Children's publishers: you have my sympathies...

Tuesday night was a sleepless affair, involving much of the clichéd tossing and turning (if pushed, I'd say fractionally more of the latter). Having decided to learn to proof read for a job interview in just a couple of days, and my knowledge of the company in question being less than zero, there was a fair bit of pressure on the old mental furnace and frantic revision kept me awake through most of the twilight hours.

By lunchtime yesterday I was fairly insane with self-imposed and confusingly intense stress about a job I wasn't even sure I wanted. I had printed out copies of a children's book I wrote a year or two ago, a copy of an educational Shakespeare book I wrote around the same time and never did anything about - and stacked these alongside my portfolio, my MA dissertation, my café book and the book I'm actually reading (DC Confidential, book group friends - really enjoying it). I had preened and prepped myself into interview shape and enthusiastically set off for the far-flung reaches of Farringdon.

First impressions weren't great: the dilapidated building and disappointing reception area had me nostalgic for the relative swank of the City job I'd been for a fortnight ago. But then we walked downstairs through the storeroom stacked high with shelves full of beautiful, crisp, unsullied children's non-fiction books: encyclopaedia, dictionaries, books on dinosaurs and monsters and electricity and chess and how to play the guitar. It was heaven. The half-hour copy-editing test went surprisingly well - they were, in fact, extremely impressed that I knew my proofing symbols as they apparently don't use them in their offices - and the interview was cruising along nicely. But then they passed me the job description. The salary made me blanche - it was sub-Botanist. I tried to maintain my composure and show continued enthusiasm for the role, but my shock clearly showed as my interviewers laughingly assured me that, for publishing, this was a very reasonable offer. Pity the publishers - job satisfaction is a covetable thing, but it comes at a price, and if I ever want to move out of home, it's not one I can afford to pay.

In other news, my Valentine's flowers were delivered at 8pm last night, while I was out, and by the time I saw them this morning, they were dead, with nine of the eleven (eleven! I ask you...) heads pointing south by the time I got to them. I've got a new bunch now because I went back to the shop and complained - and Simon is having a feisty email row with the Head of Customer Services, Europe at Interflora. Undeniably a hassle, but so much more interesting than receiving the perfect bouquet first time round.