Work in a nunnery

Spring is here, the sun is out, the clouds have lifted and possibilities are as infinite as the sky!

That is, until I get to work.

Today, my boss booked me into a seminar in late November. My contract is due to expire at the end of October. I should be happy; this means they want to keep me. But I'm not sure I want to be kept - at five months this job is approaching my all-time employment record of six months (in an unpaid, come-and-go-as-you-please position). That's five solid months of getting up on time(ish). I have a smart flat complete with real wood floors and halogen lighting; I am joining a gym this week; I wear shiny pointy shoes - and hell, I wasn't even hungover on Sunday. This is growing up, and I don't think I like it.

Reading Byatt's Possession this evening (yep, I came home and settled on the sofa with a book, like a real adult) I came across the phrase 'full-blooded departmental male'. This is what my current job lacks: a full-blooded departmental male. We are a company of full-blooded departmental women. We sit up in our attic office, spinning words like a band of editorial spiders, or more romantically, like fairytale women trapped in towers, awaiting rescue by a knight on a staircase of books.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. FedEx pay us at least one visit a week, and they're normally pretty male, if not full-blooded. And I'm actually the only unmarried member of the gang. Debs is so inextricably intertwined with her boy-husband Alex that I really don't know how she makes it into work without him clinging around her ankles (I do have to listen to on average half a dozen 'It's in the second drawer, where the whisks are... Well, have you looked underneath the whisks? Mmm, yes I love you too...' phone calls per day, all announced by the epic ringtone 'Take My Breath Away'), and our boss Jacky, all jangling bangles, clinging sweater dresses and fiery red hair is apparently at the centre of some steamy love triangle involving the head of Waterstones and the head of Johnson & Johnson. Whereas yours truly... To be honest I suspect the main reason Jacky is so keen to keep me on is that there is basically zero chance of my absconding on interminable maternity leave. And because I like to gossip.

Just a thought: why is it that spiders are always figured as female? Is it just the spinning, or is it something more sinister to do with legs?