Day 82

Applied for two school computer technician jobs. M revealed that she did get off with S at Glastonbury.

Day 81

Went round to M's,she told me all about her weekend at Glastonbury, and what a pain S was.

Day 80

Went for a drink with Sally, met Theresa McCarthy again. She did get on that computing MSc, SERC funded too. Had some scandal about M and Steve. Who knows what'll've happened at Glastonbury, what with the weather so hot, and all?

Day 79

Forget the past, there's a present to be saved!

Day 78

Finished Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Day 77

To Tesco with M for her Glastonbury supplies: on the way back I said the preparations were so interesting I wished I was going.

Day 76

Giro came. Cycled into town, had a look at the current Viz. It seems to've improved somewhat: a very funny strip 'Student Grant'.

Day 75

Round to parents' to give mum her present. She was quite taken with it. Dad generously gave me £4; it doesn't sound like much but I was able to get six cans to watch Pris with. Not bad for the last day of the fortnight.

Day 74

Had to queue for about 20 minutes to sign on.

Day 73

A year ago today I got the results of my finals. Lakeside with M again today, came back and talked to her brother again, and her mother as well this time.

Day 72

To Lakeside with M. Came back and talked to her and her brother till tea-time.

Day 71

A good day. The weather drifting up from the East got stormier and stormier.

Day 70

Into town with M to get a video to watch at J's. I wanted to get Switch but she insisted on Kindergarten Cop.

Day 69

Helped M install her new cordless phone.

Day 68

Read Jane Eyre.

Day 67

Bought mum an egg-timer sand-glass for her birthday, bottled out of going into a building society to open an account.

Day 66

Gave the Observer a cursory glance in the afternoon: how unlike a year ago when I wrung every ounce of interest from it. Several times in fact in those days I went up to the garage in the afternoon about 4pm for the Independent on Sunday, I was so bored.

Day 65

Mum came round, and Dad; they'd very kindly bought a new mattress for my bed.

Day 64

How empty the weekend seems now M's gone away.

Day 63

Went to Tescos for apples. Fine evening at the pub with M and J.

Day 62

Went to the library. M's in the evening.

Day 61

I may still be unemployed but I feel that I've been learning to make the most of it. I hope that in the future I can read this book and think 'Ah yes, those were the days of needless anxiety, before I found my direction in life.'

Day 60

Went and signed on. Then to M's. S rang up while I was there - wonder what's really going on between those two?

Came back, had dinner: pasta mixed with tinned macaroni cheese, a trick I learnt at uni: makes it go twice as far with very little loss of flavour or extra expense.

Day 59

Got very bored about 4pm and went for a walk around the old walking circuit. Back for a traditional Sunday tea with the (few) interesting bits of the Observer business section. Round to M's in the evening.

So: what has next week got in store for us? Got to sign on tomorrow; might get a reply to my Jobclub letter, for better or worse.

Day 58

The best I can say is at least things aren't as bad as they were back in the autumn - still, even that has a kind of retrospective glamour because I managed to survive it. October it really was, not the autumn; in September I had more cash and in November there were all those parties. So it wasn't so bad after all. (A moral there somewhere).

Day 57

S. rang, had a short talk. Dire tales of the squalid abode of two of our former acquaintances.

Day 56

Eleven months to the day and day of the week since graduation. 'Well, you wanted to know what would happen next' I thought as I walked to the paper shop in the rain.

Day 55

Nondescript day. Coming up for 11 months since the end of uni. Where do I go now? Logically to a job, but there aren't any. I can go on like this a while longer. Don't Panic! Perhaps my renewed assault on the Jobclub front will turn something up.

Day 54

Had a constructive day. Found £20 under my mattress, where I must've left it last Wednesday. On impulse bought a bag of brown bread flour and some yeast, made bread.

Day 53

Didn't get to sleep for hours, fought off unpleasant thoughts. Why do those things always get at me on Sunday nights?

Went through my job applications file, threw away reams of propaganda but kept every blank sheet for scrap paper. Actually opened the NRA and Weffolk County Council envelopes I was too depressed to open back in November - as I suspected, nothing important, except mention of a journal Opportunities about public sector vacancies. Was very put off by the aggression and commercialism of a lot of the propaganda brochures.

Still no sign of the missing £10 which I'd intended to put in the tin for the weekend. I can't've spent it.

Let's hope tomorrow's better, eh? Mondays under the new order have all been pretty bad, with the shining exception of last week's Bank Holiday Monday. Ah well.

Day 52

Wrote to the Jobclub bloke to try and find out what went wrong (after over a month - better late than never). Evening at M's.