PT - Hello Marie; was: July Roll Call

[Guest guest]

Hi PT and everyone,

 

 

 

Thanks for your best wishes for our holiday. We are now home safely from a

fantastic two weeks in England. We have actually been back home for a week

but the last week has been more than a little hectic and my computer time

has been severely restricted – read on for more details.

 

 

 

Our holiday was a wonderful experience and we were spoiled beyond belief by

our friend Chris. I will give you just one example of the sort of person

she is. Wednesday 19th July was Hans’ birthday. Chris knows that we both

love classical music so she ordered three tickets for a Promenade (Prom)

Concert in the Albert Hall in London on Hans’ birthday. (You may not have

heard of the Proms. Every year from July to September there is a nightly

series of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall. They are called the promenade

concerts because the audience members in one area of the hall have no seats

but they either sit on the floor or walk/wander/promenade around. The

famous “Last Night of the Proms” is a real English tradition and the

promenaders dress up in silly hats, wave flags to the music etc.) By

coincidence, the concert on the 19th was a special one, in honour of the

Queen’s 80th birthday so we actually got to see the Queen and Prince Philip.

(The Queen’s real birthday is in April but is always officially celebrated

in summer). Presumably the Queen’s presence made the concert very popular

and it was oversold. Of the three tickets Chris ordered she was only

allocated two. Not only did she insist that Hans and I go to the concert

but she drove us to Wimbledon (an outer suburb of London) which is a drive

of over 1 ½ hours from where she lives in Hampshire. We caught the train

from Wimbledon and Chris tried to convince us that we were doing her a

favour!!!! She said that having time to “sit and think” for the 6+ hours

between the time she left us to the time we arrived back was “just what she

needed”. She waited for us the whole time in Wimbledon. The facts that the

temperature was well over 30 C (86 F) in the shade – much warmer in the car

AND that she would have had rather more thinking time had she stayed home

didn’t seem to enter her mind. As well as that incredible gesture, she took

us to so many wonderful places during our two weeks with her that it is

almost impossible to thank her sufficiently. She knows the south of England

so well and we saw some unbelievably beautiful gardens and stately homes

which we would never have found on our own. Need I tell you that we weren’t

allowed to pay for any of the entrance fees?

 

 

 

England is very vegetarian friendly, both with specifically vegetarian

products and also as far as restaurants are concerned. We didn’t eat out

very often (apart from the picnics we packed each day) but virtually all

restaurants offer plenty of imaginative veggie choices. Indian cuisine is

extremely popular in England and all towns and many villages have Indian

restaurants. We didn’t actually plan to eat out but one day we discovered a

wonderful looking all-you-can-eat Indian buffet restaurant in a town not far

from where Chris lives. It was about 2 PM so the lunchtime rush was over

but all the food choices were still available and were hot and fresh. The

vegetarian range was stunning and I could hardly make up my mind what to

choose. I tried about 8 different dishes but there must have been 15 or

more other veggie choices I could have made. I love cucumber raita but

there wasn’t any on display so I asked the waiter who had some specially

made for me at no extra charge!! The whole experience was delightful and

very reasonably priced. I think it is lucky for our waistlines and bank

balance that we don’t live too close to the town of Fareham as I am sure we

would be tempted to go to this restaurant far too often (LOL)

 

 

 

Something ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ Chris did for me was to drive

me all the way to the city of Cheltenham (two hours away on a good traffic

day) specifically to visit one of my favourite haunts – a book shop called

“Cooking: the books” which I had discovered on a previous trip to England.

As I am sure I have mentioned before, I always prefer second hand books as I

feel almost part of the family of the previous owners. I especially love

community/fundraising cookbooks and this shop always has plenty of second

hand fundraising cookbooks so I had a ball and came away with 70 or so

books. It was a stinking hot day – the temperature in the car was well over

40 C (104 F) when we returned to it after our little jaunt.

 

 

 

Also on the cookbook theme - Chris even searched out heaps of thrift shops

for me in several towns and villages so I could indulge in my hobby. I’m

glad we had the car with us because I would never have made it on to a plane

with even 20% of my new somewhat weighty new ‘treasures’ – I think I came

back with a total of between 150 and 200 new (to me) ‘babies’. Hans was in

a mild state of panic and kept mentioning the weight of the books in the

same sentence as the capacity of car springs. He conveniently forgot to

mention that he had bought somewhere between 40 and 50 jars of

chutney/relish etc (which, as we all know, is weightless.

 

 

 

We also came back with another treasure – a cat. Chris is in the throes of

selling her house and needed to find a new home for her cat. As Chris works

in Germany much of the time she needed to find a home for Dinah very

quickly. Chris’ former partner Tony used to look after Dinah when Chris was

away but they have now separated and Tony couldn’t take the cat with him.

Dinah has settled in really well with us and, as expected, has taken over

the running of the house.

 

 

 

I was called in to an interview with the general manager and Leo (my

supervisor) on my first day back at work and I will be officially unemployed

as from 1st September. As many of you know, the past few months at work

have been a true nightmare and I can’t say that I am either surprised or

distressed by the decision to “let me go”. There is one huge problem

though. I have had independent legal advice and it is extremely

questionable if I will qualify for any government benefit. I’m in a bit of

a dilemma. The problem is that my lawyer advised me that I have a very good

case against being dismissed so if I decided to fight my dismissal I would

most likely win and that would mean I would “win” my job back and face the

next 4 ½ years in exactly the same position as I am now. To qualify for a

government unemployment benefit I am more or less required to contest the

dismissal but I don’t want to do that if it means that I end up “winning”

the case and having to go back to that prison, which Leo would make sure was

even more ghastly than it has been previously. It seems as if the two

options now are finding a new job (not too many opportunities on that front

for fat 60 year olds – and let’s face it, age and appearance DO make a

difference when applying for work) or poverty. (In order to have even the

occasional splurge like a low cost holiday, we always had to budget very

carefully and it will certainly be the end of my cookbook splurges).

Painful as that is, it is far preferable to even one extra day working for

my current employer. If I don’t qualify for a government benefit we will

have to get by on just one very modest income. Hans’ salary is only a few

Euros a month more that mine and I was hardly being overpaid!!!! The good

news is that I am exempted from my duties until 1st September so I don’t

ever have to go back to that ghastly place or set eyes on my supervisor and

several other extremely unpleasant people again. I will certainly miss two

of my colleagues but they are both on long term sick leave at the moment –

one is on maternity leave and the other on stress leave (and I know how she

feels!) – so the last few weeks I have not had even one friendly face in my

section.

 

 

 

I’m afraid that I wasn’t able to keep up with my e-mails while I was away.

I couldn’t access my XS4all account via Webmail from UK (strange as it

worked in both Malta and Australia) and in any case I hardly had any time to

sit at the computer as we were so busy from dawn to dusk every day. When I

arrived home there were nearly 2500 messages in my inbox. As the vast

majority of these were daily digests from my various groups (I’m in 62

groups – mostly to do with recipe exchange and cooking, but also expat and

diabetic groups) the 2500 messages probably represented over 30000

individual posts. I was so overwhelmed that I decided the only way to cope

was to delete all the daily digests I had received and start with a clean

slate apart from the personally addressed messages. I hope I haven’t missed

anything important by the bulk deletions but I had such a busy time this

week with working until Wednesday then having to sort out legal issues on

Thursday and Friday that I couldn’t see any other options for me. I just

hope that I haven’t upset/insulted anyone by failing to respond to

particular posts they were expecting me to answer. If anyone is awaiting a

response from me would it be asking too much for you to send me a reminder

message? I honestly can’t see myself having time to go through all the old

messages on the group page as this week will see me indulging in some

heavy-duty job seeking – harder work than having a job!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Hugs to everyone from Marie in Haarlem, Netherlands