Sometimes I don't think I've ever properly grown up...

I'm on edge a bit this week. My teaching application is all but ready to send off. It's a bit like a regular university application, except you get less choices. I chose my old Dept Head as my referee, because who better to comment on my suitability for the teaching profession than the man who employed me as a lecturer? The minute he completes the reference I get to send my form off to the first institution, and I'd really like to get this uni thing done and dusted by Christmas so I can start thinking about moving to London and temping to save cash. So, as you can imagine, I am somewhat impatient for him to complete it. He said, in an email, that he'd write it this week, but he didn't say when this week, so I've been checking my application page obsessively, every hour or so, from approx 8am until midnight - which is the adult equivalent of sitting by the window with my face pressed against the glass waiting for the postman to bring me parcels.

I'm frequently struck by how often the small child in me nearly bursts out of it's adult confines. Dept Head says 'this week', the 5 year old in me says 'YES! NOW!'. I know it's irrational, and only a small part of me takes any notice, but it's most definitely there.

This childish streak is most obvious in my new swimming hobby. I usually swim up and down the swimming pool in neat lines, bobbing up and down rhythmically like all the other pensioners and fitness freaks, but the 5 year old in me occasionally causes me to swerve off-course, do a somersault underwater and backstroke into an old man wearing nose-clips. It's the wide-eyed childish jubilance at bouyancy, the novelty has never quite worn off. Sometimes, when the pool is quiet, I lay in the deep end in a big star-shape, bobbing around in the water like some kind of fat ocean mammal. I used to do it when I was small, I'd try to count all the ceiling tiles in the St James's Pool, at least I've since realised that that is an impossible and useless venture.

And yesterday I laughed at a man because he fell off his bike and 8 cans of Special Brew fell out of an ASDA carrier he had balanced on his handlebars, rolled off down the road and all went underneath the wheels of cars. Age 5 I wouldn't have understood the significance of Special Brew in this slapstick situation, but I'd have at least appreciated the terrible misfortune and laughed gleefully, which is exactly what I did, as I drove over one of the cans on my way home from work.