The Best News

Okay, I shouldn't really be saying anything ... just in case I jinx it, but I'm just so excited that I can't hold it in :)

As you regular readers will know, I've been quite anxious over my holiday plans with Varen ... at times even wondeirng if we'd manage to go on holiday, but knowing that we needed it. We've been dealing with, what I like to call, his Pension Fund Debacle. When we were choosing trips, waiting for the 6-8 weeks since he left the company to be up and expecting the payout to come, they hadn't even filed the paperwork! Sigh. And then they told us that it'd be yet another 6-8 weeks wait when they did. And we had to wait for at least the payout figure before we'd know what could be done. As I said he's dealing with a little debt consolidation at the moment in the face of the rising interest rate (like most South African's) and we didn't want him to be stretched too far.

While waiting patiently for the figure, we made a new hopeful holiday plan ... I'd do the full 23-day trip to Spain, Portugal and Morocco and he'd join me for the last 10 days, the Morocco Express leg. Luckily the trip I'd chosen was a combination of 2 of Intrepid's tours so this was actually quite viable. As much as I'd love to have him there for the entire trip, this seemed like the best compromise. Especially with his contractor-factor ... if he's not working, he's not getting paid so the less days of leave required for him, the better.

This morning while we were expecting to just get the Pension Fund figure, he in fact got paid out in full :) And I have just requested an updated quote. So please everyone hold thumbs that there is still availability for matching tours! That's the next big hurdle. Thankfully the figure turned out to be enough to cover his trip and still have a sizeable amount to plow into his bond ... so everybody wins :) ... If there's still space on the tours :(