As luck would have it...

Yesterday it seemed our luck had turned. everything started to come together.

I've spent the past week at work downstairs with the rest of the admin staff covering while the main typist is sunning herself on holiday. It's worked out OK - they have seen that I'm not hiding away upsatirs drinking coffee and chatting, but actually work pretty hard;-) I have helped a couple of them with some stuff, and got a better understanding of the problems/issues in the company. All in all, I'm feeling pretty happy there at the moment, which is nice. I'm starting to really get an understanding of the cases - it's much easier when I've been there from start through to finish! And to be trusted to do a fair bit of stuff myself, which makes me feel happier.



Aggie received his letter from work saying he is permently disabled from his profession. this may not sound great, but it solves a lot of problems. not least the stress of worrying about him as really he is not able to work full time/regularly. Although it also reduces the time pressure on me as he can cover the occasional school pick up and some holidays. By being disabled out rather than sacked, we get a small pension paid, which means that, added to my salary, we may be able to afford to live. Not well, but live:-) The lump sum will (I think) cover all of our debts other than the mortgage, so our outgoings will reduce and finances will become manageable.



Of course, none of that will actually happen until they do all the paperwork - currently we're looking at the end of November. But it is all agreed and sorted and we can plan our future again.



Also I looked at our small critical illness insurance policy. I read it, and read it then read it again. then I read through all the exclusion clauses, and compared their term to Aggie's letter of medical retirement. i reckon they will have to pay out! I can't see any way out of it. I'm sure they'll try, but I think we may be able to pay of a good £40% of our mortgage! If that works out, we may even have a small disposable income each month! WOW - I can't remember what disposable income is!



Oh yes. I got a distinction in my first essay for college:-) Although, it's easy when you have the book in front of you. I'm a bit more concerned about when I have to do the essays under exam conditions.



And I think i might have won one of these:

It's a G-Wiz electric car.

I'm not getting too excited until I actually see it. But, I entered an internet competition a few months ago - one of these things where you answer some consumer questions and get entered into a prize draw for your time. And they have phoned and emailed me to say i've won. I can't find anything on the email that says it is a model car, or that i have to pay anything, or that the prize requires me to do anything. So Maybe........

I've asked for it to be delivered to my mother's as it's really only any good in London. Then with luck, it will sell easily and buy me a holiday or something. Maybe a motorbike:-)

Whaddyaknow?!

It's official

Aggie is a drain on society, a layabout, part of the non-working classes and absolutely, without doubt, a cripple.

Yep, he's finally been retired from work on health grounds. Yipee, now I can get back to my favourite passtime of planning for an improbable future:-0 It's certainly better than worrying about an actual present;-)

Of course, although it means that it's all official now, and he won't have to go back to work, it's not all finalised yet with dates and amounts etc, so no money has materialised yet! Not even the back pay for the last three months which he is owed (they stopped paying him anything when he hit 6 months sick, but they were supposed to pay him pension rate as he was going through the pension process....) But it will come. One day.

The lump sum should pay off all our debts (other than mortgage), and then we just have to re-learn how to live within our means. As no-one will be stupid enough to lend us any more money, that shouldn't be too hard:-) My salary will slowly increase - eventually. The light at the end of the tunnel is finally appearing.

Aggie is hoping to go off to uni next year - which gives him a full year to get himself and the house sorted out. he has to do it in slow time nowadays, but stuff still needs doing, so hopefully he'll have the time to do it!

It also means I will stay in my local job for a while yet - which is the easier option:-)

Here's to the future!

Phew!

The stomach bug only lasted 24 hours, so I went back to work yesterday. I expected to have a pile of stuff waiting for me, but it had all been done, leaving me at a bit of a loose end!

It was my 1 month anniversary there, and they still seem happy with me as far as I can tell (how do you know?), so that's good:-)

LMB woke up bright as the sunshine on Tuesday morning. How lovely to be 3 years old, and just sleep off nasty stomach bugs like that:-)

Aggie's GP has had permission to rewrite his report for work, so with any luck he'll be retired by the summer time (maybe), which will be the best thing on the whole. I'm quite jealous in a way - but not of the constant pain, inability to lift up the kids, flaky skin or bigotry he faces from others, so on the whole I guess i've got the better deal:-) It would certainly make it easier for me to embark on a new career if he's at home - especially considering the new report about how us mothers of young children face the most discrimination at work!

We started criminal procedure at college tonight. i was really concerned about this subject as i know very little (up to date stuff) about it, have no interest in working in the criminal law and have no experience of it. But fortunately, it all seemd fairly basic stuff on the syllabus - just general knowledge really. lets hope it stays at that level:-)

In sickness and in health

I tried to get that sentance taken out of our marriage vows (we wrote them ourselves), along with "till death us do part" but both were required by law:-(

We're in sicknesss here at Casa Aginoth right now. Well, I certainly am. It started with just feling a bit bloated on the drive home yesterday afternoon, and progressed to feeling really nauseous & having a raging tempreture by the time I went to bed last night. I hoped it would calm down over night, and intended to at least try to make it in to work today, on the principle that I could come home if I felt too bad, but when I got up this morning, my legs buckled, and the shivering & shuddering just wouldn't go away, so I phoned in sick:-( I managd to get the kids all up, breakfasted, and the girls dressed & ready for school, then took myself off to bed & left Nanny A to sort out everything else. Thanks Nanny A:-) She was booked in to look after Mstr A today as it is an inset day, but actually saved me from having to even get dressed today at all:-)

I did manage to sleep through 'till mid afternoon, which helped quite a bit. I wouldn't want to o too far away from a toilet yet, but I am hopeful I'll be OK to go back to work tomorrow.

Nanny took Mstr A off to see Charlottes Web this afternoon. He nearly didn't go, as he started complaining that his tummy hurt just before they left, which was a bit concerning. But then he mentioned that he had eaten too much lunch, so we guessed the walk to the cinema might solve the problem. Hopefully that is all it is, and he'll e fine tomorrow too.

Aggie collected the girls on his way home from work. LMB walked in th door, immediately said her mouth hurt & took herself off to bed. She was fast asleep within 2 minutes, poor thing, so it looks like she may have a bug too:-(

In fact the only person who is apparently perfectly healthy here is Aggie, who recieved a letter from work today saying that he was not eligable for ill-health retirement because:

he is "currently unfit for work" and " spontaneous improvement appears unlikely", his condition is "chronic and impairs normal day to day activity" there is "reasonable medical evidence that [Aggie] is prevented from discharging his duties" and "the prognosis is guarded with regards him recovering sufficently or long enough to reliably return to work"

Oh yes, and the report from his GP did not specifically say he is unable to work. That is because the report was written by the lead GP at the surgery who has seen Aggie once in five years, and has no knwledge of his condition, treatments or prognosis. He was also, apparently, unable to walk into th next door office and ASK aggie's actual GP for his opinion.

Aggie spoke to his GP tonight, who apologised, and agreed to re-write the GP's report if we can get permission from the practise manager to allow him to do so. That practise manager does not know what is going to hit him!

we will be appealing the decision, on the basis of new medical evidence from Aggies GP.