For the past month I’ve been temping in the cheque-clearing department of a bank in the Gyle area of Edinburgh. My working hours are Monday-Friday 4pm to 11·30pm and so I return to my accommodation just after midnight. It’s not a stressful job, although large amounts of data-entry causes some physical discomfort, and most of the time I’m indoors. I do have to go outside the building to collect deliveries of cheques about 10 times each evening.

There are around 10 temps from different agencies working in similar roles with me: most are foreign students (four are from Andra Pradesh, one is from Karnataka and one is from China). This makes for an interesting cultural mix, especially when blended with the permanent staff who are almost all born-and-bred Edinburghers – and most are over 40. (Sob – so will I be in less than a month.)

Of course I’m looking for something better: I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life, £6 per hour doesn’t really meet my needs and aspirations, and I want my evenings back! However, it’s so much better than working overnight attaching needles to threads in Livingston would have been.

I’ve spent most weekends this year seeing different bits of Edinburgh with my host. There’s a very pleasant walk along the Water of Leith into Stockbridge: I highly recommend a waddle along it, even if you’re not a duck.

I’m looking forward to catching up with the usual suspects in St Andrews two weeks hence and then visiting my family in Worcester the following weekend. Any further ambitions have been shelved – it’s too uncomfortable to think further ahead or plan anything more grandiose. However, I’m alive and fairly content: this will do for now.