Not such a Good Day....

Yesterday was not one of the better days of my life. I joined the company that I work for just over 6 months ago on a job share position, working three days a week. My boss who I share with is lovely and we get on very very well. I have met some of the loveliest people that live on this planet who work for my company and there is a really great atmosphere there - many of the staff have been there for donkeys years - and even though we are in incredibly difficult economic times, we are making a profit, not a large one by previous years standards, but a profit no less.

Just over 2 months a go we had a series of audits - financial, health and safety and environmental (the latter ones are where come in). We knew that we were possibly up for sale and that as we had been sold to an investment bank a few years ago they wanted to make their money back.

So it was no surprise to us when we were informed 5 weeks ago that we had been bought by a competitor - A German company with a UK manufacturing base 'up North' that as far as we knew was not making a profit, although the German parent company (in Germany did)

The new bosses moved in, briefly, met all the staff and then we saw very little of them until yesterday when they announced that they are shutting our company (3 sites in the Midlands) and are moving everything 'up North' - timescale for the various sites is between Jan next year and December next year.

So effectively although it was nicely worded, nearly 400 hundred people were added to the unemployment figures. Oh they have said that their may be relocation packages, but I cant see many of the folks I work with de-camping their whole families and moving 2 hours away - if indeed they are offered the chance.

So the moral of the story seems to be, if you want to get ahead, buy up your successful competitors with foreign money to gain a well known marked place industry and consign yet another British company to the bin.

So, I am on notice of redundancy, date yet to be decided, but all they have to do is give me a months notice as I haven't been there long. My heart breaks for so many of the people I talked to yesterday, hard working ordinary people who's lives were turned up side down, who had got to go home and tell their families they would be losing, in some cases, their only source of income. As I said, I haven't been there long, but I will sure miss some of these people terribly.

Oh and just when you think it cant get much worse, Himself phoned last night to say that the contract work he had been lucky enough to get a couple of months ago, will now end next week, so both of us could be out of work. Doesn't look good for the mortgage......

Are You a Farmer?

Just a quickie this morning as I am rushing about.

I had to smile when I read this post http//sharonastyk.com Is it a Farm Yet?

That makes me a farmer. What a lovely smile of self contentment that brought to me today.

I'm a farmer. Large backyard, deep beds, pots, troughs and borders - no acres, but I am still a farmer.

Have a lovely day fellow growers !

Cheap Meat??

The BBC are running an item this morning about sheep, cattle, pig and bee stealing.

See the video report here.

BBC - Search results for sheep stealing

The pig farmer in the report is near to where we live and the details had been in our local paper the week before last. It really saddens me to see that we are getting to the point where we are going out and stealing food, or stealing animals for meat to make a quick profit somewhere.

The other issue which worries me even more though, is if these animals are being stolen to go into the UK food chain, either as fresh meat or to be incorporated into meat products, under what circumstances are they being slaughtered and stored? Are the meat carcasses being stored properly, at the right temperatures, in clean conditions?

I made what I felt was a mistake I learned from some years ago, one which I have never repeated. I bought some meat from a van at a car boot sale. It was supposed to be pork. It looked like pork, but when I cooked it later that day, it had a funny smell and was a strange colour. It went straight in the bin, we had egg and chips for dinner and I had paid hard earned money for heaven knows what.

Now I am not saying that all mobile butchers at car boots and markets are vending unfit meat - far from it, at one of my local regular car boots there is a very reputable butchers that sell there and have been doing so for at least 10 years that I know of. But it does concern me that if I was on a low income or looking to grab a bargain, I might again be tempted to go for what seems like cheap meat and in actual fact its either not cheap because its ends up being thrown away (as did my strange pork) or more worryingly might actually be unhealthy or contaminated in some way.

The last item in the video really did make me sad. It looked at bee hives which had been stolen, 18 of them. The bee population is already in decline for reasons we are not totally sure about, to steal hives and some of them were breeding hives is awful. Without bees we cant survive, no pollination equals no food.

How sad must that bee keeper be feeling? I spoke to Malcolm my bee keeping friend this morning abut it and he was really angry. He has been looking after 10 hives over the winter, 7 of them for other people. Out of 10 hives only 2 have made it through to the spring and even then the numbers of bees are dramatically down for what he would normally expect to see at this time of year.

I can only sympathise with the farmers and the bee keepers and hope that this stealing stops, for all our sakes.

Saddened

I feel sad and somehow ashamed tonight. Himself and I managed to escape from site for about 18 hours so we came home - hurrah.

Himself who has had one hell of a shitty week, has got a swollen ankle and had understandable positioned himself in his comfy chair, remote control in hand to catch up with the TV which he hasn't seen all week and decided that he would like an Indian take away for tea.

No problem, the Indian is only about 3 minutes walk away, so, leaving him to watch the sports results I nipped up the road. I know that our Indian is always busy at this time on a Saturday, so I was quite prepared to sit up a corner with an old newspaper and catch up with whatever has been happening locally this month.

The Take-away has just been converted into a restaurant as well and they have made a lovely job of it - nice tables, high backed Mackintosh style leather look chairs and nice candle holders and flower arrangements on each table.

After I had placed my order, I settled myself up a corner and started to read the paper when in came two women, one a little younger than my self and the other apparently her mother. They gave their take away order and sat at the next table to me. The one my age immediately pulled the opposite chair around and sat with her sandaled feet on it whilst proceeding to cough every few minutes, without putting her hand to her mouth. They talked loudly about her mothers up and coming operation (nice) and still the daughter carried on coughing all over the table that she was sat at, her feet still on the chair that somebody else would be sitting at later.

Then, in strolled three teenagers, two boys and a girl, all complaining loudly that their meal should be ready by now and that the service was 'f'ing shit' The manager went through to the kitchen to hurry their order up, whilst the one young fella stood laughing, telling his mate to look out for him in the local paper next week as he had just been done for driving a car without a licence or insurance. He sounded almost proud of himself.

I'm not perfect in anyway shape or form, believe me I'm not, but I came out of the Indian saddened, ashamed and embarrassed of not just the young man who thought he was so clever and would have his mates see the results of his capers splashed across the newspapers, but of a woman almost my age, and her mother, who did not have the good manners to see that putting dusty feet on a restaurant chair, or coughing all over a table were the actions of a person who did not care at all about anybody who came into the restaurant and sat or ate at that table later.

I came back home ready to sell up and move to a desert island. Maybe its me I don't know, but I do look at life lately and think that many people are getting less friendly and more aggressive, less caring, more selfish and just plain ruder.

Maybe it is me, I don't know anymore......

Then to make matters worse, the Indian forgot to include my order and I had to go back again..........