To answer the person who asked what I was doing. The answer at present is nothing. I didn't volunteer for severance in the end and they didn't make me take it either.
Clearly there would be a fair degree of risk of unemployment - but if I was single then I would take it - even if at the end of it I had just had an interesting year of flying training out of it.
But with a family, it's easier to stay put - perhaps I am a coward in that sense. But I think school fees may take priority.
Perhaps I can blame the CAA for their unneccessary eyesight limits (uncorrected) in the years gone by. Mind you I should have married a Yank and gone commercial in the US if I had thought about it!