Things have been busy!

Well, it has been getting on for a month since I last posted anything, but I have been a touch busy. The main thing that I have been busy with is redecorating our bedroom, which has been a work in progress as I have had to do this on days off.

This is what we have lived with for the last few years - well about 12. And underneath is / was a rather horrid tone of turquoise, which was not really an improvement on the wallpaper.

And below is the 'feature' wallpaper we have chosen, along with the new paint. You can also see the horrid turquoise to the right............got to take the curtain rail down to put the final piece of paper up. You can also see our lovely new bed and posh bedding (from John Lewis no less!)

The other thing that has occupied my time is that I have started running..........well staggering about giving my lungs the impression that I deposited them in a vacuum!!!! I am not a runner so I got one of these 'couch to 5K' training plans. The first session was run for a minute and then walk for two and repeat five times and I managed it just..........but running for a minute......OMG!!!!

Well, yesterday, after three weeks I ran non stop for 5 minutes. Not much you may say, but for me, a massive achievement. I could not have done that three weeks ago..........and I did it four times!!!

I also have to report a new experience, I have had to vote in a strike ballot. My union, UNISON is balloting all its members on strike action over the government attacks on our pensions. Now, we all know that the country is broke, and so we are in lean times. The press has been very vitriolic about the cost of public sector pensions, and how the public sector are going to have to pay more.

Now my pension is part of the Local Government Pension, which is self funding..........not going to cost the tax payer anything to bail it out, unlike some other public sector pension schemes! I pay 6.5% of my salary towards it (higher than the national average for private sector pensions). Now the government wants me to pay more.............ok, I don't have a problem with this, if I need to pay more to get a decent pension, so be it. But this extra money will not be going towards my pension...................no, the government are going to be taking it to bale themselves (and the country) out of the shit!

So, this extra that the government want us to pay is actually a TAX on public sector workers. The government won't talk to the unions about it, months of negotiation have got nowhere, so hence the strike ballet. Now I don't believe that the strike will actually achieve anything, other than piss of the public as a whole, but I'm pretty pissed off that the government won't even talk!