Cont...
On the Monday, we both prepared to go back to work, and for me it posed a bit of a problem! Having been an excellent cook all her life, my mother could serve up dishes from nothing, and I had not even begun to wonder what I was going to cook (or indeed more importantly, IF I could cook)!! The only times I had cooked anything before was when my mother went on holiday, after my father had died, and I muddled through with warming a pie, and cooking potatoes and some vegetables. So we discussed what to have when we had gone shopping for groceries after our return from Blackpool. We had been given a nice set of Pyrex dishes, and one was suitable to put in the oven to slow cook something. So...I put two chops in it and covered it and put it on (what I thought was a low gas) and after preparing the vegetables, left them ready to cook when we got home. When I got home a few minutes after PJ there was a sort of haze in the kitchen!! I'd left the gas a bit too high, and the chops had burnt and the dish had cracked in the heat!! Oops! Lesson No. 1! We managed with the vegetables and made up for the lack of food when we got home after work! Gradually I sorted myself out and between the two of us we managed quite well, and a bit later I was inviting friends to come for a meal.
I had to get used to signing my new name, not only at work, but on cheques as well, and occasionally I slipped up, but like most things, it soon became second nature. To start with, it took a while to organise my days, as PJ was out two evenings, and occasionally three, and sometimes we were both out on a Saturday or Sunday if it was for a function that related to the organisation he belonged to. Slowly, we began to buy bits of new furniture and decorate, and eventually we were able to put in a new bathroom, which was originally the coal-shed in the garden. It was to be ten years before we were able to move to a better property, which was quieter (no buses roaring past) and a nice garden. Unfortunately, it meant I had to catch the bus to work then which was a bit of a pain as I was used to just popping up the road! But back to the earlier days.
Life carried on as usual, and eventually PJ was offered a new job with another firm. It meant more money, and also it would give me the chance to have a break from work. I'd been working full time ever since I left school, and I was now in my early 30's. So, I was persuaded to give in my notice, and it was decided that I would learn to drive. I filled in the forms and was quite looking forward to being independent, once I had passed the test. However......before I had the chance to book a lesson, PJ came home with the news that the firm he was working for, had just gone bust!! "POP!" all my dreams came crashing down!
So - I started hunting for another job, and eventually I found a part-time job as a proof-reader, at Smith's Printers in Bluetown. The money wasn't great, but it would certainly help whilst PJ found another job. I quite enjoyed the job, even though it was reading and correcting copy, and shared the job with a young girl, and sometimes with the secretary. Obviously I needed to be able to spell, and some words I had never heard of, so had to check them out, but on the whole I didn't have a problem. However, one day I mis-read the information on a label, which only had one letter in the middle, and I had checked it as having two! There were several boxes of these, and Mr Smith was furious that he would have to print them all again! I can't for the life of me remember what the word was, but it was something that could be spelt either way, and I picked the wrong one!! After that, I always got things double checked if I was unsure. And so, I settled in and PJ soon obtained another job, which although he had to travel, he was given a company car, and the salary was more than he'd had before. We were slowly heading in the right direction.
