three weeks and two days

Whoa, time is zipping along. The first two weeks in Cardiff seemed like an eternity, but this last week has flown by and it's October already.

Great news on the job front! I have been hired as a casual room attendant (I'm afraid the term 'chambermaid' was long ago deemed sexist) and begin Monday morning at 10 a.m. This is a great relief. The job is for 30 hours a week, usually from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. The supervisor said it could easily and quickly lead to full-time as well as other opportunities within the international hotel chain.

I worked as a waitress/chambermaid for a summer while in university at a Muskoka resort and actually enjoyed cleaning rooms (to my surprise -- and probably to the surprise of anyone who knows me). The work is engaging, not too repetitive and one works on one's own for the most part. It's also more physically engaging than sitting at a computer for eight hours a day and frying my brains and eyes until my head is a vast wasteland. I don't plan on giving up fried brains but the change is needed and should be good.

This job may pay most of my rent, if not all of it, and will definitely ease the outward flow of savings. The hours are nicely situated to enable me to possibly work part-time somewhere in the afternoons or evenings as well.

And one of the great secrets to not feeling like a sad waterlogged piece of flotsam in the rainy streets of Cardiff is: dry feet. I finally dug out my watertight shoes yesterday from packed luggage and I'm now a happy little duck.