Volunteering

I have been retired for three years now and am always finding there aren’t enough hours in the day.  When I retired I was definite about steering clear of helping out in school – I felt I needed a break from the environment that has consumed my working life.  But I didn’t want to stay at home all the time even though there is always something to do.

In the UK if you volunteer to help out in the community you have to go through a process where you have a background check, carried out by the police, to ensure that you have not contravened any laws that would indicate you were of unsuitable character to work with children or vulnerable adults.    You have to produce identifying documents such as a passport and a driving licence, and list all the places you have ever lived, and all the names you have been known by.  Until recently it was known as a CRB check (Criminal Records Bureau), and is now called a  DBS  check (Disclosure and Barring Service ) and it can take quite a while for you to be checked out.

First I volunteered at Church to help out with the holiday club when church puts on a week of activities for children during the long summer holidays.  By the end of the week I was shattered but I enjoyed the event and we had lots of good comments from the children and their parents. So I have enhanced CRB clearance to work with the children during holiday club.

Next, I spotted a poster at the library asking for volunteers to deliver books to housebound library members.  This means that once a month I deliver a bag of books to each of my clients.  This also required a CRB check – it involved volunteering for library services so I needed to be vetted as I would be visiting vulnerable adults in their homes.  So I had to fill in the same form, and send it to the same place as my first CRB check.

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with the children’s worker at church.  She visits local schools, taking assemblies and helping out with their delivery of Religious Education.  She told me that she runs a dinnertime club at a school and was looking to enlist help from a team of people to give a hand with the activities.  Since the school is almost next door to my home and would involve just an hour, once a week – and not every week – I have volunteered.

I have had to have a third vetting clearance, now done online, so this was processed quite quickly.  I am happy to be checked out because it is for the well being of the children and adults I come into contact with but it is surely an expensive and unnecessary duplication to need such a check for every different organisation I help.

Having helped out for the first time this week I enjoyed working with the children.  It is the first time I have been into school since I retired but it has not given me a hankering to return to teaching.  The children were lovely, the school very welcoming, but how nice not to have to prepare lesson plans and fulfil all the many tedious tasks that have been imposed on the teaching profession in the last two decades.

The snowy weather

The weather has been so cold that the snow which arrived about a week ago is still lying around and being added to almost every day.  The nearby school closed for a couple of days and though it has reopened we do not see the pupils in the playground. I think the low temperatures have made it so treacherous underfoot that they are confined to the building.  It feels as if everyone has gone into hibernation – it’s so quiet.

 

The postman managed to deliver the mail to our front door - the evidence that I needed to check the letter box was left on the doormat.

The garden looks very pretty.

We have new neighbours and they have built a snowman in their front garden.  They have a two year old daughter so I think she got some grown-up help.

As the sun tries to break through and the temperature rises slightly, some of the snow from the roof is melting and trickling into our Heath Robinson overflow which directs excess rain into the garden borders.  Of course, as the temperature drops icicles form and we a wall of icicles forming on the end of the gutters and down the tree trunks. This photo was taken from the warmth of the kitchen.

Last night – Thursday – we travelled to Wallasey to take assorted goodies to B.  As soon as we left the estate the main roads and motorways were clear of snow but there was much evidence of the previous falls of snow.  The further north we travelled, the snow in the surrounding countryside got less and less.  For the last part of the journey, along the M56 there was hardly ant snow left and in Wallasey itself it looked as if they had had no snow at all.  Being near the coast the temperature had been less harsh and so the initial snow falls soon melted away.  On the return journey, the snow, and the colder temperatures were still waiting for us.  Today it feels bitterly cold even though the thermometer reads just one degree below.

An advantage of retirement

One of the perks of not going out to work is that you have more time to do the things you like doing.  Working full-time and having work to bring home most evenings meant that the pleasure of losing myself in a book was mainly confined to holiday times. 

I enjoy reading a variety of genres and often my choice of reading is dictated by the books I find for sale in charity shops or those that friends share.  Once I find an author I particularly enjoy reading, I try to find other books by the same author. If the author has written a series based around a character, then there is the challenge of finding the other titles in the correct order.    

About nine months ago I joined the reading group at the local library. Meetings are held once a month and a group of about ten of us discuss the months chosen read.  It is lead by one of the librarians, who chooses a book for the group – or asks a group member to select the book.  The variety of books selected is wide and I am now reading books that I would not necessarily have picked – so far, most have been to my taste. 

The group is all female – perhaps it is like this for most reading groups.  The discussions around the books show a variety of views – justifying what you think about a character or scenario keeps the mind alive.  We exchange opinions, challenge views and laugh a lot – an hour soon goes.  Meeting new people is a bonus.

At the beginning of this week the group met and our new book is a historical novel, the first one since I joined the group.  It is set in Tudor England, ‘The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory’, and I don’t think it will last me until our next meeting.  To me, it is a page-turner!  The author knows how to keep her readers engaged with the long and complicated plot.

Things I should have posted in 2012.

The first week of the New Year has already gone and I have not made the time to post.

In spite of RM setting a good example and the thoughts that I should at least be able to manage one post a week … so much for good intentions.

Well in 2012 I should have posted my elder sister’s special birthday – we held a surprise party.

For Christmas we went to Wallasey – it was busy – but good to spend time with the family- sorry no pictures.

After Christmas we travelled to Haughton near Stafford  to view the Christmas lights – every year a lot of the residents in the village decorate the outside of their houses and attract lots of visitors who are invited to donate towards a variety of charities.

 

The New Year has brought more rain – note the fields on the way to the town look more like a lake.

 Well – first post of 2013 – I shall continue to have good intentions.