Step Lair

Slug,

It appears we have some ongoing mis-interpretations of the Court Orders.

Firstly, I do not believe the schedule you sent me is correct, as I informed you on the phone before Christmas. As I told you at that time, there are errors in it, particularly relating to “your” weekends. I also note that the July School holiday dates are incorrect, and my contact time with the children over this time is missing altogether. The orders define the contact that I am to have with the children and take priority over your schedule. The orders do not define your time, as you have them by default, for the majority of the time and indeed for the majority of the holidays.

The orders state that I am to have the children for the first week of the July School Holidays. This is not defined as a calendar week (starting Sunday), but simply means the first seven days. I confirmed with Expensive Lawyer of “Expensive Lawyers and their Friends” that it is standard practice for the first week of the holidays to be deemed from the Friday school breaks up. If the first week of the holidays happens to abutt my regular alternate weekend, then yes, I am entitled to contact with them for nine days. That being seven days July holiday and two days weekend.

I informed you that I intended to collect the children on Friday 1st July as per the Court Orders in my email dated 17th June. You did not disagree with the date in your reply, rather you simply pointed out that the children easily get things confused.

I did get a garbled message from the children, SD8 said that you would be emailing me. As no email was forthcoming by 5pm Friday, it was obvious to me that the children were again confused, therefore I proceeded with contact as per the orders, and as I had outlined in my correspondence to you.

If you wanted to change the date from Friday 1st as I outlined in my email to Sunday 3rd, you had a responsibility to negotiate with me directly, and not use the children as messangers, especially given your comment as to their easy confusion in your email only a weeks or so before. I have requested previously that you cease using the children as messangers as it is not fair on them, so please take this as notice that I will no longer consider any message regarding scheduling via the children as valid. You will need to correspond directly with me in future, to avoid confusion and to avoid placing the children in the middle of what should be adult discussions.

It was definitely not my intention to upset the children, however, if you had communicated with me in a responsible manner, the situation would not have occured.

At present the children and I have had contact over the holiday for seven days, where in fact we are entitled to nine. Therefore I would like to have my make-up weekend this coming weekend. If another two days this week suit you better please inform me ASAP and I will see if I can schedule the time off.

CFDH

This pushes so many of her buttons, it’s like a button factory for slugs. Hopefully she will show her true colours (again) and give us some more ammunition.