Surviving (and the kindness of others)

In the interest of full disclosure I wanted to share with you how I am surviving living in London on a salary of £0 and with rent of over 600 times that.

The simple answer is thanks to the insane generosity of my amazing friends, but not in the way you might think. I haven't, as yet, been given any cash money handouts although my best friend did pay for my recent trip to Edinburgh so her new born daughter could meet her skint, jobless, mainly drunk godmother for the first time - for which I am eternally grateful.

No, this generosity comes in the form of "eyes peeled, ears to the ground".

I have emails from people almost every day, some close friends and others not so much, offering to help me. They offer contacts at magazines or part time work they know of or suggestions of what to with myself (always useful). They also gush endlessly about how wonderful I am (all lies) when I randomly put them down as references for one of my many applications.

I receive all this help with such a feeling of gratitude that these people are my friends.

Add to this the kind act of my beloved Katy who has left me with the keys to her luxury pad in Central London so I can check the house is still standing, make sure the place looks alive and where I can also go to write every day, y'know like I have a real "job" to go to and ensuring I do actually leave the house every day.

As such I find myself with bits and pieces of part time work coming up which I think is just about going to see me through March-April AND I am writing a great deal more than I thought I would, because I have some structure to my day.

I do get very scared and spend a great deal of my time worrying about money, as evidenced by my horribly chewed at nails (one resolution that was not stuck to). But I cannot tell you how liberating it feels to plan your own day, to work only for yourself and to only have yourself to blame for your failures and, conversely, only yourself to thank for your success.

So far, so good.

Mini-break

Frankly I'm getting bored of my moping and moaning, so I can only imagine how my friends are faring.

In all honesty I've barely been out over the last fortnight, preferring to hole up with a bad box set and a bottle of wine. I am attempting to tick off my list but it is ever so tempting to indulge in my melancholy and turn to my dear friend Mrs Gin (yes, that is her name) for comfort.

Tomorrow I depart for 4 days in Edinburgh to see my best friend and her new baby Elodie. She has already given me a firm talking to about my current attitude and I have no doubt she will give me another pep talk tomorrow before taking me out to paint the town red (or should that be blue considering it's currently -1 in the city).

I plan to have complete radio silence while away which means no phone, no internet and no distractions. I will be taking a lot of pictures though and listening to a lot of jazz which I have decided is to be a new hobby of mine.

Have a wonderful few days and I hope to return next week rejuvenated and on some way to returning to my old self.