I spent a whole five weeks in Wellington before I had to return home because Cathy's heart decided to do all manner of weird and wacky things. I had only been there for a week when she had to go to hospital for some observations.

Then after four weeks I was sitting in the Family History Centre when I get a phone call, "I'm sitting in an ambulance." Cathy's heart rate rose to 240 beats per minute and she was close to passing out. Coupled with her arrhythmia she fluctuates between low heart rate and flutters. She was in hospital for a couple of days but I curtailed the contract so I could look after her.

It was good to get some ink under my nails although it took a while to get myself familiarised with the machine. The machine had a few things wrong with it so it made it a little frustrating trying to print. I had to remember some long forgotten skills to accommodate numbering and such like.

Its good to be back even though I still belong to the Great Unwashed.......

After 5 months of job hunting I finally got one. However it is only for 2 months covering someone on an extended sick leave AND it is in Wellngton. Its pretty cold down here. Wellington isn't a very car friendly town and its amazing how garages are far from the house in many instances there are many steps between house and car. Contrarily so Wellington is an easy place to walk around.

The place I'm staying is a 10 minute walk from work and the Stake Centre (including the Family History Centre) is only 100 metres away.

I miss the family very much although I am going home for my birthday weekend. Yay!

The job hunt is proving to be a job in itself. I have been one of the great Unwashed for over 7 weeks now. I have applied for about 2 jobs a week in that period and have had a variety of results, however they have all ended in failure so far. Some people don't bother to reply and some reply very hastily. I think agencies have such narrow briefs from their clients and don't have enough expertise to determine the quality of the candidates.

But it 's all a bit moot at present since I have gout. I couldn't believe it. My right foot swelled up and my toes looked like sausages. It started on Thursday and I thought it was some mild form of thrombosis brought on by tight shoes worn during my walk. When I woke up on Friday I was greeted by fat toes and a swollen foot that was very painful to walk on. So frustrating.

Well events overtook me and my decision to leave printing has been made. I was made redundant or rather disestablished. Modern parlance. Sheesh. Anyway I am now out of work or at least paid employment. I have a 'honey-do' list as long as my arm. Many projects are begging my attention and now I have time to do them (but no money).

I have applied for six jobs so far and will follow up next week. The process seems quite slow at least from this end. I'm sure I'll be applying for more as time goes on. This will mean that Ben, Chris and I will be looking for work (Ben not that hard. :-D )

More time? Less money!

It's been a while since the last time I added to this blog and quite a bit has happened. Unfortunately none of it has added to the time I have spent writing or editing in fact it has all been a big distraction. I won't bore you the detail but the brunt of some of it is my job has been disestablished, which is to say I have been made redundant for the fourth time.

A time for reconsideration of my career. I have been in the print industry for 35 years and in the production of plastic cards for 15 and quite frankly I'm sick of it. Running clapped out presses has disadvantaged me for any advance in the trade. I'm not au fais with the newer machinery with everything computerised so I probably need to leave the industry and take up a new profession. However I am somewhat long in the tooth yet still need to be earning a decent wage. Changing waged employment won't do too much to help me sustain one as my newness in any other job would count against me.

So should I become self-employed? That is the question.....

Aah book writing, its a long a torturous process. I actually found the writing to be the easy part but now I'm polishing, whittling and editing. As suggested I gave the first 30 pages to my wife for a perusal. Being a journalist and used to truncating paragraphs into pithy statements she had one word to describe my efforts, wordy. So snip, snip, snip, lose a word here , a phrase here. Reword this and change that but I must say such re-working has made it a better read.

As I have been looking for a Literary Agent its been apparent the manuscript has need of more polishing. I seem to have a penchant for prepositions. I think that is symptomatic of my upbringing and my need to split infinitives.

The more I read about getting published the more doubts arise. Does the world need another book about Napoleon. Well its not actually about the Emperor himself but about one of his long suffering infantrymen. Its like a French version of Sharpe told in my own style based on extensive research (at least the first two volumes are).

Back to more polishing...