We went away with SIL and her family last weekend. On our first day she and I were walking together on a beach while the others were flying a kite. I started telling her about the course I am doing on a Monday (Award in Education and Teaching) which incidentally she recommended that I do (she has the diploma) when I had said that I wanted to maybe go back into TEFL, saying that my RSA Certificate was too old (I did that about 23 years ago I think).
She said that it was possible to get a teaching job without this 
and that ever since the courses stopped being free, they were not a legal requirement. I told her the person running my course had said teachers with the Diploma had been laid off so just having the Award might not be enough to get work, but she said this was not true ( I said maybe this was happening at his college but she was having none of it) and that at her CFE loads of people had started teaching with no qualification. We live in different towns which may account for this in any case.
She asked how my TA work was going (after 13 years as a SAHM I had a 7 week contract as a TA last summer term). I said that I had had very little work from the agency this first half term (though I do have 4.5 days booked over the next 2 weeks) - probably due to being available Tuesday to Friday - but that I hadn't minded too much as I had been doing essays for my course. She then said that when she had done her diploma she had been working. I know she is right and that I could work and do my course but I have been really busy with my 3 dc from 3.15 pm onwards, sometimes driving my h around during the day when he is doing a job where there is no parking, sorting parts of the house out, looking after my dd2 when she was ill at home for 4 days last week etc.. (In a different conversation she was derisory about this last (as my dd used to hate school and sometimes be "ill" but at 9 she has outgrown this) and even when I said that her attendance had got a lot better and that she had been physically sick she ignored me and kept this I know better "she is such a skiver" gleeful/scornful look on her face.)
I then said I had applied for some administration NHS jobs and told her about the different things I was thinking of doing and she told me that at 47 I am old (I am 46, she is 47 but she never gets my age right) and that I will soon be 60. That if I don't get a move on I will be 50 soon and no one will want me.
I felt like crying at this point as I suppose this all taps into my insecurities - feelings of low self esteem. I said that one thing I was scared of was going into a workplace where everyone was 20 years younger and she said there would be loads of "dumpy 40 year olds" working for the NHS. I said I was not a dumpy 40 year old (a bit silly as I am 46 and a little overweight but then again I have also been overweight in my 20s) and she said "oh yes you are" 
.
So these are the elements of the conversation that I can't forget. She said other things - that I didn't want to be like her sister who never really went back to work after having her 3 dc and who at 63 is now very bitter. That there is loads of work out there. That I shouldn't worry about the future but take it week by week. That she had never been given things and had always done any work.
I am a procrastinator so I do need a kick up the bum but I basically came away from the conversation tearful and feeling that I had been called fat, old, unattractive and soon to be unwanted.
My course finishes in December so I suspect the agency work will pick up then. I am also looking at the possibility of being an NHS bank admin worker - depends on which pays better though the advantage of being a TA is being able to be there in the school holidays.
Anyway, feel like scrubbing the whole conversation from my brain!