I mentioned in my last post that I had some reasons for not posting. One of these has been that I have taken on a second job. Regular readers will recall that after leaving the Council we moved to Builth but unfortunately were not able to stay there permanently. On returning to Cardiff I became a freelancer, doing part time hours and this has worked brilliantly. With Andrew's very erratic days this has fitted well, with the flexibility to include running the home, taking care of the dogs and incorporating voluntary work/hobbies. I've also been so pleased too that it's meant I've been able to provide lots of support for Paula - things like attending appointments, or taking care of the dogs when she needed it.

Anyway, I was mooching about on Gumtree and saw an ad for part time work in a large public sector library (not the Council) with a contact via an employment agency. I contacted the agency and went through the recruitment process. This was a revelation. After years of being in the public sector, I was used to recruitment being painfully slow and just not working very well. Typically, loads of forms, paperwork (at least part of which will get lost or mislaid at some point) and the whole process takes weeks if not months. For the agency, things were very different. Before they would even consider me as a candidate my nationality/entitlement to work was checked out, plus all my paperwork (certificates and so on). Referees HAD to be contactable by email (how sensible and refreshing). Then I went through an agency interview which was followed up by signing paper contract, email correspondence confirming me as a candidate (again,no painful wait for letters) plus arranging for an interview at the employer, along with some other candidates. Interview duly took place, discussions were held on suitable dates/times/shifts of working then I received a further email confirming details. Just before starting, I had details sent to me by email of the log on for the agency portal. This allowed me to go on to the website, set up my bank account details and act as my main self administering area for recording time, booking holidays, downloading payslips, amending personal details, etc. This was a revelation. It worked brilliantly and was smooth and easy. After doing my hours, each week I fill in the timesheet online (an easy drop down menu with the days and dates already filled in, along with my agreed hourly rate), this is then sent to the employer for electronic verification, then back to the agency and pay hits my bank account shortly after - system even lets you set up an automatic text alert for this. After years in local government, I shudder to think how much time I wasted in either filling out my own timesheets in various locations or pointlessly signing other people's before they got sent somewhere for various levels of further administration and eventual payment. Local government has layers of people in finance and HR who do things like manage personal files, record changes of address (not always accurately it must be said) - the agency has pretty much managed to strip out all of this - the employee does it themselves. When I see the furore in the media over local government cuts it seems the wrong things are being cut - much of the public sector still does things in the way I've mentioned and it takes a whole load of pointless time and resources.

Anyway, back to the job. I do three shifts a week (nine and a half hours in total), with odd hours (one of th reasons it appealed to me) and the post is temporary until June. I am really enjoying it - being self employed at home can be quite isolating and I like meeting the new people, learning new stuff and enjoying the change of scene. These days, 98% of books are self issued or returned, so assistants do things like helping with IT queries, take bookings for special requests, help people find things, book meeting rooms, sell stationery, shelving, tidying and so on. Having good IT skills has been a real bonus, as has the fact I have used an academic library myself when doing my MBA. I'd say over half the queries we have are IT related, e.g. printer won't work, how do I do a certain thing in Powerpoint, saving files on personal areas on servers, integration of software into saved work e.g. programme called Endnotes for academic references and so on. I've also been so impressed by the courtesy and politeness of the majority of the students - many of them are from overseas and have impeccable manners. As the extended opening hours are an experiment, we also have to do hourly surveys of the numbers of students and hand out questionnaires too to guage their views on the opening arrangements. All in all, it is proving very enjoyable and I'm sure the time until June will fly by.

Firstly, dear readers, many apologies for the hiatus in posting. A variety of reasons, some of which I'll be writing about. Most importantly, though, I really wanted to write about last weekend. Regular readers will recall that just before Christmas our nephew James came over for the weekend with the intention of going into a local fun dog show with Boola, our beautiful blonde greyhound. Both James and Boola had been equipped with fancy dress costumes (I'd made Boola's outfit) and were looking forward to strutting their stuff. However, come the day, we and most of South Wales were knee deep in snow and the show was called off. Paula, the lady who organised it, rearranged the date for Valentine's weekend in February and we agreed with James that he could come back for it and try again.

Boola's festive elf costume was obviously inappropriate so after some consultation with James and his mum, the emailing of pics of James wearing a range of potential outfits, we settled on James appearing as a jester with Boola wearing an appropriate costume to match.

For Boola's costume, I started with a plain blue cotton that I cut into a basic dog coat with a Velcro fastening at the neck and a separate plain blue collar, also fastened with Velcro. Then I took a layer cake from Moda and cut the fabrics into 2.5" squares. The fabrics were patterned - all really cheerful, slightly mad with lots of featured cherries, teapots and paisleys in a gorgeous palette of bright reds, yellows, blue, ivory and black. I simply sewed the squares into rows and then into a bigger square then stitched this onto the blue coat, leaving a plain blue area at the back and the curved area at the front. More patchwork was added to the girth (another Velcro closure) and I added a patchwork layer to the collar. The next stage was to hem and tidy the coat, then I finished it by quilting diagonally across the squares in a sort of diamond pattern - which gave it a fabulous look and texture. Finally, for the collar I cut out lots of felt into two different length triangles then added these to the inside of the collar, giving a wonderful array of points - the finishing touch was to painstakingly sew on bells to the ends of the points. Boola looked wonderful when it was finished and I was very pleased with it.

We collected James on the Friday night and came home for supper, a film and then bed for James. In the morning, we took the dogs to the park as usual and I went through with James how he should lead Boola, doing turns and a quick practice of his leading technique. Home for a bite to eat, then it was time to go to the show. The venue was a church hall in Risca, and when we arrived it was packed with what felt like hundreds of dogs, puppies, children and adults in a delightful atmosphere of anarchic enjoyment. Inside the church hall, the vestry was doing a roaring trade in cups of tea, the vicar was looking harassed as he trotted around with cardboard boxes, there was a tombola, a raffle and a variety of charity stalls including a set up to have your dogs toenails trimmed. Some pews had been commandeered to mark off the "ring" at the bottom of the hall. We went to enter our classes and found to our horror that there was no Fancy Dress class. For a moment, I was not impressed (to put it mildly) but the organiser suggested that an alternative might be the "Best Matched Pair" class so we put in an entry for that, Most Beautiful Eyes, Best Veteran and Best Child Handler. James watched the early classes with interest to get a feel of how they would go - the first ones were the puppy classes and they were anarchy! Pups playing, children wandering around, fond parents standing on chairs to take pics, an "accident" in the ring and the judge patiently making her way round.

Soon it was time for James' first go in the ring - Most Beautiful Eyes. For this class, no walking around was expected, just holding your dog while the judge had a look at them, so a good one for James to start with. He looked very confident and relaxed in the ring, and Boola was his usual laid back self. No rosette, but that was OK. Then back into the ring for Best Child Handler. For this, the tiny ring was a problem so each entrant had to do a quick trot up and down with a turn and have their dog examined. James did a lovely turn. Then the steward handed the rosettes to the judge, and to my surprise and utter delight she made a beeline for James and presented him with a First. James was grinning from ear to ear and I was so pleased with both of them I got a bit teary. Even better, the rosette was wonderful, with a a gorgeous red heart edged ribbon to decorate it - a really nice touch for Valentines' weekend. Then it was time for Best Veteran - another rosette, this time a Second. James was looking over the moon by this stage. The last class was for Best Matched Pair. We put on Boola's costume and James wriggled into his outfit, both with jingling bells. Into the ring - a variety of others including owners and dogs in matching Welsh rugby jerseys. Once again, the judge bore down - another first!! I was particularly proud of that one since I felt it rewarded my efforts with the costume. James was now festooned with rosettes and he was particularly appreciative of the fact that with every First rosette he'd been presented with a prize of fifty poo biodegradable poo bags - just what every nine year old dreams of.

Finally, there was a Best in Show class for all the First prize winners. Back into the ring, and hopes were high. Boola however had other plans and decided that standing around waiting to be looked at was really far too much work and decided to lie down and go to sleep. Andrew and I were in hysterics - so we weren't at all surprised that the judge didn't give James the award. Then it was time to say thank you to Paula, the organiser and have a quick chat before disappearing home. James had a lot to say to his parents when he got home and also called his grandparents with all his news.

Later, we had a nice beef casserole from the slow cooker, watched a film and James headed upstairs for bed after a very exciting day. On Sunday, James announced that as he had three rosettes, Boola could keep one to add to his collection and he would take the other two home with him to pin up in his bedroom. He also said that he would like to go to some more dog shows so we are putting together a list of potential dates for later this year. Claire, Basil and the other two boys came over and we met them at the RSPB reserve at Newport - we went there with Rita and Roger on New Year's Day. Unfortunately, the weather was dismal again, being wet, cold and windy so birds were few and far between. We then came home and had a big family lunch followed by the official Boola birthday cake (it was his 11th birthday on the 10th of February). This was a Victoria sponge filled with some of Claire's home made jam, plus cream cheese frosting and topped with more frosting. Very yummy and enjoyed by everyone, dogs and humans. Then it was time for the boys to go home - James still wearing his rosettes. All in all, a very happy and successful weekend.