So we heard back from the interview my husband (aka HUZ) had in Düsseldorf – it was a no.  Oh well.  Trying to see the positive side of things, Huz still has several applications alive in Frankfurt and, if truth be told, I would prefer Frankfurt anyway.  It has always held a special place in my heart – it’s where Huz and I met, got married, and had our son.  Every time we go back it’s like we never left.  Maybe in our hearts, we haven’t.  In any case, I’m trying not to be too disappointed.

I went to register with two temp agencies – one last week, one this week – and I’m going to spend every waking moment this week contacting every agency I can find.  You would think I would have no problem finding temp work.  I have a degree, years of experience as an administrator, and am willing to do pretty much anything for a minimum of £10 an hour (which is not a lot in London). In Bournemouth, I always had plenty of temp work.  You’d think London would be ripe for the picking.

This led to a pretty sleepless night on Friday.  I mean, I left my perm job to take temp work.  For me it was not only a leap of faith, but getting out of a dead end job that I genuinely hated.  I worked very hard for 18 months trying to make something of it, but in the end I couldn’t get even make a burlap purse from a pig’s ear let alone a silk one.  But at least it was a paycheque.  I finally got to sleep by telling my self that worrying was not going to change the situation – and that we have plenty in the savings account.  We are not going to starve. Still.

Another issue that keeps jumping up and yelling at me is housing.  As you know, we are in a little Airbnb flat at the top of a lovely house.  It’s not a separate flat, but her son’s old room.  You come into the family home, go past the living room and the other bedrooms, up the stairs to our accommodation. We have a door on our ‘front room’ and one on the bedroom, but none to the actual flat.  So, do we stay here or move on to something else?  It’s inexpensive and at least here we don’t have to worry about the nightmarish checkout/inventory that estate agencies put you through.  I do not, under any circumstances, want to go through that again.  I mean, we got the inventory report back from the flat we just left.  After spending two days cleaning it myself, then paying £200 to have a professional come in and do an end-of-tenancy clean, the report still noted that there was the ‘occasional cob web’ in the corner of the bedroom ceiling and that something or other had ‘very light dust’ on it.  That is just ridiculous.  

If we decide to stay here, how long do we give it?   The earliest we would leave is the beginning of June, which is two months.  But we need to tell the landlady at the end of the week if we’d like it for the rest of June.  That would take us to three months.  At what point do we move into something more permanent?  And at what point do we just call it a day and stay in the UK?