A brown envelope I was happy to open

Regulars may remember my issue with the tax man. Well good news.  Yesterday lunchtime Daughter-of-Furtheron texted to say "There is a brown envelope from the tax man here for you".  I joked I might throw myself under a train.  Surprisingly although there was a lurch of fear, that dread, the seeping creep in your stomach, in your muscles that draining of strength, I never thought of drink.   A testament again to the power of the AA programme, no thought or need for a drink just a "Well I can do nothing about it now.  Open it at home and then decide next course of action".   These things seem little, simple, obvious.  I know but for years inability to emotionally cope with this stuff is what perpetuated my irrational drinking.

Anyway - Mrs F arrived home early as she'd been on a first aid course - I'll postscript on that in a moment...   She opened the letter (she knows I hate her doing that but in this case I'll let it go!).  She phoned me.  I saw it was home, knew full well she'd have opened it and ... dropped the phone ... picked it up and answered. 

The good news is they accept totally the mistake.  Have corrected it and now I don't owe them half a banker's Christmas bonus.  In fact they now say they owe me a bit back!  Result!!

So all's well that ends well and all that.

Postscript - Thurs night Mrs F wanted to practice her first aid ahead of her assessment at the end of the course on Friday.  D-o-F (was) volunteered as patient.  So I get called in to help hold her arm up to stop her bleeding whilst Mrs F goes through the other checks.  Mrs F says "I need to check she's not going into shock".   "How do you do that?" I ask.   "See if her face looks pale".   At this point D-o-F was in more risk of dying from laughing too much and was as red as a beetroot in the face - "Doesn't look like it" I said.