(no subject)
23 Aug 2005 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatI'm home. Well actually I arrived home last night, but have only just found time to get down to my keyboard and write!
Skye is very beautiful - I haven't down-loaded my pictures yet, but I think some of them will be worth putting up later.
My friend is a cordon bleu level cook - I could not have been better fed at a 4 star hotel - just to make you all jealous here is a list of main meals eaten by me on Skye, all cooked by my clever friend D.:
Venison in red wine sauce, rack of lamb with an oatmeal and black pepper crust, monkfish in a saffron cream sauce, pasta with spicy bacon and tomato sauce, morrocan chicken with barley couscous, duck with orange and mustard sauce, and kedgeree. Envious?
The cats were funny - the two British short-hairs, Tabitha and Dougal decided that I might be acceptable by the end of the first day - but it took the two identical British Blues, Mango and Rum until the last night I was there to come and play with me. I have led them into bad habits - all four have developed a taste for gluten-free pasta, couscous, and kedgeree! I have cat pictures also - when I get around to down-loading them!
The Dick Gaughan concert was very good - it reminded me of two of my LJ friends particularly -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ezagaaikwe and missmurchison.
Why? Well Dick Gaughan reminds me of E's husband Frank - look: Picture of Dick Gaughan
Miss M - well he was talking about politics, as he does, and was describing a conversation in the bar with other performers at a Canadian Festival. One of the American singers said 'I hear you Europeans are having problems agreeing on a Constitution.' DG agreed this was the case. 'Well take ours.' the guy said 'We're not using it!' For those who don't read Miss Muchison (and why not?!) her daughter in particular is interested in the US constitution.
Both S2C and the cat seemed pleased to see me!
Life today has been back to Earth with a bump - I noticed when I got home from work that the freezer wasn't properly shut - and the contents were all somewhat defrosted and had to be thrown out.
And I have just discovered that although I thought my NHS pension had been transfered from the UK when I came home 17 years ago, there is no record of the transfer - so my first 9 years of payments do not go towards my final salary pension - they are frozen somewhere in the UK at the grade I was then. I think this is going to make me about £1,000 a year worse off when I retire in about 9 or 10 years time. If I can even work out how to access that frozen pension, as the Health Authority I worked for no longer exists.
I am hoping the Royal College of Nursing can help me, but the attitude of the civil servant I spoke to was 'You saying that you completed the forms means nothing - the forms are not in your file - therefore they did not exist', so I'm not holding my breath.
Skye is very beautiful - I haven't down-loaded my pictures yet, but I think some of them will be worth putting up later.
My friend is a cordon bleu level cook - I could not have been better fed at a 4 star hotel - just to make you all jealous here is a list of main meals eaten by me on Skye, all cooked by my clever friend D.:
Venison in red wine sauce, rack of lamb with an oatmeal and black pepper crust, monkfish in a saffron cream sauce, pasta with spicy bacon and tomato sauce, morrocan chicken with barley couscous, duck with orange and mustard sauce, and kedgeree. Envious?
The cats were funny - the two British short-hairs, Tabitha and Dougal decided that I might be acceptable by the end of the first day - but it took the two identical British Blues, Mango and Rum until the last night I was there to come and play with me. I have led them into bad habits - all four have developed a taste for gluten-free pasta, couscous, and kedgeree! I have cat pictures also - when I get around to down-loading them!
The Dick Gaughan concert was very good - it reminded me of two of my LJ friends particularly -
ezagaaikwe and missmurchison.Why? Well Dick Gaughan reminds me of E's husband Frank - look: Picture of Dick Gaughan
Miss M - well he was talking about politics, as he does, and was describing a conversation in the bar with other performers at a Canadian Festival. One of the American singers said 'I hear you Europeans are having problems agreeing on a Constitution.' DG agreed this was the case. 'Well take ours.' the guy said 'We're not using it!' For those who don't read Miss Muchison (and why not?!) her daughter in particular is interested in the US constitution.
Both S2C and the cat seemed pleased to see me!
Life today has been back to Earth with a bump - I noticed when I got home from work that the freezer wasn't properly shut - and the contents were all somewhat defrosted and had to be thrown out.
And I have just discovered that although I thought my NHS pension had been transfered from the UK when I came home 17 years ago, there is no record of the transfer - so my first 9 years of payments do not go towards my final salary pension - they are frozen somewhere in the UK at the grade I was then. I think this is going to make me about £1,000 a year worse off when I retire in about 9 or 10 years time. If I can even work out how to access that frozen pension, as the Health Authority I worked for no longer exists.
I am hoping the Royal College of Nursing can help me, but the attitude of the civil servant I spoke to was 'You saying that you completed the forms means nothing - the forms are not in your file - therefore they did not exist', so I'm not holding my breath.
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no subject
Date: 23/08/2005 10:45 pm (UTC)I hope the pension thing gets sorted out. It seems to me that if you've paid the money in you should be entitled to get it back, but what do I know?
BTW. I cheated with Of Comfort and Despair (http://www.livejournal.com/users/talesofspike/27485.html#cutid1) and dedicated it to you both since I think S2C had a bit of help. Looking forward to some TYA once you get back into your normal routine.
no subject
Date: 23/08/2005 11:08 pm (UTC)Re pension - I will get it back in a way, I hope - but if it had been transfered they would just do a 'simple' sum - pension = 'n' x 1/40 of your final level of salary - where 'n' is the number of years worked.
As it is they will go pension a = 9 x 1/40 of my lower pay in the old 'frozen' job, and pension b = ('n'-9) x 1/40 of my higher pay in my current job- so 9 years worth will be at a lower level than the rest - I am severely pissed off about it!
no subject
Date: 23/08/2005 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/08/2005 07:34 am (UTC)