This is turning into an occasional blog 'par excellence'. Looking back, I can see that I write five or six entries over a period of a couple of months (or more frequently) and then nothing for six months or longer. As I haven't written anything since New Year's day, I think it's time for another entry.

So...workismuchthe same, IamtakingHRT, everyoneinthe familyhashadabirthday, Ihavesoldmycar, wearegoingtoFranceonholidayin3weekstime, hubbyiswaitingforinvestigationsonhisknee(torncartlidge),thatsaboutall,didn'ttaketoolong!

I have applied for two more jobs and didn't even get an interview for either, so am still giving my all to the current job. What we are currently doing is being transferred to another branch soon and we will all be retrained for a new task. I'm not sure why the people up north can't do the new task and leave us doing what we know, but I'm only a small cog in the machinery. For better or worse, I have just volunteered to re-design our team's whiteboard with a summer theme. I am old enough to remember when we went to the office to work, not to spend 2 ten-minute sessions a day hyping each other up to 'perform' more effectively and doing quizzes to encourage team bonding.

After all the agonising last year over whether or not to start taking HRT, I finally decided back in November that I would try it for six months and see whether it made any difference to the menopsausal symptoms. I had put off going back to the doctor's until the end of January as I felt that I had embarrased myself a bit at the end of my previous consultation. I had been to see the doctor to get the results of my blood test (which is when he gave me the explanation/lecture about HRT vs. osteoporosis drugs); as I was leaving he told me somewhat jokily that my foot should be better by Christmas - this was in the middle of October, so I was a bit surprised. I guess I should have realised that it could well take a couple of months to heal completely, but I reacted on impulse and responded in the same way as I would have done to a family member who had said something outrageous - I punched him on the shoulder and said 'Thanks a lot!', then left. I spent the rest of the day worrying about whether I had upset or annoyed him which is why I waited two months to go back again. Anyway, there didn't seem to be any recollection of our previous coversation and he agreed that I could try HRT and said that he would would give me three months' worth to start with, although I didn't have to take all of them if I felt that I would rather not and that I could stop at any time and not have to wait for the end of the three months. I have now taken them for five months and feel great, so I will proably go on for five years or so (barring any sudden side effects).

Ever since H left school, we have been debating whether we really need to be running two cars, especially as D has the use of a van through work. I finally decided to put an advert on the internal web site at work and got an email the following morning asking whether my car was still available. I panicked then for a bit as the response was so fast that I wondered whether I had underpriced the car, but since no-one else responded at all betwen then and the time the guy came to look at the car (three days later), I relaxed a bit and decided that the price was right. Anyway he looked at it, I drove him round the block, he offered me £500 less than I was asking and we agreed on £250 less so I am happy (especially as I have sold it for only £350 less than I paid for it two years ago) and he seems happy with his purchase. He is coming to collect it tomorrow and I shall be sorry to see it go. I know that I can drive D's car any time (well, it will become our car now)but it won't be quite the same as having my own and I will have to listen to his choice of CDs. I haven't got any plans for the money, so will just put it into a savings account and add to it over the next few months so if I decide later that I really do need another car, I will have the cash available for an instant purchase.

Three weeks from now, we will be at our gite in Provence. We are thinking of retiring to France in a few years so this is by nature of an investigation to see if we like this area as well as a holiday. Next year we will probably try the Auvergne, partly because I think that Clermont-Ferrand looks an amazing place and partly because property there seems even cheaper than in Provence. D's brother and his wife are coming with us for the first week as they are also considering the move, but they have commitments for the second week so will be flying back and leaving us on our own.

I think I will publish this now and talk about D's knee at a later date. This has gone on long enough!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year - 2008 already. What has been happening to me since I last blogged, do I hear you ask? Well, I was offered an interview for one of the external jobs and went along and spent an hour or so with some very pleasant people, came away feeling that I would really enjoy working with them and the next morning, I got a "Thank you for coming to the interview, but you haven't been succesful this time" letter. On reflection, I should have picked up when the first thing the interviewer said was "This is the second day of interviews and we will definitely have made our minds up by the end of today." Presumably they had already decided on one of the previous day's candidates - possibly an internal applicant - and were only going to change their minds if someone really outstanding came along on the second day. Maybe the fact that I was asking for a salary pretty close to the top of the range went against me as the interviewer did say that the company's policy was normally to appoint near the bottom of the pay scale and that increments would have to be earned.



Still, I haven't let it put me off looking and I have now turned up a vacancy in the same company at a higher level (where the starting salary is more like the level I am looking for), so I shall be aplying for that one. It is so easy to apply - the company has an interactive web site, so once you have applied for the first job (which did take about an hour and a half), you just go back and amend your details to match the person spec for the next one and press the SEND button. You don't have to worry whether your application has been lost in the post because you get an email confirmation of receipt.

Christmas went like a dream; everyone brought what they said they would and turned up in time for the all the food to be served while it was still hot. I had cooked the stuffings and a gammon the evening before and only had the turkey and the sausage and bacon rolls to cook on the day. A brought new potatoes which had to be cooked, but she arrived in plenty of time and M & I brought the pudding which I left steaming while we ate the main course. K & M brought a cold starter (parma ham, mozarella and salad leaves) and assembled it here and S & I brought still hot, cooked vegetables (sprouts with nuts, carrots and roasted parsnips) so they went on the hot tray while we ate the first course. The table looked really good; we brought the garden table in through the French windows and D had made a chipboard cover for it which brought it up to the same height as the dining table - the garden table is round, so the finished article was shaped like a thermometer. We put four people down each side of the long table, one at the end and five around the 'bulb' of the garden table. I had made a new cream tablecloth the right size and a festive (poinsettia patterned) runner for the length of the whole table.



P & C arrived on Christmas Eve and she made us a lovely dip with nachos for supper. We had all eaten quite a bit at K & M's house earlier so didn't need any actual dinner.



D and I both had to go back to work yesterday (just for the one day) and then back to normal tomorrow. We are both beginning to look forward to retirement - maybe in France, but more of that in another post some time soon.