Thursday, September 18, 2003 (Stoke-on-Trent - England)
A possible job offer but will I be able to land
it? The long haul home. Our African mail awaits us.
Day 190. I was eager, this morning, to get to
an Internet café as soon as possible to try to learn more about the
potential contract job in Heerlen. It sounded almost too good to be true and
would mean an immediate halt to our current travels. We drove back into town and
over to the same car park that we used yesterday and then went in search of an
Internet terminal. We stopped in at the tourist information office to ask where
we could find one and were given a couple of options. With the extremely looming
deadline of the start date for the position, I wanted to get onto the Internet
as quickly as possible but everything seemed to conspire against us. The first
place we tried was quite a big place with some fifty or more terminals but due
to problems with their database, none of them were in working order. The busy
systems administrator did send us to an alternative that was supposedly around
the corner but after ten minutes or more of searching, we couldn’t find
it. We even went back to the first place to get more precise directions. When we
eventually found the place, their two terminals were also down. The guy there
was going to send us to another place but it was clear across town and neither
of us was really up to the energy expenditure. Sandy did one of her brilliant
sob story acts and the guy eventually buckled and let me use his terminal for a
few minutes. When I scanned my e-mail, I found the message I was looking for
from the consulting company that I exchanged e-mails with yesterday and the day
before. Alas, it was not good news. The position had now been filled. This left
me feeling somewhat dejected. For the rest of today, I’ve been kicking
myself for letting this one go. Could I have been more receptive earlier on in
the process? Might I have given the wrong impression about my ability to be back
in time to fill the role? Could I have done anything else to secure the
position? I’ll never know and will probably be kicking myself for the next
few days as a result.
Sullenly, we
walked out and strolled around for a bit. For some reason, the travel bug seemed
to have left me. I felt as if the wind was knocked out of my sails. I started to
think about this leg of the journey and the terms that we had set ourselves at
the outset. The idea behind purchasing the brick was going to be to use it to
explore the British Isles and Ireland whilst the good summer weather was still
in full force. We’ve had a good time touring around in the campervan but
the weather has definitely started to turn on us. Both of us are slowly tiring
just a little and it just seems to be the right time to inject another break
into the overall travel schedule. The missed job opportunity was the straw that
broke the camel’s back. We decided to bring an end to this round of
travelling and made the conscious decision to turn back South and head home.
Once there, I could turn my full attention to securing some temporary employment
in order that we beef up our funds before setting off again into the great
unknown.
Since leaving Glasgow
shortly after noon, we’ve travelled just about halfway home and are now
parked in a retail car park in Stoke-on-Trent. This is where Sandy’s
Pocket Dragons are apparently designed and manufactured and she is keen to get a
look in at the factory that is supposed to be here. We’ll make this the
first thing we do tomorrow morning before completing our return back to
Leigh-on-Sea and our cupboard under the
stairs.
I spoke with Jacqueline this
afternoon but did not let on that we were returning. She tells me that the final
package that we sent to ourselves from Africa (Kenya this time) has arrived.
Once again, we will be arriving home to greet the memories of a previous leg of
our grand tour and I am looking forward to unpacking it and sorting everything
out.
Posted: Thu - September 18, 2003 at 01:28 PM