Lunch date

Beautiful warm and sunny day today. The girls and I were joined for lunch in the garden by my friend and colleague Caroline. We have a lot in common. Both of us have young families (I have my two girls and she has three lovely little boys), both of us took flexible part-time working to spend more time with our kids within the past two years, and...both of us received the same bad news at work this week: redundancy notices. Redundancy pay is based on our current salaries, so despite the fact I worked 6 years full time before flexible working, I will receive a payment based on my part time hours, as will Caroline (who works even fewer hours than I do now after being full time previously). Both of us fought for our jobs - the kids we teach mean the world to us, so it's very, very sad we have to go, but go we must. Still, we had a really lovely time today catching up in the garden and playing with my Grace and Ophelia.