I had my online attendance meeting this morning with HR, my Headteacher and my local EIS secretary. It was pretty straightforward.
How are you feeling? Good.
Is there is anything we can do to help your return to work? No, I'm retiring and my GP wants to sign me off until my retirement date.
If there's anything we can do until then just let us know. Ok, thanks.
And that was pretty much the gist. There was no point in dragging up all the things my headteacher did and didn't do. Allegedly she couldn't get her camera to work so she couldn't even look me in the eyes. She did say that there's still no input/support from the Pupil Support Service or Educational Psychologist for some of my kids despite us requesting help back in October!! I didn't expect there to be. But I'm just done with the whole thing now and can't wait for the last day of term.
Afterwards I went to the allotment and played with my my new cordless strimmer to create paths. It's a bit rough but you can see the 'grass' aka weed paths beginning to take shape. Turns out I'd assembled the strimmer guard the wrong way round and the lovely Tesco delivery man fixed it for me this afternoon 😂
I finished another pair of socks. This was using 2 separate balls of sock yarn to make my own stripes. Joining the colours was a nightmare and I've got lots of wee threads inside. Ah well, only I'll know they're there!
Oh and I've got another energy bill for that one day in May 2020. Last bill said I owed them 64p, this one says I owe them £66 exactly for the same day. The saga rumbles on...
good luck with the energy bill You could always make a novel out of it in your spare time when you retire!!!
ReplyDeleteLol!! That sounds like a fab plan! :-)
DeleteI left teaching early, taking ill health retirement due to Parkinson's. Your blog today reminds me of the utter relief I felt to leave it all behind. I am 5 years in and still relish and feel utter joy to be free. Sunday evenings are glorious with no "Sunday night feeling". Happy days!
ReplyDeleteSorry came up as anonymous. I'm Lynn.
DeleteYep, relieved is the best way to describe it :-)
DeleteThere must be someone you can go to to bring this fiasco to a halt! Perhaps your local councillor could help? Or just go to the top, get the new First Minister on it!! Glad to hear you're resigned to being off now till the end of term, not too long now to go! I'd love to knit socks but I can't get my head round circular needles or dpn's so mine would need to have seams - not ideal lol.
ReplyDeleteIt just makes me laugh now. They are utterly incompetent! My son phoned them again today about repaying their erroneous £2,500 refund. He was told there wasn't enough information in the Promise note THEY wrote on his CLOSED account so they didn't go ahead with re billing him. Without even telling him!!
DeleteSocks are easy to knit once you get started :-)
Love the colour combo of the new socks-have you tried the magic knot for joining? I learned about it from watching a video of how to do it. Your HR interview has gone through the motions and you know you will never be back. Well done on the progress with your allotment and great that the Tesco man fixed the strimmer. Summer is definitely on its way and I bought about a dozen perennial plants from Morrisons today fro £2.39 each which I thought was a bargain. Catriona
ReplyDeleteI've watched a video of the magic knot but haven't tried yet. I've got an idea for another knitting project using up scraps of yarn so will practise beforehand! The allotment is a bit behind as I've been focussing on my garden but it's catching up :-)
DeleteI'm glad the attendance meeting went well for you and I'm not surprised she couldn't look you in the eye. The allotment looks brilliant! xx
ReplyDeleteIt was just a tick box exercise. HR person didn't even know I was retiring!! But only a few more weeks left then I'm free :-)
DeleteLove the allotment video, good idea to have grass paths, that's what we have on our plot. It does take some work though but great to be outside, especially if it's fine. Do you ever plant cucumber? They will probably do well in your polytunnel.
ReplyDeleteWhat a saga about the energy bills!!!
Most of our plots have woodchips paths as we had a plentiful free supply. I'd never used a strimmer so didn't know how I'd get on. It's so easy to use and I wish I'd got one sooner! I wondered about planting cucumbers on the other side :-)
DeleteA brilliant film of your allotment, just before you said the words, I said to myself ... 'Oooh those raspberries look good'. Are you planning lots of harvesting and freezing of your produce to give you free food over the coming winter months? You could even start doing that now with some of that magnificent rhubarb.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the 'meeting' went okay, I hate those sort of 'ticking boxes' time-wasting meetings. But it's good that it's another step towards your retirement and peace of mind.
Yes, filling the freezer is the aim. Last year the soft fruit I froze lasted me until the start of this year. And I still have loads of frozen plums my Lovely Mum gave me. I've attended so many of these meetings as a rep I knew exactly how it would go. Nothing ever gets achieved but a box was ticked and I'm closer to being done with it all! :-)
DeleteThe allotment video is great. Nice to see how things are progressing. Also glad your meeting went well. Now if only the power thing would resolve.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I do have a plan for the plot that's slowly taking shape, it just needs me to spend more time there. I'm on the Scottish power problem!! :-)
DeleteHaving twice had problems with different power companies I found that the only thing that actually bought about a satisfactory resolution each time was resorting to good old pen & paper and writing a 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' letter laying out their failings and letting them know exactly what needed doing. The first time a named person rang me, told me what he would do to put things right and then rang me back at a later date to check if I was happy! It is worth a go for just the price of a stamp.
ReplyDeleteIt was supposed to be finally sorted last week with them agreeing it was all their mistake. I think it's a computer error that just keeps the whole thing going and going!! But yes, 'disgusted of Stirling' will be writing a letter very soon! :-)
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