Open Writing

The phone has been ringing constantly this week, and not because I have a social life. The calls come from irate Avon customers. ‘Love you’ve left me another **** Avon brochure. Mi ‘usbands gone mad. We 'aven’t even got t’ order from t’ last one and where’s the ****** phone? I saw it on ‘Watchdog’ last night….dreadful innit ?. I really need that phone’

If I don’t appease her she won’t buy anything

‘Ha ha ha’ nervous laugh I picked up from my Avon supervisor.. she had me fooled with it for a while .

‘Hah ha ha… Yes, I am a few vouchers short, but don’t worry. Yours isn’t one of those orders affected.’

But whose will be?

Ten customers took advantage of the rather too good to believe free mobile phone offer, yet only seven vouchers were sent.

I’m too scared to take the orders round for fear of disappointing someone, but my dad’s getting impatient with the stack of bags and boxes at the back of the dining room table.

Sometimes wonder why I bother with Avon. So what keeps me going? I suppose it’s the thrill of nosying inside other people’s houses, seeing what they’re eating for dinner, having an excuse to chat to the neighbours I see on the street but don’t really know.

Have been given some ‘new territory’ at the top of Quarmby road. The houses look tiny and run down from the road but they extend so far at the back, like going through the wardrobe door into Narnia.

The ceilings are elaborate, the fireplaces like something out of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen. I feel privileged when I’m taken beyond the hallway into the enchanting drawing room.

In one house all the china is out on display on small tables.

I also enjoy collecting sandwich bags when customers leave their books outside for me…great for putting bananas in if I go to town, to prevent them squashing all over my bag.

Then there are the free Anew moisturiser samples which Avon sends for me to give to customers. Of course, the customers never see them. They are excellently light to slip in my bag if I’m going swimming first thing.

However I am looking forward to moving on in life again and am determined to find a proper job soon. Have applied for a few jobs teaching English in summer schools, on the internet and am now dreaming of going back to China to teach in the summer, or Spain, Greece or even Dulwich.

The computer course is progressing. Have now completed the IT principles course work and have been entered to take the exam for this module next Tuesday. I am dreading it. I know I’m not as competent as the tutors think. Although my resized windows look as they’re supposed to on my screen prints, no one sees the fact it takes me 45 mins of fiddling around with any likely button to make them pop up neatly.

What happens if they refuse to do as they are told in the assessment? Worse still, in the pre-assessment I managed to wipe all the relevant files off the floppy disc before I’d even started using them.

And it was only last week that I discovered what a ‘desktop’ is on a computer, and I still don’t know how many bits there are in a bite or what JPEG or BIOS stand for.

Must go to the university library tomorrow and force myself to focus.

……………….

Well I went to the library and it was hard work. It’s so long since I’ve been forced to focus entirely. Out came my flask of coffee; three cups in one hour, surreptitiously hiding under a piece of paper, until the librarian had passed.

I watched the students and was impressed by their feverish jottings, while I shuffled, reshuffled and re-reshuffled papers.. dropped them on the floor so I could pick them up and reshuffle once more. then it was time for lunch in the canteen.. The jacket potatoes are an amazing 60p each, so I’ll definitely go back there to ‘study’.

Everything seems to be happening all at once Got a call last night inviting me to have a trial run in a Chinese takeaway for a part-time job. I went in over a week ago to enquire about the ad in the window, but the owner, Mr Li, had gone away for New Year. This is the first time I’ve ever been called back after stating my interest in employment in a shop. Even the 99p shop and the pound shop rejected me before Christmas.

Last night was the first night. Turns out the assistant, Rachel, who’d taken my name, had been impressed when I said I spoke a bit of Chinese and had lived in China.

Oh dear……spent the day hunting for my Chinese language notes but couldn’t find them.

It didn’t matter as the owner and colleagues came from Hong Kong and spoke no Mandarin; only Cantonese, and when I did try to speak Mandarin they thought I was speaking in English very badly and looked at me as if I had a speech impediment.

I like the job very much. It involves taking orders in the shop and on the phone, packing them into boxes and bags, and reading my book on a stool by an electric fire when the shop is quiet.

I like dealing with the public, or at least most of the public.. with the exception of those who lollop in after ten rolling their eyes and breathing Tetley’s across the counter.

The food smells delicious but unfortunately all the sauces contain gluten so I can only smell, look and imagine what mixed veg with curry sauce, prawn chowmein, and vegetable fried rice, taste like.

The salsa lesson was unusual. I thought I would have improved since the first time, but seemed to have got worse. When we did the twirly bit when you have a partner, the lady I was with said, ‘We’re getting there’..I think she meant. ‘You’re getting there.’ I’m not sure if I’ll go next week.

My other move towards a more sociable life has been to join a dating agency on the internet. It’s called ‘Dating direct’ and claims to be free of charge. All you have to do is write yourself a profile and they recommend scanning/sending in a photo if you want to ‘boost your chances by 70%’.

At first I thought, ‘How vain to choose someone based on their looks’. I think many people, including myself, like to think we don’t choose partners based on looks, and decided not to send the photo. But then I scrolled through a few of the men’s profiles in West Yorkshire, and became instantly suspicious of any with no photo attached and didn’t bother to read them.

Furthermore, I became very interested in the Jamie Oliver look-alike from Leeds, who’s into camping and the outdoors, and instantly turned off by the doctor from Bradford who has an evil glint in his eye. Another Dr Shipman?

I wondered.. if the doctor looked like Jamie Oliver and the Leeds boy like Dr Shipman, would I not prefer the doctor, even though I shared more in common, regarding outdoor pursuits, with Dr Shipman? My dad shouted for me to log off so he could use the phone, just as I was about to reply to Jamie ie. Nick. I am determined to do it tomorrow.