Had a prolonged silence lately. This is because there is either nothing happening that seems worth blogging about, or too much is happening to allow time to blog. And over it all our future plans have been taken out of our hands and we have been manipulated from "above" by unseen puppeteers who masquerade as senior management where The Husband works. After years of rumour and change and "improvements" and adopting new practices and seeing much of what he has skilfully, ingeniously and meticulously done in the past sent instead to China, where the "same" work cost £4.50 an hour, they have finally decided to make him redundant. In fact all the laboratories are to be closed and the building sold. What has been a local landmark business and where The Husband has worked for almost thirty-two years will now be located elsewhere, much of it on the other side of the in the world, and the bulldozers are not far behind. I wonder how many will notice it has gone...
The Husband has accepted this redundancy with a blithe heart, but as we all know even happy change can be stressful, so I am keeping an eye on him. We have had long-term plans ever since we met (which has entailed paying two mortgages, two lots of Council Tax and two piles of utility bills for almost twelve years, so has involved quite a bit of sacrifice along the way) to sell his house just north of London and move to mine in deepest rural mid-Wales when he retires. That day was planned to be his sixtieth birthday, in March 2016. Instead it will now be March 2012 when he last puts on his workwear and leaves the house to earn a crust. His redundancy settlement will be enough to live on modestly for half those four years before he will draw his professional pension. The equity from his house sale will easily provide another two years' money and a good lump sum to invest or for capital expenditure. When he is 62 he will cash his endowment policy and we will have another boost in the bank account. And finally when he is 66 the State Pension will come on stream. We will manage. We will more than manage. We will be quite comfortable and time rich. Not three foreign holidays a year, and cruises, comfortable. But take the dog to the seaside on any nice sunny day we fancy comfortable. It is enough. It's all we want.
Emptying and selling The Husband's house will be a strenuous ordeal. It has four double bedrooms, two reception rooms, a large loft and outbuildings and they are all full. Little of what is here is needed in Wales, only the best and most useful will be kept. But once that is done, and the money invested sensibly, we have vast acres of time stretching out before us, while we are both fit and healthy enough to take up new hobbies and interests and fill our days to suit ourselves and be beholden to no-one but those we love.
I have enjoyed that way of life for some years now. To have The Husband doing the same alongside me is pure luxury to me. I literally can hardly wait.
