Linda Rawden ch9


MAKING CHANGES
Approaching my 60th birthday I felt that I needed to retire from the company. There were lots of mixed emotions really; I was finding it harder to cope with a full-time job and keep up with the day-to-day at home. My mother was becoming increasingly frail; I had numerous cleaners in the house all of which were useless, and I just did not have any time to socialise. So I decided that retirement was my best option. Roy and I discussed it and decided the best way was to inform the management of my decision in order to eliminate any thoughts that the company was in trouble of any sort. We placed an advertisement in the paper and were overwhelmed with the response. We had literally hundreds of applications. It took some time to filter through all these and to respond to anyone that was not successful. After several interviews, we finally made a decision and took on one lady to take over my role. The canteen lady approached Roy just before my birthday to ask if she could make a retirement cake for me. He explained once again that I was going nowhere until my replacement had settled in and was proven to be capable of doing the job. Roy then mentioned to me that she was starting to make odd remarks to him. My response was 'Oh, it sounds like she has the hots for you,' and I laughed. The reply was, 'Don't be so ridiculous!' Sometime later, Roy rang down to my desk and told me the canteen lady had just burst into his office and told him she was leaving and leaving right now. He asked me to go into the canteen and he came down from his office and we waited for her to come out of the ladies loo. I said, 'What's going on?' She replied, 'Me and Roy are going to run away to live together, so there!' Roy went white and sat down. I said, 'Oh let's sit down and discuss this.' 'No, I am going right now!' Whereupon she left. Roy was visibly shaken. It was his worst nightmare of being accused by a female employee of something he hadn't done. We decided we needed to tell our receptionist, who was also a personal friend, what had happened in order to keep an eye on any office scandal. Temporarily, I had a new role as a canteen lady. Unbeknown to us, the receptionist decided to contact her to let her know how much she was missed and appreciated, and as a result, she asked Roy if the canteen lady could come back. Roy told her not until she comes in to see me, which she did. He told her directly that the only way she could return to the company would be if she forgets all this nonsense about them living together. He was married to Lin and it would remain that way. She agreed and returned to work. During this time, I managed to find a brilliant housekeeper and once more my house was clean; the leather, furniture, and brass including bedsteads were all bright and shining. I couldn't believe my luck. What a joy, she is so good and remains with us to this day. We started looking for another house, as we no longer liked living in Sudbury and decided to look into buying a bungalow in Bishops Stortford. Our best friends lived there; they had been encouraging us to retire in order that we could all go travelling together. The infrastructure was so much better there, right on the M11 North and South. Stansted Airport was just down the road and London was 30 minutes by train. It wasn't easy to find a property and no chance of a bungalow so we settled on a split-level house that was sadly caught in a time warp in the 1970's. It needed quite a lot of work but this time we would get builders in to do the big stuff. The new accounts lady seemed to be settling in well and we returned to the States to spend time with Charley, Joe and the family. Joe's mum and sister had relocated to California from the Broncs and we were getting to know the neighbours quite well. They were a bit cautious to start with (more 'aliens' coming in), but gradually accepted us and included us in all their activities. We had arranged to return to see Charley and Joe the following Christmas for the usual 2 weeks. However, we received a call from her to ask if we could extend our trip. Surprised, we asked why and Charley told us that she and Joe were planning on getting married on 5th January.

I was so happy that we no longer had a company to run and for once could do as we pleased! They had chosen the Penthouse Suite in a beautiful hotel, the Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point. It was a very small affair with just the 3 children, Joe's mother and us. It really was a fabulous suite, overlooking the garden and the ocean with the ceremony taking place on the balcony. Although it never rains in California, it did on that day! We had a lovely fireplace and a grand piano in the sitting room, which Charley played. There was a formal wedding breakfast in the dining room. It was a beautiful and very memorable day.

Back in the UK, work had begun on the refurbishment of our new home. Roy had much more free time now and was able to keep an eye on the builders and even do some of the work himself.

We had made arrangements with our friends to take a five-week holiday to China. Our friends are great organisers and this holiday was no exception. We were booked for 5 nights in Beijing and on arrival realised it was the last day of the Paralympics. We took ourselves on to the metro, all very well signposted in English, to the station nearest the ceremony just in time to see through the trees, the flame being extinguished. We visited Tiananmen Square, the forbidden city, the Hutongs (old traditional courtyards and houses), the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace and the underground city, with various rooms and vaults, all built entirely underground. We also took a long road trip, enabling us to see the stunning countryside, in order to get to a less visited section of the Great Wall. It was truly huge and can be seen for miles, built on the top of a hill. Unbelievable.

We left Beijing and travelled by train to Datong, a journey of some seven hours. Thank goodness we had booked a soft seat compartment and had arranged to take snacks with us! The train stations are just enormous, catering for so many people and the trains are incredibly long and very well organised in respect of loading and unloading people. For most of this trip, we were following the Great Wall, but that was still only a small section of it. We visited the Yun Gang Caves, the gardens of 1,000 Buddhas followed by the Hanging Monastery and Wooden Pagoda. Next, it was on to Pingyao via Taiyuan to see the Jinci Temple and gardens.

An early morning flight saw us arrive in Xian to see the Terracotta warriors and horses museum. The sheer size of the area and the figures themselves, as with so many things in China, were just astonishing. This was followed by a dumpling banquet. Another flight to Chongqing for a brief tour of the City followed. That night we boarded our cruise ship, our first and only cruise of three days on the Yangtze river, sailing through the Three Gorges ship locks. Entire towns and millions of their inhabitants had to be relocated in order to accomplish the flooding of the Gorges. The trip culminated in a visit to the dam site.

In the afternoon, it was time to board another flight to Shanghai where we enjoyed a walk on Bund Promenade followed by a day cruise on the Huangpu River. Shanghai is a modern city that we very much enjoyed, including a trip we took on the Maglev railway which goes from the city to the airport.

We had a trip by train to Suzhou 'The Garden City,' where as well as visiting a beautiful garden, we also went to a silk factory for a tour.

Our next train journey took us to Nanjing. On arrival at the hotel, the manager noticed from our passports that it was Roy's birthday and sure enough, after dinner in the hotel, with a lot of giggling, the waitresses came out from behind a screen singing 'Happy Birthday' with a cake and candles for Roy! Our trip continued, including Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou, a lake-side hotel where we were lucky enough to get tickets to watch a show performed in the centre of the lake. The stage had been built 3 centimetres below the surface of the water. An incredibly beautiful spectacle of light, music and dance enchanted us.

We took the air again with a flight to Guilin and on to Yangzhou where we experienced cormorant fishing. The final destination for our trip was Longsheng, famous for the terraced paddy fields and the village of the long-haired women. The tradition there is that women only cut their hair once in a lifetime when they are eighteen years old. The cut hair is kept by the grandmothers and will only be returned to them when they marry. On that day, the brides combine it with their normal hair. We had the privilege of staying in a hotel overlooking the terraces where at night time the whole area was lit with fairy lights. Magical.

The following day we said goodbye to our friends and left mainland China. We made our way to Macau arriving in the early afternoon. This place was a hive of activity with new casinos and building going on everywhere. There were so many cranes and builders, we had never seen anything like it. We checked into a casino which was the biggest we had ever seen. It had escalators, ten abreast, going up and the same number going down. The next morning we were surprised to find that all work had ceased and no one was working at all! It turned out that Lehman Brothers Bank had gone down and money had stopped overnight. The next day we moved on to Hong Kong for 2 days and then started the journey home. It had been a truly memorable trip.

The new house was coming along as planned and we started packing up, although most of it went to charity or was thrown out. We moved in December 2008 and Charley and Joe joined us for Christmas. Moving from a dark, old, beamed property to a modernised property flooded with light lifted the spirits. We were kept busy designing the garden and patio and Roy enlarged the pond adding Koi, goldfish and water lilies. We had not been in the house long when the letters started arriving with no address or contact number. We had a stalker. The lady from work had divorced and sold her property and lived with her daughter. Letters would arrive 3, 4 and sometimes 5 times a week. I could not understand what was going on in her head. She told us that she had bought her wedding dress and was looking forward to her honeymoon with Roy in Barbados.

About a year later, she turned up on the doorstep with a suitcase and dog and announced she was moving in. Roy told her to get some help, and she hit him with a dog lead and stormed off. She now claimed she was receiving messages from the radio and TV from Roy. This went on for about five years until one evening she turned up again on the doorstep. Roy went outside and gave her some money that she wanted, as she said she was broke. He said the money was on condition that she never came back to the house. So far she has not.