Step 5 and 6 are done

The last bit of carpet to go

Oh yes. The room is now more or less empty: two beds and two chairs reside there at the moment. Albeit one unusable bed, as the mattress has been removed to make it a bit lighter to move about as it will stay in the room even during the carpet laying. 

All the carpet has been removed in a joint effort of me and my dad. It killed my dad's back even more and did my knees no good at all either. But removed it is and today I painted the skirting boards. And I painted a pipe. Not sure what it's for, but it didn't look nice and I had poured out too much paint anyway, so gave it a couple of brushes.

The skirting boards are done as is the pipe in the corner
It was supposed to be white, but I had poured out too much blue!

All this hard work has definitely been good for the mind. As for the body? Not too sure. No, the headaches are few and easily solved with a paracetamol now, but the knees! Oh my, the knees. For my father it's his back that is hurting now. But, we are both pleased with the result so far. Only their room left to de-carpet and we will do that next week.

My dad and I added a blind as well

Which means I have some time on my hands right now. Especially as I realised today that I have a holiday coming up: May 1st until May 17th was to be my holiday and I haven't cancelled it. No need really. By the time I do start work I feel that asking for two or three weeks off is a bit ridiculous after not having worked since early March.

Half of all the stuff out of my room.
Miss Oswin felt it was necessary to climb onto the mattress,
hence the wonkiness

Talking about not working and the follow-up on that: unemployment pay (UP). My UP was only going to be three months. Which seemed to be fine as I was planning on starting a new job in May anyway. But what with this Corona thing, the job is still mine, the question is just when. But, for some reason I had been clever (happens occasionally) and had told them that I had worked abroad as well. Some countries are on a cooperation list (so to speak) and if work is proved there, it may help with UP here.

The rest of my stuff with still room the stuff currently on my bed
(like mattresses and such)

They wanted contracts (in storage, no idea what box exactly), pay-slips (on my computer, so easy) and several other things. I sent what I could and then the waiting game commenced. Yesterday I checked the site. Before 2013-2018 were not counted towards UP. Yesterday it was 2013-2017! Which meant that the time I worked in Northern Ireland was counted.

I sent a message to my contact asking for a bit more information and on his advice I called the department that knew about my case. Good news: all the information is in from both the UK and Norway. Now it's just a case of making sure it adds up and then I should be allowed to have UP for longer, at least until I have the job.

Going back to the holiday though. I was going to stay in a cottage on a holiday park with my sister, while doing some sightseeing in and around Rotterdam, as Eurovision was going to take place there in two weeks' time. That was postponed to next year and the holiday park is closed. So, the money paid will not be returned (unless I really want it), but I will get vouchers for the amount spent to use on a later date.