Not Kinloss now!!!

[flossie64]

we're not going to kinloss now someone esle got the job
I'm now really fed up as my DH told me last night that is will probably be at least next spring before he hears of another job move(possibility) so I will have another year of living 180 miles from him,that will be 3.5yrs in total.
Sorry for the moan , but I hate being on my own all the time. We did try to move and be together but it didn't work out.
I accept he's in the forces and we will be apart at times , just not all the bloody time.

sorry flossie, i don't know your story... if it's going to be another year why aren't you getting a quarter where he is now? obviously a good reason if you have been apart for 3.5 years

maybe time to work out another plan? or have you run out of plans? are there no other options at all?

I keep trying to sort it , one of the problems is that unless he can say for certain he will be in post for 6months from MQ allocation we would have to repay all moving costs if we were to go from there IYSWIM.
DH semms reluctant to talk about it as every time we tried to sort it another thing happens and it all goes pear shaped.
e.g. unihabitable MQ, and MHS/DHE ringing uc on the day of my dads funeral saying if we didn't make a decision there and then we would not be able to move.
We will definately get a MQ when he does get a posting ,but can't see a way forward in this job.
I keep thinking it will be sooner rather than later ,but as I'm sure you are aware some days it feels like forever.
We live in our own home (near Lincoln) and have never had a MQ and can't afford to buy near High Wycombe where he is at the moment. We want Waddington ideally but that means we will end anywhere else but!

ah, high wycombe. say no more. have they offered you excess rent if they can't provide?
sounds difficult though.

I can not see why he can not say he will be in post for at least 6 months? If he does get a posting then it will be classed as a service move, so you would not have to pay back anything.

i do not want to offend you,but
I am in the forces myself and a lot of the men/women like married unaccompanied for a number of reasons; you get A LOT of extra money for this in the form of LSA, and MMA for the travel. He will also be able to concentrate on his job during the week and deal with all the crap that comes with it ( early starts, late meetings, enforced fun etc) then have fun at weekends with you and the kids!

This life style works for some, but not for other. Sounds like you need to chat to him so he can understand how you feel.

both me and my man are in the army, and for a number of years we were in different countries so i feel your pain (no kids though,yet) he has just been posted 300 miles away so might as well be in another country !!

Flossie, who told you you have to say you will be in post for 6 months, or have to repay moving costs? That really is not the case.

Perhaps she means repay the costs if they move to HW from their own house then back to their own house if he gets Waddington. I believe that would be classed as a last move and would have to pay that proportion. But he could of course remain in the mess where he is then moved home and claim that as a move, then next move to quarters would be paid for iykwim.

HW doesn't have much in the way of quarters at the mo as far as I am aware, but they are putting people into excess rent accomodation.

Stinkermink , I think I am on the same thought path as you.
Dh said that how he understands it ,but the information is as clear as mud to say the least.
We haved talked again over the weekernd and he says he will talk to the poster as soon as we get back from our week away in Cornwall over half term.
Not sure how anyone is better off unaccompanied,as he has to pay out quite alot(£85 per week?) to live in the mess and they pay as you dine at lunch times as well now. Maybe I'm wrong as the rules seem to change every other week, and I seem to be easily confused .

Not sure about the maths of it all, I am not serving, but when we have lived apart, DH has had abated food and accomodation charges due to paying to live in the mess/block (in the past) and having a mortgage or quartering charges to find for us. Then he gets home to duty allowances for travel. Again I have no idea what this is, but you can claim the tax on those costs annually in a tax return.

Nightmare innit! Try Rafcom.co.uk they normally have all the info regarding service policy and might give you a start.

married unaccompanied living in the mess were usually referred to as 'bean-stealers' for that very reason lol. payd will have made a dint in that though i suspect
must look it up...

LOL I thought "beanstealers" were the ones who introduced PAYD

ah, no. they would be bean-counters. entirely different breed.

beanstealers usually nab all the suites in the mess, don't pay food and accom, and p* the singlies right off.

beancounters just p* everyone off.

Oh no , I hope Dh is not one of those he's a lovely man really
Stinkermink-The only thing he managed to claim tax on was his mileage for work ,not home allowance.
He does quite a lot of miles going to meetings and RAF pay 28p per mile ,you then can claim 40% of the 12p to make it up to the 40p most companies pay.

Ahhh in my world Bean-counters are green pencilled idiots! Now I understand! Bean-stealers, yep that'd be my DH!! it's only been on occasions when he's been or courses for a long period of time or due for imminent posting due to impending promotion, so the interim posting has been a right PITA while waiting for next job to come up!!

flossie64, I am sure there is or was a home to duty rate. Duty journeys should be done in a work vehicle I thought? madwomanintheattic is going to be going through policy all night at this rate!

They do sometimes supply an MT vehicle but if its a friday say,and he has a meeting at Abbeywood, he takes his own car.
Otherwise he would have to drive to there ,back to HW and then up to home so doing about 8hrs driving . Where as he can go to meeting then come straight home ,only 5hrs driving. They would not let him keep car over weekend or come home in it.
He is allowed to claim 2 duty to home journeys per month.
He defiantely doesn't want a suite and even spent the 1st 6 months in post sharing an airmans MQ with a stranger,and the cooker etc taken out, because they were not living in it as a couple . all because there were no MQ's for us and no rooms in the mess. Its got so bad now a bloke in his section lived in a hotel for 6 weeks as there was nowhere else for him to stay! that would be cheap then.

Ridiculous isn't it. My DH lived in a B&B at Bledlow for 2 months until they found us a quarter a couple of months ago. He lived the life of riley, but how stupidly expensive must that have been. All because as an officer they wouldn't accomodate him in the sgt's mess or shared quarter with someone of a different rank, he didn't care!

My Dh is an officer as well and he did share the quarter with someone of a different rank , also when he was at Waddington lots of officers stayed in the sgt's mess as they were short of rooms. Definately a case of, oh what day is it today? , lets make up a new rule

at brize they blocked off some of the corridors in the officer's mess and called the other side 'airman's accom'... works both ways lol. not great when they all pile back from the grotlight at 2am and stand outside your window smoking when you're on earlies... mind you, they did the same to me after dinner nights, so not specifically an OR issue lol. but at least i was invited.

mind you, half of the world has been shacked up in the gateway for the last couple of years, as well as utilising the local b&b's in burford. 6 of one and half a dozen of another, the world's gone mad.

lol at spending the night checking policy - truth to tell i didn't bother, the removal men arrive tomorrow for our first consignment, so i've been wandering around in circles trying to persuade children not to move the piles of stuff i've sorted... and then trying to retrieve more stuff from their bedrooms without waking them up...

hf's the policy girl

i do know quite a lot of people who were posted to hw who were going to straight on era, so if you know he isn't going to be posted until next year, i'd be pushing for a quarter tbh. are your kids school age? you could always retain the q/ hiring until the end of the school year and move then... are you intending to just use quarters from now on?

I did that madwoman when we moved overseas, no bugger helped me with the paperwork so I allocated a child's sq mtr amount to my unborn child no one checked or did a head count so sod em!!

oh no did not know that, perhaps it's because it's out on a limb. Really press for Greenwood then, they have been refurbished and honestly we had the best tour there! (and the houses were frankly shit then!).

Thanks for that I will press my DH when we get back from holidays. What is the school called there?
I did know someone who lived ar Bradenham beeches and she loved it ,although others told me the school was rubbish.
I would like to be in a bit of a community aswell ,I have done enough of being isolated and not knowing anyone when we do go to functions ,about every 2nd year just lately.

In that case Greenwood or Bradenham Beeches is your place, right by the mess and on the door step of everything. The school is Walters Ash Primary, but you also have other schools in Princes Risborough and the villages in between I believe.

I never bother with what others think of a local school/nursery check out ofsted and make your own decision based on going there and meeting other parents and teachers I think.

I know what you mean about functions and it's always better if you're on the main patch in the middle of it all! My opinion of course!!! Have a good holiday x

My DD is 6,DS away at work (18),so I know i would have a problem getting her into the school at Medmenham as it is oversubcribed every year. Not that I know of any Q's there. I would not go to White waltham as the house we saw there had smashed windows, broken guttering and a very unusual decorative effect in the dining room!! i.e. ivy growing up the wall and round the light fittings.LOL
I'm not sure how long we would stay living in Q's as we have always had our own house.
i love my house and just had a nice family room built on last year,as we thought then he was coming back here, but found out the day it was finished he wasn't
Madwoman- where are you off to ? somewhere nice I hope.

oooh Medmenham, practically Marlow...there is a patch and it's a nice one at Medmenham, the school is practically on the patch, bet you wouldn't have any probs getting in there as after all you go in and someone moves out! Not that simple I know, but it really is a lovely area. We lived at Greenwood, right opposite Air Command. Personally I would try to get a quarter there, purely because I like the whole mess life/community aspect, but having said that Marlow is fab. And I am sure that patch would have a life of it's own. Don't know much about White Waltham other than bad things I'm afraid, but that could all be conjecture. Although I do know one woman who's house subsided so badly that after she had dropped the DCs off at school one day went home, had a shower and got trapped in the bathroom all day until her husband came home (luckily early). The subsidence had made the house suddenly shift and she was stuck!

Medmenham is not all its made out to be, friends of ours are there . they couldn't get a school place for their childrenalltheposhfolk, marlow residents take their children there. Also big problems with vandalism,yobs and cars being stolen at the moment.