Reeling once more

T has decided the adoption process likes to confound us. There we were happy we had a link and expecting a late Oct/early Nov panel date. That was until today when in Conwy. T tried to answer a call from our SW but failed - she left a message asking him to ring back which he did promptly.

Our son's SW wants panel on 30th Sept and Intros to start a week later as his FC is going away for a week from 26th Oct and they feel respite to Intros would not be a good thing - could we mange this. Cue two people on Conwy harbour front hurriedly phoning work while on holiday. Fine for me - T has the complication of Eid-al-Adha which is predicted to be around 15th Oct. One cannot get pharmacist locums where we live around either Eid. Cue call back to our SW who understood this and went away to talk to her manager and also medical advisor as the short notice might mean going to panel without meeting her.

We wandered round the Castle at Conwy and then down to Bodnant Gardens. Driving back through Snowdonia at a point we actually had signal, we got an email from our SW telling us she had spoken to her stand-in manager (annual leave for actual manager) who felt we could manage without T for 3 days during second week of Intros and she had also got us a medical advisor appointment the week before proposed panel. We then went looking for phone signal around foot of Snowdon - ended up in car park in Llanberis. Promptly spoke to our SW again as she phoned following up on email to check about FC meeting times. Then T forwarded email to his line manager and company boss, following up by speaking to line manager directly. Meanwhile I finally told my mother (issues with her spreading too many details round family so is kept a bit out of loop) that we had a link and the timescale. Phoned Dad (he is away for work) before sending emails to three people at work who needed to know.

Given work a fine conundrum to solve - I was teaching 2 modules in 6 weeks - now I am not with under 3 weeks to go before term starts. The decision to go with new timescale is absolutely right as we do not want our son disrupted as much as respite could do. Ok have around 4 1/2 weeks to do stuff we thought we had 9 weeks+ to deal with but we will get there. What happens happens for a reason and this match just feels so right to us.