Seems they've received the application - though they didn't say how (i.e. had the email worked this time? or had it arrived in print via the library?) and they didn't say they were accepting it. I think I'll just leave it at that though.

Aaargh! This is madness. Email now to say that the hotmail sending had arrived without the attachments. Just for a moment I thought I'd done the classic thing of forgetting to attach the attachments. But then I recalled that a) hotmail had taken some time over it and b) they'd arrived at my home email account no problem.

I have no idea what is going on with their email system or just possibly theirs and mine in conjunction with each other. But I've not had this problem with anyone else that I can think of.

No news yet.

Forms filled in.

Delight, for the first time ever, to be able to submit them electronically. No messing around with my handwriting.

Usual concerns over the mess of my years of part-time or temp jobs; or my very mediocre educational achievements (I was too young for school I tell you!). But I could tick every box of the person spec and provide evidence that I covered it. Even leadership...

Right. Stressed about it getting there, seemed the wisest idea was to drive up just now and hand deliver the application. An hour's driving but chucked a CD on and had a mini-concert on the way.

The uni has a campus map but it's inadequate for the purpose of finding the right building. Drove and hoped. Found the building ok, but locked, and no postbox outside. Nothing for it but to try the library building next door - good job it was still open at 9.30pm! They said they'd put it in internal mail. So still no guarantee of it getting there on time.

Do I really want to do this?

Terrific! The deadline's tomorrow so I dutifully thought: play it safe, send my application today!

Only to get an email back in the middle of the afternoon saying that my Word document contained a virus and had been deleted by their system.

I checked, and it wasn't. (At least not with either of two different virus checking software applications). I turned it into a PDF as well and sent both back.

Only to get a reply pretty late in the day saying that the .doc still had a virus (and had been deleted) and the PDF was blank (which it wasn't).

Beginning to suspect some kind of conflict with our respective e-mail systems I checked both documents again and sent them from a hotmail account, BCCing myself at home just to be sure.

Too late in the day to get another reply, but all I can do is see what happens tomorrow. Snag is that I'll be at home tomorrow and can't just go up the road in a lunchbreak to hand deliver the material.

S very kindly gone over my application with me and helped fine tune some wording. Much appreciated.

Q has spotted and brought to my attention, a job just up the road. The equivalent of what I'm doing here - only more money and a more prestigious university.

I can't really not apply. But I've a lot of mixed feelings about it: the upheaval, the stress of the application process, liking where I am, wanting to escape, issues over practicalities... the list goes on.

But I can't not at least try.