Hazel has left the building!

Although i have been retired now since 30th April i only had my leaving do last night. The day started well and then was a series of highs and lows.....i went to pick up my new car, new to me but 4 years old, a vauxall Zafira Elite, lovely inside almost like new and i drove off the for court like an exited puppie! Got home and Adam wanted a spin in it, got to the bottom of the road and suddenly it would only drive very slowly i managed to nurse it onto the next road, fiddled a bit and then turned it off and back on and voila! OK so back home.

At 6.45 i decided i needed to get going to my leaving do and jumped in the car only to find again that the car suddenly pulled up on me. I pressed buttons and wondered if i had accidentally switched on cruise control at 1 mile an hour!! I could not get it to move forward but discovered it would reverse so completed a very tricky manoeuvre so that i wasn't parked opposite a drive with a car in it, by reversing around a mini roundabout and was able to park it somewhere over night. In the meantime Paul my ex senior texted to ask where i was had i forgotten? and then after explaining my predicament came to collect me. 

By now as usual i was late and ended up making a grand entrance as everyone else was there! i walked into a packed pub full of current and past colleagues and tenants to a round of applause!! that'll teach me to be late!

Me and Jon one of my tenants...and me slimmer and blonde!

It was great and as i keep saying in these blogs at some point i will get time to pop in some pics. Not everyone made it but the people who were there were the right people, so many faces that i had known for years but not with in the last 5 years. There was a speech made and a presentation and i had to say something, then some former tenants made a speech which was very touching about how they missed me, John also did a turn and wished us all a happy new year!!

Some people i hadn't known well came along too and good friends who had left the company.

I would like to think that i was appreciated for valuing everyone i worked with, as a manager i had times when i had to discipline in some way but on the whole i have always found people to be easy enough to manage, i shall write what some of the cards said later on it was very touching. I would like to think it was for me and not my disease, Cancer engenders a certain response in some people but i have always brushed comments aside and tried not to make it determine who i am. I again was told a few times how well i looked, well for someone who has put on weight and now has grey hair not blonde? probably well for someone ho has cancer.

Leaving hasn't been too hard contrary to what a lot of people say i like being at home and pottering around, i have plenty of friends i can call on if needed and even more now that i can meet ex colleagues without fear of there being some conspiracy going on, i have had to avoid some ex staff because of my status as manager and not wanting to seem bias or in a clique. Without work i don't have to adhere to rules and regulations and i can say what i want without fear of recrimination, working in social care is a balancing act between allegiance to your employer and your concern for the cuts affecting the people under your care, the two and not mutually exclusive!

Also as i said to many now is the time to get out of social care funding is decreasing and with it quality of life for the tenants...i can't help thinking that somewhere something awful will happen which will pull things up. They were talking before i left about assisted technology at night instead of waking night staff, so the staff maybe woken during the night and expected to manage and then continue their shift the following day, a tragedy waiting to happen!

So cancer got me a good pension deal at 49 instead of 68! it is highly unlikely that i will make 68 but what  a treat to be a lady who lunches so early!