Thank you! Am now thinking along the lines of black trousers and shirt, and either bright blue long waistcoat or red jacket. May depend on the weather forecast ...
《trots off to check Environment Canada》
eta: I probably ought to pass on the hot-pants/gladiator sandals combo - I really haven't got the legs for it.
I think ‘out of the ordinary’ is good. I remember going for a library job for which all the other candidates were in neat little black suitoids and I was in Vogue pattern bias cut dress in dark blue and red. Typical interview question: Ms Firenze. Why have you not worked in libraries for 13 years? Me: Just lucky, I guess.
Nevertheless, I got the job. Possibly the chutzpah, but possibly because I was vivid and memorable against a background of conformity.
I think dress codes have changed in the UK over the years too. I work at a university, where everything from scruffy to super smart goes, but I would say that trouser suits are definitely common at interview time. And my Mum - who thirty years ago wouldn’t have dreamed of going to church or work in trousers, definitely softened through her working life and I think now wears trousers to church too.
House is now online; now the rather tricky find-somewhere-we-want-to-move-to-within-the-same-school-catchment-area begins. We have a bit of a deadline too as our family is expanding in the autumn...
Thank you! Am now thinking along the lines of black trousers and shirt, and either bright blue long waistcoat or red jacket. May depend on the weather forecast ...
That sounds good. I think a pop of colour works. At one job I had I was always remembered as the candidate that turned up in green shoes. : Have you looked up the department on-line so you have some ideas what questions to ask. If all else fails I think 'What does a typical day consist of?' works.
I went on a very interesting walk round the museums area of London yesterday. Apparently it is now though of as 'Albertopolis' and the walk was looking at Price Albert's contribution to the area. Lots I hadn't seen before and I've lived in London most of my life. The weather had caught most people by surprise. I was the only one who turned up in sandals.
"Who keeps the common room tidy?" as quite a good one. What you do not want is for it to be an unofficial part of your job description but the reply might be revealing about general departmental culture.
Thanks for all the thoughts, folks. I went for the black/blue waistcoat option and noticed as I was waiting that most of the female staff going to and fro seemed to be following a similar code - black trousers with some sort of colour on top.
I felt as if the interview didn't go too badly (although you can never really tell). I was able to answer their questions about how my experience would be relevant, and even made them laugh a few times. They were only interviewing three people (of 41 applicants), which seems encouraging. They said they'd let me know next week - I'm going to be on tenterhooks until then!
I worked from home yesterday in the heat, which meant i also got some sheets washed and dried and the fridge defrosted.
Back at work at The Job™ trying to get various things back in track after my successor left at Easter. Someone else is now running it and there are two of us getting this sorted, so three people doing what I was supposed to be doing singlehanded
Just think, Mrs S, if only you lived five minutes up the road you might have found an instant buyer!
I think we live not much more than that, Ferijen, and in fact we nearly did sell to someone I knew slightly! I think I'd really rather not, as it all seems to be so fraught with difficulties <tears hair> We were all ready to exchange contracts two weeks ago, and move today (!) but here we are still waiting on the very bottom of the chain
I'm so sorry you're having delays, Mrs S, hope things start to shift very soon.
The sun has finally broken through the mist here and I have washing on the line for the first time this year. Heading off shortly to a new Zumba class - new to me, that is. As it's billed as a "Zumba Gold" class I suspect I'm not going to be the oldest there.
Another hot day here, too, with little in the way of a breeze. Sadly, I had to opt for a rather late scratch lunch, so have been devouring cold Polish pork belly (mostly fat and rind, but very tasty), accompanied by hot mashed potato mixed with runny St. Agur CHEESE (see how cosmopolitan we Brits can be?).
The only appropriate accompaniment appeared to be one of the nice cold bottles of Polish ALE in my fridge...
My cholesterol levels are fine, thank you - I take the PILLS.
Chez Nen we are having a lazy but delicious tea later on - Thai red and green curry washed down with the rosé wine in the fridge. That's what I'll be drinking anyway; Mr Nen is not a fan of rosé which suits me just fine.
We have a British wine in the fridge for later. The hot weather seems to call for something chilled. I have know idea if it will be nice or not, but it was a present from out lovely neighbours and I'm sure they wouldn't give us anything duff.
British wine can indeed be quite good (a result of global warming, perhaps? Though AFAIK the Romans grew grapes here during their stay in these favoured isles....).
The first Mrs. BF and I once actually bought (after a wine-tasting visit) a dozen bottles of white wine from a vineyard near Tenterden in Kent (can't recall the name), but it was the 1985 vintage or thereabouts, and was absolutely delicious...rich, light, fruity - all at the same time.
I have very little experience of English wine; a wine-maker started up in Orkney not long after we left, and I think they're still going. We did try their wares, but TBH we weren't impressed. They're fruit wines rather than grape, which we've never taken to; there's a similar set-up in Newfoundland, making wine from all sorts of berries, but to me it just doesn't cut the mustard.
Talking of your heatwave, earlier today D. was speaking to his sister, who lives not a million miles from the Episcopal Palace, and she said it was 32° in the sun. That's Too Hot.
Mind you, at least she didn't get sn*w last night, like us ... It didn't lie, but it was briefly there.
There's a glorious sunset here; a few minutes ago the river almost looked as if it was on fire.
The first Mrs. BF and I once actually bought (after a wine-tasting visit) a dozen bottles of white wine from a vineyard near Tenterden in Kent (can't recall the name), but it was the 1985 vintage or thereabouts, and was absolutely delicious...rich, light, fruity - all at the same time.
Soon after we were married Mr Nen and I also did a wine tasting at a Kentish vineyard and came away with a bottle of similarly delicious white wine. It would have been the same sort of vintage too - perhaps it was that very one.
Bright and sunny already this morning, I think we're In For Another Hot One.
The wines from New Hall in Essex are good, IMO, especially the Bacchus which seems well adapted to British conditions. "They" say that English sparkling wine is good but I've not had it.
By the way, "English wine" is made in England (etc.), but "British wine" can come from anywhere so long as it's bottled in Britain!
We went to that place near Tenterden at a similar time to Bishop's Finger and Nenya too. The wine fromt he Surrey vinyard was very nice, though as it is 'British' wine and had no details as to grape etc I'm not sure exactly where it was from. We drank it in the garden and as nice neighbour was out there, we were able to tell him how much we enjoyed it. The vinyard is a bus ride away from here, and we know a lovely pub with rooms nearby, so that's one summer weekend treat sorted.
At the same time as we were all patronising that wonderful vineyard near Tenterden (at Smallhythe, IIRC - I do wish I could remember the name), other local vineyards, e.g. at Lamberhurst, were trying to produce English red wine.
IMHO, it was a fair, but expensive, substitute for vinegar or brake fluid, but not really drinkable - then. I gather the situation has since changed, and that English red wine is now palatable!
I vaguely remember trying Lamberhurst Priory (white, IIRC) when it came out first - it must have been over 30 years ago, because I think I still lived at home - and I think the conclusion we came to was it was OK-ish, but not really in the same league as European wines (New World ones hadn't really taken off at that stage - at least not in Orkney!).
Mind you, our tastes then were for much sweeter wines than we'd enjoy now - the wine we chose to put on the tables at our wedding (in 1988) was Niersteiner gutes Domtal, which to our modern palates would probably taste like that abomination belovèd of the more militant, crusading type of tee-totaller, Schloer.
We went to the other side of the world and had a Malborough Sauvignon Blanc from our favourite New Zealand wine makers yesterday. We're more red wine drinkers, but a bottle of chilled white in the garden on a warm evening is rather lovely.
We spent the day at Bletchley Park learning about Enigma machines etc. It was all rather over my head, but my husband, who has a background in electronics, lapped it up. We went with my sister and brother in law who live close by, so I enjoyed catching up with them while husband found out about Bombe machines etc etc. Like me they are much more on the arts side.
We loved Bletchley Park and spent three days there! I could grasp the basis of the Enigma machines, but struggled with the Lorenz - having read all the boards about it in the displays, I went to the National Museum of Computing and asked for an explanation. The lovely guide talked to me for ten minutes, at the end of which I was no further forward. Mr. S had to console me by saying it was obviously like God: if I could understand it easily it clearly wasn't worthwhile!
In Other News - did everyone get that horrendous thunderstorm? It woke me at 1.45 and continued to roll round and round for what seemed like hours :grrrr:
We loved Bletchley Park and spent three days there! I could grasp the basis of the Enigma machines, but struggled with the Lorenz - having read all the boards about it in the displays, I went to the National Museum of Computing and asked for an explanation. The lovely guide talked to me for ten minutes, at the end of which I was no further forward. Mr. S had to console me by saying it was obviously like God: if I could understand it easily it clearly wasn't worthwhile!
In Other News - did everyone get that horrendous thunderstorm? It woke me at 1.45 and continued to roll round and round for what seemed like hours :grrrr:
The Sleepless Mrs. S
Didn't make it to the National Museum of Computing, but want to go back (well my husband does) so we can look at Collosus etc, etc.
I think we had the thunderstorm. I can't hear thunder unless its very very loud without my hearing aids in, but think I saw some lightening when I was half asleep.
In other news, the lovely neighbour who gave us the wine has just given us his 'make your own healthy meals' food box that he gets delivered every week as he and his wife have had to go away suddenly. Fortunatly like us they are not meat eaters, so it will be fun trying out some new dishes.
I heard the thunder storm. It didn't wake me, sadly, because I would much rather have been asleep rather than awake with not well daughter debating if we were going to cope at home or have to call an ambulance. We coped, but neither of us got enough sleep. Me more than her.
In other news, I saw Yangtze last night, at Cecil Sharp House to see Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman and their support act Sunjay. I was supposed to be going with my daughter, but knew yesterday that she wasn't going to be well enough to go, but well enough to leave, at the time.
We went to the other side of the world and had a Malborough Sauvignon Blanc from our favourite New Zealand wine makers yesterday. We're more red wine drinkers, but a bottle of chilled white in the garden on a warm evening is rather lovely ...
A bottle of chilled Marlborough SB is lovely anywhere. Has the new Ship got an "envy" smilie?
A friend on FB who lives near Winchester was complaining about the thunderstorm they had there last night; while I can (sort of) understand people not liking thunder and lightning, I absolutely love watching a good thunderstorm.
Where we live, we look down into the river valley, and we can watch a thunderstorm as it progresses along the river; there was one last summer that must have lasted at least an hour, and we turned off the TV* and the lights and just watched and listened, mesmerised.
* the storm was far more interesting than whatever was on, anyway ...
* * * * *
ION, I read the intercessions this morning (the Prayer for the Church Militant in Cranmer's matchless prose). Why is it that whenever I put myself down for that, we get an unpronounceable archbishop in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer? Today it was the Anglican Church in Japan, and Archbishop Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu, Primate of The Nippon Sei Ko Kai and Bishop of Hokkaido. He just got "Archbishop Nathaniel" - I assumed that the Almighty would know who I meant. In the Diocesan cycle, it was our own Bishop, who's called David - I can just about manage that.
We are only about 12 miles from Winchester, Piglet! and Sarasa, Colossus and Lorenz are just fabulous and well worth a day. The volunteers at the NMOC are terribly knowledgeable and have often got their hands dirty doing the rebuild.
I took Keir on the train to the service at Manchester Cathedral today. What a good boy he was. The organ was really loud and he didn’t bat an eyelid, at coffee time he lapped up the admiration.
That does it -- I'm now officially jealous. Old Peculier is not available in the U.S. (at least not in this part of the U.S.), and I haven't been able to find it on recent trips to the U.K. either.
... at coffee time he lapped up the admiration ...
... and the coffee?
Well-deserved admiration - what a beautiful dog!
When D. played for the annual animal-blessing services in St. John's, he learned fairly quickly which stop combinations would set the dogs off. I don't know that it was necessarily the volume, but rather the pitch and/or tone that mattered; some organ stops have multiple harmonics, which may well be more audible to our four-legged friends than they are to us.
I was ushering in a theatre at the start of the thunderstorm and as the play had lots of explosions in it I thought a particularly large crash was one of the effects - apparently not as the storm was right overhead. I enjoyed the Lightning display on the drive home.
... at coffee time he lapped up the admiration ...
... and the coffee?
Well-deserved admiration - what a beautiful dog!
When D. played for the annual animal-blessing services in St. John's, he learned fairly quickly which stop combinations would set the dogs off. I don't know that it was necessarily the volume, but rather the pitch and/or tone that mattered; some organ stops have multiple harmonics, which may well be more audible to our four-legged friends than they are to us.
My cat gets very affectionate when I'm playing my flute in the upper (squeaky) register - apparently it's the same pitch as a meow, although I've not been able to test her meow on my tuner. Thankfully my teacher's cats don't react in the same way.
“According to legend, St George was a Roman soldier born in what is now modern-day Turkey in around 280AD and died around 303. Very little is known about his early life but it is believed he was born to a wealthy Christian noble family.”
Comments
《trots off to check Environment Canada》
eta: I probably ought to pass on the hot-pants/gladiator sandals combo - I really haven't got the legs for it.
Nevertheless, I got the job. Possibly the chutzpah, but possibly because I was vivid and memorable against a background of conformity.
House is now online; now the rather tricky find-somewhere-we-want-to-move-to-within-the-same-school-catchment-area begins. We have a bit of a deadline too as our family is expanding in the autumn...
That sounds good. I think a pop of colour works. At one job I had I was always remembered as the candidate that turned up in green shoes. : Have you looked up the department on-line so you have some ideas what questions to ask. If all else fails I think 'What does a typical day consist of?' works.
I went on a very interesting walk round the museums area of London yesterday. Apparently it is now though of as 'Albertopolis' and the walk was looking at Price Albert's contribution to the area. Lots I hadn't seen before and I've lived in London most of my life. The weather had caught most people by surprise. I was the only one who turned up in sandals.
"Who keeps the common room tidy?" as quite a good one. What you do not want is for it to be an unofficial part of your job description but the reply might be revealing about general departmental culture.
Jengie
I felt as if the interview didn't go too badly (although you can never really tell). I was able to answer their questions about how my experience would be relevant, and even made them laugh a few times. They were only interviewing three people (of 41 applicants), which seems encouraging. They said they'd let me know next week - I'm going to be on tenterhooks until then!
IJ
In other news, it's been Very Hot here today.
Definitely need that 《eek》button!
I worked from home yesterday in the heat, which meant i also got some sheets washed and dried and the fridge defrosted.
Back at work at The Job™ trying to get various things back in track after my successor left at Easter. Someone else is now running it and there are two of us getting this sorted, so three people doing what I was supposed to be doing singlehanded
I think we live not much more than that, Ferijen, and in fact we nearly did sell to someone I knew slightly! I think I'd really rather not, as it all seems to be so fraught with difficulties <tears hair> We were all ready to exchange contracts two weeks ago, and move today (!) but here we are still waiting on the very bottom of the chain
Mrs. S, sitting by the phone
The sun has finally broken through the mist here and I have washing on the line for the first time this year. Heading off shortly to a new Zumba class - new to me, that is. As it's billed as a "Zumba Gold" class I suspect I'm not going to be the oldest there.
It is hot here too, but more pleasant now it’s later in the afternoon. W*rk was a challenge.
The only appropriate accompaniment appeared to be one of the nice cold bottles of Polish ALE in my fridge...
My cholesterol levels are fine, thank you - I take the PILLS.
IJ
The first Mrs. BF and I once actually bought (after a wine-tasting visit) a dozen bottles of white wine from a vineyard near Tenterden in Kent (can't recall the name), but it was the 1985 vintage or thereabouts, and was absolutely delicious...rich, light, fruity - all at the same time.
IIRC, the dozen bottles didn't last long.
IJ
Talking of your heatwave, earlier today D. was speaking to his sister, who lives not a million miles from the Episcopal Palace, and she said it was 32° in the sun. That's Too Hot.
Mind you, at least she didn't get sn*w last night, like us ...
There's a glorious sunset here; a few minutes ago the river almost looked as if it was on fire.
Soon after we were married Mr Nen and I also did a wine tasting at a Kentish vineyard and came away with a bottle of similarly delicious white wine. It would have been the same sort of vintage too - perhaps it was that very one.
Bright and sunny already this morning, I think we're In For Another Hot One.
By the way, "English wine" is made in England (etc.), but "British wine" can come from anywhere so long as it's bottled in Britain!
IMHO, it was a fair, but expensive, substitute for vinegar or brake fluid, but not really drinkable - then. I gather the situation has since changed, and that English red wine is now palatable!
IJ
Mind you, our tastes then were for much sweeter wines than we'd enjoy now - the wine we chose to put on the tables at our wedding (in 1988) was Niersteiner gutes Domtal, which to our modern palates would probably taste like that abomination belovèd of the more militant, crusading type of tee-totaller, Schloer.
We spent the day at Bletchley Park learning about Enigma machines etc. It was all rather over my head, but my husband, who has a background in electronics, lapped it up. We went with my sister and brother in law who live close by, so I enjoyed catching up with them while husband found out about Bombe machines etc etc. Like me they are much more on the arts side.
In Other News - did everyone get that horrendous thunderstorm? It woke me at 1.45 and continued to roll round and round for what seemed like hours :grrrr:
The Sleepless Mrs. S
I think we had the thunderstorm. I can't hear thunder unless its very very loud without my hearing aids in, but think I saw some lightening when I was half asleep.
In other news, the lovely neighbour who gave us the wine has just given us his 'make your own healthy meals' food box that he gets delivered every week as he and his wife have had to go away suddenly. Fortunatly like us they are not meat eaters, so it will be fun trying out some new dishes.
In other news, I saw Yangtze last night, at Cecil Sharp House to see Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman and their support act Sunjay. I was supposed to be going with my daughter, but knew yesterday that she wasn't going to be well enough to go, but well enough to leave, at the time.
A friend on FB who lives near Winchester was complaining about the thunderstorm they had there last night; while I can (sort of) understand people not liking thunder and lightning, I absolutely love watching a good thunderstorm.
Where we live, we look down into the river valley, and we can watch a thunderstorm as it progresses along the river; there was one last summer that must have lasted at least an hour, and we turned off the TV* and the lights and just watched and listened, mesmerised.
* the storm was far more interesting than whatever was on, anyway ...
* * * * *
ION, I read the intercessions this morning (the Prayer for the Church Militant in Cranmer's matchless prose). Why is it that whenever I put myself down for that, we get an unpronounceable archbishop in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer? Today it was the Anglican Church in Japan, and Archbishop Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu, Primate of The Nippon Sei Ko Kai and Bishop of Hokkaido. He just got "Archbishop Nathaniel" - I assumed that the Almighty would know who I meant. In the Diocesan cycle, it was our own Bishop, who's called David - I can just about manage that.
Mrs. S, respectful
Yesterday we scattered my Aunt's ashes on a footpath where she walked to school, and where my grandfather's shes are scattered.
Today was the church meeting. - That I am now on ALE should therefore surprise no one.
Well-deserved admiration - what a beautiful dog!
When D. played for the annual animal-blessing services in St. John's, he learned fairly quickly which stop combinations would set the dogs off. I don't know that it was necessarily the volume, but rather the pitch and/or tone that mattered; some organ stops have multiple harmonics, which may well be more audible to our four-legged friends than they are to us.
Sorry to hear about the Kitten's continued problems, CK.
We've been out with friends for the evening, ate rather late and rather a lot so am propped in bed feeling a tad uncomfortable.
Pity they've used up the name George, as it's St. George's Day...
IJ
Old English Mummers' plays sometimes used to include the 'Turkish Knight' i.e. St. George, as depicted in Hardy's The Return Of The Native.
IJ
https://historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Edmund-original-Patron-Saint-of-England/
IJ