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John got the job in the garden centre! He’s quite excited about it, he’s always liked gardening and garden centres, plus it will involve him being outside, customer facing and doing manual work, rather than being stuck in a sweaty kitchen 48 hours a week.
Due to the nature of the job he’s leaving and, well, him really, it means that we’re going to have to make some sacrifices while he works out his notice.
He wants to carry on working in the Chinese takeaway until the boss there has trained someone else up to fill his boots. I know, he’s his manager and John doesn’t owe him anything, but he’s too nice to leave him in the lurch so it means he’s giving him about four months notice of his intention to leave properly.
Thankfully the manager of the garden centre (we’ll call him JH) is prepared to let John do this, as he’s planning on leaving to go traveling in September and John should be trained fully by that point. Until then, John is going to work both jobs, Saturday, Sunday and Monday in the garden centre to begin with, then he had three weeks booked off at the end of July/beginning of August anyway, so he’s going to work them full time in the garden centre, by which time the other kitchen assistant will have finished college and can do John’s days in the takeaway. JH is prepared to let John leave a bit early to start his evening shift during these three weeks. Hard work, but....KACHING!
I told John he’s going to run himself ragged, but he said it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to temporarily make if it means he ends up full time in the garden centre.
As a consequence, it does look like I now won’t be going to Download and our summer holiday plans are scuppered. But, one of the drawbacks of John working in the Chinese was that he could only take the same time off work as his boss. JH can be more flexible, so we can potentially go away during half term instead. Especially if I’m driving as well, we can just go away on a whim!
Download I can’t do any more as I don’t have anyone to watch the kids for the weekend I’m away. My parents are in Spain and I obviously can’t ask Katie as she’ll be mid chemo. I thought I’d be upset about not going, but I make a rule to myself that I’m not allowed to get excited until everything is completely sorted, and it wasn’t anywhere near! Again though, there’s always next year and I’ll have a car to go in!
So I’m going to look into the after school/holiday club for Eleanor. There will be days when I need to leave the girls alone, Saturdays for example while my parents are in Spain, but I only work over the road and Bel is very mature and responsible and can watch her sister for a few hours here and there. John’s parents can’t watch them as his dad is ill and his mum is away to Australia for a few weeks. It will all work out, I’m sure!

Last updated April 21, 2016