Retirement in Hello.

My dad sent me a text the other day to tell me he’s retiring at the end of March. He tried it once, he didn’t like it much. He used to work for BT, worked for them about 25 years, but when they were cutting staff, he took VR. I think he was out of work for about 4 months before he got bored and got himself a job as a postman.
I knew he was thinking about it, but a combination of early starts (getting up at 4.30am! In winter!), walking 7 miles a day, delivering loads and loads of junk mail and not getting the hours he wanted, plus the fact he’s in his 60s now, meant he felt it was time for him to hand in his notice. Yesterday Tracey, someone John and I know from school and who also happens to deliver our mail, knocked on our door asking us if we’d take in a package for a neighbour. She’s usually loud and brash, not shy in the slightest, but yesterday she said “what about your dad, eh? It’s always the nice ones who leave, its never the dickheads…” and her chin did a little wobble!
I really don’t know what he’s going to do to fill his time. He’s on about doing car boots and getting out with the dog more, plus I’m hoping we’ll be able to do a lot more work parties and guided walks with the LDNPA. They’re also talking about traveling, but with my mam working from home, I can see him driving her round the twist a bit! I know he likes his computer, maybe a eBay shop would be better for him than car boots.

Today I had an unprecedented road trip around West Cumbria. My parents bought Eleanor a Furby for Christmas and last week it stopped talking. I took back it to the nearest Argos, but they didn’t have any in stock, so she reserved one for me in the next town over, which was another half hour on the bus. Luckily I wasn’t at work and didn’t have any plans, so it was quite nice having a pootle about on the buses. We got the Furby sorted. Yay. Her playing with the Furby means I don’t get my Kindle because it’s not really that much fun without the app. I’m sure the Furby Rob had when he was little did more stuff, like play games and interact with you and stuff!
Speaking of Rob, he’s been having a few problems with his UCAS application. He had it all filled in before Christmas, but then he found out that their tutor, who said he was going to read all of their personal statements and act as referee for them all, decided he didn’t want to work for the college anymore, didn’t check the statements, didn’t write any recommendations and lost a load of the coursework. (Thankfully people keep their coursework on a computer these days....a teacher at my school lost a load of GCSE coursework, I’m not sure what came of it, but I have heard since that he offered to rewrite it for all his pupils!) His students only found out just before they broke up for Christmas, when there wasn’t much they could do about it. These past few days have been a headache for him, trying to get his statement read and verified, getting all the boxes ticked and his application sent off. This morning he got an email from UCAS saying they’d received his form and were dealing with it, thank goodness! I’ll have to try and get his rail card sorted for when he gets asked to attend interviews. Fingers crossed!