An update chez Grac...

First off, thanks to everyone for the kind words about Monty, it was/is much appreciated.

In other news, I'm sure folks remember that I have now parted ways with Dysfunction Central Ltd, have successfully received my final pay and P45 from them (with no hassle at all, which is better than I was expecting would be the case) and am now gainfully employed by the local council. I've gambled on taking two different sessional contracts with them on the basis that it should all work out absolutely fine (funding permitting). I wanted to work for them, after they were all so great when I was volunteering with them, and they only offer folks permanent contracts if you've gone this route.

So far, I have no guaranteed hours so won't get paid anything except for when I attended various mandatory meetings. I just put myself forward for 4 mornings teaching as sick cover next week, though my stomach is currently doing backflips over the concept of actually doing something. Other than that, it looks like nothing concrete is likely to come up till after half term, which is the week after next anyway.

It's been good (apart from the not getting paid part of things!) to have a bit of a breather from my former sociopathic employer and try to literally get my house in order for winter. I can't honestly say I have done as much cleaning and sorting out as I could, but I've definitely made some progress, as well as getting quite a bit of stuff watched or read.

I'm currently reading a really interesting book on the history of relics in Western Europe ('Holy Bones,Holy Dust' by Charles Freeman), so if I ever get around to writing anything original I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the stuff I've read turns up in there somewhere. I don't read anything like as much non-fiction as fiction but every so often I like to pick something up - usually historical, occasionally biography ('The Black Count' by Tom Reiss, which is a biography of Alexandre Dumas is on my list, for example).

Oh and finally, for this post at least, I am using Twitter more. Mostly for the purpose of following stalking a variety of writers, as long as they don't tweet too often. Why do some people tweet so much???!!??