As everyone who reads my blog even intermittently knows,
Mike's been signed off work for over a year now. The problem is that his
employment contract only allows a year off work and then it's the chop in one
way or another. Unfortunately his condition isn't recognized as 'permanent'
which is amazing. If he'd claimed emotional problems he'd be a happily retired
ex-teacher now with a pension. Since he's British and has that damn stiff upper
lip there's no mention of emotions, much less the amazing amount of stress
caused by going in a week from a healthy, active individual to someone who
can't even walk down into the village for a pint or a newspaper or a loaf of
bread and has been like this for over a year.
So, we're stuck with no income and no one who will just be
decent humans and say 'yup, you've taught for 30 years in a school in a neighborhood
with astonishing societal problems and kept going until your body turned on
you, here's your pension and thanks for the hard work'. Nope. Nada.
So, we're keeping our chins (no, that's not double chins,
it's collective family chins) up and trying to cope with the whole thing but
right now it's hard to make sense of it all.
The boat also gave me a fright today, it was cold enough to
warrant lighting the fire and so I did. And an hour into the toasty warmth that
is our fire, it started making horrendous, huge whooshing noises along the
lines of the entire blast furnace output of Gary, Indiana (don't burst into
song, please!) until I braved the whooshing long enough to turn off the fuel
feed. It's cool enough now to check what's wrong but I think I'll go all
girl-like and insist that He Who Does DIY (albeit only marginally) should
examine the stove. Until then it's electric blankets and the space heater. And
a cup of tea, which is what I need.
Cheers.
