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.

Drowned rat

The weather in London has been absolutely horrendous for the last two weeks. Icy cold, heavy downpours and occasional showers of snow have meant leaving the house, now that I don't have a job to go to, seems distinctly unappealing.

Tonight I had to jump through numerous puddles to reach my dinner location and still now, twenty minutes after getting home, my feet are like icicles.

In other news I have discovered chat roulette. I think this is possibly the most fascinating website, how did no one think of it before? If anyone hasn't heard of it, it is essentially a website where you are partnered up with another random stranger from the internet. You both see each other through your webcams and then can chat via messenger or your computers microphone. Obviously, being the WWW, there is a high risk you will be partnered with a man (or woman) keen to chat you up/show off their genitals - but then that's why it's called roulette...it's all part of the fun!