Fri, 31 Jan 2003

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 17:27 GMT 02/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Liz Enjoys Work, Meeting some Holladays ( 14 photos )
A mixed bag would be a good description for this week. It has been one where overall good things have happened, which is what we want, this being a holiday and all!
Liz's first shift as a qualified nurse went just fine, and she is looking forward to more. The people turned out to be quite nice and helpful, which she was dreading wouldn't be the case for an agency nurse. However, it seems that her agency is not going to be getting her a lot of work.
Possible ways forward include her adding a few more agencies to her list, or going and looking for a full-time job. It will remain to be seen what she ends up doing - she's just playing it by ear for the moment.
My previous delight at being able to work until the end of March has been turned on its head. It seems that at the end of my current contract (end Feb.), there will be a new contract to sign up. They have offered me the job, however there are a couple of little details - the pay stays the same (it wasn't fantastic to begin with, but I could have lived with just that), and the hours would change to 7pm - 3am!!
I wouldn't mind it too much (it's only for six weeks) if they were willing to give more pay, but having to get in there during the evening peak and find my way home at 3am will mean either driving in (which Percy is not insured for - back to the insurance saga again...), or getting a night bus every night.
So, I'm going to approcach my boss (who isn't the one making the offer, it's his boss) and let him know that I don't plan to accept unless the deal is sweetened at least a bit.
So this means things look a little different with regards to travelling, and we will have to be a bit more careful with what we do. However, it will all still work out in the end, as things always do!

Friday night (after I was just a little too close to a bar brawl involving my boss at the local near work), we met up with James and Andrew Holladay, and James' girlfriend Jenny. The way we know these people I think is that James and Andrew's grandmother Gladys was my Nan on my father's side's cousin. Got that? A while back they got in contact and suggested that we meet up for a meal, which we did at Ruby in the Dust, a great little restaurant in Camden.
The inevitable strangeness of dining with complete strangers was soon alleviated with the help of them being very friendly people, and the three bottles of wine before we went to the pub after didn't hurt much either. We went home at the ridiculous closing time of 11pm.

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