Tomorrow the great abyss of unemployment starts. And so, in true fighting spirit, the solace of lunchtime binge drinking also begins.

I’m going to start off on a gin and tonic around 11am, then move onto a crisp white wine (perhaps a chilled Pinot) by 1pm. Then after that I’m sure a glass of fruity Merlot wouldn’t go amiss, before a strident march towards a large coffee accompanied by a port or three.

After this I may need a snooze, but I’ll set the alarm and crack straight on with a refreshing cider, before hitting the vodka and soda (with fresh lime squeezed in, not that cordial shit), before vomiting with gusto and starting all over again the following morning.

The question is how long until I’m skint, drinking dirty double strength lagers and weeing myself?

Things are getting a little too close to the bone.

As of next Thursday, I’m out of a job. I’ve cobbled together a hotch-potch of freelance writing gigs that will keep me afloat, but it simply won’t do. I get the fear too much to be a proper, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants freelancer.

I am still waiting to hear about one particularly shit hot job. The powers that be have been on their holidays so as yet, no golden handshake for moi. Chop fucking chop, people.

I am assured that jobs are like buses. I am placated with the truth universally acknowledged that August is a crappy time to get an answer about anything. I am soothed by stalwart friends administering a tonic of compliments about my alleged infinite employability. And yet I’m still squealing like a stuck pig as I imagine myself careering into no career.

There’s only one thing for it. I shall pull myself together and start drinking at lunchtime.

Gin and slim anyone?

Still not heard back about ‘the job’. The one that’s going to change my life and be the best thing *ever*.

I nailed the meeting, I got two glowing references and I delivered a shit hot copy test, if I do say so myself.

So now the men in suits are cogitating me. They’re chewing me over like a piece of cud. Sizing me up. Do I fit?

Every time I get a new email, my stomach does mad flips and my heart threatens to make a sudden appearance through my chest.

Please, please, please, please let them love me and give me the job. Because for the first time in my life I know this is a position that I’m going to not just like, but I think I’ll be really good at it.

And that has never happened before.

Lately, I’ve been all over the shop, behaving like a whirligig on speed.

I went to Madrid on a hen do. Fuck me, what a knees up eh? I drank enough to make my liver implode but there were no penis straws and Madrid is one hell of a wicked city. Oh, and given that 10 women spent three straight days with each other, we all behaved impeccably and there were no murders committed. Give it another day though and who knows what any of us might have done… especially after Tin Pot Airways delayed our flight by about six hours.

Upon return to the UK, The German and I went to the Lake District. Beautiful up there you know, although when you’re approximately 30-years younger than everyone within a 12 mile radius, it makes the view a little more craggy than one would expect.

Day 1: We motored seven miles round Ullswater in two hours and 20 minutes, earning ourselves blisters the size of golf balls and many, many pints. Devoured slabs of Kendal mint cake. Wondered why roof of mouth felt like the inside of Willy Wonka’s Y-fronts.

Day 2: We awoke to wazzing rain and came back home early. Popped blister. Good holiday eh?

Since then I’ve been interviewing for jobs and trying to sort my life out. God, I hate flux. It makes me erratic and prone to the drink. Yes, yes - even more so than normal.

So, amongst the dizzying freneticism of daily fake tanning disasters and laundry (oh, the glamour), my do to list now includes:

1) Land a shit hot and well paid job when London teeters on the brink of recession. Crunch me baby, crunch me.

2) Pack in the fags and stop being a drink-addled tart so my fertility isn’t ruined and I render myself a useless, barren husk of a woman. (Thank you Grazia - I’m starting to deeply regret my subscription after the 100th dull as fuck/frightening as fuck article about infertility in women who go out drinking and smoking, just like me.)

3) Move to the seaside in a vain attempt to suck in air that isn’t riddled with chemicals, exhaust fumes and other people’s body odour 24/7. (Also see point two.)

Good then. I don’t feel overwhelmed in the slightest. Not a heart palpitation in sight.

*impersonates rabbit trapped in headlights*

*thud*

Holy crap, I’m sure there’s just been a earthquake in Tooting.

The floor just went all shakey and the wardrobe wobbled and everything. I expect this breaking news to hit the BBC any minute now. Either that or my crumby flat is finally giving up the ghost after one too many door-slams from the downstairs neighbours.

Of course, I’m moving to Hove in October so irritants like city earthquakes and loathsome neighbours will be a thing of the past. That’s the plan anyway and in the meantime I’m slinging the employment net far and wide to see if anyone needs a contract web editor in Brighton.

God, job hunting is a ball ache and a half. My inner pendulum swings between confident and excited to crippling paranoia that I have zero skills and no sane person will ever employ me. That’s clearly what tinkering around on the internet as a freelancer does for you: obliterates your ability to slot back into a normal working environment.

I’ve got until the beginning of September to sort myself out and I’m convinced I’m royally fucked. There’s an insidious voice in my head that keeps telling me the last 27 years have been building up to one great big fuck-off car crash. My friend Richard says the fear is good, but it’s making me pace the living room like a caged cat.

So, scrap that earlier plug. If anyone anyone needs a contract mentalist in Brighton, just send ‘em my way.