2005-08-22: Impressions

My first day at job hunting was a failure. Over here you have to register with an agency, be a specialist and then wait for them to come to you. I'm not a specialist. And all the registration is by the internet, and the most time I can get is 1 hour on the library computer for free, and that isn't with my computer, and then 45 minutes is lost doing my emails, paying bills, transferring money and letting Edyta do whatever she needs to do first. So today I got a resume off to one local recruitment firm. The same firm that told me there are no contracts currently going in Swindon. It looks like I'll have to start looking further afield for work then.

Our lovely wallpapered entry crawl chamber

The house we are staying in is always hot, even hotter than outside which can be a problem for most days. I've turned down heaters and opened windows but still haven't been able to fix this.

The girls we are living with aren't a problem, one left before we turned up (the Scottish one), the Greek one is going on Wednesday and I don't know when our Parisian flat mate is leaving. They have a English friend, but she is darker skinned and haired and Edyta thought she was the Greek one, despite the very English accent. All the nights we've been here the three of them have been off to other places. Tonight they were going to try Indian, because the Greek and French haven't had that yet (as you may notice I haven't learnt any of their names yet).

The view from our bedroom window.

The house is narrow and old. We have a very steep flight of stairs up to our room. The hot water service is always running; there may be a leak somewhere. The bed room is the tiniest in the house.

We've walked around a lot. There isn't much more you can afford to do when unemployed. Edyta has found that most the stuff here is cheaper than Poland, which I'm not too surprised at as England is a far richer country.

TV shows are mostly British and American (much like Australia I guess, except with more of a local content level than us). They are DIY shows, cooking shows, game shows and antique shows (during the middle of the day you can watch antique sales non-stop by channel flicking). Our little TV has no remote.

I've learnt the shops to death as Edyta plans a trip there most days (partly because we don't keep any food in the house and have to buy the food for tea each night).

They love their coins here. You still have a penny coin. The problem is there are so many and so many different sizes that it is hard to know what is in your hand. And given the one pound coin (about a $1 coin with more width) is very common your wallet gets stuffed with coins in no time.