I'm back!

A comment from someone who read my comment on another blog has encouraged me to start writing again. I've had quite a heavy year - work has been really stressful and there hasn't been much spare time to do my own thing. What has happened since last year? Well, the company I work for was taken over last year by a larger player and everyone was dreading/hoping for redundancy (depending on their age and length of service). I have been lucky (?) and still have a job, although I am now working in a different aspect of the business. So many things have changed and some NOT for the better. The head office is now quite some distance away and deals with so many people that trying to get a problem sorted out can take hours or even days - clients also had to get familiar with the new system and a lot of them were unhappy and took their stresses out on the staff. On the bright side, things do seem to have settled down over the last few months and everyone is a lot more relaxed now.

I am currently recovering from a broken foot and signed off work for a few weeks, so I have collated all my recipes from supermarket recipe cards and scrappy bits of paper and set up a file for them on my laptop. I am also up to date with viewing recorded TV programmes and am finding the time to read the paper all the way through every day and do the crosswords (well, the quick one anyway - I'm not so hot on the cryptic one) and the Sodoku and the Code Words. I wonder how I ever found the time to go to work; I'll miss it all when I do go back.

Son and daughter-in-law have settled down to married life - it will be their first anniversary in a couple of weeks' time - it's amazing how fast time goes and the older you get the faster it seems to go. Our older daughter is still happy in her job and her boyfriend is now training to become a teacher. Our younger daughter completed her UCAS application (to study Law) and made her first choice and insurance choice. All that remained was for her to acheive the required grades for her first choice(AAB); unfortunately she only managed ABB but was fairly happy with her insurance choice until there was a mix-up over her accommodation which left her in a catered hall - where the only meal actually provided seemed to be breakfast and, as it was nominally a catered hall, there was very little in the way of kitchen facilities. So she has decided to take a year out and try and earn some money to have in reserve for next year. She has been offered a deferred place (with a first choice of accomodation this time!) and thinks that she will accept it - if not she will have to go through the application process all over again. So we are not in an empty nest yet, but at least we are finally out of the school run (after 23 years) and no more books or uniforms or school trips to pay for. (And especially no more fees.)

Till next time and I'll try not to leave it so long!!