Last Saturday I was up with the lark and on the M1 to Rotherham for an "assessment day" for the possible future career. Driving during a winter dawn is beautiful don't you find? I passed the theory and practical tests and was given the all-clear to progress if I so wished. Don't know now though. I'm scared that I'm going to be saddled with a job I don't enjoy once the novelty of wearing a tool belt has worn off. My money-grabbing greed gene is spurring me on but my lazy "I-just-want-a-quiet-life" gene is pulling on the reins. I'll have to make a decision soon as I can feel the breath of bank managers, boyfriend, parents on my neck.

After the assessment I drove onwards to Newcastle to see my Mum and Dad and to collect Edward as he'd been with them while we were in Vegas. Mum made me ham and pease pudding baps when I arrived and I fell asleep as they watched Cheaper By The Dozen 2 on tv (the end titles woke me up and Mum was wiping tears away; is this film not a comedy?).
The next day I drove back to London but somewhere in Yorkshire I had a blowout. Scary! The tyre popped at 70mph and was instantly shredded off by the wheel rims and as I was trying to control the car on the busy A1 the tyre cheekily whizzed past me just like they do in tv and film car crashes. I hobbled the car into a layby and Darren arranged for an AA man to come and put a new wheel on. I was back on the road in under an hour. In a 5 hour drive I must have heard that Pink Floyd remix thingy ("teacher! leave those kids alone!") 10 times on the radio. The pulsating bass synth is really good isn't it.

I've been painting the house this week cos Katie Grand has accepted a job in London for two days a week for the next three months and asked if she could stay with us. I'm not having her going back to Bobby and saying "oooooh Bobby, you should have seen the state of their door frames, they need some serious gloss paint on them". Tonight I emptied everything from the dining room and painted the floorboards 'pebblestone'. Now Edward and I are trapped upstairs until it dries (Darren is in the Fens or somewhere being all bossy and showing off cos he has a job).