Another glorious morning. On my way to the Job Centre I stopped in the park for twenty minutes, watching the various waterfowl doing fowl things on the lake. The black headed geese stayed by the shore, pecking each other for something to do before the breadcrumb crowd arrive. Pidgeons in all shades of grey didn't wait, flapping around and searching the pavement, mystified as to why breadcrumbs hadn't magically appeared. There were no swans today. Those graceful birds are a common sight here usually. A solitary gull circled the lake and periodically snapped something out of the water. Ducks swam about aimlessly. Coots and moorhens sniffed out the opposition. We sometimes get an occaisional crane, but that's a rareity.

All this was pretty much what I expected. Then I spotted a single bird out on the water. A grebe. The sloping crest was unmistakable and almost as soon as I saw it, it vanished. That bird is a feathered submarine. Nonetheless, it was a pleasure to see one.

Sooner or later, that old woman with the plastic bag will be along, and the birds will be there, each competing to get that last breadcrumb before the other. Apart from the gull that is, serenely disinterested in such lowly food, much preferring the quick dip of a beak into the water and a swift getaway with whatever morsel it caught.

If anyone thinks I'm becoming something of an ornithologist, please don't panic. I have noticed lately that nature is all the more interesting when you have time to take an interest in it. You start spotting little details, the individual characters, the daily drama of survival on the lake. Guess I haven't much else to do before the library opens. Ah well. Time to wander down the Job Centre and scramble for that last remaining vacancy.

Vacancy of the Week

The Job Centre changes every time I go in there now. Each fortnight I sit in the assigned area awaiting the call for a thirty second interview, only to be approached by one of their advisors who tells me politely that I'm sat in the wrong office and could I go across the building. Sigh.

Today, and somewhat unusually, the woman across the desk handed me a list of the latest vacancies and asked which would I apply for. This has to be joke. Temporary tradesmen, cleaners, carers, and van drivers. After a grimace I try to be positive and tell her I wasn't entirely interested in any, but if need be, I'll apply for the van driver job. Ah, she says, that's a self employed position (which renders it unclean as far as the government guidelines are concerned) so no joy there.

Was that a test? Please don't tell me I'm going to bombarded by offers of driving jobs. I worked for a courier firm once. Thirteen hour shifts, addresses that Marco Polo couldn't find, and endless hours sifting through piles of badly labelled packages in the back of a grimey van. Joy. The things I have to do to earn my daily bread...