The weekend, for most folks, is usually a much anticipated time reserved for leisure and pleasure – time with the family, time with the friends, time at the beach, you get my drift. When you’re not working, and you’re as prone to fruitless anxiety as I am, the weekend means no chance of progress on the job front and just a couple of blank days of stressed hand wringing. And when the clock struck five on Friday and I still had no job offers on the table, I prepared myself for a solid 48 hours or so of sulking funk.

But despite my pessimistic inclinations, this weekend has turned out pretty damn well. I wrote a few days ago of my obsession with the local fauna here in Oz. Well, we ditched Z for our first trip into the bush and he missed out on the roo sightings. To rectify that, on Friday we took a trip up into the hills east of Adelaide to Cleland Wildlife Park to give him an up close and personal look. I know that it’s really little more than a souped up petting zoo, but feeding and petting kangaroos and wallabies in their native habitats is slightly more compelling than feeding an overweight goat behind a gas station. Z, disturbingly, didn’t seem to appreciate the difference between a six foot tall marsupial and Timmins. It’s probably a good thing that he’s a handsome lad.Also this weekend, Z’s started to crawl – something that I’ve been pushing him to do for the last several weeks. Something that I would now like him to stop. I once heard someone, a comedian or something, describe toddlers as being programmed to destroy themselves and our role as parents to stop them from doing so. Well, that’s coming pretty close to home as I’ve spent the weekend pulling Z away from dog water, power outlets and the gas fire.

But what made my weekend was a surprise phone call on Saturday afternoon. I had been to what I thought had been a successful interview on Thursday. The interviewers said that they were pleased and that they would let me know one way or another by the end of the day on Friday. That deadline passing is what had thrown me into such a spiral of grumpiness to begin with. But they came through on Saturday with apologies and a job offer. I think (and I write this whilst knocking on wood with crossed fingers, a challenge) that with a contract in hand to consider that I’m beyond the threat of jinxes, so I can tell you that I’ve got an offer to work as a writer. It’s not particularly glamorous work, nor the most fascinating. But it’s work. As a writer.

If you had asked me two-ish years ago what I would like to be doing today I would have said something about living near the beach with Dr. O’C and our first child and writing for a living. Well, we’re getting there.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers’t “Moanin’” is available from Amazon or Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin'.

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