The sun is out, the birds are tweeting - usually fairly mundane stuff about what worms they've been eating (haha! I did a joke!); there's a faint smell of cow manure in the air. Next door on a building site a dog frolicks in the long grass and comes out with a half-full bottle of coke in its mouth. It spills, and the dog begins to lap at the puddle. He seems pretty happy, this dog. It really feels like spring is coming, and then summer, but I'm not happy. I found out on Monday that the temp job I'm doing, y'know, the one I wrote about on Sunday, is coming to an end on Friday. This is much sooner than I thought it was going to be, and it threw me into a depressive funk for a couple of days. I don't think it's anything to do with me or my work - Charlotte the manager told me they just don't have the budget for another temp. But it felt like I'd been dumped and was being given the old 'It's not you, it's me' shtick. I'm not sure I want to ask her to be frank though, I'd rather not have it confirmed that I'm a total cunt.

So I'm back looking for work, and my plans have been ever so slightly thrown into disarray. But I'm going to try as best I can not to plunge headlong into despondency, as is my wont. I've taken a pretty decent look at myself over the last few months - I could draw my own navel from memory - and now have a better understanding of the shit I do. I spoke to my parents last night, and they were incredibly sympathetic and nice about it. My dad, with whom I have a warm but fairly distant relationship, even said to me, 'we love you very much' at the end of the call, which I can't remember him saying before. Certainly not in the last ten years anyway. But because it was at the end of the conversation and I was wrapping it up, it took me by surprise and I just said 'thank you' in reply, and hung up. Then I had a small, momentary cry, and went downstairs to watch the football.

I'm incredibly lucky to have the friends and family that I do.