Gis a job! On the scrapheap??

Here I am at nearly 50 years old and for the fourth time in my working career, have been made redundant.  You would think that by now I would be used to it, but no, it's a nightmare.  I was made redundant in May this year after nearly six years working as a Production Manager for a local publishing company.  The redundancy pay-out was the government recommended of one weeks pay for every year worked so as I was just short of six years by one month, I only received five weeks redundancy pay.  What to do? Sign on of course!  Enter the world of Job Seekers and what a weird world it is. 

 
 Harrogate Job Centre is a nice airy building with comfy seats and open plan advisor stations.  Doesn't look much from the outside but you know what they say about book and cover. What goes on inside completely threw me.  Not having been inside a job centre for over 10 years, been faced with security guards and doorkeepers was quite a surprise.  Do not pass go, do not collect your £71.70 without your Community Chest card came to mind. The initial appointment to sign on is with a rapid claim adviser and by the time every personal piece of information has been divulged, dissected and recorded for time immemorial I was close to tears.  Then the criteria bit came in to qualify for the allowance. You must apply for 3 -5 jobs each week. You must do two other actions each week ranging from phoning  agencies to standing on the Royal Hall Steps! (Harrogatonians will know what that means) and you must record all of this on the gov.direct website, and then IF you have done all of this by the time you next sign on you can get the allowance.  Signing on is once a fortnight on a specified day and time.

Needless to say, appointments never run to time so when waiting to be seen people watching while pretending to read a book is a brilliant pass-time!  It amazes me of the guile of some people.  One guy was covered in plaster dust and paint and had clearly just walked off a building site and when asked by his advisor if he had worked in the past two weeks answered No, he hadn't. Another guy asked to claim bus fare while dressed in full leathers carrying a motor bike helmet and keys. Really!

That was at my first sign on and things just got worse from then on...Yes I'm on the scrapheap!

Ding, Dong, Avon calling!

Avon celebrates 125 years this year of both beautifying women through their cosmetics, fragrances, lotions and serums and by standing up and saying No to Breast Cancer and Domestic Violence.  Avon is not just a make-up brand; it is a powerful voice that has donated over $800 million dollars for critical causes to women all over the world.  In addition Avon has provided over 6 million representatives with financial independence in over 100 countries in the past 125 years and is growing stronger every day.  Not bad for a product that is still known even today by the catch phrase “Ding, Dong, Avon calling!”

I am proud to be an Independent Avon Representative and Sales Leader and Avon has helped me provide my daughter with her first proper holiday last year.  It also helps me buy little extra’s for her that I would not normally be able to afford but most of all Avon is my business that I run part-time in the way I want and can fit it around my full time job and been a Mum. Avon is also very close to my heart as I am a survivor of Breast Cancer and the support and fund raising by Avon is amazing.

I hope to bring you a review of the best buys in each brochure and start with the latest book, campaign 6.  You can purchase Avon on line http://www.avonshop.co.uk/ or from an Independent Avon representative.

Here are my top 3 for this book...

Best fragrance: Actress Reese Witherspoon has launched three new fragrances, Love to the Fullest, Live without Regrets and Laugh Often. At a special introductory price of £12, my favourite is Laugh Often which is a blend of floral and citrus and the bottle is great too.

Laugh Often edp

Best mascara: Avon has lots of different mascaras’ available but the most popular is Avon superSHOCK which brushes on up to 12x volume, comes in two shades, black and brown/black and Avon sell one every 30 seconds! Avon superSHOCK is at an anniversary price in brochure 6 at only £5. I use this every day and it lengthens and thickens without clumping and (here’s the word of the year) volumises!

superSHOCK mascara

Best lipstick: Avon’s brand new ultra colour rich Moisture Seduction Lipstick is brilliant. It comes in 10 fabulous shades and I’m wearing Mocha Plum at the moment. Each lipstick has ribbons of moisture running through and has an SPF15. It’s really creamy and soft and shimmers on the lips. The special anniversary price is £6.

Moisture Seduction Lipstick

Check out the e-brochure for more fantastic avon products.

From Weatherfield to Worship...

This weekend has been an odd one to say the least.  On Friday evening I accepted my friends invite to the Harrogate Theatre Studio to watch a one woman play called Deidre & Me, written and performed by Harrogate born actress Rachel Halliwell (pictured left).  All I had been told was that it was about the character Deidre Barlow of ITV’s Coronation Street.  Now Deidre is not one of my favourite characters in the soap, her turtle neck (and I don’t mean her jumper) turns me quite off, but with an open mind I sat in the small but packed Studio to watch.  And I loved it! The play was brilliant. It was funny yet moving and took a twist in the story I never expected. Attention to detail was great and references to local areas of Harrogate made it a very personal play that all the audience could relate to. The link gives an overview of the play and there is a video of rachel that you can watch too. http://www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk/page.aspx?parent=18aadf8c-40a3-46f7-bf6c-e960d786908e&showIdentifier=48e90aca-49e7-487f-be74-7af4c6190daf

Unfortunately, the play only ran for two nights in Harrogate but has been played from London to Edingburgh and I strongly recommend you go to see it should you ever get the chance. I think I found it more endearing because I’ve known Rachel since she was a little girl, and although I’ve not seen her for a few years I could still see the child in the woman. There’s hope for my little one yet!

Sunday morning was Church Parade for 16^th Harrogate Scout Group, http://www.16thharrogate.co.uk where my daughter is a Cub scout. Every second Sunday of the month, the uniformed group attends BAR Methodist Church and with my Mum, who is Baloo, I go too.  I must say Sunday service has changed somewhat since I was a Girl Guide and this Sunday we had a Lego re-enactment of the temptation of the Devil to Jesus in the wilderness and Cold Play was the backing for a mimed drama for one of the parables.  Audience participation is virtually compulsory and today we were shouting hoorays and cheering, then we were given pens and paper to draw our interpretation of God.  One little boy scribbled green pen all over a piece of paper until it was completely covered.  When the minister asked him what he had drawn he answered “it’s a picture of everywhere, as God is everywhere”. “Lovely” said the minster, “but why is it green?” “’cos God is Eco-friendly of course!” answered the boy. Welcome to the 21^st century.

Half term...How Much!!

Harrogate has many iconic landmarks such as the Sulphur Spa Well (never taste the water..eugh), Christ Church, as mentioned in the Doomsday Book, The Old Swan Hotel (famous due to Agatha Christie) and Betty’s infamous Tea Rooms noted for its “Fat Rascals” http://www.bettys.co.uk/bettys_harrogate.aspx and not forgetting the Royal Hall (also known as the Kursaal) where the Beatles played in 1965.  http://www.royalhall.co.uk/ .

As much as all this is very fascinating, it is does not register on my 7 year olds radar whose greatest discovery is Primark.  Can I point out at this juncture that my 7 year old (going on 17) thinks this is the “best clothes shop ever!” and has yet to be educated in the finer points of shopping. 

In a fit of madness at the beginning of the holidays, I decided to take my daughter to the pictures to see “Tangled” in 3D.

Big mistake! Bearing in mind that my little one had never been to the pictures before, this was a great adventure and she was totally excited, while I was totally shocked. I booked on line (I was told it was cheaper this way).  The tickets cost £21.70 for one adult and one child. This included £1 per pair of 3D glasses and £1.50 booking fee (how cheaper?). When we got there I said she could have a drink and some sweets. A fruit shoot, that normally costs about 43p was £1.80 and the Pick’n’Mix came to nearly £10 (and no, she didn’t get a huge bagful). So all in all it cost nearly £40 for an hour and a half watching a film wearing a pair of black plastic glasses.  But it wasn’t all doom and gloom, I was highly amused when a couple of trainee soldiers from the Army Apprentice College leaned over and asked “...excuse me, can you tell us what this film is about and why are there so many kids here?” One short explanation later, one lad turned to the other and said, “see, I told you a porn film wouldn’t be on in the afternoon!” Oh the joys of the innocent!  Not to mention the way they both screamed when a pink piranha jumped out of the screen in one of the trailers. Oh we did laugh.  As a footnote to the whole escapade, I did go to see the Kings Speech two weeks before and it is absolutely brilliant, which by coincidence was the first time I had been to the flicks in over 15 years! After seeing how much these two visits have cost me, it will probably be another 15 years before I go again! http://www.kingsspeech.com/