Surviving Homesickness & This & That (From Hereford Times)

Surviving Homesickness & This & That

8:31am Monday 27th November 2006

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I survived Thanksgiving better this year then any year in the past. That could be a result of not spending the day alone as every other year hubby has been at work.

We dragged out the Christmas decorations and while stringing the lights listened to FOX news go on and on about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. I used to sit as a little girl and watch that every year and in turn my girls used to watch it and now my grandchildren. All those activities worked together to make me not as homesick as I normally am on the day.

Last summer my husband’s office closed in Cardiff where he worked for a government department. They moved it all to London and not one person would make the move with them. We took an extended holiday in the states and came back in September with plans for him to look for contract work. At first when we came back he had an interview here and there. The answers we always the same, “we think you are over qualified”. The truth is they think he is too old. Ageism is alive and well the world over, UK included. You hear the 40 is the new 30, 50 the new 40 and 60 the new 50 for women but what about the men. Hubby is 61 and has loads of valuable experience yet no one wants to take advantage of that experience. It’s not even like he wants anything permanent, he’s quite happy taking an interim position. Now, several weeks in on the search the agencies have stopped calling.

So here we are dipping into our savings waiting for his state pension to kick in a bit further down the road.

Just as a young person needs his/her first chance to gain experience on the job, us older folks still have a lot of good years in us and need a chance to show that. Making a law to protect people from ageism is worthless unless you are already in the job.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the weather improves this week because as you can tell from my blog, grey skies and lots of rain do nothing to make me feel cheerful at all. Especially the muddy paw prints that seem to follow the bad weather. Roll on spring!!