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Coffee with a pension trustee

Last month I blogged about the frustrations I’d been having with the administrators of Chris’s pension scheme – letters addressed to the wrong person, with an incorrect return address, missing enclosures, or just not arriving at all. My boss saw the post, and suggested to me that I was actually in a position to do something about it.  Not only am I one of their pensioners, but since Chris and I worked for the same firm, I’m also an active member of the scheme and, what’s more, I personally know at least one of the pension trustees. In fact, I worked with him for a while a few years back.

So I sent an email from work to the trustee, linking to the blog, and with a covering note saying that I thought he might appreciate some feedback on the “user experience”  of the scheme from the point of view of a pensioner. I offered to meet up with him for a coffee if he wanted to talk it over further. He immediately got back to me, thanking me very much for the information, and saying that he would definitely take me up on the offer next time he was visiting the Malvern site.

This week we managed to meet up, and I talked through the saga with him. I emphasised that I was not making a formal complaint – merely giving factual feedback. He said that all of the trustees had read the blog, and were really pleased that someone had taken the effort to tell them how things felt when interacting with the administrators as a client of the scheme. I’d dug out all the correspondence and taken it along with me, together with a timeline of what happened when, so he could see here the delays occurred. He took copious notes and I got the strong feeling that some robust feedback would be given from the trustees to the administrators in the near future!

I’m very pleased about that. One of the reasons Chris and I started this blog was in the hope that our experiences could be used to help, or at least inform, other people. I do hope that this blog can be instrumental in getting procedures tightened up at the pension administrators, so that the next widow/widower who needs to make a claim has an easier time of it than I did.

22 01 2011 Gillian cancer Comments (2) Permalink

More stuff to do

Whenever I think I’m getting close to finishing dealing with the glut of paperwork following Christopher’s death, something else I’d forgotten about comes out of the woodwork.

I know that there are still tax affairs to settle arising from his redundancy payment. HMRC wrote back to me just last week asking for yet more information in response to my letter to them of 8th November. At this rate, it could be months before a simple tax bill gets settled. But at least I know about that one. It’s the unexpected ones that have been bothering me recently. Just when I thought I’d finished with the conversations along the lines of “I wish to inform you that my husband is dead. Please cancel his account / move it into my name / refund me the balance”,  I have to start again.

For example, Chris had an online account with Plaxo. It’s been largely dormant, so I didn’t even know about it. But it fired into life a few weeks ago, sending all his contacts notice that his birthday was coming up. How inappropriate was that? Fortunately, one of his online friends contacted me to tell me it was happening (thanks Ruth), or I wouldn’t have known. But cancelling the account is quite another matter, especially since I have no idea what his password was. I’ve got a request in with the Plaxo “Customer Care” people and we’ll see if that makes any difference.

Then today I got a new TV Licence through the post. Fine, except that it was in his name, not mine. I’d forgotten to tell them when he died. So I phoned them up and, I kid you not, had to go through five levels of automated menu before I actually got to speak to a real person. When I finally did get through, I explained that I simply wanted to change the name on the TV licence. We paid by direct debit, and the account details remain exactly the same (indeed they’ve been taking money from it monthly with no problems), and clearly the address of the property remains the same. Should be straightforward I thought. But no. They “couldn’t do that over the phone” – instead I had to write to their “Correspondence Centre” in Bristol.

So I’ve bought some more second class stamps today. I’m not going to waste a first class one on HMRC or TV Licensing!

19 01 2011 Gillian cancer Comments (4) Permalink

Cheering myself up

I’ve had quite a tough week for various reasons this week. Christopher’s birthday made me reflect on what I’ve lost, and that was painful. Work has been challenging, with lots of fire-fighting of problems, together with trying to get a bid submitted, and a long meeting at a customer site yesterday, so that is all very draining. Plus, a friend’s husband has just died very suddenly, and in trying to help her understand all the bureaucracy one has to go through, it’s brought it all back to me with a vengeance. I hope I’ve been able to help her a little bit, and I’ve given her my copy of “What to do when someone dies“, since I’m very nearly finished with all the paperwork now.

All together I was feeling a bit down today, and really struggled to get up this morning. But I bought myself a bunch of daffodils to try to cheer myself up when I was out shopping this afternoon. They look very cheerful in a mug in the living room. And I treated myself to some lemon cheesecake with raspberries for dessert this evening. That helped too. I have also replenished the store of chocolate in the larder – it wouldn’t do to run out!

15 01 2011 Gillian status Comments (3) Permalink

Christopher’s Birthday

Christopher would have been forty-seven today. It still seems so wrong that he died so young.

I found today rather difficult. I really struggled to get out of bed this morning; I was pretty depressed and really did not want to move. However, I’d taken the precaution of arranging for a couple of workmen to be here this morning – Rob to finish tiling the bathroom, and Tim dealing with the mice in the loft. So, since I really didn’t want either of them to catch me in my nightwear, I was forced to get up, get dressed, and keep going.  That ruse worked, but it’s not one I can use on a daily basis!

Anyway, here is a picture of the two of us in happier times.

12 01 2011 Gillian cancer Comments (3) Permalink

A new look for the new year

You sometimes read in the papers about houses, or  just bedrooms, which have been left untouched by the occupants since the original owner died, many years earlier. That  really doesn’t strike me as very healthy. I may have a huge Christopher-shaped hole in my life, but preserving the house as it was last August is hardly going to help me to deal with things.

So when I had the dining-room redecorated in September, only weeks after Christopher died, I took the opportunity to swap the pictures around on the walls, and to change where I sit at the table. The main reasons for that were to make wall-space for a new dresser, and for me to be closer to the radiator. However, it has the side effect that I’m not looking at the same pictures on the same wall as I’ve been facing for the past twelve years we’ve lived here, so the lack of Christopher in my field of view isn’t so glaringly obvious.

That seemed to work without being too painful, so I’m taking the principle further. Rob, who decorated the dining-room, is coming back tomorrow to start work on tiling the en-suite bathroom. I’m looking forward to having that done, and again it makes the subtle point that I’m looking forwards, not back.  I also have bought some new bed-linen in the sales yesterday, which gives the bedroom a whole new look.

On the subject of bed-linen, one of the things I’ve really struggled with since Christopher died is making the bed. Changing the duvet cover is one of those things that is trivial with two people, but on my own I just don’t have enough pairs of hands. My sister solved that one for me by giving me some duvet clips as a stocking-filler for Christmas. They hold the top corners of the duvet in place, making it so much easier to get the cover on the duvet without everything slipping out of control. Another niggling problem solved – thanks J!

09 01 2011 Gillian cancer Comments (1) Permalink

mumble, mumble, drool

I mentioned a few weeks ago that one of the major symptoms of stress I have is teeth grinding. I wear a dental splint every night to try to minimise the effects of this, but even so I’m currently paying the price.

On Boxing Day, I was brushing my teeth on the boat in Venice, after a very unchallenging breakfast (yoghurt and honey, and a pain au chocolat). Suddenly there was a “clink” in the basin, as I spat out a large chunk of wisdom tooth. I hadn’t even felt it go crack!  Fortunately it didn’t hurt, as I think that finding an emergency dentist in Venice on Boxing Day would have severely challenged my resourcefulness.

I’ve been able to put up with the gaping hole until this afternoon, when I was able to get my own dentist to repair it. He confirmed that the most likely cause was me clenching my jaw and/or grinding my teeth, putting excessive stresses on the wisdom tooth. He’s put in a whopping filling, but says that tooth will always be weakened from now on. Now I’m waiting for the dental anaesthetic to wear off before I cook myself some dinner, as I bet I’d bite my numb tongue if I try to eat too soon.

04 01 2011 Gillian status Comments (4) Permalink

Three weddings and a funeral

On the boat in Venice we had a “Gala dinner” on Christmas Day. After the main course (no, not turkey – beef wellington which I don’t think I’ve had before but was pretty good) the Purser made some announcements. First, there were two couples on board who were celebrating wedding anniversaries. They each got a round of applause and a cake. Then he had another special announcement to make. One of the passengers had proposed to his girlfriend and been accepted. In fact, I heard that they had actually asked the ship’s captain to marry them there and then, but he’d refused – spoilsport! So the smug-looking happy couple  got a badly-played serenade of the Bridal March and a cake.

I asked the other people on my table whether they thought that, if I announced I was there to scatter my husband’s ashes, I would get a cake too? I decided to settle instead for a slice of the Baked Alaska, which the chef had flambéed so flamboyantly that he had charred the ceiling!

02 01 2011 Gillian Day out
food Comments Off on Three weddings and a funeral Permalink

A poor choice of airport novel

My flight from Gatwick to Venice was on time – amazing really given the amount of snow outside and the massive disruption at Heathrow. But the allegedly “fast” bag drop was a total misnomer, the queues for Security were interminable, and the breakfast service at the airside Garfunkles was very slow. So I only had literally five minutes to choose and buy a book from WH Smith before my flight was called.

I picked the first book I saw which looked interesting, Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenagger. I chose that because I had enjoyed her previous book, The Time Traveller’s Wife. But if I had had just another five minutes to read the blurb on the back properly before having to dash for the plane, I’d have put it back on the shelf. It turned out to be a modern ghost story – all about death, love, bereavement, grief and haunting. It was a gripping story, with a number of twists in the tail which I didn’t see coming, but really totally inappropriate for the situation I’m in at the moment. I’d have been better off with my usual airport-novel standby, an Agatha Christie omnibus.

01 01 2011 Gillian fiction Comments Off on A poor choice of airport novel Permalink

Nearly wading in it

I had a near miss of a domestic disaster before Christmas, when the toilet in the en-suite wouldn’t stop filling up and overflowing into the bowl. Clearly something had gone wrong with the ball-cock, but it wasn’t something I could see or easily fix. It was impossible to get a plumber out for anything less than a full-blown emergency for a few days (every plumber I tried in Malvern was completely busy with burst pipes) but I got one booked for three days later. In the meantime, I found it impossible to sleep with the sound of gushing water just next door to my bed, and the isolation valve on the cistern was too stiff for me to move, so I had to turn the water off at the main stop-cock every night in order to get some sleep!

The plumber came on time three days later (a minor miracle in itself) and fixed the ball-cock – there was a large piece of grit stuck in the mechanism and he had to disassemble the whole thing to clean it out. While he was here, I asked him to have a quick look at my kitchen sink which wasn’t draining freely, despite me putting Mr Muscle Sink Clearer down it. He tentatively diagnosed a blocked drain, then went out the back door to investigate the drain access.  He lifted the man-hole cover and dropped it again immediately. Yes I did have a blocked drain. Thoroughly blocked in fact – it had backed up to less than an inch from the bottom of the man-hole cover, and (without getting too scatalogical) I was within a few good flushes of wading in it.

He couldn’t fix it himself – it needed specialised kit, not to mention a complete set of overalls. But fortunately he “knew a man who can” and made a quick phone call to arrange it. That same afternoon, I had two people turn up equipped with heavy-duty rubber gloves and fearsome-looking rods and plungers.  They had some problems finding all of the man-hole covers, as one of them was buried under gravel when we had the extension built. There was a process of deduction, triangulation and excavation needed to find it, but once they had done so it was fairly straightforward and they managed to shift the blockage.

Disaster avoided! The problem had clearly been building up for a good long while, so I feel entirely justified in blaming Christopher for the original blockage. He was having such dreadful trouble with his bowels all through the chemotherapy that it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he’d managed to block the sewer pipe. That was one legacy I’d rather have done without……..

31 12 2010 Gillian status Comments (2) Permalink

Scattering the ashes – part 1 of n

It took a while to decide what I should do for Christmas this year. I knew that, whatever I did, I was likely to find it difficult, but I also wanted to mark it in some appropriate way. In the end it was my Gran who spurred me into action – she sent me a cheque with the instruction that I should spend it on something enjoyable for myself, that I could look forward to. So I decided that I would go away to Venice, just for a few days over Christmas itself.

Chris and I had been to Venice together, and loved it. I’d also been there years ago with my sister, and had “done” the city pretty thoroughly then. So that meant that if I was feeling miserable and not up to going out exploring, it wouldn’t matter as I wouldn’t feel that I was missing anything. On the other hand, there is always plenty to see in Venice, so if I was up to pottering about I certainly wouldn’t be bored. I picked on a holiday that offered four nights in Venice, based on a river boat moored on the lagoon. There was no single supplement, which was great as that is such a rip-off, and there would be plenty of other English-speaking people on the trip.  It was full board, so I didn’t have to worry about finding food, and I didn’t have to eat on my own (which I hate doing on holiday).

I did have some qualms after I booked it, wondering whether I was being over-ambitious for my first Christmas alone. But in fact, I enjoyed it far more than I feared I would. I did indeed spend a fair amount of time just winding-down in my cabin with a book, but I also “did” St Mark’s Basilica, the Doges Palace, and the classic vaporetto ride up and down the Grand Canal. I also went to a Baroque concert in an old church on Christmas Day – Vivaldi the Four Seasons, Pachelbel’s Canon and a Bach double violin concerto. Christopher would have absolutely loved it, especially the Bach.

The weather was dreadful – it rained heavily the entire five days I was there, and there was acqua alta too, which meant that there was heavy flooding in St Mark’s and wellie-boots were essential. But there was one dry half hour on 23rd December when the sun came out. I went up onto the sun-deck, and scattered some of Christopher’s ashes into the Venetian lagoon in the sunshine, on the anniversary of the day we were told the cancer was incurable. Somehow that seemed highly fitting.

28 12 2010 Gillian cancer
Day out Comments (3) Permalink