A lovely sunny morning. It really is. Mind you, despite the sunshine, when I left the house earlier today it was very chilly, clouds of breath marking my progress, and if it hadn't been for my steady pace, I would have felt the cold very quickly.

Today was upposed to be the day I started my forklifting course. Some people people might not appreciate how momentous this opportunity is. I sepent nearly two decades in warehousing and no-one would train me on forklifts. That's what you get for driving sports cars in a devil-may-care fashion I guess.

Previously, my attempts to get a forklift license via the Job Centre have met with failure, because I was too highly qualified. Apparently only dimwits drive forklifts. Any school certificate that says anything other than mentally deficient truant immediately disqualified you.

Things have changed. Now that I've been unemployed for two years I must qualify as a hopeless dimwit after all, because I was interviewed for a course ealier this year. End of August, they told me, though you might get a slot sooner. Unfortunately the phone call from the trainers conflicted with a job interview or two, so I had no choice but to leave it until now.

No letter? No phone call? What's going on? I rang the number on my original interview letter to find out whether the course was going ahead and where to attend. The lady responsible was on holiday, but I got a partial address, and managed over the weekend to figure out where I was supposed to go.

Except it was shut. I turned up, ready to go, eight o'clock this morning, kicking my heels and proving to be an object of curiosity for the workmen across the road loading one of their lorries. After fifteen minutes it was all a bit obvious. I was in the wrong place. Brilliant. Was it something I said? What do people have to do to get a forklift license around here?

Hurt Feelings

Walking back home yesterday a car passed me. A white Eunos Cabriolet, with the same bodykit as mine, as low slung as mine had been, and the same twelve pounder napoleonic cannon exhaust. A part of me wonders if that was actually the chassis I originally drove away from the dealer with, and that the rusting wreck parked in the yard was in fact a substitute as I once thought it might be, but that's merely suspicion. For all I know, that other car is nothing to do with me or my car ownership woes. But it hurt, nonetheless, watching it waft by with a subdued growl.