This is me: The Unworking Girl.
In April 2009 I was advised that my employer was entering into a 30 day consultation period for redundancies, due to conclude on my wedding day. I took voluntary redundancy and ran for the hills, confident in the knowledge that I would soon be snapped up by another grateful employer.
Whilst waiting, (and waiting, and waiting) for this to happen, I decided one afternoon during the ad break of Murder, She Wrote to set up a blog documenting my struggle to find work. Here it is...
Although I have since had a succession of jobs, for various reasons (which will quickly become evident by reading the blog), the name "Un-Working Girl" still applies thanks to my apparent inability to function as an ordinary human being. But hey, what's "normal" anyway?
Here are some of the regular characters you will hear about on the blog:
I am married to a man. His name is Mr G.
He loves watching sport of any kind, which I am convinced is mainly for the purpose of preventing me from watching my programmes on the telly.
We bicker quite a lot.
He gives good hugs and can usually be persuaded with relative ease to walk over the shop for me in the rain to buy me emergency chocolate. You've guessed it, he's a keeper.
Me and Mr G have a dog who for 1 day only was called Lady Madonna. She now goes by the name of Lucy and you can see what she gets up to on the right hand side of the main blog.
Ignoring the poor little girl with the blonde mullet (that's me, of course. Thanks Mum), here is what could be described as a classic photo of my family from the late 80s:
Here are some of the regular characters you will hear about on the blog:
I am married to a man. His name is Mr G.
He loves watching sport of any kind, which I am convinced is mainly for the purpose of preventing me from watching my programmes on the telly.
We bicker quite a lot.
He gives good hugs and can usually be persuaded with relative ease to walk over the shop for me in the rain to buy me emergency chocolate. You've guessed it, he's a keeper.
Me and Mr G have a dog who for 1 day only was called Lady Madonna. She now goes by the name of Lucy and you can see what she gets up to on the right hand side of the main blog.
Ignoring the poor little girl with the blonde mullet (that's me, of course. Thanks Mum), here is what could be described as a classic photo of my family from the late 80s:
Striking a Lady Diana pose is The Mothership. Like her own mother before her ("Big Gran"), she is the pillar of our family and what she says, goes. That is, once we have deciphered what she is talking about as she tends to use her own language.
Example: "Ooh Lionel, I'm not raving about that mucky doodles on your chops".
Translation: "Oh dear Lionel Richie. I'm not a massive fan of your new beard".
Naturally, I am becoming more like her with very day that passes. Woobie doos.
Surrounded by women and closing his eyes in the hope that he'll wake up and it will have all been a bad dream is my Dad, AKA Skip. His stock response if you tell him something is wrong is "well it shouldn't be!". Example: "Dad, my car's making a funny noise!"
"Well it shouldn't be!"
Yes Dad, I know, that's why I'm telling you.
Skip has a regular slot on the blog where he provides helpful tips to stay one step ahead in life.
Collectively The Mothership and Skip are sometimes referred to as "M&D".
The angelic blonde girl in the middle who looks like butter would not melt in her mouth is my youngest sister, Fiver. Amongst her favourite things are wrestling, Coca Cola and shopping. As mother to a young child she doesn't go out on the town much these days. When she does, I usually end up having to rescue her from a pool of her own vomit and "promise not to tell Mum and Dad".
And the cute brunette on the far right is my big sister, Hazel. She is probably the closest thing our family has to a normal member. She is married, has a good job, a nice house, a gorgeous child and unlike me and Fiver, when Hazel comes to visit our parents don't have to worry about things (like food, and money) going missing from their house.
Here are my gorgeous nephews:
Squiffy, the eldest, belongs to Fiver and has been the unfortunate recipient of many an aunt-inflicted injury at my clumsy hands (all accidental, I must stress). He currently quotes phrases such as "You're twisting my melon man" and "quit your jibber jabber!".
JEdwards, the littlun, belongs to Hazel. She took momentary leave of her senses when she asked both me and Mr G (childless: clueless) to become Godparents.
Nickers From Work is a fabulous girl who I used to work with at one of my many previous jobs. We struck up an immediate friendship based on, quite frankly, comedy gold. Sadly most of it is not repeatable. Every time we attempt a night out it ends in tears and at least one of us having to go home before midnight.
If you want to know more about anyone mentioned on the blog, then email me at: unworkinggirl@googlemail.com.
