It's raining and blowing a gale in Cambridgeshire, but I'm hanging on in here...

Decisions are being made as we speak, about emigrating. Mr_Positive and I went to Canada last year, in fact we got married there, and we absolutely fell in love with the place. We spent two weeks in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, at Banff Springs (the photo of me was taken there on the night of my wedding) and we talked about going back...maybe to live...one day.

It was just a day dream until a couple of weeks ago, when things in the UK just started to get us down that little bit too much. Council tax is set to double. Interest rates have just gone up. They are going to introduce pay-as-you-go road user taxes. It's cold, dark and wet. I failed to get the job I applied for. The house won't sell. Why were we even thinking of just moving 5 miles down the road when we could change everything and start again in Alberta, Canada?

So we decided to look into a move to Calgary, and Mr P put some wheels in motion with his employers.

As for me...

Firstly I discovered that there was likely to be another voluntary exit scheme coming up at work, aimed at pond scum grades (I'm a civil servant in an organisation that's aiming to reduce admin and junior/middle managers, and guess who's a junior manager) - all sounded good - and then, to make the move sound even more enticing, there was an announcement by one of the directors, we'll call her 'The Grim Reaper' that despite slashing our directorate by 30% in 2006, there were still too many of us, and the entire communications team was to be culled. Guess who is part of the communications team? You guessed it...I probably won't have a proper job after March, but I'll be what's called 'a priority mover' which in practice means I'll have nothing to do except wander around the office asking teams if they have anything I can do.

Well, if that isn't an enticement to stick it out until I can take a nice voluntary exit payout and wave goodbye to England's sunny shores, I don't know how much more of a kick in the pants I need.

Now all we need to do is get Mr P's managers to sort out the transfer to Calgary, and sell the house. The announcements about voluntary exits will be made fairly soon...I'll apply...and they'll most likely take effect as from next summer.

Staying Positive - it's been a bit hard in the past week, but if I concentrate on Canada, living near the Rockies (going from below sea level to waaaay above) I can just about do it...

I'm having trouble with the old Positivity valve this week. Today in particular!

The clocks went back at the weekend, which means that it's the time of year where I sit looking out of the window at 4pm and it's already getting dark. I think I should have been a squirrel, or a bear or something that has the right idea and hibernates all through the winter, as the approach of cold days and long, dark nights fills me with dread. Anyway, the weather seems to have sensed my feelings and co-operated by at least offering up some clear, frosty mornings that are just perfect for wearing the Anna Scholz coat I bought from Simply Be back in August! I usually wait until about now to buy anything like that...and find they've run out...but this is beeyoootiful, an embroidered grey parka, very on-trend and just a little bit unusual.

This week hasn't seen much movement on the Relentlessly Positive website. I've been back in the office and busy - and things did look as if they were about to come to something with the house sale...for a while. We had a couple come back for a second viewing, which caused considerable panic with Matt away down the other end of the country that day, and me unable to get a day off work with absolutely no notice whatsoever. I begged the help of my best mate, who wasn't in work that day, and she did what sounded like a fantastic sales job on the place, a guided tour of the estate and parking places, and I was so convinced we'd sold. The guy even took my mobile number to call me.

Since then.........no phone calls from him or the agent. That was Wednesday and it's now Friday. How depressing. To add to the general despondency, I started to come down with my first cold of the year yesterday...and my throat feels like barbed wire. And then I found out that I didn't get the job I put all that effort into. I'm gutted, it had my name all over it and I could really have done a good job. But the interview was so OTT I just didn't manage to keep on top of it all and I think that the actual discussion part of the interview let me down. I was so pleased to get the presentation out of the way, that I think I gabbled a bit and sounded like a moron. Even though I could have done that job with my eyes shut. Oh well. Back to the drawing board and the jobs papers.

We did have another viewing last night, although it was a bit of a flying visit. And some good news - Mr British Gas engineer has just been and certified that our boiler is fine for another year. Good, as replacing that wasn't on my list of things I REALLY want to do.

So, all in all, a bit of a rubbish week. But at least it could still end on a positive note...