A commute and a half!

Mr H’s commute to work today entails leaving home at 7:15 driving to the nearest office (not the one he usually works at) to pick up a colleague, driving on to the airport, parking up, bussing to the check in and then a flight to Dublin before picking up a hire car and driving to a meeting! Then doing it all again in reverse to arrive home sometime (hopefully) not long after 11pm!

That’s one long day for him! And this meeting was only arranged on Monday. I think I may have a rather tired husband tomorrow…

Tomorrow’s not going to be that easy a day for him either. We need to be at the showroom at 9:30 tomorrow to pick up the new car before I am picked up by a friend to sing in a ‘Come and sing Messiah’. I’m being picked up at 12:45 for an afternoon of workshops before the sing through in the evening. I’m really looking forward to it, though I haven’t done any proper choral singing for years (6/7! which reminds me, I need to have a  listen to the CD). Mr H is staying home with the munchkin, but will also have to head to the supermarket as we’ll need most of the weekly shop by then. He may manage to get some down time, but the munchkin does miss her Daddy when he’s away so may want to do a lot with him, especially as she won’t see him at all today.

I’m feeling a bit better today. I got myself up with Mr H, and by the time the munchkin woke up I’d loaded the washing machine and dishwasher and prepared our breakfasts. I’ve currently got an apple, sultana and cinnamon loaf on the go in the breadmaker (hope it works!) and I’m planning a nice dinner for myself tonight (might as well have something I enjoy and Mr H isn’t keen on!). I hope everyone reading has a good weekend. I’ll be back again next week. Bye!

 

At last…

…I can give you the news I’ve been sitting on for the last two weeks.

Mr H is going to be staying with his current company for at least the next 11 months, working on something new which hopefully will succeed and mean he won’t be made redundant this time next year.

The email went out yesterday which explained that some members of the team would be staying and sorry to the others. All those who are staying have known since before Christmas.

It’s a huge relief to us and though we know we could be in the same position next year it’ll be easier with a lot more notice and a bit of experience.

Thank you to everyone for the thoughts and lovely comments as we’ve been going through this.

 

Better this week than next!

That’s what I’m trying to bear in mind as we fight off a nasty cold in the H house. I started feeling rough on Friday with the cold hitting with full force on Saturday. The munchkin, while not as bunged up and hoarse as I am, is definitely off colour and waking in the night clearly feeling poorly. Mr H is ok, he’s not feeling 100% but is coping and definitely helping look after us.

It’s much better that we have this cold now than next week when we’re staying with Mr H’s family. We’d only pass it on to everyone and make everyone miserable, not nice for Christmas.

Mr H has decided to work from home today to get away from the negative atmosphere at work, and already (11am, having started work at 9:45) he’s got done more than he’d planned to for a morning of work (I guess that shows how bad things are there as the munchkin is definitely a distraction at times).  It’s nice to have him around when I’m feeling rough, and the munchkin is always happy to have Daddy here.

Well, I’m going to go and curl up with a nice cup of tea but to finish off today’s post a photo we took yesterday for the December picture for the calendar we make each year for my parents and the grandmas. (nb. the presents are not usually at the bottom of the tree…they’d be unwrapped within minutes!)

 

Downside of winter…

 

Some winter pros and cons:

+ Beautiful frosty scenary
- Very cold fingers when I try and photograph it
+ Spider’s webs look amazing
- They’re mainly at the back of the house which is where the sun is all day so they melt quickly
+ The munchkin looks gorgeous all wrapped up in her big coat, hat and gloves
- The munchkin always has cold fingers as she simply will not keep her gloves on
+ It’s a great excuse for more cuddles with the munchkin
- During said cuddles she has a tendancy to slip cold fingers down my top and the giggle at my yelps
+ Christmas comes in the middle of winter
- Mr H is tight when it comes to sending cards….he keeps trying to get me to pack up all family ones together even when I know people won’t see each other until after Christmas
+ I get to decorate the house and tree
- The munchkin keeps taking ornaments off the tree (all the breakable ones are out of reach!)
+ I have the fun, brightly coloured angel on the top of the tree
- She’s had too much seasonal alcohol and keeps drunkenly falling over!
+ I get to buy and wrap lots of presents for family and friends
- I have to try and guess what Mr H wants as he doesn’t often tell me
+ I have an excuse to wrap myself up in a fleece blanket on the sofa and watch trashy TV
- The pipes in the kitchen freeze up and I can’t cook properly or even run the washing machine or dishwasher

As you can imagine the latter of those is the most frustrating, it happened briefly yesterday, but it was just the cold and we were out meeting the munchkin’s little friends all morning anyway, but this morning we’re in all day (except for a walk later on) and I have lots to do. I’ve had the heating on all morning, rather than the usual couple of hours as we get up, but since the thermostat is (stupidly) in the living room (the warmest room in the house, which gets sunshine all day) it doesn’t make much difference unless I turn it up all the way, in which case the living room and bedrooms would be unbearable.

I’m writing this just after lunch and I’m getting a trickle out of them now. We did look at lagging the pipes after last winter but we’d need to rip the whole kitchen out and we haven’t had to money to do that. Maybe this year (depending on Mr H’s work) we’ll get it done.

Talking of Mr H’s work. He’s spoken to the company that offered him a job and they’re happy for him not to sign anything yet and ensure that he gets the full redundancy package. There’s still a slim chance of something where he is (in which case he’d stay), but we’re now in the position of definitely having a job next year. That’s huge weight off our minds. He’s still going to the interview he’s got lined up tomorrow, but we’re not worried about it. If they offer him somethihng, fab, we’ve got more options if not then we’re fine too.

I had a comment yesterday from Nikke, she’s received the ornaments I sent as part of Julie’s ornament exchange. I’m so glad she likes them, I love these olive wood decorations and as soon as I signed up I knew what I had to get her.

 

It’s Friday!

And I’m definitely ready for a quiet(ish) weekend. It’ll be nice to be at home and have Mr H here all day too. R moves out tonight (though may have to finish moving a few boxes tomorrow), so it really will be a weekend to ourselves. However, it’s the children’s nativity service at church on Sunday morning (not quite sure why it’s this early in advent) which I’d like to take the munchkin too and I’m singing in the worship band again in the evening, so there won’t be much of Sunday to ourselves, so I guess it’s just Saturday to ourselves.

I’ve made banana cake for us to enjoy (it’s just cooling so should be perfect by the time the munchkin and I get back from toddler group) and I’ve got some nice meals planned so hopefully Mr H will unwind a bit too. Despite the job offer he’s still stressed, as until he can sign anything everything’s still up in the air. He’s relaxed a little with having the flights to Scotland booked, it does mean rather less work for him to do so it’ll be a more relaxing break.

Anyway, got to go, toddler group calls…it starts in 10 minutes and we’re not ready! Bye!

 

Where does the time go?

The weekend at Mum and Dad’s flew by. We had a lovely time though the munchkin didn’t sleep brilliantly (though she did the night we spent at the Christmas party) so we’ve come home quite tired.

I posted my ornament for Julie’s ornament exchange on Monday while we were there so now I’m going to be keeping a close eye on a certain blog to see when it arrives. Mum (Alison on the list) is also taking part so I’ll post about her swap here when she gets it.

In other news, Mr H has had a job offer. A very good salary for his age and experience in a town that’s just about commutable from here. However if he signs a contract now (before he gets the offical redundancy notice – due in early January) he will lose out on the redundancy payout so we’re hoping they’ll be willing to wait as the payout will make a huge difference to us. There’s still a slim chance he’ll be able to stay on where he is, but I think that’s looking more unlikely.

My gran has also given us a very very nice offer. She’s not happy with Mr H driving all the way up to the north of Scotland for Christmas so has offered to pay for flights for us to put her mind at rest. The cheapest we can find these is £420 (about $850)! It’s very generous of her and we’re very grateful. I wasn’t entirely happy about us driving all the way and Mr H has agreed that flying is more sensible. We’re just hunting out a travel cot and car seat up there to borrow, otherwise we’ll buy a seat and put the travel cot in the hold of the plane.

I’ve just opened up my bloglines and discovered 345 (!) unread posts so I think if/when the munchkin sleeps that will be my afternoon taken up (once I’ve started catching up on the washing after being away). I’m off now to sort our lunches out and then hope she’ll sleep.

 

Jobs update

Well, Mr H’s interview yesterday didn’t go too well. They were looking for a more academic engineer than Mr H (he’s very practical and hands on). We weren’t expecting too much from this interview anyway as it was for a principal role, and Mr H is still very young and rather inexperienced for something like it. He has been offered another interview in Somerset on Tuesday (which sadly again seems to be a fairly academic role) but it’s a face to face interview which even if he isn’t offered anything will be good experience for the jobs he’s more suited to (hopefully the job he’s being interviewed for next Thursday).

On a slightly separate note…maybe we need to look for jobs for Mr H in France!

You Belong in Paris

You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris.You’re the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.

What European City Do You Belong In?

I love Paris, and keep trying to hint to Mr H that he needs to take me back there one day!

 

Reflection

I’ve just typed up, and then deleted, a long post about things I’ve learnt about myself lately. I wasn’t pleasnt reading for me. I seem to be getting obsessive about silly things and unnecessarily grouchy when people do certain things.

I’ve never been good when plans change, I always need to know what’s happening when, but when things change around the house or get put back in different places normally I’d be fine. I don’t know whether it’s just having someone else in my house that’s doing it to me, or that I’m just stressed and ridiculously tired thanks to Mr H’s job situation that’s exacerbating it, or just something else entirely.

Maybe things will change from next week. R has got herself a temping job starting on Monday working 9-4:15, it will be nice to have the house back to myself in the daytimes. Mr H has also started getting interviews. He has one over the telephone this afternoon (in about an hour!) for a job back in the city where we started married life (and somewhere we’d love to go back to at some point) and another next Thursday in a town about 20 miles away from here. Both jobs would be commutable from here in the short term, but for the sake of Mr H spending any time with the munchkin aside from weekends we would move when the right house came up.

I’m hoping Mr H will let me have a lie in at the weekend. I’ve been getting up almost every other night lately for the munchkin, either she’s cold because she’s kicked off her covers, she’s dropped her cuddly giraffe or last night’s treat, she’s done a poo and got sore from it. I’ve been trying to let Mr H get as much rest as he can, but I think if I don’t get some soon I’ll struggle even more with looking after him. I’m also hoping that R will baby sit again in the next week or so, so that we can have a night out and try to relax together, I think that’s something that would help us both.

The main thing that would help though would be Mr H’s company finally handing out the official redundancy notices rather than faffing around and delaying it due to other departments in the company where only some staff are under threat being awkward, for Mr H’s team who are all going they just want to know. Once we have that we know where we stand, and what money we have when which will definitely make things a bit less uncertain.

 

All change!

Well, some change! 

R let us know yesterday that she’s signed a contract on a flat with a friend and will be moving out in early December. While it has been nice in some ways to have her here it will be a bit of relief to us to have our house back.

It’s been nice to have a bit of adult company in the daytimes (though R is usually in her room playing computer games) and the possibility of a live in baby sitter has been good (though we’ve only used that once – I think we need to use it again before she goes!). However we do things differently, and I’ve recently had to say that if she’s not showered by 10 she’ll have to wait until the dishwasher and washing machine finish (she was quite accepting of thaat though). She’s been here for 2 months though so it’ll definitely be slightly strange without her for a little bit.

She’s still not got a job, though has signed with a couple of recruitment agencies this week (and been offered temp jobs through them). Her parents are lending her the money for the 6 months rent that needs paying up front (as she has no job). She’s still waiting to hear about the interview she had on Friday and has a meeting in a school for a maternity cover this Thursday. Hopefully one of those will give her something.

Aside from that, things are plodding on here. Mr H applied for the job in Scotland last night (a surprisingly easy and concise online form) and tonight we’re going to look at the other promising agency. The munchkin is being fabulous. Her latest new phrase is me too (not certain where she’s got that from) and she’s definitely her father’s daughter….she can name all the Simpsons family…especially Homer! She’s giving us lots of grins and happiness, just what we need.

 

Oh dear….broody Hannah!

We did go up to see L, T and my baby nephew, J, yesterday.  And he’s absolutely gorgeous (though still so tiny, he’s only just got back to his birth weight of 5lb12). The munchkin loved cuddles and kissing him (gives me hope for when we eventualy have #2).

It wasn’t anywhere near as hard as I thought to see them and while I did have brief thoughts that I should have a baby too it really was ok. I know that having a baby or being pregnant now would make the redundancy and job hunt even more stressful than it already is. I do think that I may have persuaded Mr H to try again once we’re settled in a new house (and job). I don’t know whether seeing this helped:

 

He did like seeing me cuddling a baby again (and I’m now more broody than ever, though being practical about it this time).

The job hunt is going ok. He’s appled for 6 jobs in various parts of the country over the weekend and we’re going to apply for the job in Scotland this evening. We’ve taken the decision that we’ll sell this house (there really are no jobs near here) and then rent for a while until we work out what’s happening with the housing market and what the job’s like.

A final one of Baby J in his lovely Silver Cross pram (an old heritage style one  – I think it’s a Kensington – bought in a charity shop for £25!)

Beccy – just seen your comment as I’m typing this – hope you like the pictures!