Goodbye Winter.....Hello Spring!!!

Monday 1st September, 2014

Yay it's the first day of Spring but looking out of the window this morning you may think it's still Winter.  After the beautiful days of last week where the temperature got into the mid 20's, this morning it's cold and wet and our maximum for today is 16C.

Life has been pretty normal around here lately (whatever normal may be).  The last 2 weeks I have had to attend a job training course.  I don't particularly want to look for work but if it's required of me I will do it.

You see, several years ago the government in it's wisdom decided to change the age for women to qualify for the age pension. 

When I started working back in the late 1960's men retired at 65 years of age and women at 60 years.  If your husband retired at 65 and you hadn't reached 60 you could get a Wife's Pension in the meantime. 

But these rules have been changed.  The government now wants everyone to work until they are 70 years.  This will come in sometime in the 2030's, until then people can still get the age pension but every couple of years you have to be that bit older.  Like by 2017 men can't get the age pension unless they are 67. 

When Tony retired his superannuation wasn't enough for us to get by on and he was eligible for a part government pension.  I was put on Newstart and this is why I have to look for work.  If I don't want to look for a job I can do Volunteer work instead.........15 hours a week.

Having last worked in 1977 I now have no skills.  Everything today is computer orientated.  I can navigate my way around the computer here at home but I could never do it in a work environment.  I don't know how to use Microsoft Word properly and have no idea what Excel or Power Point do.  Even to do Volunteer work, if I choose to work in an office environment, I need computer skills.

So it looks as if I have to go back to "school" to get some computer skills.  They are talking about sending me to TAFE, a tertiary institution that allows for people to go and get skills, awards, diplomas, rather than go to university. 

One of the courses they are looking at costs around $2,000 but the Job Agency is not prepared to pay for it.  There is another course that I may qualify for that will cost nothing but I have to wait to see if I am accepted.

Believe me the next 17 months can't come quick enough, because in January 2016 I will be 65 and none of this will be relevant. 

Talking of computers, Tony in his wisdom decided I needed a new one.  My old one was still using Windows XP.  This new one is super duper fast and has Windows 8.  We decided to go to a computer place and get them to build us one (on Robyn's recommendation as she had just got herself a new one and went to this company and was very impressed with them). 

I was apprehensive at first about trying to find my way around Windows 8.  Surprisingly I found it not to be as hard as what some people have said it is.  There is still a lot more to learn but I will get there.  At least I can do the basics, for now.

I must apologise for the font changing midstream.  As yet I haven't figured it out how to get it all the same. I don't know why it suddenly changed from one font to another one.

One thing the job agency told me was that I have to get my typing skills up to date.  I am a one finger typist, and I am pretty quick, lol, but they said that's not acceptable. 

So to practice, it looks as if more blog posts are on the way!