happy Birthday, Graham

[wendy]

Happy Birthday, Graham, albeit belatedly by the time that you will read this, and hope that your day is a good one in France.

[Graham]

Thanks Wendy, I love the dancing letters. I had a lovely birthday as you say we were in France at St. Malo on the day ready for our ferry home the following day. Pauline did me a special meal and we shared a nice bottle of vin rouge together, followed by one of those lovely fruit covered pastries that only the French know how to make, lovely.

I had a nice present from my employers who have made me redundant, so I am looking forward to a life of leisure, well that was my idea but Pauline has roped me in to helping her restart her Childminding business with me as an assistant. So she will be officially my boss - nothing new there then ;D. I have told her that employees get far more rights than husbands, she wasn't impressed.

See you soon at Hayfield.

Graham

[Pauline]

You've been excused nappy changing duties what more do you want?!! ;D

[yamaha]

Welcome back to Blighty, you two intrepid walkers - how many ticks are in the big blue book now, I wonder - 490?

Hope you had a great holiday - but so sorry to hear of the redundancy , Graham- quite a shock I imagine. Sounds like you have a nice relaxing job in it's place then - paid sick leave - a break every two hours, etc.

We have a ferry booking to claim sometime - just have to decide when we can fit it in - and where to go Bongo'ing - very difficult , as time is SO limited when you're retired !!

OK on the Carnival meet - 'spose Wendy will have to run the show, then !!

Mike

[Graham]

Hi Mike

Only one tick in the old blue book, we did one on the Isle d'Oleron (9 kilometers) it was a lovely walk well marked and the book was perfect, we didn't get lost once, we had planned another near St. Malo at the end of our holiday but to be honest it was red hot weather and it was a toss up between sitting beside the pool with a gin and tonic or a 12k walk in temperatures around 80 degrees, so we decided on the first option.

Regarding my redundancy to be honest it wasn't a shock I had survived a couple of redundancy programmes over the years and I reckoned it was only a matter of time before they sussed that I was a lazy good for nothing ;D.

The suprise was that they closed the whole department down and 34 people where made redundant, I consider myself more fortunate than some of my younger colleagues who have got young families and mortgages.

I am looking forward to my new job which starts tomorrow, although I have heard that the boss is a bit of tyrant so I don't know how long I will last.

Sorry we can't make the carnival meet but we'll look forward to all the reports on here. Must dash now the boss has just come back from shopping and she's giving me a bit of in house training before the big day tomorrow.

Cheers

Graham