Happy Birthday LMD

3 today!

Three years ago today I was thinking "I can't do this again" while reminding myself that it was possibly a bit late to think that:-)

i did manage it. Although she nearly turned up on the side of the motorway! And I'm so gald I igored all the sage advice from my friends and famly and have my LMD to dote over.

Agencies (of hell)

In my quest for work, with a minimal time frame and Christmas in the way of what little time there was, I signed up with a bunch of agencies in the expectation that they might be able to find me something that i hadn't found myself. I didn't really mean to, but when scouring for jobs online, there were quite a few (well, loads) advertised in Bristol on a coupel of known sites, and when I clicked "apply" I was automatically applying through a different agency for each one! I was pretty annoyed tbh, as I had searched agency A and B as they were specialised legal recruiters, and ended up being registered with Agency C through to Z without ever wanting to be!

Anyway, it didn't take long for them to really piss me off. a) because none of them seemed to actually have the jobs they were advertising. b) because they all wanted me to spend at least an hour with them in central Bristol, BEFORE mentioning that they did not actually have said jobs, costing me time and money unecessarily. c) because they were all revoltingly cheerful & enthusiastic about my CV and how it should be easy to get something, while simultaneously saying that they did not have much suitable right now and d) because they then promptly all sent my CV to the same companies, without checking wioth me first if I wanted to work there, or more importantly, had already sent my CV there by myself. Which probably pissed off the companies, and definitely pissed me off, as I am quite capable of sending my own CV out to companies!

Only one actually got me an interview. I'm still waiting on the results of that. I have managed to get three interviews for myself without any professional recruiters involved! Grrrr. Plus, one talked me into doing some temping while I was waiting for a FT post to come up - against my better judgement. then after I had agreed to do it, they mentioned that it wasn't actually legal, but medical "but they need similar skills", even though I had specifically told her I need to work under a lawyer to gain my qualifying experience. But having agreed at 1pm on Friday afternoon, I did not want to back out and let them down. And the money was good, even if it was in the most inaccessable parts of Bristol for me. So off I trot on Monday morning, feeling pretty disgruntled at the 90 minute commute (including getting lost quite a lot). My mood is not lightned by the fact that my mobile starts ringing 30 minutes after I leave and then every 10 minutes for the next hour. I arrive at the venue and spend 10 minute looking for a parking place (having been tld "there's plenty of free parking there") making me a few minutes late. get into reception, pick up the annoying phone message telling me the job has been cancelled! GRrrrrrrrrr. what a waste of my morning!

I've got another interview )mine no- agencies involved) on friday afternoon, so I think i shall not bother with agencies any more. they are just annoying! Plus, what with Mstr A's diagnosis, and LMD's birthday tomorrow, and tons of stuff to do round the house i could do with the time off at the moment.

It did mean I had time to go out for a blast on the bike today. I'm starting to remember how it all works now:-) More thrilling than terrifying this time.

It's NOT a mid-life crises

It was a well thought out, sensible decision, made after discussion with Aggie and for all the right reasons. It will open up numerous work opportunities to me, and allow me to still see the kids each evening. It will mean Aggie will still have use of the car every day.

But, tbh, having collected it today, and made it home, I'm not sure whether to be thrilled or terrified:

This is the 2003 Yamaha Fazer. 600cc, 95hp, top speed 135mph.

I am the proud but terrified new owner of one just like it! I haven't ridden for 7 or 8 years or so. And even then, it was an old 400. *gulp*

Finally!

At last, we have an official diagnosis of Asbergers syndrome for Mstr A. They had a professionals meeting yesterday, and we were invited to see the paediatrician today, and told that there was a unanious agreement that he was an Aspie.

horaay! I feel very relieved - and a bit guilty that I am happy he has something wrong with him! But mostly pleased. Now we can actually start to officially get extra support for him in all sorts of things. Hopefully the school might get a bit of funding to help them supervise him out of class (they do very well inside the classroom, but playtimes & trips are still a major problem), and we are looking into (mostly) moral support from local groups and organisations.

Now to tell everyone:-)

I wonder if I should re-apply to the local swimming lessons - under DDA legislaion I could now insist on going in with him whatever the idiot teacher thought about it. But then again, whereas I'm all for fighting for your rights when necessary, i don't really see the point as we are doing better with the further away lessons now. It depends how life works out fo me I suppose. Aggie can not go in with him if I get a job too far away, so we'll see what happens.

update

Hmm, whats happening around here?

Work is getting pretty catty, as everyone gets more and more desperate to find something else, while still holding onto their post until the last second to get their redundancy (doesn't apply to me, as I've not been there long enough but I'm the first out too....) . 2ic in the Family Dept wins the book on first to get another job - and a really good one at tha, which seems to have really pissed off some of the other staff. ho hum. Water off a ducks back as I said to her - and think of the pound signs rolling round each time they say something stupid.

I've got an interview on Weds for a clinical negligance post which could be interesting. i don't fancy land law, which seems to be the thing that everyone has vacancies for. The interview is for a temp post, but in a big company so possibly wit scope for something to come up if it works well. If not, having the summer holidays off doesn't sound too bad. Otherwise i've had some unecessaril cheerful recruitment people on the phone telling me how great my CVi s - but none of them have produced an interview, never mind a job, so I don't take too much notice of them. Although, tbh, I haven't decided whether I should get another job at the moment or not. on one side, I would like some continuity of work and to rack up my qulifying employment. on the other hand, I am not too happy about Aggie looking after LMD full time. I suppose it will basically be decided by what happens;-)

Mstr A and LMB started swimming lessons again today. LMB started off a bit nervously, but after 5 minutes was well into the whole concept and had a great time. She reveled in the praise from the teacher, and interacted well with the other kids. I reckon she'll go up a class in just one term she did so well. Mstr A has tried swiming lessons a couple of times before rather less sucesfully, so this time I booked him back into the centre I used to work at, which hs smaller classes - although it is further away. I chatted to the teacher first and she seemed quite confident (and knew what Asbergers was, which helps), and she did manage him pretty well. his attention wandered a few times, but he did stay with the class and seemed to learn something, so hopefullly his swimming will start to look a little nicer by the summer:-)

I'm off to London again this weekend to meet up with the siblings. If the trains manage to run in the morning. You'd think rain was unusual in Somerset the way they go on!

We're not flooded here, and it hasn't snowed, much to the kids annoyance!

Time's up (almost)

I got my official letter today. The one that told me I'm losing my job. As I suspected, they are not being charitable and I finish on the 23rd January, exactly 364 days from when I started. Just in case I wanted to claim a full year:-) I'm not surprised, but a little annoyed as I specifically went to see the personnel manager (ha ha - he really can not manage his personnell!) before Xmas to ask if they were expecting me to leave when the family department closed in Feb or before, and was told that I would have to go by mid-Feb. Lucky i know how these people's minds work really! Although, it would cost about £400 to keep me on for the extra 21 days. Remembering that a solicitor's chargeable time racks up at £200 per hour, you'd have thought a bit of goodwill was worth 2 hours work. I rather doubt I'll be working incredibly hard for the next 3 weeks:-)

Still, at least I knew pretty much what was coming. Everyone else was pretty upset. Before Xmas, we were told the Family dept would close when the head of department left in mid-february, and everyone else would go when the firm closed in June. The letters given out today gave two unexpecting staff a leaving date of mid-feb and another two the end of March (I had told them that I doubted they would keep them past the end of the financial year, but they seemed disinclined to agree - this was the person who thought that they would pay her redundancy even if she left early, despte the fact that they wouldn't need to. yeah right!).

Oh well, that gives me exactly 20 days to find something else. I had best crack on with my begging letters! Although the 2ic in the department was pretty much offered a job today and said she would like to take me with her, which was nice:-) But i don't think I'll count on it. Plus there is a query over the location atm, so would like some other options. Suffice to say, we won't be spending any of my dad's xmas pressie yet - it may need to cover the mortgage for a while.

Happy 2008

It's going to be a good year. I've decided! :-)

I could have done without the BBC pundits telling me that 2008 was going to be the worst year for over a decade for redundancies, and that eveeryone was going to be letting staff go, but no-one wold be taking on. Thanks. I get to be the first statistic of the year then? Or perhaps I can sneak in there before they all realise:-) still, those same pundits have been giving dire warnings about the "credit crunch" and falling house prices for years, without the country seeming to actually turn any of it into actuality at all!

But all in all, I've had a pretty good lead up to 2008. Certainly it's shaping up better than 2007 was at the same point last year! Aggie is finally retired so we can make proper plans as to how we are going to be living in the future. It certainly means I have more options available work-wise, as I am not tied to school times any more. Money wise we will obviously be getting much less in (although more than when he was getting nothing!), but we have paid off almost all our debts except the mortgage, so we can budget what we do have better. As long as i get a job, we should survive! I'm going to have to relaly crack on with looking now the holidays are over.

The festive period has gone rather well really, even considering LMB's bloodied head - which she had near enough fogotten all about by the next morning anyway. I got a rather nice knife from Aggie which I can threaten him with all summer:-) We went off to the Crazie party on Thursday night and I recieved more books to read and a films to watch, and an unexpected gift from Naomi (Old Old Lady of the Hills) which was such a surprise and so doubly nice! I never really expected to make friends in the blogosphere, let alone make a "profit" out of it:-)

Then we spent the long weekend at my mother's in London. The kids were all well behaved. I had plenty of time to catch up with family news. I got called beautiful for the second time in just a few months by one of my mother's friends - which is nice, if a bit weird:-0 And my father decided to give away a small fortune as his Cristmas present to all his kids, wiping out the debt I still owe him from when we bought the car, and giving us enough of a lump sum to pay off our bank loan, and put enough aside to cover any unexpected major purchases that may come up. So when the car started playing up yesterday I just thought, "never mind, we'll have to get that sorted" rather than getting dead stressed about what we were going to do. It was a lovely feeling!

Also, my mother was rather nice to Aggie this weekend. Perhaps, after 15 years, she has finally decided to accept him:-) What is the world coming to? AND, we saw Aggie's brother and his family yesterday, and the chioldren lll played togethyer without problems, or even noise for a couploe of hours! This is amazing because despite the fact that Mstr A and boy cousin K are only a few weeks different in age, they are as bdifferent in temprement and outlook as possible, and previous metings have always ended in tears - from both boys and within minutes usually. Girl cousin K has always loved playing with the girls, but now they are old enough to be played with properly she was able to take them off and keep them occupied the whole time. Cool!

Last night we just stayed in with a couple of friends and drank a lot, played a stupid board game, drank a lot more, and stayed up much to late (well, early) . which was fine, but now it's morning, and the kids all want to do stuff;-( Bah!