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Missing in Action/Catch-up time 9/17/2010 7:15:11 PM
Seems ages since I blogged so here goes. It's hard to know which category to put a blog into as it's really just a mix of thoughts. However, family is about the best place I could think to categorise this.
So here it is September 18, 2010! Where has this year gone? For me it's been one that included an ending and a new beginning. I finally retired from the rat-race of work on 16 July this year and joined the ranks of the age pensioners in Australia.
It was a hard decision in only one way ... $'s ... but life was speeding away and I was really over sitting in an office looking out the window occasionally, wishing that I was out there and not inside. I seemed to have outgrown most of the people in the office and being the elder didn't sit well with my ego! I also found it hard to watch as most of the office protocols I had grown up with and lived with all my life disappeared.
The only way for me was out and so I circled a date, advised my superiors, and worked towards that date. It seemed so long in the future at the beginning but then the days just bounded away. I had only the last 3 days to teach someone how to do my job and then I walked away and left it. I would like to think that it's in a terrible mess of course (just to satisfy my ego) but then again I hope that it's working fine without too many hiccups.
I left quietly not wanting a farewell because most of the people who go to them only go because they can get a few hours extra off work and be paid for them. When you are a Public Servant your employer gives you zero when you leave, not even a reference. So anyone wanting to attend a farewell has to pay all their own expenses as does the person the farewell is for! Why bother? I didn't even receive my termination pay or paperwork until a week after I had left and had to chase it up to find out what was going on. My friends at work chipped in a bought me one of those electronic photo thingos so it's packed away for the future.
There was no advice as to what I was supposed to do about my Superannuation that the Government Department I worked for paid out of my salary. I ended up contacting the Superannuation Fund and found out there were a whole lot of forms I had to fill out in order to be paid the money that was due to me because I was past retirement age. Another hassle but I managed to work my way around all the issues and received the cheque some 6 weeks after I finished work. No interest of course ! Another lapse of thought from my employer for not advising me about the steps I needed to take to finalise this issue.
Applying for the age pension and being accepted proved a battle too. I was advised by Centrelink to apply prior to my last day so that all would be in place when I finished work and the pension would start straight away. So I did all that and attended a local office for an interview and to have all the papers checked, ID copied etc. I thought that was the end of it. I explained to the person interviewing me that it was the 13/7 and I wasn't retiring until 16/7 and I was told that was okay and just to bring in the termination papers from my employer once I received them.
Not so. The day I finished work I received a letter from Centrelink to say that my application had been refused because I was earning too much money! I saw red and the air was blue. Once I had received the paperwork from my fantastic employer, NSW Government, who can never get anything right, I fronted Centrelink again and lodged a complaint against the ruling. I once again submitted all my paperwork, along with the proof from work that I no longer was employed, and this time I got the woman who interviewed me (a different person of course to the first one) to stamp and sign and date what she had received from me.
I went back home still fuming and 3 days later I actually received a phone call from someone different again. He advised that my pension had been approved and would be back-dated to the 17 July (it was now August)and that my pension bonus scheme funds would also be sent to me that same day. I made sure he knew how angry I was at the stupid decision that had been made and he sort of apologised and asked if I would be happy to drop my complaint that I had registered. I decided not to be vindictive and agreed just so it could all end.
So finally all is well and I am now receiving my $701.10 a fortnight which is of course less than half of what my pay was a fortnight when I was working. I do love money so much after having so many years without much to live on and now, except for my superannuation that isn't much really, I'm having to think about what I spend and when I spend it. Ah well, the circle goes round always until it meets up again.
My son and I share a home and we have decided to get out of Sydney and move to the South Coast of NSW. We have bought a block of land and hope to start building our new home in January. In the interim we are working to have this home ready to go on the market in a couple of weeks so that we will have the funds to have that new home built. If we can't sell for what we believe the house should be worth we will bide our time as we don't have a mortgage and the block has already been paid for. We need to start building within 6 months though to get back the stamp duty we had to pay on the block of land.
Sydney is no longer where I want to be and my son totally agrees. We are moving to an area where only 800 people live and there are no traffic lights, rarely any trucks on the roads, and yes for those people overseas, there are kangaroos that roam around the streets of a night! The local golf course is home to a lot of roos and they stand on the sides of the course watching the game. So funny! We will be within a ten minute walk of Jervis Bay, a beautiful waterway on our South Coast. The fishing is superb and the animal and birdlife just delightful. The temperatures in summer will be about 10c less than where we live in Sydney and there are no frosts in winter down south. It is of course colder in winter at times because of the proximity to the snowfields (if the winds blow from that direction) but having spent a bit of time there in winter, I haven't found it any colder, or as cold even, as it is here.
My beautiful dog Shaye will have a great life and when the weather is good he will be able to have lots of swims at the beach (most are dog friendly). He loves the surf and the waves coming into Jervis Bay are only small.
The closest large town is Nowra, a 20 minute drive, with no traffic lights until you hit the outskirts of Nowra. It's mostly all farmland and river flats between where we will live and Nowra and dairy farms are the main type of farm. It's a 2.5 hour drive from our home in Sydney to where we are moving so it's not a great distance away.
My one unhappy thought about leaving here is that I have to leave my daughter behind and my grand-daughter. We presently live about 5 minutes drivetime away from each other, but they have busy lives that are markedly different to the one I now live. And, I can always come back to stay with them either by car or train and they will have a lovely place to spend weekends and holidays if they choose to. I love them both dearly but I have to get out of Sydney and leave it to those that like this style of life and need to be near work etc.
The happy thought is that both my sons will be living within a couple of streets of each other and they will have a great time of a weekend going out fishing together and doing what men like doing. Neither is married and there are no children so I am stoked that they will have each other to lean on and care for. There is less than 12 months between them so even though they are both men in their own rights and both different in their own ways, they love and respect each other and grew up doing a lot of things together. This will bring me a lot of peace as I grow older.
I don't have a website anymore as I had no need of it and couldn't see the point in paying for a host. I will continue to use AuthorsDen though as it's a great place to be and once I have relocated I hope I will get back into some writing. At this time in my life there is too much going on to concentrate on giving writing a fair go.
