2013 was a year of two
halves and ended with a feeling of déjà vu. At the end of 2012 I was unemployed, on my own, and not really sure what the
coming year would bring. I'd made a list of plans of
what I hoped to do in 2013, and at least some of them have come
about.
January saw the buying
of a car for the first time in about 15 years (I'd had company cars
during that time).
I'm not really 'into
cars', so bought a Volvo V40 for totally pragmatic reasons – build
quality, longevity, and being a bit unfashionable so tends to be
bought by older driver who look after them. A year and 10,000 miles
(16,000 km) later and it's repayed my judgement. It's had one
service, a pair of tyres, two bulbs, and the original 2002 battery
called it a day. It's a bit slow and dull, but it doesn't use any oil
and how many cars can boast a tape player? Unless I get another job
with a company car I intend on keeping the Volvo until it breaks.
A week after buying the
car I started a new job after four months of unemployment. I was
employed through an agency to carry out electrical testing for a
local authority. I was employed to do Portable Appliance Testing (aka
PAT testing) and the job was described as testing 'in Council
premises'. I had assumed that this would mean Council offices and I
would be testing computers and kettles, but it turned out I would be
testing in houses used by the Emergency Homeless Unit. This meant
visits to the roughest streets of the roughest towns in the area and
dealing with residents of whom about 80% had serious alcohol or drug
related problems! The work was fairly easy and not too time
consuming, but let us say that I met some 'interesting' characters!
Imagine being an extra in an Irvine Welsh novel and that'll give you
an idea!
The job was supposed to
last 3 months, but they ran out of work after 6 weeks (I was even
testing Christmas lights!), but a week later I got another job.
This was through
another agency and was loftily described as an 'Electrical Engineer'.
What it entailed was travelling round a company's factories,
cataloguing electrical equipment in their stores, and inputting the
data into spreadsheets. Although the work was fairly repetitive I
really enjoyed it and the fact that it was very well paid helped! It
involved quite a lot of travelling, but I saw a lot of the country
and every 3 weeks or so I had an 'working from home' week inputting
data.
As I was earning a
reasonable amount of money, I had some work done on my house and
bought a Yamaha SZR 660 'project'.
I'd always liked the
SZR as it was basically the same engine as a Skorpion, but housed in
a lightweight sporty frame (derived from a TZR 125/250). Usually SZRs
are fairly expensive, but this one was so cheap that I couldn't say
'no'. It was sold to me as a non-running 'project', but I got it
running fairly easily enough (cleaned out carb), but the rest is
fairly tatty due to neglect and having sat in a damp shed for a few
years. I haven't done much more work on it, and it's stored in the
garage as a 'future project'.
There were a few
changes in my private life as well. As some of you will know, I was
widowed two years ago and I felt early this year that I was ready to
'move on' and meet women again. However, for a middle aged man this
is really difficult due to the lack of a 'social structure' that
allows you to meet people. It's OK if you're 20 or a pensioner, but
for the middle aged , there's nothing. Eventually I met a very
pleasant woman and we went for lunch. Although we were meeting as
'friends' and not on a 'date', I found this really traumatic as it
was the first time I'd been with someone 'new' for about 23 years!
However, it went really well and we continued to meet for lunch
during the early part of the summer, and I thought we were getting on
very well.
By this time it was
June and my 'Electrical Engineer' contract was coming to an end. I
had a couple of weeks without work before we headed off for our trip
to Belgium and France. A couple of days before I left for holiday I
got an interview for another job and arranged to start when I got
back from holiday. So, I was heading off on holiday, had a regular
lunch date, and was coming back to a new job – what could possibly
go wrong?
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