2014 retrospective
I've had this half written for ages, it's taken me a ridiculously long time to finish it off. I'm posting it more as an aid to my future self rather than to remotely entertain anyone else, but if you're desperately bored do feel free to read about the things I did in 2014.
January.
2014 didn’t have the greatest start. Jeff & I went round to our friend’s house to see the New Year in, and it was supposed to be a nice night indoors with just 4 adults, our friends new baby and their 2 dogs, and I was looking forward to a low-key NYE. I decided not to drink so we could drive home rather than spend £30+ on a taxi home - we couldn’t stay over as our poorly cat needed regular meals, and our friends baby was cranky so we didn’t fancy being woken up by crying, or being the cause of an upset night.
All was well until about 2am, when one of our friends turned on me, accusing me of manipulating Jeff (no examples given, just angry conjecture), telling me that I’d planned to purposefully ruin everyone else’s night just because I wasn’t drinking (I wasn’t being quiet or sulky, I was laughing and joking all night and made no mention of not wanting to drink beyond saying I was designated driver), and generally telling me what an awful person I am. It was pretty horrible, not helped by Jeff having drunk so much he couldn’t form sentences, and the other friend having fallen asleep after drinking too much, so I was facing her sudden outburst alone. It was a grim hour or so of foul mood, ranting and tension, broken only when the other friend woke up and started a spirited debate about Miley Cyrus - I’ve never been so pleased to talk about her!
Afterwards I was too scared to say I wanted to go home, and so I ended up driving Jeff back at 5.30am when it was finally deemed a suitable time for us to leave. It was dangerous driving because I was very tired and upset, but thankfully the roads were clear and nothing happened. I spent January 1st in a state of intense anxiety and upset, and struggled to shake it off. Having spent 2012 & 2013 in treatment for social anxiety and trying my hardest to fight against my deeply held belief that I’m fundamentally unlikable as a person, then listening to someone tell me how awful they find me was difficult and traumatic, especially as the things she was accusing me of are uncomfortably close to the worst things I felt about myself, and I’d worked hard to break free from those negative thought patterns. I know the issue is with the attacker, rather than me, as she is deeply disliked by many people we know, and those who know both of us are astonished by the way she has routinely behaved towards me throughout my relationship with Jeff. It’s complicated by the fact that the friends in question are very close to Jeff, and I would never want to tell him not to have them in his life, but I absolutely don’t want them in mine any more.
The rest of January was relatively drama-free. I was hard at work on a BBC2 business documentary, and I got to see the inner workings of the Nissan factory and a Warburtons bakery, and both were much more interesting that I would have ever imagined. I had a lot of fun at work, and even though I knew my contract was ending in mid-February, I felt positive about my future employment prospects. We saw Dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip for the last time before they split, and it was great to leap about to loud music with friends. We watched lots of films and enjoyed time with the cats. Aside from January 1st, it was a good month.
February.
February featured my first ever gap in employment since becoming a freelancer. At first, it was a relief - I’d barely had any time off in 2013. After Jeff’s birthday in early March ’13, I was working every single day before going to Glastonbury in late June ’13. As a result, I was owed almost 30 days holiday from the company I left, and I used it to cover my notice period so I could start a new job straight away. So in 2013 I essentially had no time off aside from 3 festival weekends, which are hardly known for being relaxing breaks! So when I found myself in a state of “funemployment” in early 2014 I was determined to make the most of having nothing to do. The industry I work in is very quiet between December - April, so I knew the chances of finding a job were limited. So February saw lots of boring indoors stuff like watching documentaries, reading and unhealthy amounts of computer game activity.
Our friend Gemma got married on 14th February, so we had a nice drive to Wales with a couple of other friends for the reception. She had the wedding day she dreamed of, and it was lovely to see her so happy. I definitely left the house again at one point to watch Frank Turner, and I attempted to keep at a jogging routine, but gave up after 5 weeks, because it’s much nicer to be inside doing nothing, than outside sweating and being stared at.
March.
As anticipated, I was out of work for most of March. I’d put aside some funds for Jeff’s birthday, so I wasn’t feeling like too much of a tight-arse when we went out. I worked for a couple of days on the final round of Big Brother auditions in Manchester, which was fun. Although the weekend they were on clashed with Jeff’s birthday, which meant that I went in to work in an extremely hungover state on the second day. Actually, I nearly didn’t go in for the second day - my alarm went off and I thought “fuck it” and went back to sleep. Then I received about a dozen calls and texts from the team, so I went in about an hour late, and somehow made it through an intense 10 hours of dealing with the fame hungry & desperate. Aside from that, I spent an increasing amount of time at home caring for our poorly cat, as by this time she needed lots of medication throughout the day. Although I was freaking out with boredom and fear of never being employed again, I made the most of this quiet time with the cats, and was grateful that I was able to stay at home and look after the poorly one properly. The vets had made it very clear that she had a matter of weeks left, and I wanted to make them comfortable for her.
I went to see Fall Out Boy in March, and it was AMAZING.
I finally got another Researcher job at the end of March, but it meant I had base myself in London and Bristol for two weeks. It was hard being away from home for so long, but the job I was doing was so intense that I barely had time to think about how homesick I was. I told Jeff not to tell me if that cat died while I was away, because I knew I would get upset with myself for not being there. She lived long enough for me to see her again, thankfully. My auntie Tracy didn’t, though. She died aged 48 from a brain aneurysm in late March. Although I was never close with her, it was still shocking to hear of her death. She was a big, forceful personality and it’s strange to think I’ll never see her again.
March was a good month though, overall. I felt refreshed and determined after a break in employment, I was happy and excited for the future, and as hard as it was doing a full on job away from home, I had great fun and definitely made the right decision in accepting the work.
April
I made it home from London in mid-April, happy to see my poorly cat, and thankful for another bout of funemployment as the weeks spent in the south had been hard, hard work with no days off. I was able to spend around 10 days with the poorly cat before she died. Our surviving cat became especially clingy afterwards. It’s still upsetting to think about it. I wrote about her on here, and I still find that entry difficult to read.
The programme I’d worked on in March and April was broadcast a day after I got home, and I received my first ever Assistant Producer credit, which was massively exciting. It was especially lovely as the Producer of the show demanded I get a promotion in the credits after working hard. It’s always a gratifying feeling when your dedication to a production is recognised. On the same day, the BBC business documentary was broadcast, so it was quite exciting to see two shows I’d worked hard on make it onto TV, but it was also a reminder of my unemployed status, and I spent much of that night awake, wondering if I’d ever make it onto the credits of a programme again. It wasn’t helped by the business programme getting lower ratings than expected, so the recommission and long contract myself & the rest of the team had hoped for seemed incredibly unlikely.
Very shortly after our cat died, I was offered a job, this time in Brighton for 6 weeks. I had reservations, as the cost of staying down there, plus travelling home at the weekends would eat heavily into my wages, and I also hadn’t particularly liked the people I would be working with when I met them for the interview. But my fear of not finding other work prompted me to take the job. I found a room to rent in a gorgeous little flat by the sea, and tried to get stuck in to the work. It rained every single day I was there, which made going out and exploring the city difficult. Working with utter knobs didn’t help, either, but I got my head down and on with the job.
May
By early May, I was already regretting the temporary move to Brighton. The job was extraordinarily difficult, and I was without a supportive group of colleagues to take the edge off. The people I shared an office with were very cliquey, had known each other for years, and had been promoted beyond their ability and experience thanks to the business owner's naivety. So they all felt very pleased with themselves, and didn’t take well to a lesser ranked out-of-towner who was better able to anticipate the needs of the production. I was severely homesick and lonely. The room I rented was next to a pub that hosted terrible acoustic gigs most evenings, so I had trouble getting any peace. The weather was horrendous - heavy wind and rain most days, so the evenings I’d imagined of lounging on the beach reading were out of the question. I was renting a room from an air-hostess who was hardly home, so I had no-one I felt I could really talk to. I was working long hours in the office just for something to do, and would head home only when I knew Jeff was free to chat to me. The staff in the office talked mostly of people, productions and events that I had no knowledge of, so I found it difficult to join in. I did manage to remedy this by asking if people fancied drinks after work one day, and we spent a relatively happy few hours chatting in a pub together, and things in the office were slightly better after that.
I managed to get home most weekends, and there always seemed to be something to do - weddings, birthday outings and so on. Our friends Steve and Mari had a second wedding ceremony - she's a US citizen and they were legally married in November 2012, but had then lived apart, as she had to move back to America whilst her application to live in Britain was processed. It took much longer than they anticipated, and their big Manchester wedding was postponed for a year. In one final awful twist, Mari was extremely ill on the day they were finally able to celebrate with their UK friends and family, and she spent much of the day being sick whilst the wedding and party went on. My heart broke for her, they'd worked so hard to finally have a proper ceremony in the city they want to settle together in. I hope she managed to make some happy memories of the day, at least.
One weekend we went to watch Pure Love in Manchester, and they were astonishing. I pretty much just listened to their album on repeat on the train back to Brighton. I was tremendously grateful for my Manchester friends; the time spent with them at this point helped to remind me that I am the kind of person that people enjoy spending time with. It was good.
June
The end of the job in Brighton was in sight and I was literally counting down the days until I could go home. Jeff came for a visit on the final weekend, and the weather finally perked up, and it was gorgeous. We had a brilliant two days shopping, eating and strolling in the sun. We saw a naked bike ride, were attacked by seagulls, and generally had an ace time. We went to see Sonic Boom Six play and had a bit of a laugh at the expense of the overly self-aware patrons of the metal club they played. Similar venues in Manchester would have rammed dance floors, laughter and fun. In Brighton, it was mostly just Jeff and I dancing, long after midnight, as everyone else seemed far too determined to look cool than to let loose and have fun. The pretension finally got too much, so we walked home along the beach eating doughnuts and feeling happy.
The job finally ended, and I had a couple of days at home before the camping kit came out of the cupboard and we headed to Download Festival. It was a brilliant weekend, and like the time spent with friends in May, it helped me re-connect with myself after being made to feel like an uncomfortable outsider for 6 long weeks. There’s no therapy quite like time with friends who fully accept you & your flaws.
Before leaving Brighton, I’d been offered a job in London that would keep me employed until October - a lovely long contract by TV standards. I couldn’t quite settle with the idea of accepting it though. I’d found being away from home such a struggle, and after the cost of having to rent a second flat & then travel home every weekend, I barely had any money to show for it. It was a hard decision as I was terrified of not getting another job, but I decided from that point I would only accept jobs that were close to home. What complicated everything was that we had decided to try and buy our flat. We’d been renting for 2 years until our landlady suddenly died, and her widow wanted to sell up so he could move back to his home country of Germany with their young child. We’d been saving for a house, so we had the money to put a 10% deposit down, though we weren’t in a position to to move out to somewhere bigger, which is what we had been frantically saving for. Although we’d been saving for a house, it seemed to make sense to buy the flat when it was offered to us and then continue to save up to get a bigger amount together for somewhere nicer. Our flat is lovely, but it’s small and shared by 2 hairy adults and an even hairier cat. We’d outgrown it long ago, but we knew that trying to find another rental that would allow pets would be difficult, so we decided to try and buy it.
Thankfully I didn’t have too long to wait before I was offered another job. A day after I officially declined work in London, I was offered a contract in Leeds. A year ago, I probably would have turned a job in Leeds down, but I was so relieved at the prospect of coming home every night that I didn’t care about the extra 2 hours the travel would add to my day. The job was only supposed to be 3 weeks long, in any case.
When I started, I was concerned to find it was in another small office staffed by people who’d worked there for ages, but the Producer I was working with was lovely, and we had a good time. I was working on a documentary about naturists in St. Albans, so I was actually away from home much more than anticipated, as the Producer and I stayed in a nearby hotel 4 or 5 nights a week. Ah well, it was only for 3 weeks…
July
Except it wasn’t. The role I was originally offered was a 3 week contract to cover the programme’s researcher, who was taking 3 weeks leave to be in a play. But when she came back, the Producer decided he wanted me to stay on the project, as I’d built good working relationships with people who were usually shy and reluctant to be featured on television. My contract was extended to cover the full production. This was not received well by the returning researcher, and she actively made my occasional days in the office very uncomfortable. It’s a shame, as I really enjoyed the job, even though I was working away from home for 5 days a week, it felt like I got to see more of Jeff than I had when I’d been elsewhere and everything generally felt nice and happy, but the reaction of the girl I replaced soured the experience. She made a point of highlighting each thing the Producer and I were doing wrong.
It’s easy to make small mistakes when you’re working 10+ hour days with naturists, as they’re secretive, awkward people as a result of hiding their naturism from people for years. The Producer and I worked hard and made friends with them, but would return to the office to awkward silences and accusing faces, our achievements overlooked, and the footage we were unable to get discussed instead. The producer & I were more experienced than the others in the office, so it was extremely irritating to have them talk constantly about how much better it would have been if they’d have been filming instead of us. It got so bad that the Producer started working from home, as he said that if he was forced to spend time in the office he’d have walked out of the job. He stuck up for me at every turn, providing proof that I was working extremely hard (it’s ridiculous that this was even called into question, simply because of the bitchiness of a junior member of staff). It got better after he made a genuine threat to resign, because the working relationship between our team and the rest of the office had become so distorted by the actions of one person. I actually received an apology from the boss of the company in the end.
Outside of work, one of our very close friends had an intensely traumatic July, and was verging on a breakdown. I don't want to go into it too much, but I'm glad the the long phone conversations we had, and the visits Jeff and I made, seemed to help them come to terms with certain events. It's still an ongoing healing process process for them, but our friendship is much, much stronger for it, and it's also helped me open up about many of the dark times I had during my own mental health difficulties. I'm pleased that Jeff and I are people our friends feel comfortable reaching out to when help is needed, even if all I can offer is my listening abilities on the other end of the phone when I'm working away.
So, July was mostly spent in the company of naked old people. It was baking hot, and I spent each working day outdoors, which was actually quite nice once I’d got used to all the naked oldies. I adjusted to it much faster than I imagined I would, and overall it was a really enjoyable programme to work on, and I had a lot of fun.
August
The job on the naturist documentary ended the weekend before my 30th birthday. I spent the last weekend of my 20’s watching naked pensioners dancing around in a pub, covered in splodges of UV paint. The final working day was exhausting, and I was kind of relieved it was all over so I could be away from the weird tension caused by people in the office. I was looking forward to being in my own, naturist free garden and enjoying the sun. But summer seemed to end the second I got back to Manchester, and the rest of the month was a wash out.
My 30th birthday was lovely. I’d told Jeff earlier in the year that I’d wanted to be away on my birthday, so that I could be distracted by the crushing horror of turning 30. It must have been difficult for him to arrange, as my work situation was ever changing as a result of being a freelancer, but I was determined to not work during my birthday. A couple of days before, he took me to Sheffield to catch up with old friends before going to watch Dead Kennedy’s, which was wonderful. We had a great time chatting in the pub, and it was ace to be surrounded by young people in clothes! The gig was brilliant, too. The next day, we got the train home before I was driven off to my mystery birthday retreat. Jeff had found this incredible hotel in Anglesey, it was in a beautiful building made for exploring. The weather wasn’t great, but we went for a wander around the town anyway, before heading back to the hotel to watch documentaries and drink champagne. The best way to end my 20’s.
The plan for my actual birthday was to find a lovely stretch of beach somewhere and vegetate for the day, but that was scuppered when someone paying more attention to their satnav than the blind bend they were approaching slammed into our car, writing it, and the rest of the afternoon, off. So I spent my first day as a 30-something doing the most boring thing imaginable - phoning the AA, waiting on a country road in the middle of nowhere for hours to be picked up, before being driven to an industrial estate to do more waiting. There were no replacement cars available, so we were given a van to drive home in. Jeff, who had been driving when the crash happened, was understandably shaken, so after driving back to the hotel we called it a day. It was 5pm, the weather was drizzly, so we tried to rescue my birthday by getting into the hotel hot tub and drinking some more. The rescue plan worked. A couple of hours of gazing out at the incredible view from the outdoor hot tub whilst drinking champagne fixed everything. There was a wedding at the hotel, and it was nice to see happy people everywhere (and a Pug!) and it brought back lovely memories from our own day. The day ended with more documentaries and booze. Lovely. The next day, we went out with friends in Manchester, drank, danced, and generally had an amazing time.
The following week I was phoned by the horrible producer I’d worked with in Brighton - she wanted to know if I was available for a couple of days work in Manchester. I was poor and unemployed, so I said yes, even though I knew it would be horrendous. I spent 2 days in the Trafford Centre, trying to talk people into agreeing to being filmed getting in the changing room, for a Channel 4 documentary. It was long, stressful and thankless, but I needed the money.
We had been toying with the idea of going to Leeds Festival, but in late August the fact that we were about to buy our flat, and therefore handover every penny of our savings, became very real. So we decided to be grown-ups for a bit, and chose not to go to the festival. It was very odd spending the August Bank Holiday at home. Jeff & I have been to every Leeds festival together since 2007, so it was a shame to end the tradition, but we made the most of the weekend and spent time with friends.
September.
I was unemployed for the whole of September. The flat purchase was going through, but my freelancer status meant only Jeff could go on the mortgage. As part of the legal process, I had to pay for the privilege of a solicitor telling me I had no right to stay in the property if anything happens to Jeff, even though a substantial amount of my own money had been put into the deposit.
I spent a great deal of September wondering if I was in the right career. I’d been away from home for a huge proportion of the year. I’d worked intensely long hours for no extra pay, been treated horribly by some colleagues, and it was impossible to make any plans more than a week or so in advance, in case I got a job. I’d missed numerous birthdays, holidays, gigs, parties, weddings, and now the chance to co-own a home with my husband as a result of working in TV. I was gloomy and introspective. For most of September there was no work, people on TV job forums were commenting on how eerily quiet it was. Could I face doing this multiple times a year? Each time I got paid from a job I would squirrel away 50% of my earnings so I was covered during breaks between work, so even though I was earning quite well when I was working, I wasn’t able to enjoy it as it would quickly drain away when I wasn’t.
The end of September saw a few leads in potential jobs, and I started to cheer up. I’d applied for “normal” work with no success as a result of all the TV stuff on my CV, so I figured I’d best just stick at it. In the meantime, I enrolled on a Counselling Concepts course, a 10 week taster for people interested in pursuing a career in Counselling & Psychotherapy. Aside from telly-making, it’s the only other thing that really, strongly appeals. It started in late September. Everything got better after that.
October.
In early October I was offered 3 jobs on the same day. One of them was with the company I’d walked out of in 2013, which illustrates how desperate I must have been for work in order to get in touch with them. The other was on the Chelsea Housewives programme, and sounded awful. The other was for CBBC, had the longest contract and the best pay, so I went with that. It started in mid-October, which meant I was able to properly enjoy a week of doing nothing.
It was a lovely, lovely job. I worked with a great Series Producer who was amazing fun to spend time with, he trusted and respected me enough to get on with my work unattended, and we had a proper laugh together. I continued on the Counselling course and he was happy for me to shuffle my hours to accommodate it. I went to see the Menzingers and Future of the Left, who were both ace. I had to skip Twin Atlantic due to work, but I was happy to be doing a job I enjoyed, so it wasn’t a massive sacrifice.
I knew I was contracted until December, and so I decided to buy a car with the aim of driving it frequently to overcome my nerves of driving. The car cost £250, but seemed to work fine. It was old, but it had been looked after. Still, it broke down less than 48 hours after we bought it. Thankfully, it was nothing serious, and it made it through the rest of the month without a hitch. (10 months later, it's still going!)
Jeff’s sister got married in October, and I was a bridesmaid. She was in a deeply bad mood the morning of her wedding, and nothing I, the other bridesmaids or her family did or said shifted it. She was exceptionally rude to me on my own wedding day, and the childish part of me wanted to retaliate on hers, but it seemed she did a good enough job of spoiling it for herself, so I remained cheerful in the face of her tantrums and horrid farts (I wish that was a joke, but she openly did horrible farts when we were getting ready, and they smelled vile. She even did one during the service). She looked irritated throughout the entire day, and only seemed to perk up once she was dancing with her friends in the evening. It was very odd, but me, Jeff and our friends enjoyed it, even if she didn’t.
November
I was still employed by CBBC, and I was away a lot casting families for the programme I was on. Working with the Series Producer was still a lot of fun, and the whole process was enjoyable, even though I was once again in hotels for 4 or 5 nights a week. Jeff and I managed to get over to Leeds to see B. Dolan, and marvelled that our £250 car made it there and back safely.
We began to put together a list of improvements we could do to the flat, in the hope of selling it at a bit of a profit in 2015. We’d bought it for a slightly reduced rate, but as it has been rented out for several years, it needs TLC. My dad (accidentally) set fire to the front room carpet, and the lino in the hall and kitchen is an eyesore. The furniture is obviously the stuff the landlady and her husband didn’t want, and the paint work is grubby and off-colour in places. We put together a little “project equity” list, and things generally felt exciting. November was uneventful, but it was a good one. Jeff was ill on our wedding anniversary, but we had a nice time anyway. We got a little embroidered tree, with two leaves on it to symbolise years spent together. We will add another leaf for each year we manage to not murder each other
December.
My contract at CBBC was due to end just before Christmas, but they extended me until mid-April. It was a huge relief. Buying the flat and car had wiped out my savings, and I’d struggled to put anything else aside between October and December. 4 more months of work was a godsend, and April is a good time to job hunt in TV, as the new financial year results in lots of commissions for people to make things. Again, I was away an awful lot finding families to appear on the programme, but production shut down for 3 over Christmas so I used all the days I was owed to cover a relaxed and financially stress-free Christmas. I ate too much, spent far too long playing computer games and watching TV, and just generally enjoying being at home. Early in the Christmas break, I sat down and worked out that I’d been away from home for almost 200 nights that year. So I felt justified in staying indoors with Jeff and the cat.
The Counselling course finished in mid-December, and I was offered a place on next level of training course. Jeff and I had a fairly low-key NYE in the company of people who know how to be nice to others, and so the year ended on a very good note.
TL:DR:
In 2014 I spent all of my money on a flat I don’t legally own, a car that probably isn’t safe to drive, and funded myself through periods of downtime between work. I saw a lot of naked old people, I worked with some utter shit bags, but I met some really nice people along the way too. One of our cats died, and the other has seized the opportunity to be centre of attention. I was often unhappy in a career many people are desperate to have. I realised who my friends were, and I made positive steps towards doing something worthy for a living. I turned 30 and the weight of my wrinkled skin didn’t make my face fall off, though I did have a car crash.
All in all, it was a pretty good year!
January.
2014 didn’t have the greatest start. Jeff & I went round to our friend’s house to see the New Year in, and it was supposed to be a nice night indoors with just 4 adults, our friends new baby and their 2 dogs, and I was looking forward to a low-key NYE. I decided not to drink so we could drive home rather than spend £30+ on a taxi home - we couldn’t stay over as our poorly cat needed regular meals, and our friends baby was cranky so we didn’t fancy being woken up by crying, or being the cause of an upset night.
All was well until about 2am, when one of our friends turned on me, accusing me of manipulating Jeff (no examples given, just angry conjecture), telling me that I’d planned to purposefully ruin everyone else’s night just because I wasn’t drinking (I wasn’t being quiet or sulky, I was laughing and joking all night and made no mention of not wanting to drink beyond saying I was designated driver), and generally telling me what an awful person I am. It was pretty horrible, not helped by Jeff having drunk so much he couldn’t form sentences, and the other friend having fallen asleep after drinking too much, so I was facing her sudden outburst alone. It was a grim hour or so of foul mood, ranting and tension, broken only when the other friend woke up and started a spirited debate about Miley Cyrus - I’ve never been so pleased to talk about her!
Afterwards I was too scared to say I wanted to go home, and so I ended up driving Jeff back at 5.30am when it was finally deemed a suitable time for us to leave. It was dangerous driving because I was very tired and upset, but thankfully the roads were clear and nothing happened. I spent January 1st in a state of intense anxiety and upset, and struggled to shake it off. Having spent 2012 & 2013 in treatment for social anxiety and trying my hardest to fight against my deeply held belief that I’m fundamentally unlikable as a person, then listening to someone tell me how awful they find me was difficult and traumatic, especially as the things she was accusing me of are uncomfortably close to the worst things I felt about myself, and I’d worked hard to break free from those negative thought patterns. I know the issue is with the attacker, rather than me, as she is deeply disliked by many people we know, and those who know both of us are astonished by the way she has routinely behaved towards me throughout my relationship with Jeff. It’s complicated by the fact that the friends in question are very close to Jeff, and I would never want to tell him not to have them in his life, but I absolutely don’t want them in mine any more.
The rest of January was relatively drama-free. I was hard at work on a BBC2 business documentary, and I got to see the inner workings of the Nissan factory and a Warburtons bakery, and both were much more interesting that I would have ever imagined. I had a lot of fun at work, and even though I knew my contract was ending in mid-February, I felt positive about my future employment prospects. We saw Dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip for the last time before they split, and it was great to leap about to loud music with friends. We watched lots of films and enjoyed time with the cats. Aside from January 1st, it was a good month.
February.
February featured my first ever gap in employment since becoming a freelancer. At first, it was a relief - I’d barely had any time off in 2013. After Jeff’s birthday in early March ’13, I was working every single day before going to Glastonbury in late June ’13. As a result, I was owed almost 30 days holiday from the company I left, and I used it to cover my notice period so I could start a new job straight away. So in 2013 I essentially had no time off aside from 3 festival weekends, which are hardly known for being relaxing breaks! So when I found myself in a state of “funemployment” in early 2014 I was determined to make the most of having nothing to do. The industry I work in is very quiet between December - April, so I knew the chances of finding a job were limited. So February saw lots of boring indoors stuff like watching documentaries, reading and unhealthy amounts of computer game activity.
Our friend Gemma got married on 14th February, so we had a nice drive to Wales with a couple of other friends for the reception. She had the wedding day she dreamed of, and it was lovely to see her so happy. I definitely left the house again at one point to watch Frank Turner, and I attempted to keep at a jogging routine, but gave up after 5 weeks, because it’s much nicer to be inside doing nothing, than outside sweating and being stared at.
March.
As anticipated, I was out of work for most of March. I’d put aside some funds for Jeff’s birthday, so I wasn’t feeling like too much of a tight-arse when we went out. I worked for a couple of days on the final round of Big Brother auditions in Manchester, which was fun. Although the weekend they were on clashed with Jeff’s birthday, which meant that I went in to work in an extremely hungover state on the second day. Actually, I nearly didn’t go in for the second day - my alarm went off and I thought “fuck it” and went back to sleep. Then I received about a dozen calls and texts from the team, so I went in about an hour late, and somehow made it through an intense 10 hours of dealing with the fame hungry & desperate. Aside from that, I spent an increasing amount of time at home caring for our poorly cat, as by this time she needed lots of medication throughout the day. Although I was freaking out with boredom and fear of never being employed again, I made the most of this quiet time with the cats, and was grateful that I was able to stay at home and look after the poorly one properly. The vets had made it very clear that she had a matter of weeks left, and I wanted to make them comfortable for her.
I went to see Fall Out Boy in March, and it was AMAZING.
I finally got another Researcher job at the end of March, but it meant I had base myself in London and Bristol for two weeks. It was hard being away from home for so long, but the job I was doing was so intense that I barely had time to think about how homesick I was. I told Jeff not to tell me if that cat died while I was away, because I knew I would get upset with myself for not being there. She lived long enough for me to see her again, thankfully. My auntie Tracy didn’t, though. She died aged 48 from a brain aneurysm in late March. Although I was never close with her, it was still shocking to hear of her death. She was a big, forceful personality and it’s strange to think I’ll never see her again.
March was a good month though, overall. I felt refreshed and determined after a break in employment, I was happy and excited for the future, and as hard as it was doing a full on job away from home, I had great fun and definitely made the right decision in accepting the work.
April
I made it home from London in mid-April, happy to see my poorly cat, and thankful for another bout of funemployment as the weeks spent in the south had been hard, hard work with no days off. I was able to spend around 10 days with the poorly cat before she died. Our surviving cat became especially clingy afterwards. It’s still upsetting to think about it. I wrote about her on here, and I still find that entry difficult to read.
The programme I’d worked on in March and April was broadcast a day after I got home, and I received my first ever Assistant Producer credit, which was massively exciting. It was especially lovely as the Producer of the show demanded I get a promotion in the credits after working hard. It’s always a gratifying feeling when your dedication to a production is recognised. On the same day, the BBC business documentary was broadcast, so it was quite exciting to see two shows I’d worked hard on make it onto TV, but it was also a reminder of my unemployed status, and I spent much of that night awake, wondering if I’d ever make it onto the credits of a programme again. It wasn’t helped by the business programme getting lower ratings than expected, so the recommission and long contract myself & the rest of the team had hoped for seemed incredibly unlikely.
Very shortly after our cat died, I was offered a job, this time in Brighton for 6 weeks. I had reservations, as the cost of staying down there, plus travelling home at the weekends would eat heavily into my wages, and I also hadn’t particularly liked the people I would be working with when I met them for the interview. But my fear of not finding other work prompted me to take the job. I found a room to rent in a gorgeous little flat by the sea, and tried to get stuck in to the work. It rained every single day I was there, which made going out and exploring the city difficult. Working with utter knobs didn’t help, either, but I got my head down and on with the job.
May
By early May, I was already regretting the temporary move to Brighton. The job was extraordinarily difficult, and I was without a supportive group of colleagues to take the edge off. The people I shared an office with were very cliquey, had known each other for years, and had been promoted beyond their ability and experience thanks to the business owner's naivety. So they all felt very pleased with themselves, and didn’t take well to a lesser ranked out-of-towner who was better able to anticipate the needs of the production. I was severely homesick and lonely. The room I rented was next to a pub that hosted terrible acoustic gigs most evenings, so I had trouble getting any peace. The weather was horrendous - heavy wind and rain most days, so the evenings I’d imagined of lounging on the beach reading were out of the question. I was renting a room from an air-hostess who was hardly home, so I had no-one I felt I could really talk to. I was working long hours in the office just for something to do, and would head home only when I knew Jeff was free to chat to me. The staff in the office talked mostly of people, productions and events that I had no knowledge of, so I found it difficult to join in. I did manage to remedy this by asking if people fancied drinks after work one day, and we spent a relatively happy few hours chatting in a pub together, and things in the office were slightly better after that.
I managed to get home most weekends, and there always seemed to be something to do - weddings, birthday outings and so on. Our friends Steve and Mari had a second wedding ceremony - she's a US citizen and they were legally married in November 2012, but had then lived apart, as she had to move back to America whilst her application to live in Britain was processed. It took much longer than they anticipated, and their big Manchester wedding was postponed for a year. In one final awful twist, Mari was extremely ill on the day they were finally able to celebrate with their UK friends and family, and she spent much of the day being sick whilst the wedding and party went on. My heart broke for her, they'd worked so hard to finally have a proper ceremony in the city they want to settle together in. I hope she managed to make some happy memories of the day, at least.
One weekend we went to watch Pure Love in Manchester, and they were astonishing. I pretty much just listened to their album on repeat on the train back to Brighton. I was tremendously grateful for my Manchester friends; the time spent with them at this point helped to remind me that I am the kind of person that people enjoy spending time with. It was good.
June
The end of the job in Brighton was in sight and I was literally counting down the days until I could go home. Jeff came for a visit on the final weekend, and the weather finally perked up, and it was gorgeous. We had a brilliant two days shopping, eating and strolling in the sun. We saw a naked bike ride, were attacked by seagulls, and generally had an ace time. We went to see Sonic Boom Six play and had a bit of a laugh at the expense of the overly self-aware patrons of the metal club they played. Similar venues in Manchester would have rammed dance floors, laughter and fun. In Brighton, it was mostly just Jeff and I dancing, long after midnight, as everyone else seemed far too determined to look cool than to let loose and have fun. The pretension finally got too much, so we walked home along the beach eating doughnuts and feeling happy.
The job finally ended, and I had a couple of days at home before the camping kit came out of the cupboard and we headed to Download Festival. It was a brilliant weekend, and like the time spent with friends in May, it helped me re-connect with myself after being made to feel like an uncomfortable outsider for 6 long weeks. There’s no therapy quite like time with friends who fully accept you & your flaws.
Before leaving Brighton, I’d been offered a job in London that would keep me employed until October - a lovely long contract by TV standards. I couldn’t quite settle with the idea of accepting it though. I’d found being away from home such a struggle, and after the cost of having to rent a second flat & then travel home every weekend, I barely had any money to show for it. It was a hard decision as I was terrified of not getting another job, but I decided from that point I would only accept jobs that were close to home. What complicated everything was that we had decided to try and buy our flat. We’d been renting for 2 years until our landlady suddenly died, and her widow wanted to sell up so he could move back to his home country of Germany with their young child. We’d been saving for a house, so we had the money to put a 10% deposit down, though we weren’t in a position to to move out to somewhere bigger, which is what we had been frantically saving for. Although we’d been saving for a house, it seemed to make sense to buy the flat when it was offered to us and then continue to save up to get a bigger amount together for somewhere nicer. Our flat is lovely, but it’s small and shared by 2 hairy adults and an even hairier cat. We’d outgrown it long ago, but we knew that trying to find another rental that would allow pets would be difficult, so we decided to try and buy it.
Thankfully I didn’t have too long to wait before I was offered another job. A day after I officially declined work in London, I was offered a contract in Leeds. A year ago, I probably would have turned a job in Leeds down, but I was so relieved at the prospect of coming home every night that I didn’t care about the extra 2 hours the travel would add to my day. The job was only supposed to be 3 weeks long, in any case.
When I started, I was concerned to find it was in another small office staffed by people who’d worked there for ages, but the Producer I was working with was lovely, and we had a good time. I was working on a documentary about naturists in St. Albans, so I was actually away from home much more than anticipated, as the Producer and I stayed in a nearby hotel 4 or 5 nights a week. Ah well, it was only for 3 weeks…
July
Except it wasn’t. The role I was originally offered was a 3 week contract to cover the programme’s researcher, who was taking 3 weeks leave to be in a play. But when she came back, the Producer decided he wanted me to stay on the project, as I’d built good working relationships with people who were usually shy and reluctant to be featured on television. My contract was extended to cover the full production. This was not received well by the returning researcher, and she actively made my occasional days in the office very uncomfortable. It’s a shame, as I really enjoyed the job, even though I was working away from home for 5 days a week, it felt like I got to see more of Jeff than I had when I’d been elsewhere and everything generally felt nice and happy, but the reaction of the girl I replaced soured the experience. She made a point of highlighting each thing the Producer and I were doing wrong.
It’s easy to make small mistakes when you’re working 10+ hour days with naturists, as they’re secretive, awkward people as a result of hiding their naturism from people for years. The Producer and I worked hard and made friends with them, but would return to the office to awkward silences and accusing faces, our achievements overlooked, and the footage we were unable to get discussed instead. The producer & I were more experienced than the others in the office, so it was extremely irritating to have them talk constantly about how much better it would have been if they’d have been filming instead of us. It got so bad that the Producer started working from home, as he said that if he was forced to spend time in the office he’d have walked out of the job. He stuck up for me at every turn, providing proof that I was working extremely hard (it’s ridiculous that this was even called into question, simply because of the bitchiness of a junior member of staff). It got better after he made a genuine threat to resign, because the working relationship between our team and the rest of the office had become so distorted by the actions of one person. I actually received an apology from the boss of the company in the end.
Outside of work, one of our very close friends had an intensely traumatic July, and was verging on a breakdown. I don't want to go into it too much, but I'm glad the the long phone conversations we had, and the visits Jeff and I made, seemed to help them come to terms with certain events. It's still an ongoing healing process process for them, but our friendship is much, much stronger for it, and it's also helped me open up about many of the dark times I had during my own mental health difficulties. I'm pleased that Jeff and I are people our friends feel comfortable reaching out to when help is needed, even if all I can offer is my listening abilities on the other end of the phone when I'm working away.
So, July was mostly spent in the company of naked old people. It was baking hot, and I spent each working day outdoors, which was actually quite nice once I’d got used to all the naked oldies. I adjusted to it much faster than I imagined I would, and overall it was a really enjoyable programme to work on, and I had a lot of fun.
August
The job on the naturist documentary ended the weekend before my 30th birthday. I spent the last weekend of my 20’s watching naked pensioners dancing around in a pub, covered in splodges of UV paint. The final working day was exhausting, and I was kind of relieved it was all over so I could be away from the weird tension caused by people in the office. I was looking forward to being in my own, naturist free garden and enjoying the sun. But summer seemed to end the second I got back to Manchester, and the rest of the month was a wash out.
My 30th birthday was lovely. I’d told Jeff earlier in the year that I’d wanted to be away on my birthday, so that I could be distracted by the crushing horror of turning 30. It must have been difficult for him to arrange, as my work situation was ever changing as a result of being a freelancer, but I was determined to not work during my birthday. A couple of days before, he took me to Sheffield to catch up with old friends before going to watch Dead Kennedy’s, which was wonderful. We had a great time chatting in the pub, and it was ace to be surrounded by young people in clothes! The gig was brilliant, too. The next day, we got the train home before I was driven off to my mystery birthday retreat. Jeff had found this incredible hotel in Anglesey, it was in a beautiful building made for exploring. The weather wasn’t great, but we went for a wander around the town anyway, before heading back to the hotel to watch documentaries and drink champagne. The best way to end my 20’s.
The plan for my actual birthday was to find a lovely stretch of beach somewhere and vegetate for the day, but that was scuppered when someone paying more attention to their satnav than the blind bend they were approaching slammed into our car, writing it, and the rest of the afternoon, off. So I spent my first day as a 30-something doing the most boring thing imaginable - phoning the AA, waiting on a country road in the middle of nowhere for hours to be picked up, before being driven to an industrial estate to do more waiting. There were no replacement cars available, so we were given a van to drive home in. Jeff, who had been driving when the crash happened, was understandably shaken, so after driving back to the hotel we called it a day. It was 5pm, the weather was drizzly, so we tried to rescue my birthday by getting into the hotel hot tub and drinking some more. The rescue plan worked. A couple of hours of gazing out at the incredible view from the outdoor hot tub whilst drinking champagne fixed everything. There was a wedding at the hotel, and it was nice to see happy people everywhere (and a Pug!) and it brought back lovely memories from our own day. The day ended with more documentaries and booze. Lovely. The next day, we went out with friends in Manchester, drank, danced, and generally had an amazing time.
The following week I was phoned by the horrible producer I’d worked with in Brighton - she wanted to know if I was available for a couple of days work in Manchester. I was poor and unemployed, so I said yes, even though I knew it would be horrendous. I spent 2 days in the Trafford Centre, trying to talk people into agreeing to being filmed getting in the changing room, for a Channel 4 documentary. It was long, stressful and thankless, but I needed the money.
We had been toying with the idea of going to Leeds Festival, but in late August the fact that we were about to buy our flat, and therefore handover every penny of our savings, became very real. So we decided to be grown-ups for a bit, and chose not to go to the festival. It was very odd spending the August Bank Holiday at home. Jeff & I have been to every Leeds festival together since 2007, so it was a shame to end the tradition, but we made the most of the weekend and spent time with friends.
September.
I was unemployed for the whole of September. The flat purchase was going through, but my freelancer status meant only Jeff could go on the mortgage. As part of the legal process, I had to pay for the privilege of a solicitor telling me I had no right to stay in the property if anything happens to Jeff, even though a substantial amount of my own money had been put into the deposit.
I spent a great deal of September wondering if I was in the right career. I’d been away from home for a huge proportion of the year. I’d worked intensely long hours for no extra pay, been treated horribly by some colleagues, and it was impossible to make any plans more than a week or so in advance, in case I got a job. I’d missed numerous birthdays, holidays, gigs, parties, weddings, and now the chance to co-own a home with my husband as a result of working in TV. I was gloomy and introspective. For most of September there was no work, people on TV job forums were commenting on how eerily quiet it was. Could I face doing this multiple times a year? Each time I got paid from a job I would squirrel away 50% of my earnings so I was covered during breaks between work, so even though I was earning quite well when I was working, I wasn’t able to enjoy it as it would quickly drain away when I wasn’t.
The end of September saw a few leads in potential jobs, and I started to cheer up. I’d applied for “normal” work with no success as a result of all the TV stuff on my CV, so I figured I’d best just stick at it. In the meantime, I enrolled on a Counselling Concepts course, a 10 week taster for people interested in pursuing a career in Counselling & Psychotherapy. Aside from telly-making, it’s the only other thing that really, strongly appeals. It started in late September. Everything got better after that.
October.
In early October I was offered 3 jobs on the same day. One of them was with the company I’d walked out of in 2013, which illustrates how desperate I must have been for work in order to get in touch with them. The other was on the Chelsea Housewives programme, and sounded awful. The other was for CBBC, had the longest contract and the best pay, so I went with that. It started in mid-October, which meant I was able to properly enjoy a week of doing nothing.
It was a lovely, lovely job. I worked with a great Series Producer who was amazing fun to spend time with, he trusted and respected me enough to get on with my work unattended, and we had a proper laugh together. I continued on the Counselling course and he was happy for me to shuffle my hours to accommodate it. I went to see the Menzingers and Future of the Left, who were both ace. I had to skip Twin Atlantic due to work, but I was happy to be doing a job I enjoyed, so it wasn’t a massive sacrifice.
I knew I was contracted until December, and so I decided to buy a car with the aim of driving it frequently to overcome my nerves of driving. The car cost £250, but seemed to work fine. It was old, but it had been looked after. Still, it broke down less than 48 hours after we bought it. Thankfully, it was nothing serious, and it made it through the rest of the month without a hitch. (10 months later, it's still going!)
Jeff’s sister got married in October, and I was a bridesmaid. She was in a deeply bad mood the morning of her wedding, and nothing I, the other bridesmaids or her family did or said shifted it. She was exceptionally rude to me on my own wedding day, and the childish part of me wanted to retaliate on hers, but it seemed she did a good enough job of spoiling it for herself, so I remained cheerful in the face of her tantrums and horrid farts (I wish that was a joke, but she openly did horrible farts when we were getting ready, and they smelled vile. She even did one during the service). She looked irritated throughout the entire day, and only seemed to perk up once she was dancing with her friends in the evening. It was very odd, but me, Jeff and our friends enjoyed it, even if she didn’t.
November
I was still employed by CBBC, and I was away a lot casting families for the programme I was on. Working with the Series Producer was still a lot of fun, and the whole process was enjoyable, even though I was once again in hotels for 4 or 5 nights a week. Jeff and I managed to get over to Leeds to see B. Dolan, and marvelled that our £250 car made it there and back safely.
We began to put together a list of improvements we could do to the flat, in the hope of selling it at a bit of a profit in 2015. We’d bought it for a slightly reduced rate, but as it has been rented out for several years, it needs TLC. My dad (accidentally) set fire to the front room carpet, and the lino in the hall and kitchen is an eyesore. The furniture is obviously the stuff the landlady and her husband didn’t want, and the paint work is grubby and off-colour in places. We put together a little “project equity” list, and things generally felt exciting. November was uneventful, but it was a good one. Jeff was ill on our wedding anniversary, but we had a nice time anyway. We got a little embroidered tree, with two leaves on it to symbolise years spent together. We will add another leaf for each year we manage to not murder each other
December.
My contract at CBBC was due to end just before Christmas, but they extended me until mid-April. It was a huge relief. Buying the flat and car had wiped out my savings, and I’d struggled to put anything else aside between October and December. 4 more months of work was a godsend, and April is a good time to job hunt in TV, as the new financial year results in lots of commissions for people to make things. Again, I was away an awful lot finding families to appear on the programme, but production shut down for 3 over Christmas so I used all the days I was owed to cover a relaxed and financially stress-free Christmas. I ate too much, spent far too long playing computer games and watching TV, and just generally enjoying being at home. Early in the Christmas break, I sat down and worked out that I’d been away from home for almost 200 nights that year. So I felt justified in staying indoors with Jeff and the cat.
The Counselling course finished in mid-December, and I was offered a place on next level of training course. Jeff and I had a fairly low-key NYE in the company of people who know how to be nice to others, and so the year ended on a very good note.
TL:DR:
In 2014 I spent all of my money on a flat I don’t legally own, a car that probably isn’t safe to drive, and funded myself through periods of downtime between work. I saw a lot of naked old people, I worked with some utter shit bags, but I met some really nice people along the way too. One of our cats died, and the other has seized the opportunity to be centre of attention. I was often unhappy in a career many people are desperate to have. I realised who my friends were, and I made positive steps towards doing something worthy for a living. I turned 30 and the weight of my wrinkled skin didn’t make my face fall off, though I did have a car crash.
All in all, it was a pretty good year!