such bids is not part of the job specifications. But perhaps the test was more about using a computer and presenting work. I had to use an unfamiliar version of Word and that slowed things down a bit, but I can't imagine any of the other candidates coming up with anything vastly superior to my attempt, given the circumstances.
Finally, after lunch, came the interviews themselves. The order of interview was decided by the distance traveled to get to Hereford, and as I had stayed at my brother's house in Orleton the night before I was nearest, and therefore last to be interviewed.
After the interview came the physical, to go with the spirit of the Olympics we all had to run a hundred meter race, with backpacks full of bricks.
I came in last.
That when combined with the door handle incident, and perhaps the trivial fact that over coffee I admitted that I didn't like the smell of old people (But who does? Surely they wouldn't hold that against me?) may have lost me the job.
But... C'est la vie or itulah hidup, as they say.