Saturday smiles for the menopausal

Here you go folks, I had such a laugh when I found these!  I hope they make you smile too :-)

Where I go from here......the spare room?

Bloomin' heck!  Retirement.....that's for old folk, right?  Well it seems its for me too, this big life changing new phase.  Grumpy Trousers has a three year head start on me so he's well happy with his routine.  That I'm about to disrupt!

I think he sees my retirement as having a hand-grenade chucked into his world.  He wasn't happy for a few days until we had 'the talk' about what adjustments both of us were having to make.  I don't relish the thought of being with him 24/7 any more than he does - in fact the thought of it makes me cranky and I am fighting the urge to be rather unpleasant to him.  That's so WRONG isn't it?  But if he will insist on closing the bedroom window on a humid, sticky night the results are me heating up like a furnace with hot flushing and becoming itchy, witchy and bitchy.  All at once!

(image nicked from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health)

Since his triple heart bypass operation three years ago Grumpy Trousers body temperature is much lower than mine.  I have occasional resurgence of menopause symptoms so am always hot.  Therefore, closing a bedroom window on such a night was bound to have a negative effect. He can always burrow under the duvet, but I can't get any cooler even if I'm bloody buck naked!  I huffily flounced off into the spare room, almost tore the window from hits hinges to get some air in, then realised all his crap paperwork was on the bed.  With one sweep of my arm, it scattered all over the floor in order for me to throw myself on the bed.  I shouldn't have been so worked up but (now, is this familiar to you yet?) being overheated brings on hormonal headaches that bang inside my skull.  In hindsight, I should have given myself a cool sponge down in the bathroom, but hormonal headaches prevent me from thinking clearly.  So in the spare room I remained, with a bottle of water and my Kindle, eventually soothed by a cool caressing breeze that gently wafted the curtains and sent me to sleep.

Grumpy Trousers misses me sleeping alongside him far more than I miss him.  He takes comfort from my warmth; but unfortunately I don't take comfort from his snoring, coughing, wheezing, belching and farting that keep me awake.

This is all pointing to separate rooms isn't it?  I don't want it to come to that.  Occasionally is fine, but even I would hate it to become permanent.  I'll compromise on the belching and farting, and the snoring at a push, but the coughing and wheezing needs to be addressed.

Guess who will be the one to ring the doctor?

A new phase of life

I've decided.  I'm retiring!

The decision to leave work a year early, while a bit difficult ended up being a no-brainer.  There are too many changes about to happen at work and my role is going.  A similar one with a new title will take its place but I’d have to apply and there’d be some retraining.  Definitely not worth it for just another year.  A small redundancy package is on offer, and my pension figures are on the way.

So a new phase begins.  For once I'll be at the top of my own agenda.  I've worked solidly for 47 years; 12 years full time before I had my elder daughter, sometimes doing volunteer work too, 16 years working for myself in direct selling, then a variety of jobs including temping, permanent, temping again.  I worked my way up in 'corporate world' to a really well paid PA role.  Not secretary you understand.  I did actually make it to Personal Assistant.  Sometimes I even worked at two, and even three jobs at once.  I even did happy stints at our local pub a couple of evenings a week.  I was always beavering away, never letting up with the money coming in.  Despite that, we were never that well off.  Better than some, not as good as others.  We fell somewhere in between.  Do you know, it's not until I've come to write about it that I realise just how hard I DID work!  I just got on with it.

47 years - good grief!  Where's the time gone?  I took stock of all the skills and experience I've built up over those years and they amount to rather a lot. I even cared for my mother-in-law for 5 years up to her death.  And STILL I worked as well.  So the skills and experience are in fact much more than I thought.  Even though I'm retiring from work, I'm not retiring those skills and still hope to put them to use with some form of voluntary work.  I live very near to Hardwick Hall which is a National Trust property.  They always need volunteers and I couldn't think of a nicer place to hang out in my spare time.

In the meantime, this is my favourite Jamiroquai song.  For me the words are deep and meaningful, and fit it well with my decision to leave work early because of the changes.  I hope you'll give it a listen - it may mean something to you too.

The Groom did a selfie - with me!

This is the only photo I had taken of me at last week's wedding.  I was shattered and ready to leave so the groom grabbed the opportunity to snap us together before I scuttled off home.

I love the photo, as we're both laughing instead of pulling stupid faces.  Jo the lovely florist, who was also a guest and the most incredibly hilarious lass told me the secret of what the girls are saying when they pout on selfies.  It's POO!

Go try it - you know you want to!

I'm still here, honestly!

As it's been over a week since I last posted I thought I'd best check in and let you know I'm still around.

So much has happened since I last put fingers to keyboard and my time has been swallowed up.  I'm normally good at making opportunities to blog, but this time was different.

So, from the top starting May 23rd.....

• The wedding.  Lovely but chaotic.  I was busy from 10am through to 9pm.  Photos in the hairdressers, getting the hair, make up and nails done.  The girls got back to the house just before me and were in their dresses before I'd got out of the car!  I missed the opportunity to photograph the dress hanging up, but did manage to extricate the bride from the chaos for all of 5 minutes to capture her alone for her best pictures.  On to the stables immediately after to collect her horse so she could ride it to the church.  Lots of traffic was held up as she made her way and she arrived like Lady Godiva.  It was a sight to behold I have to say and she looked wonderful.  I lost the plot for a few minutes and needed to lock myself in a lavatory (see, I knew that would happen!) but I regained my composure quickly and started again.  The relatives pissed me off as they wouldn't move back to give me room to take pictures properly outside the church.  Then someone decided to do their own personal photo shoot - right in front of me.  I have an image of a blurred Fascinator and a floral clad bum. There's so much more I could write on this, but I'll probably not post it, leaving it just a reflective note for my own eyes.

Here's one of my early edited photo's - 

• Exhaustion the day after.  I hurt everywhere and had to get up around 3am to take painkillers.  I stayed in bed until mid morning then slowly melted into my day.  It was early evening before I felt sociable.

• The editing began and is STILL on going!  I'm on intimate terms with with every crease and wrinkle of the bride, together with her sister, mum and mum in law.  I'm very conversant with blurring wrinkles in Photoshop now!

• Half term, so I was off work, doing stuff at home and going places (including nearby Calke Abbey ).  This was not one of Grumpy Trousers best days as he argued with Joanna the Sat Nav.  So called because it has Joanna Lumley's voice.  Now, here's the thing; he absolutely ADORES Ms Lumley, but it was entirely my fault because Joanna chose to chuck us off the M1 at Junction 27 instead of 23a. (Might do another post about that).

• Visiting elder daughter for the weekend in her beautiful town of Malvern, Worcestershire.  We had fabulous hugs and declarations of "oooh you smell nice!"  I took pictures of her doing yoga and some portraits for her new website.  I've not even looked at them yet, so I hope she's in focus.

• Trying to make the best of any fine weather by tidying the garden at home.  Oh, the weeds...the bloody weeds!  Anyway, most are dug up and gone now to make way for some lovely geraniums and begonias.

• Laundering everything in sight while the sun is out....curtains, duvets, cushions.  But I've STILL not washed my hard floors, so cat fur and dust lurks in all the corners.  

• I'm still editing wedding pictures

• I'm back at work

Coming back to work has been a revelation, let me tell you.  I'm now facing redundancy!  My official job title is Learning Centre Assistant, and this involves some library duties too but it's all going to change.  I absolutely love my job, I work with a really nice team of people and the majority of us are friends out of work too.  I enjoy the interaction with the teaching staff and get a lot of pleasure (and bit of grief!) in my dealings with the students.

Now we are facing a restructure and our jobs are changing radically.  Despite my age I really don't mind change, in fact I've often instigated it in the past but I don't see this working for the better.  I can't go into details, but think of future generations with even less social skills than now and you'll get the idea.  If I stay, I'll end up being a teacher on the cheap. I'll be taking on a role that I'm barely equipped for (yes, they'll train me but I have only one year before retirement, so realistically is it going to happen?) and they'll only pay me what I get now.  As a result not just a cheap teacher, but an EXTREMELY cheap teacher!  I don't want the hassle or the grief as I've had my fill of working.  I'd say taking redundancy is a no-brainer, wouldn't you?