Xmas To Go

So all i need to buy now is sprouts , everything is done and dusted bought over the last few months a bit week by week ,  meanwhile my annual xmas morbidness has set in , so this is the last post before the great event , i know you all enjoy the annual turkey fest so i will let you all enjoy .
Mr BH did comment that if we won the lottery would i feel any better about the season , probably not , it just isnt there for me , its a void emotion .
As a child there was nothing to look forward to just endless drunken antics from my mother ,  having to pretend that you were having a great time , stick a smile on for the relatives as you were wheeled out in your ghastly party frock .
When the kids were small i made the effort and stuck that smile on again , watched all that fun  , they never did without , we wernt well off but the excitement was there for them.
So having stuck that smile on all my life ive reached that stage where i dont even try anymore i just hibernate till its over with , cook a big dinner and watch them all enjoy it .
The highlight of xmas thus far is winning a couple of little prizes , a bottle of prosecco that i dont drink , four pairs of socks ever useful and 10 dvds of classic movies when i have no way of playing them ...lol...the kids inform me they have a DVD player in a box somewhere so thats me sorted .
So Merry Xmas may you all have the Xmas you all hope for and desire see you after Boxing Day 

Moving On

Some people wonder what makes a lifetime Labour supporter , your either born to it or hard times take you there . My dad back in the 30s had his dad do a runner with my grans younger sister , left my gran with 7 kids and nothing back in the days before the welfare state , my gran was humiliated and shunned by people all her life due to this as if it was her fault . she struggled on but the thing that broke her was the death of her daughter to Diphtheria, the doctor refused to come out because they were poor and she died in my grans arms. He dad never forgot this and we all had it drilled into us every election , now im sure you think this is just another of my socialist rants but oddly not  .
Its a vaccinate your kids soddin rant , there have been cases of Diptheria this year in this country !!
If the NHS crumbles and goes private can you imagine them stopping vaccinating kids unless you can pay ?
Trump is currently refusing to vaccinate kids from flu that is killing them in the border internment camps , kids have died and hes withholding vaccines to score political points. Crappy world that we live in isnt it? 

Well Thats Different

If anyone had told me that i would have woken up to miners voting Tory i would have thought i was in an alternate reality . So thats it we now have Minny Trump at the helm , we will shortly be the 53rd state .  Not sure where this country is going but hey thats what what was voted for .
Prepared to give the bloke a chance , but bear in mind , delivering Brexit for the salivating masses may not be the easy ride he thinks .
Thankyou to Jeremy for giving those of us at the bottom of the heap hope for a little while , may your allotment be filled with adoring youngsters prepared to learn that there is an alternative , sorry if that came out a bit creepy and Gary Glitterish.
So where do we go from here ?
We need to educate our young to have compassion and to think for themselves , to be able to say that things are wrong and immoral , to stand out from the crowd and not become a part of the mob . They are our hope for the future , the present is looking very grim .

Election Time

Well the will to blog is dwindling with xmas on the horizon , nothing new there im afraid . its just an even more depressing xmas spirit than usual .
The election process has degenerated into he said, she said .  But i will say this we have spent an awful lot of time using the NHS in the last few years with my other half and his strange medical emergencies.  The huge furor over the child on the floor in A&E  is a bit of a strange one , weve seen plenty of kids curled up on coats on the floor of A&E and in the chairs , weve visited when theres been so many puking kids in A&E its standing room only and pensioners were still waiting for transport at 3am when the clinic they visited finished at 2pm  . When the ambulances are queing down the road to drop people off .  The staff deserve medals on a daily basis , but people get seen they get treated and nobody is asked whether they can afford it .  The NHS has been betrayed by every party for years it cant be run on the cheap .  But we can be sure that Boris plans to sell it off to someone , to many people are living to long because of the NHS and him and his band of elitist twerps dont have to use it so they dont care if it founders .
 Every service and facility we have had to use has been 10 times worse for being given over to private companies , from the risk averse surgeons who will only help those who are the perfect patients who will give them the wonderful figures that show to prove  how much money they are saving .  But if you offer to pay suddenly all the reasons they cant help you vanish. Centralisation of services where you travel miles to see someone for 5 minutes.  GPs who dont have the time to treat anyone , its endless .
Needing the NHS comes to all of us eventually think long and hard where you put that cross

Election Special ?

So last night we had the jolly Mr Farage meeting Andrew Neil on the box , what a cockwomble  the man who has single handedly screwed up the UK voting system and with great glee thinks its wonderful. I think if nothing else i grasped that he is another Tory Light for those who cant quite stomach Boris and his Mafia .  So on the morning of the 13th im sure we be looking at another hung parliament without any clear majority as Boris joins the Lib Dems led by Veruca Salt in raising the flag on another Tory Reich .
However i think the young vote will make a big difference if they can get out of bed and shake off their apathy and not think that Jolly Boris is a bit of a lad . 
One thought, Boris as leader isnt appetising to the female vote ,  a serial womaniser , who left his wife to face cancer alone , has a weakness for vacuous blondes and a trail of offspring here there and everywhere just doesnt  do it for most .

Imput from my mother the other day

Corbyn is a bloody communist .

So it doesnt bother you that the Torys  are witholding the report on their Russian funding ?

She hung up  lol

I still think theres plenty of room for things to swing in either direction in this election ,  somebody did post that the only interview that Boris will give is with Mr Tumble,  nobody can pin this obnoxious git down , waving your arms and waffling and never answering a question will only go so far .   It just takes someone to back him into a corner over some triviality and the real Boris may well shine through, not that anyone will report it except on Channel 4

Hello and Welcome

Sadly no election Special this week due to lack of interest , nothing happening other than them all pointing fingers to one another etc etc , not a leaflet or a candidate have we seen .  I did get my hopes up the other day when two nice well dressed ladies came to the door , but it was only the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Ive had some kind well meaning troll add me to a porn webcam site in the USA , does show how a lot of folks in the USA spent Thanksgiving , so to all those baffled Americans now visiting, guess what the only look at my pussy you will get here is the cat . Thankyou for upping my viewing figures into their thousands...lol ...if you too have had a big jump in viewers just check the referring websites in overview.
Then theres the small flooding problem we have a mile up the road . By Thursday afternoon we realised there was going to be a breach somewhere , there were Environment agency  helicopters hovering over the main river all afternoon and the water had risen several feet to the very tops of the banks , depending on the tides the big sluices drain into the sea . It was a game of wait and see , fortunately they managed to do this just fine , but this meant they had to hold the water in the land drains and overnight the nearest one to us breached , nothing anyone can do about this , its just the nature of living in a swamp , its flooded the farm and one other house , it wont harm the farmland its covered in manure crops waiting to be ploughed in during the spring , sometimes we are very glad we are 12 feet above sea level and live on the clay riverbank above the drained land . The huge flocks of swans and geese are loving it

Sunday Service

A day when i feel half way human , so the troops are playing fix the vehicles and im cooking endless sausage sandwiches plus a big batch of jacket potatoes to use them up , i will stuff them and plop them in the freezer and we can have a couple for tea .  These are the boring days when im on call all day so cant get on with much , but its nice to see a bit of company , now that daughter and grandson are gone i rarely talk to anyone from one day to the next , son tends to grunt in passing and MR Bah Humbug is just endlessly jabbering on about his radios he does not require any imput at all from me  he is a world expert...lol 
Theres few Jumble Sales its now gone over to Xmas Fayres and Gift Fayres  not of any interest im afraid , we are down to just buying daft bits for one another . The family members who could afford Xmas cast us off many years ago.
 Its funny how the social side of things die a death if you become disabled or poor . So please bear this in mind when people turn down Xmas invitations , its not that people dont want to join in, its often silly physical problems that mean an invitation gets turned down , not having a downstairs toilet with decent access means we dont go to a lot of places . Or no suitable seating . Silly one is not having non alcoholic drinks at parties , its not that people are being killjoys in refusing alcohol , medication or illness or even the fact that drunk them is a really bad idea.
I know that the days of meeting friends for a cake and a cuppa have pretty much gone , i just cant afford it and its horrible if your friend has to buy all the time even if they realise your situation .
We dont go out at all through the winter , its much more expensive to run the house in winter so spare cash is pretty much non existent. shopping once a fortnight nd the doctors are our only trips out  .  But this year we have heating just an hour a day but its heating and at least if you keep everywhere shut this house holds heat fairly well , with the addition of a hot water bottle we manage pretty well .
We have been in a far worse place in previous winters , so lifes not bad just boring...lol

Election Special 4

La La La , well weve now reached the promise them the earth stage of the campaign , all parties are throwing the sweeties to the crowds in the hope of buying voters .  Got to laugh at the amount of money being spent by the Tories 5m donated by someone , that someone must have that money spare , ideas on a postcard anyone?
Meanwhile the Labour party are making do with thousands of tiny donations and people power to get their campaigning across . 
However theirs no evidence of anyone doing any campaigning in the blue realms of  rural Lincolnshire , its such a safe seat that nobody is wasting their resources here .
 On a slightly fun note , does anyone have Twitter ?  if so do look up this hashtag  #CurseDominicRaab some of the best one liners ive read in a while  , really the man does invite it by declaring that Twitter and social media are irrelevant.
The Tory Broadcasting Corporation is laughable at the moment, then someone helpfully pointed out that most of the top dogs are Cameron appointees  , theres not an impartial voice on any forum and im not one of them , but im enjoying the dark world of  memes ...enjoy

https://www.facebook.com/jcdankmemestash/?__tn__=kCH-R&eid=ARBV3vrI_q2NCl6yFb7nJaCMjRgLfMxAWoWJyiIidTBpXARH-Bxj7FkSb6v7z5wWV6jxa3dyovIkL0A0&hc_ref=ARSIcBxo1lKIN5Ye8SIGdInfFe0o-petG5Of5DQYcJ2yEfC8tLDcdoeDCNSSqarMgac&fref=nf&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARAfHU60tsoQowfIH05rlFXACuLz4y3SOoN32xG-5oGqohbue69GF-U2azmjtCriVGIPUwRpIB57pO3HJ8t83dUSMSVeph63loJsktL_DDamvx_SqPI5keF-nhnDfrh9hAPX0g_M2Q_EbMtYY_O_9PgP3mdIiqbtbeT9rxAcIaacIMy6afq-a3DMsqnG7F1UkwJ1-iMSi63BpvQOwxyQEjpmidcahPfS9EbwzJt8HjFp2Pwz-oABrilrOHgFlKUVL7oTfEiZepbBo1VMX7QATVsoFmHb1cY8gvhTl9RSgNo1023oGNWp_TJZsBT4i5oib1JV-8kYVUxYYOW17rSBgA_7QQ

Gammon

Some things get my goat up , stereotyping is one of them . Calling blokes Gammons for their bigoted narrow minded views is one of them , tarring  all blokes of a certain age with a skinhead and a copy of the Sun with the same label etc etc etc
BUT  yesterday Mr Bah Humbug was doing his usual earwig other people on the radio , not paying a lot of attention as he snoozes on and off .  I was engaged in a crochet project sat in the sunshine and got listening to a pair of muppets on his radio it was enlightening to say the least . They were discussing recent events in Boston

Theres been another stabbing in Boston .

Yes i heard it on the news , bet theyre foreigners once they give out the names , it always is . Funny isnt it , they only kill each other .

Nobody ever mentions the death rate in Boston on the news , bets its cos theyre glad to be rid of a few more of the buggers .

That new asian girl will soon have them all on a plane back to where they came from , the asians dont like sharing the country with other foreigners .

Then they can get all the idlers out of the council houses and make them work on the land

 Now this whole rant went on for another 45 minutes till they went for a cuppa ,these are the nicer highlights , i know both of these pillocks, both are severely disabled , one is ex RAF the other a teacher .
 The only element of truth in the whole rant is the fact that the vast majority of serious violent crime in Lincolnshire is mainly Eastern European based , usually when drinking  or  involving domestic violence.
So it would appear you dont have to be a semi literate Sun reader to be a Gammon....who knew 

Election Special 3

So are we all having a giggle watching the great and the good try to buy our votes ?  Latest jolly weeze free broadband for everyone . This reminds me of the early days of cable broadband in the town where i lived , the local council decided to trial a scheme on a very deprived local estate where the residents got free computer access so many hours a week , this was back in the days of Windows 98 , nobody much had home computers back then . So it was a flagship project . Predictably it didnt go very well , you could get online to look at the jobcenter. and do any council business and that was about it .  They also provided public benefit learning programmes.
Somehow you realise that these days it would be much the same . Or your local council would be spying on you, a sort of nanny cam in the corner . They look a bit chubby lets stop them ordering anything but health food online , oh and we will hook them up for NHS forced ramblers. Reducation on recycling , you know you put the wrong bit of cardboard in the purple bin and are sentenced to 30 days sorting the recycling at the local dump . NHS webcam would do away with the need for GP surgeries altogether
Meanwhile Boris is quietly buying the big boys with that favourite giveaway peerages , you know that freebie that guarantees a warm seat with a good wage for the rest of your days , that giant care home called The House of Lords.
I have to say that in this herd of nobodies wanting our votes theres not many stand outs , though the Asian girl standing against IDS is playing a blinder , i wish her luck , purely out of personal malice.   

Oh The Excitement

So yesterday several days post flood we thought lets go to Lidl , he does the usual sit in the car and supervise and i hobble round , strangely the place was heaving , we'd just  timed it wrong and it was 11.10 so after the silence everyone had gone in . plus there were hoards of pensioners trying to spend £40 to use there £5 off a £40 pound spend .  I would struggle to spend £40 unless i bought loads of booze ...lol  needs not wants shopping .
 The worrying one is i buy the same stuff every month it usually costs £29 and it came to £31.60  so thats another little price rise this month , the food budget doesnt go up if your on a state income so all these little rises matter , your usually buying the cheapest own brands anyway so you cant just drop a brand in quality.
Theres an awful lot of flooding around here all the ground is waterlogged and we are due yet more rain , theres lots of breeches in the small rivers and land drains . the water was under the front door at the weekend but its a concrete floor and we just take up the carpet tiles  till it goes back down . The passage at the side of the house was like a river . The roads are interesting in places and there are a lot of people cant read road closed flood signs to the locals endless amusement .

 https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2019/11/met-office-issues-weather-warning-for-rain-in-and-around-lincoln/

Election Special 2

Well isnt this fun , never has a party tried so hard to lose an election.  All that remains of the Tory Reich seems to be a bunch of clueless gobshites .
  Rees Mogg came up with a blinder over Grenfell , though saying that the Minister for Victorian England just dug a hole and kept on digging totally oblivious to what he was doing .  He is scarily intelligent but his social skills would get him statemented as having Aspergers in a State School . Rather reminds me of Gordon Browns infamous election losing incident , with that bloody racist woman or Ed Miliband with his tombstone of Labour promises.
So we now have 6 weeks of these comedy acts trying to win our votes , this isnt going to be an easy election .  Like it or not this country has dug itself into one hell of a hole with Brexit .
 The Conservatives have used this single issue to justify not taking any responsibility for the fact that there policies have killed people and continue to do so. There one concern is which supporter or donor can profit from their policies   . 
The Lib Dems have turned into a hiding place for those Conservatives who want to convince us that they give a stuff about the public along with Blairite Labour members , their leader is another delusional crazy person . Who come a hung parliament yet again, will suck up to Boris to give us yet more years of robber baron politics .
Labour , yes i will vote for them . not because i think theyre wonderful or because i think they have all the answers . They have some bloody good ideas that might work , some bat shit crazy policies that anyone can see wont work . Good old Jezza will probably die the day after the election worn out by all his campaigning but at least his legacy will be lots of statues of him looking frail and a bit bewildered which is a fitting Marxist legacy . Its Jezzas children the youngsters in the party who have realised that socialism isnt a swear word . That you can have a country that invests in itself  and cares for its citizens .
Sadly I have the feeling we will wake up December 13th to yet more Conservative bullshit as we look at each other and wonder who the hell voted for this

More Snot

Im beginning to wonder how much snot one human being can produce , still wheezing like an old horse , finally got to see a doctor after 5 weeks . Who also said what i could have said five weeks ago , sciatic shingles which may be affecting my kidneys . So now im on the antivirals i needed 5 weeks ago . All im doing is sleep and feel sorry for myself , the house has degenerated into a shitpit , cant concentrate to do much of anything for long either . Hence not much of anything happening .
At least ive not missed any jumble sales theres a few towards the end of the month so im aiming to be mobile by then . Meanwhile i will watch lots of bad TV , wonder where the Tory Party have vanished to ? etc etc

Election Special 2019 1

So as the number one political biased blogger on the Old Biddy Network , let the show begin , I hope your aware i will be viewing The Daily Wail Online every day on your behalf  , just to see what the enemy have cooked up . Im good this way , or that way .
So what do we have to look forward to , 6 weeks of lies ,scandal ,muck raking , TV schedules disrupted by truly dreadful party political broadcasts .
 The only fun part of politics the last few weeks has been watching Michael Gove disintegrate , his missus being a journalist youd have thought  shed have booked him into the Priory by now. Not sure if its the reality of Brexit striking him or the hours spent with Boris and his team of misfits pushing him over the edge
As a full time carer for someone who is disabled , the only issue at this election that concerns me is the NHS . That and the fact we dont want to be the 53rd state of the US.  Weve had our Braveheart moment with the Brexit vote , didnt get us anywhere did it ? we dont now want to be Trumps business opportunity just because weve got in one hell of a spat with the EU  , we may be a tiny country but were nationally a bit stubborn and we really will cut off our noses to spite our faces, which i think is what Boris is hoping .
They say this election will rest on Middlesbrough Man , which i thought is a pretty bleedin sexist statement , the problem we have is that the political parties really think this bloke exists, you know the fry up eating , greggs supporter with a white van and a heart of gold ...oops that actually describes my other half in most ways , though to be fair its only a small white van .
So lets sit back and enjoy , Saint Jeremy killing himself knocking on doors,  Boris spaffing it up walls or anyware else he can get , Farage getting his serfs to dust off his camel coat so my mother can get all moist , Jo Swinson oh dear.....and the rest its going to be a giggle if nothing else
 

Snotty Gripe

So absence due to house of plague, the munchkin has gone home but left a virus behind that has nailed the whole household , we are the house of snot , which is why im up at 4am having sneezed and turned into Quasimodo , in less than a week weve gone through the whole cold and flu mountain id built up for Brexit and once again ive got a rough batch of Shingles so i can barely move , cant book an appointment at the doctors because i have a 5 minute appointment for a medication review next month , you can only have one appointment on the books at a time . aaarrggghhh.   oh that appointment was booked back in September.

Best conversation heard in the Doctors when picking up pills recently , gentleman of a certain age at the counter  .

We can give you an appointment in five weeks what is the problem

I have a breast lump,  a swollen testicle , changes in my bowel habits and ive had a cough for over a month or some such
You will need more than one appointment , you can only discuss one matter per appointment . Oh and your under 65 so must book appointments online .

That is why im here , there are no appointments online .

Oh we put some on every day , but they do go quickly .

The one that gets my goat is for once we have the full complement of doctors something unheard of  for at least the last 3 years , but nobody can get to see them .  im beginning to think they are imaginary . Then if you do get to see them its why have you left it so long.....aaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh 

The best one is if i go online Mr BH can always book an appointment , probably due to them nearly killing him and it all going legal on them  , it might be in 5 weeks but it always shows as their being appointments . Look on mine online no appointments . I just needed some antivirals but its to late now .
So thats my online gripe for the week , snot doesnt bring out the best in me , im just a whiney snotty mess ...lol

Political Old Biddy

Well this is a pretty kettle of fish , The House of Fools have got themselves in a right mess havent they . Total impasse anything put before them will be voted against it seems , but then whats put before them is crap whichever the voice . Not a single member wants Brexit regardless of party , it doesnt matter that their constituants voted for it in many cases . But their  reasoning wears thin  , there may be a few who want Brexit forgotton about on quite reasonable arguments , but i think it has more to do with the long term greedy aspirations of the many after all an EU job was a nice little earner once you lost your seat in the UK in the event of actual Brexit taking place a lot of them are looking at viewing the tumbleweeds blowing across there gardens of their constituency homes as they have to sign on for Universal Credit after the next General Election .

Lets take a look at the media , yesterday it was all over the news , a million attended the Peoples March , err ive attended a lot of huge concerts million my arse,  20000 plus would be my guess the rest made up by police and news crews from around the world . Most were there because lets be honest they didnt vote at all on the day because it never crossed there minds it might turn out to be leave , i sometimes think the most vocal remainers are the ones who were sat at home with a bottle of wine on the day , maybe a Jeremy Kyle style lie detector should be given to every protester  entering Parliament Square ?  not just for Brexit but for Extinction Rebellion .

Best media moment of the week ...Mr Broccoli being arrested by the Metropolitan Police this was pure comedy , a bloke handing out leaflets dressed as a giant broccoli gets arrested mob handed for being a member of the Extinction Rebellion ,along with umpteen doddering pensioners the disabled and a bunch of strange crustys climbing on the top of tube trains .

But the scary bit is that we are turning into China theyve sneaked in various laws making protest illegal , unless it suits the government for you to be seen like the march against Brexit . Why wernt they shoving all of them in a police van unless it looked good for all those worldwide news crews ? more spin doctoring from Cummings?

If you actually believe in democracy we should have already have left the EU , it doesnt matter what your personal views are , the majority on the day voted leave ......does it ever cross the minds of ones who want a second referendum that they could possibly not get the vote they rather spectacularly expect ?  Theres an awful lot of quiet people in this country believe in democracy

Webbed Feet

I think i will soon be quacking , the monsoon season continues on , the moat has risen so MrBH is moaning he cant leave the house , not that he was going anywhere without transport , in fact its season of struggling to get him to actually move , what makes it worse is he doesnt see any reason for me to go out , even if just for a walk , if i dont walk my back is agony , but now the munchkin isnt here i have no excuse to need to go out ...AAARRGGGHH
We were on the way to Morrisons when the car died , so i decided to do a Morrisons online shop , ive used the other supermarkets during last winter . The order arrived with no substitutions in itself a miracle with online shopping , theyve only just started delivering to our area it doesnt come from the 15 mile away local branch but all the way from Peterborough which seems a tad strange . the other strange thing is that there isnt a lot of choice, online its quite limited , what i could order was more than adequate , but as i use Morrisons as a once a month top up for stuff i cant get elsewhere i will continue to shop instore till the weather cabins us up for the winter this is of course unless were eating our cats due to Brexit .  The other odd thing is that the fresh stuff had very short dates , not that i take any notice of sell by dates . But delivering stuff at 9pm with a 3 hour shelf life is odd.
So stuck at home ive been having fun doing carpet tile jigsaws yet more to do once ive finished painting , the things you do when your bored out of your mind .
 Himself has been informed if he doesnt arrange for him and his minions to move his bleedin prized scooter out of  the dining room and into the now empty brick shed that if a scrapman knocks i will get them to throw it in the back of their pickup !!!  But it will get damp is the cry , so run the dehumidifier in there once a week how hard is it .  The munchkins bedroom isnt used .....at which point i threatened to kill him .

Lessons in Life

Is being poor a lesson learned for life , does it make you a better person? Well long term poverty either breaks you or makes you stronger , i dont think theres any inbetween .
I sometimes think its sad that my minds constantly working usually in the early hours of the morning calculating the cost of the electric for the week . 30p for a shower 50p for a washer load at 40, economy wash takes it down to 30p , hoping himself has a good week and i dont have stuff to boil wash , putting the oven on to be avoided when its 3 days from payday , so glad i managed while out to scrounge up £20 worth of electric and got a case of milk this week You guessed it we let the van MOT run out because it doesnt get much use in the winter and the car decides to die in spectacular fashion , weve since found out this will cost about 2 months income to fix and its not something the troops can fix themselves ..ho hum
So we are totally without transport for about a week hopefully , the troops are all coming tomorrow to try to get the van sorted for a quick MOT . Its a good job i stockpile for just such occasions , so the big slowcooker is out and im making a huge vat of stew to feed the troops , i was planning to freezer cook this weekend but thats gone by the wayside for the time being.
At least im still managing to dry all the washing outside yesterday was lovely and windy so ive got all the towels sorted .
Todays chores , include getting the tomatoes cleared from the porch , tons of green ones to ripen inside , doing something with the kitchen a hand grenade might be the best idea , and continuing on with the endless decorating . Hounding himself about fixing the outside light he can instruct one of the troops how to do it ,  thats the theory for today the practice could be completely different as it often is .

Plod

Its that time of the year , intermittent monsoon season , loads to do outside but all himself wants to do is fish on the dry days , he informs me today is the last day , mainly because the van mot runs out this week and we are to skint to renew it this month  ho hum nothing changes .

Meanwhile im shingle ridden yet again , i havent even wasted my time on the doctors , the heavy dose antivirals have always seemed to make me very poorly so ive given them a miss and tried a remedy recommended by a facebook shingles group as soon as it starts to emerge you rub cold sore cream into the rash, same active ingredient and its actually worked , swollen glands down in two days , rash drying up before it blistered . not something i would do if you had them on your face or your rash has a huge spread  , that really is a doctor job . but for those of us who have recurring shingles on the body  its a good cheap fix .  Also useful if like us its 3 weeks to see the GP . I really need to see the Dermatologist about it , but the GP says no , its just one of those things as you get older .  Shingles used to put my dad  in the hospital every year he had the ocular variant  and sunlight was his trigger so two air ambulances home from Spain before they realised . One of my aunts was the same . I have psoriasis and the peculiar arthritis it brings with it,  my triggers seem to be any extra load on my immune system , stomach bug this time set me off ,  debating on the flu jab this year as that was the trigger for the hideous bout in December January bit  of a Catch 22 on that one , so i may just delay my jab till nearer xmas then it wont matter if im dying in my bed ...lol

Political mystery tour continues on all fronts , ive reached the topping up each week stage of food buying with just a few treats on top , which is a good thing with the bedroom tax to pay on top of everything else .

 Ive reached a sort of plan for the tiny bedroom that was the munchkins . I need to replace the abandoned high sleeper with a single bed . and then if i put a decent high seat chair in there and a TV. It can be the sick room for when i cant get himself up and down stairs , plus i can sleep in there if im not well and it gives me somewhere to pop him when i have the big bedroom to clean and sort during his bad periods , plus it takes the hurry out of getting everything dry quickly .

Smug

The main event so far is all the flocks of geese going over , usually a sign that is going to be really cold really soon , we managed a few hours fishing yesterday , it was very quiet and swampy plus the RAF were up to something, so being just up the road from the base we had a great air display to watch , the wildlife is always a pleasure we were Kingfisher watching yesterday and i was mushroom spotting , we have found a patch of puffballs just emerging so if i get the chance i will pop down and get some , theres also tons of field mushrooms as well.

Decorating has nearly finished in daughters old room , we are undecided whether its going to be bathroom or the stairs next , no rush we have all winter . Nice quiet weekend just me and sarcastic son laying carpet tiles , Mr BH is off to some event with useful son , glad im not invited , i did point out that if he took me to the quilt show i would go to Truckfest with him , that knocked that one on the head ..lol

The reason im feeling smug is this is the first time we have ever had heating oil before December , not that it will be used  till its much colder , its still at put a jumper on or grab a blanket on the sofa weather , i gather monsoon season is back tonight .

Sarcastic son emerged from the shed with a plastic bin full of his clothes that for the past two years hes been acusing me of losing in the wash !!  to say they stank of mold was an understatement , he was going to bin them but i told him i was willing to try and save them ,  more for the fact that i quite liked some of the fabric . So it was boil wash with extra oxy , the stuff came out of them like tar , cleaned them but they still stank , so then it was half a bottle of sterilising fluid and a load of apple hair conditioner that nobody would use , the chemical reaction triggered a foam party , they still stank but with added apple . So then as a last ditch attempt we tried the great outdoors they have been on the line for a week in the monsoon and yesterday after the sunshine the smell has finally gone and he gave it all to me , including the Japanese Dragon shirts and loads of denim for a project i have in mind , he did take his goth tea shirts and a couple that shrank he asked if i could make cushions out of ...lol

Season of Mists

This year ive had to waste quite a lot of garden produce , its not waste really because anything not used goes into the compost bins . Im just a bit annoyed thats all.  Ive tried to give loads away and not a soul has wanted any , what family we have wouldnt lower themselves to come and dig up produce and actually pick and wash vegetables ,  nobody wants jam or chutneys anymore , i gather its not trendy for the younger generation with their terror of sugar learned at school, though they will munch through numerous posh protien bars  . 
A friend of the munchkin used to come and take the rosehips to make syrup , no takers this year , cobnuts ive more than i could ever use  but they keep well , apples that are not storers have barely been eaten , ive had a bumper hops year , tons of japonica quinces sadly ive lost the email of the posh lady who used to come for them , then sell her jams at the farmers markets .
 i suppose it doesnt give out the wanted image for the village . you know rich , incomers with charitable concerns , but sadly with much bigger incomes than the locals . They do make me laugh they all toddle off to the nearest towns and attend the farmers markets to buy their local expensive organic produce, when the same stuff can be bought for pennies at their neighbours gate stands . But the council is cracking down on gatestands as well , theres not an egg to be had in the village anymore.  Best comment heard .... come Brexit  we have cows , pigs and chickens just up the road  , didnt have the heart to point out that farmers have guns , The cattle are all beef cattle and the chicken are 12 week boilers for the food industry .
I have however found a rather easy plan for using conkers for washing liquid  enjoy
https://wastelandrebel.com/en/make-laundry-detergent-out-of-chestnuts/?fbclid=IwAR2xZT0nk85l57nV-XzdAMymBU4GAFjUtpW8Rz5cinu7nDxDN7-RMzRUBDs

Manipulate

im back from the world of gardening the weather having stopped play , still decorating but the end is in sight for the big bedroom , though i hope to continue on in bursts through the winter , plus cash flow permitting .

 I think im near saturation on the grocery front , even i know i dont need to buy tomatoes or any sort of bean till the spring ..lol  weird spot of the week , who shrunk the Andrex toilet roll? not something i usually buy as our eco loo tends to get bunged by it , but i was doing the check the price per sheet check in Tesco and noticed they had become dolls house sized for the same price , same price per sheet but the width of a till roll .  Everything is being miniaturized hotdogs in a jar have shrunk to 5 , biscuits are more packaging than biscuit and dont even get me on mince that now comes with onion and carrot already added for the same price as plain mince .

 But i did manage this week  to find the unicorn of groceries a Lidl £1.50 veg box , never seen one in the wild before , it had 4 baking potatoes,  cherry tomatoes , melon , 2 packs of nectarines , loads of large onions and 2 aubergines . The aubergines were the big failure i sliced and fried them and other half commented they can go in the compost , plus i was up all night with an upset tummy ...ho hum

Now on the political front , what can you say ? its all totally baffling , though im appalled that the government has been bigging up the prime minister and brexit on schools whiteboards  at primary school level . what does a 5 year old need to know about the sorry mess we are in at the moment surely the only thing this will promote is anxiety .

Up and About

This waking up at silly oclock is proving a bit of a bind now i have empty nest syndrome , usually if in up at 4am the munchkin gets up at 5 for a cuppa and a biscuit , now its just me and the cats , ive done my kitchen chores by 5 , the washer is ready to roll once himself surfaces . then im on the puter do a few bits  there then find something on pirate tv to watch while i do a bit of crocheting , currently working my way through 13 series of Supernatural and noticing how much like a Wendigo Sajid Javid looks .

The decorating continues slowly, so far ive only reduced myself to Quasimodo status once reaching up to paint the curtain rail supports of all things , then crunch i was squealing , so three days off due to injury. Useful son is here this weekend so he can help his brother to move the big furniture at the far end so i can finish the painting at the bottoms while he does the tops  , just need this wretched fish tank gone . Another gripe was the one coat gloss i got from Wilko its usually really good, this time its rubbish im having to use 2 coats and its taking days to dry.
At least im busy, i think once the weather turns i will have my usual cabin fever and climbing the walls season, but i may continue on with my slapping emulsion around  plus im informed ive a busy weekend they want  to go to Stickney but were usually home for 10 and ive just spotted a not very well advertised Jumble Sale Washingborough, 1.30 Bowls Club  usually a really good one.

Profit of Doom

So the cat jumble was another good one , tons of weird and wonderful stuff you never knew you needed..lol  3 items of clothing a cat watercolour that may be worth a fortune and more books for the winter reading heap . Theres another jumble at the same location next week

Linkage jumble sale, 21st september 2019. Birchwood scout hut. 10am-12pm.

Never attended these ones , so we will see..lol 

This mornings feelings of doom havent been helped by reading the news . Trump seems determined to start a war with Iraq , but then theres a lot of money to be made from war , my view is that we are all cattle used by our leaders and so called betters , lots of people will die over oil yet again , it seems we just go in endless circles over this .

Ive made the effort this morning and spoken to Anglian Water , i seems we were on the wrong tariff hence the scary bill i got , thats all sorted and they have put on the Priority Services Register , which was all a rather odd conversation about in the event of their being problems in the drinking water supply they deliver bottled water to people who are disabled , i did ask the question if this is Brexit related , no it isnt its just a safeguard for customers .  Worth bearing in mind if you have a disabled or elderly family member its industry wide they tell me .
Then that call going well ?I thought i would tackle good old British Gas , i had tried online the other day but got someone who did try but whos English Grammar was a tad odd . Found out that priority services have a UK call center then discovered that I had someone with a heavy Birmingham accent that i struggled with , but we got there and we sorted that as well priority services registered , application for grant sent off , we are only £2 under the grant limit so we have to wait and see .  Warmhome is also available to those who get pension credit as well as those on low income that means if your working you can try for this one and it is £140 a year .  All the big suppliers have these schemes but you do have to apply for them now and it does take a few months to be processed .
So its back to decorating time...bye for now 

Whos Bright Idea

So its season of major decorating chores and endless garden jobs , ive barely turned on the computer this week , do loads come in sit with hot water bottles and a paracetamol or two, snore in chair , you know the routine ...lol
Nearly killed sarcastic son and an inquisitive cat , by throwing half a wardrobe down the stairs as he stood their sucking his teeth going no that still wont fit ....it did fit
Now painting has started with sarcastic son doing all the tops and me doing the bottoms , hes not to pleased that i found a tin of unopened dulux paint in the garden from 10 years ago that id been using as a gate stop to emulsion his bedroom , he has informed me that its now the colour of diarrhea, yes i know , thats why i didnt use it when i bought it , got the money for more paint ?  Goes looks at paint sees the cost these days , has now decided he can live with it...lol
I do buy lots of 50p plants that take my fancy from the car boot every summer then they sit in pots till this time of year for me to plant them , so ive started to plant another border patch , its a really dry bit where the main sewage pipes run so its dig a hole with a pickaxe kind of ground which is why i never bothered before , his lordship has suggested that i bring one of my cold frames into the front garden to save the trek around the back , valid idea , so once ive finished the chainsaw maintenance of the front hedge that can go on my list , somehow i dont think the whole list will get finished before the weather breaks , its a very long list ..lol
Im up doing todays pack up for fishing , his lordship is trying to do 2 days a week till the end of the season, his brother takes him for one and i endure the other , this is leaving him in a right state , hes on the industrial painkillers and cant drive , but it helps him mentally so i force myself  . Hes in return humouring my Jumble Sale habit . I ended up doing two trips to the car last week , big pile of books , stuff for sarcastic sons new bedroom etc etc etc . just to make it better theres another cat one this week .

• 14 September Autumn Fayre @ Birchwood Scout Hut,Woodfield Avenue 11 til 1.30

Wish Me Luck

So this empty nest lark is sort of strange , just sarcastic son at home now and hes unlikely to go anywhere , dont know ive got him most of the time but hes going into his sisters big bedroom that still has loads of stuff shes abandoned  at the moment ,shes taking more each time she pops in , though i will be glad to see the back of her smelly fish tank , needs decorating badly but its going to be on a very limited budget . So far i won a really posh double brass bed for £20 on ebay that we fetched yesterday , buyer collect items often dont fetch much on ebay if theyre rural . I also ordered 2 big boxes of mixed colour recycled carpet tiles from a social enterprise on ebay that have surprised me by the quality and they were 2 packs for 1 . Greenstream flooring on ebay i would recommend them . Just all the painting to do and the mold to try and remove now, hes not fussy abount paint colour so i may mix all the odd bits of emulsion i have kicking about and he can have beige of some shade ...lol . Curtains he can pick from the pile in the airing cupboard .  We acheived getting the huge 50s wardrobe apart nobody wants it not even charities, everything has to be modern and from Ikea it appears, so on to the autumn bonfire it must go . other smaller furniture can be rehomed at the local car boot . we can deliver locally.
Todays chore of horror is a visit to the Council about the housing benefit , wish me luck .  I spoke to our caseworker about the bedroom tax business and she says i must stand my ground and refuse to go on to Universal Workhouse , that this is just a change of circumstance not grounds for reapplication . Im taking Mr Bah Humbug as an unreliable witness , but he looks good ..lol

One for the pussys this weekend

Jumble Sale 
Birchwood Scout Hut, Woodfield Avenue, Birchwood, Lincoln 
Saturday 7th September 2019 
10am - 12 o'clock noon 
30p Entrance 
Jumble ~ housewares ~ soft toys, children's toys and books ~ books, DVD's, CD's ~ bric a brac ~ furniture (when available) ~ refreshments and cakes 

Please come along and support your favourite Lincoln Cat Charity. 
Registered Charity no. 1150145

Price: 0.30p

Indifference

So ive spent the weekend in a tent with my pet cripple and useful son,  another endurance test ive passed with flying colours , but i must admit im glad its over with.
 Kustom Culture , americana fest, a sea of hotrods , amazing dresses , millions of pounds of tattoos, rockabilly bands it was great , thoroughly enjoyed it . Bleedin freezing at night but i went prepared and spent the night sleeping in so many layers i looked like the michelin man , a little surreal , got up to go to the loo in the night only to find a six foot clown in full costume staggering around the toilet block but what the hell if it made him happy..lol 
Best disabled moment of the weekend , i got the help call from the disabled loo to go and assist my pet cripple hed got there and couldnt get back to his chariot cos hed dropped his crutches bless him . Then when we got back to the tent i had one strange conversation with him , the disabled loo was built into the corner of the ladies loos but the petitioning didnt go to the ceiling so he could hear everything in the ladies. Hes now telling everyone that women fart when they go for a wee and we chat to each other while on the loo , information that no man had a need to know . Pointless trying to censor him the joys of a mental condition that has turned off any discretion he once had and makes him repeat stuff over and over  , im just hoping we have no visitors of importance this week .
So this morning its try to dry a pair of dripping tents because of the torrential thunderstorm just as we were packing up and tackle the cleaning and washing mountain , a womens work is never done. 

Politically Brain Dead

Well heres a pretty kettle of fish of the stinky rotting fisheads in a bucket variety .  Boris Johnson in his position of squatter in chief has got away with the creation of the Tory Reich it is now quite openly season of alternative truth in the political world, Cummings Cummins are filling the headlines. The era of the weasel spin doctor is once again upon us

Suggestions Cummings? BORIS

Tomorrow we will Prorogue Parliament !!!!

What we put Corbyn in a canoe on the Thames?  RAAB

No Dominic  , thats pirogue  not prorogue ...stupid boy.  BORIS

Well wont Queenie have to sign that off Cummings?  BORIS

Just ring her and mention Andrew and extradition , she'll ok anything

Now explain the purpose of Proroguing ~Parliament   BORIS

Headlines Boris , headlines!  Nobody is going to be looking at anything else , it will fill every bit of media , instead of everyone questioning all the little decisions we are making and the lack of a cunning plan . Headlines with added bonus points .

The bonus points are ? BORIS 

Old Queenies advisors will tell her to bugger off to Norfolk due to public outrage and demands for the abolition of the monarchy,  just think of the money, we then seize Buckingham Palace , think of the land value Boris , prime real estate , central London , theres all those millions set aside for its refurb which can go missing .  We could turn it into flats for the homeless , think of the headlines , im sure we have a donor that has a building firm  , then they can fold due to the recession and we blame Corbyns lot for it .

Thens there is the rioting .

What rioting Cummings ? Boris

Everybody who kids themselves that their vote counts for anything will be marching for London unless they have a barbecue planned that is.

They keep doing that , theres no riots , theyre just a traffic hazard , we just use the tunnels to get around .  BORIS

But we can stage riots, you can hire professional rioters these days and couple of Sky News teams to beam it round the world .   Riots , Marshal Law !!!  Think Boris , there will be no stopping us , we have risen!!!!


Now this is a work of fiction unless im really a prophet of doom .....we shall see 

Heat

So its season of mists, spiders and heat . 6am and im plodding up and down the path outside trying to stop my back spasming, the world is gorgeous in that brief span of time . The flying currants are back big time so im gargling fly spray .  My daughter came and stole her cat , so now my morning walk companion is missing as the other two are sulking over her going , Big Doris has left the building . She will be sadly missed.
Meanwhile in my role as cat lady , we have one on loan , a little half grown ginger and white girl . The neighbours having bogged off on the lash all weekend leaving her a bowl of food in the porch that being a greedy wee thing she will have eaten ten minutes after they left  , shes now been here for three days , currently sat purring at my feet very grateful for her breakfast , shes not staying,the neighbours kids love her to death , but with it being doors and windows open weather she can potter in and out with my other part time lodgers .
The house move is proving to be chaos , im sure my daughter and the munchkin have been living in a tardis it seems to be endless van loads plus theres tons of furniture she doesnt want and when its empty it all needs decorating . Then theres the challenge of getting sarcastic son to move into the house properly , hes on the mild end of the autistic spectrum and has had a lot of mental health problems in the last year, hes loves his bolt hole in the brick shed , mainly because he doesnt cope well with noise , but in another week or so they will be gone and the noise will be pretty much gone. Not sure how i will cope with the silence but im sure he will love it .
Garden chores will begin in earnest in the next few days once the weather breaks a bit , far to hot to be tackling much outside , i managed an afternoon crocheting in the garden parked in the shade listening to the crickets yesterday, i have a cunning plan for the conifers , so if you never hear from me again you know it went badly...lol 

Unsavoury

So in between watching the Great Move and hobbling about from our road trip , heres my update to the latest news happenings .
The Duke of York ...what a prat , im surprised hes not going round pointing out his dodgy American girlfriend was 17 so totally legal here . Meanwhile The queen has obviously bunged old Anything for a Shekel Fergie a few quid to play happy families with him .
 The Whole Epstein shenanigans beggars belief , suicide my arse , he had a price on his head the day he got arrested . He obviously liked them young, far to young to be legal anywhere but the arab states, then he passed off his cast offs to those dumb enough to accept them, like dolls hed finished playing with
This carry on is one i know far to much about , I had an appaling childhood  the sort people write books about.  There is no justice , no closure , no happy ever after for these girls . To survive you have to bury it deep and build another you.    Subject closed

Road Trip

So this week has been spent trying to psych myself up for a roadtrip to Glasgow tomorrow , daughter has won tickets  to the Runrig Tour movie premier , we have to do this and be home , childcare, other half care etc is thin on the ground, plus time as she gets the keys to her first house today and has only a weeks holiday to do the move etc etc , things are a tad hectic around here at the moment . Then we should be back first thing Sunday morning to tackle everything , that no rest for the wicked saying comes to mind . So if im not about a lot dont be surprised ..lol ..i may well be sleeping this little adventure off for days

Cat Lady

I have a problem, cats like me , in fact i just attract them . We are about to lose Big Doris shes moving with my daughter and the munchkin shortly and i think every other cat in the neighbourhood  is auditioning for the vacancy . I went out for my morning toddle yesterday set off with none and by the time i was round the corner my 3 had appeared and were following me , then Fat Foster the neighbours cat lumbered up , by the time id got to the barns i had 5 not even sure whos the black fluffy one is .  Coming back just to make life stranger a white cat fell at my feet out of a tree not sure who was more startled me or it .
Pottering doing garden jobs yesterday looked up and id a circle of 8 of the buggers , best of all next doors half grown  kitten has just ventured out for the first time and decided it was going in the house for its dinner , totally unphased by my hissing spitting girls .
Weirdest of all I went out to the bin last night and stood on a hedgehog ..WTF ...
Looked out the front window this morning and theres 3 more strange cats stood watching me .....weird just weird

Mumbling

I think im turning into the annoying old biddy at the tills of late , you know the one who holds a huge queue up over some triviality . So i went into one of the bargain shops in Lincoln pottered around picked up some weird food items and they had a shelf full of camping stove gas unmarked but theyre usually when they have them around the £1 mark , i got to the till she totted it up and it came to over £20 . So i chimed up WHAT.  it turned out the camping gas was £3.47 each , so i said they can go back i dont want them . Well she got a bit of a huff on and summoned the manager . He turns up , looks and says that cant be right , scans one £3.47 . errrrrr so then he goes and gets a spreadsheet from the office has a look and it says four pack for £3.47 . Hooray that was the mystery solved . but he said weve had them in for weeks and your the only person noticed .  It does annoy me when things dont have the price on the shelf , the worst offender is the PoundShop  you get to the till and it comes to some ridiculous amount , its even worse when its busy and its all self service tills , you can grind the whole place to a halt just by questioning something . So be aware if your in Lincoln  and theres a moaning old biddy holding things up at the till its probably me ...lol 

Lord of the Flies

Flies !!!  UURRRGGGHH  we are plagued with flies this year , we always get loads this time of year joys of living in the countryside im afraid , but this year theyre a real tough bunch , not helped by other halfs wanting every door and window open , normal fly spray doesnt do a lot for these tough critters , so i ordered a case of the good stuff off Amazon its lasted 2 weeks , now other half has announced we arent to spray it if hes in the house he doesnt like it , but hes in the house pretty much all the time , i have pointed out there is a chair just outside the front door and he can stagger there if he cant stand it . We have an electric fly light but theyre just ignoring it . Its all a bit third world as they head for your eyes .
He went fishing yesterday with his brother and it was plague of dragonflys day when i took lunch down to them . never seen so many different sizes and colours . managed to get a huge one hit me in the forehead thought someone had thrown a stone at me ..lol
So the third plague in the area is the tourists , my annual gripe , its really busy this year which is a good thing for the local economy , but not such a good thing for the local residents , we just smile nicely , nod and shake our heads as they leave , we fen trolls are like that .
Yesterday we had a whole bunch of late teen Americans in town , you can spot them quite easily all tall , wearing pricey labels towering over us , with amazing braces and a baffled expression, polite kids though under your feet when your a harassed local, double parked to do the bread and milk run .
The middle class prick leading them was a stunner , hes stood outside the Coop with his herd telling them that this is the local shop a bit like a sweet shop to get soda and a sandwich from , no prick this overpriced wine emporium is our only shop for miles , we are all so damned poor that we only shop there if we have to and we have to . Our other shop in the village has virtually empty shelves except on delivery day. most of our employment is seasonal and minimum wage , all the residents are aging and the young have to leave to get on with their lives . I managed to avoid opening my mouth and just stood on his toes in passing for fun and jollies .  Nice kids though, very polite and very baffled

Politically Challenged

Well I read my tea leaves  and im just more baffled than ever , So now Boris is in charge , not to sure what hes in charge of  apart from holding together that bunch of inept weirdos he calls a cabinet .
So lets take a peek , Good old Saj, in favour of immigration policies that would see his own dad deported . then theres the Minister for Israel  Priti Patel , capital punishment anyone?  Now obviously Boris is after the right wing asian vote that nobody in the Tory Party has thought of going after before, just on the grounds of the racism of most of their supporters , but those who came here in the 60s and 70s have often risen with lots of hard graft up the wealth ladder and giving it to the Tory Party Coffers would be a good idea wouldnt it . To much generalisation on that front Boris , the asian community has more factions than your own party , sadly you didnt have any big beardy blokes in the Tory Party to shove on the front bench , traditionally the muslim vote belongs to the Labour Party
 But  theres the added jolly jape of watching Trumps head explode when he has to deal with them .
Dominic Raab , do you remember the kid whos parents were on the PTA , went to the Golf Club , wernt in the Masons honest etc etc . The kid who got the lead rolls in the school play but couldnt remember the lines?  exactly .
Chris Grayling ...Oh dear , but then Boris can blame him for anything and he will just nod , a very Yes Minister appointment .
Its rather like watching the criminal takeover of a different Mafia family,  we are now been ruled by the Monster Raving Greed faction of the Tory Party who have been waiting in the wings for a while just for such  an event .
Where is this all going ? who knows , my crystal ball is very foggy at the moment ...Prep On kids , Prep on

Over It

Well thats my cares review over with , twenty minutes of my time , 2 cautions and endlessly repeating yes nothing has changed , degenerative condition means he can only get worse . The only good news is that the rules on himself being in hospital have changed , its not more than 48 hrs anymore , i must notify them after he has been in hospital for 24 hours and he is allowed 28 days over a 26 week period , which is much more realistic. Also im one of the lucky 800 carers they are reviewing this year.  Doesnt help the up at 3am worrying about this im afraid .  He ducked the question of what company is doing these reviews..mmm
So what have i been up to other than worrying and paddling ?  Cat jumble Saturday rather a good one , mountains of stuff but not as many folks as usual, the monsoon season could have something to do with it.  Got an unused boxed small George forman Grill for a couple of pounds , other half has wittered about one for months , we will see it may be yet another useless gadget that is harder to clean than to use ..lol  I also bought a Tom Tom sat nav for 50p , just because i broke the screen on mine and i may be able to replace it with the 50p one , or basically make one good one out of two bad . A slack handful of linen doilies and a rather nice vintage printed happy birthday tablecloth , didnt even go near the clothes they were practically fighting, the worst ive seen in years , sign of the times i think .
Now i will have to spend this afternoon hovering over my crystal ball looking at the political shenanigans, shuffling and dealing my tea cards or maybe reading my tea leaves if their not on ration , now my minds off other matters 

Can Things Get Worse

So the brown envelope from the DWP landed on the doormat , this time addressed to me . It would seem i am to be subjected to a Carer Review , Tom from the DWP is going to ring me between 9-11 Monday , then comes a long list of penalties for not being stood by the phone waiting . It then proceeds to explain that this is merely a government information gathering exercise and to check page 5 for more information..errr theres only 4 pages ?
My point is that the whole thing is menacing, theres a whole page of warnings of the consequences of fraud another page of if you fail to answer the questions with replies that match exactly what they have on file you will lose all your benefits . Its a threatening letter called a review .
So i may have to get himself up at 5am to make sure hes safely toileted and ready for the day , just in case he needs help during this hour long telephone debacle.
At least its took my mind off the other debacle we are all about to witness .

Coming Over All

So im contemplating a birthday and life in general . Did i ever think life would come to this ? Living in the weird limbo land of being a carer ?
Growing up it was expected that a womens purpose in life was to breed and keep house , my mother was the first working mother i knew, it just didnt happen in the early 60s . I think this was because my parents were married 8 years before i accidentally popped up , my mother was a great practicer of counting days to not get pregnant , she had a green diary with every date in her mooncycle ever . I have never been forgiven for the time she had flu and dad got the wrong day , she reminded me of this the other day . 84 and she still bares a grudge ...lol
But the thing that gets me is that everyones a working mum these days , we gained so much liberation down the years that a woman now has all the equality she could want, apart from equal pay . But still its the woman who does the majority of household chores , pretty much all the childcare extras , looks after parents , partners, the bleedin cat and uncle Tom Cobley and all .
So did we gain anything from feminism and equality ?  Apart from that is more deaths from heart disease , stress and mental illness . Our lives are run at full pelt , everybody is tired exhausted and in debt .
So answer this one .  What did men lose from our gains ?  Discuss

Fish 2

Mr Bah Humbug is in mourning , the fishing pit hes used since he was a kid is closing except for residents , the owners have had a lot of trouble with strangers turning up without a fishing license then starting arguments over the matter , it had great disabled access and toilet facilities . So now hes having to trial other sites , which is proving fun .  Many advertise disabled facilities , but really havent put much thought into there provisions .  He does need to be able to get his vehicle right up to the fishing point .  Solid ground at the point he sits is a must and toilet facilities that dont have stairs or a blue bucket bog are also requirements .  Minor niggles like the pegs being knee deep in goose crap, dont help if your not that steady on your feet . His weirdest problem is that the fish musnt be to big or he cant land them and he says im useless..lol
I do think hes probably at the worst end of the disabled spectrum that can be expected to go to these places , but we actually fished one yesterday that wasnt to bad , apart from the toilets being non accessible for him .
On the wildlife front Big Doris has let her breakfast escape in the hallway , the three furry virgins are all sat around the huge chest of drawers at the bottom of the stairs awaiting the demise of the tiny vole that escaped her ,you have to be a cat person to put up with this bunch you really do

Is It Me?

Forgive me for i have sinned , i bought my first item of clothing new this year . apart from underwear this rarely happens , i was in B&N stood at the tills paying for my peppered spam ration , a rare and wonderous foodstuff..lol  They had several trollys of kids clothing knocked down to a quid at the tills , when a girl pulled up with a trolley full of packs of leggings , she chirped up to the girl on the tills .
Nobodys gonna want these , theyre all for fat fucks . much sniggering ensued you could here the rattle of their tiny braincells . So i picked them up and looked £3 for two pairs excellent .
They seemed rather quiet when i left . But then i did comment.......Fat fuck leggings just what i needed !!
Then in my surreal world I was pottering round doing the hoovering in the passage when out of the corner of my eye something moved halfway down the hall . Weaving towards the hoover was a full size grass snake , not sure who was more suprised me or it . I shrieked and it shot behind the cat litter tray , Mr hobbled through to see what the fuss was , so i moved the tray and showed him . He then proceeded to go full snakes on a plane trying to get to it to beat it to death with his crutch ..bleedin men .  I pointed out it was harmless and scooped it up with the dustpan and brush , they dont have venom but a big one can bite so its a long sleeves and trousers job . Popped him on the grass pile in the garden while Mr wanted to play at photographing it , it played dead for a minute then shot off . I was busy wrangling a furry bundle of fury that wanted to play with it , bleedin cats are great . 

Prep On

Todays blog is on the behalf of the Monster Raving Preppers Society . Shortly after the cat was crushed by a stack of Frey Bentos Pies Mr Bah Humbug made me stop buying extras each week so now i have to hide what i buy ...lol
The cupboards are bulging and i have my eye on the brick shed that the boys have used for gaming once the munchkin and daughter leave in August.
I think ive been very sensible i have amassed a mountain of cat food , now im concentrating on a few extra household products and once the shed is free , it may become bog roll storage ...lol .. i managed quite well for 6 months during the Great DWP famine of 2017 , im currently not far from that level of food storage .  Im not a Brexit panic person , we can panic once Boris is trying to organise his version of Brexit on behalf of the Tory Reich .
I do not think we will be without food , just without foodstuffs that would be our first choice and once the panic buyers and those who would like a big telly to curb their hunger pangs finish rioting things will settle down . There will be a lot of unemployment yet again , but dont worry the rich will get richer if nothing else.
Im second cropping the garden this year if the good weather holds till November all well and good , some will need a bit of cover , if we get a cold snap it can go in the compost heap its just the ends of packets for the sake of using them .
Trying to not take the freezer for granted , we do get a lot of power cuts being very rural , but theyre not for long . But it strikes me that its the parts we order to maintain infrastructure that may be a bit thin on the ground for a while. 
Just remember the Reich will only provide for their own and London , they really dont give a toss about anyone else .
I knew there was something i forgot....camping stove gas . ...Off to mumble in a corner and plan what else i need to smuggle in ....ha ha ha (weird cackle from the corner )

Fish

This is gorgeous , hes gone fishing with his brother and ive watched the sun rise and been for a walk with the cats mine and one of the neighbours as well  , just debating whether to pop to the fishing pit , slap on a load of washing or sneak out to the car boot before anyone gets up ..lol
Nothing much of any excitement happening here , plod along everyday chores , the horror of an early morning trip to Burgh Le Marsh car boot and then Ingoldmells market , the car boot was all market stall tat then we went to the market to look at more tat , came back with three melons a cauliflower and a case of soup...lol ..glad he doesnt want to go to either again .
Then he won  something he really doesnt need on ebay yet again , that turned into an all day safari because he couldnt drive with his legs playing up and his brother wasnt well either . So they had to rope me in as im the only one with a towing license and you guessed it hes bought a trailer ,  now his reasoning that he can get his bigger improved chariot into it doesnt ring true im sure theres some other purpose and hes acting very guilty .  Plus he actually asked what i want to do on my birthday , something he usually remembers about when the kids prompt him the night before , think he was miffed i said id got a Jumble Sale planned , but he can take me for a posh ice cream after .
So the washers finished , the car boot is calling and  theres loads today.  But  I will  just toddle to the local one , then come home i think and start layering cat litter and knitting patterns , then pot on a couple more tomato plants into the porch , must look for a cucumber plant today .
So thats my boring life at the moment , i quite like it this way .

Hot

Hardly been online this week i seem to be very busy doing not a lot at the moment , endless garden chores each day its starting to look a bit more respectable , its just a case of taming the stuff that has gone mental with all the rain and pruning stuff back that has finished flowering , big surprise that after 10 years my Orange Blossom has finally gone quite mental , it has never had any scent before but it is flowering its heart out and the scent in an evening is gorgeous . The big climbing roses have also flowered themselves to death one has finished so thats the next really big pruning chore ...arrrgggghhhh.
We have had useful son here for the weekend , so Mr BH has had someone to talk endless rusty crap to , as they make plans for the classic Volvo stuck on our drive for the last 9 months , surprisingly it always starts first time and he even moved it for me to cut the grass . Though worryingly he did say some old bloke in the village is on about giving him his 70s Volvo estate when he gives up driving , one car on the drive only sunshine , that was the rule for your dad and his projects ...lol .
Plus point of son being here,someone to get  the bigger heavier chariot in and out of the boot ,we went to Stickney on Saturday we were there for 6.30 and home by 10 , apart from vast quantities of veg , i spent a whole £2 on a tube of bath sealer and a little cross stitch it was a marathon walk round and im still a tad gimpy .
 Didnt stop me getting up early to wander round the far more interesting Metheringham car boot , I seem to find far more useful stuff there,  the lady with the knitting patterns was waiting for me so ive another huge box of patterns these are much more recent and its mainly booklets and magazines .
 Sine there are a few Aran from the 60s 70s but not the one you are after , ive looked through the files of doom and although i know the one you mean i dont have it , the childrens one isnt one ive seen anywhere .
On the ebay question, sadly one of the conditions of my Housing Benefit is that im not allowed to sell on ebay or anywhere else , its one of the conditions i had to sign for . helping oneself is much frowned upon these days ...there are ways however .
So its school run then in the garden  with the machete ...i may be back

Knitting By the Guillotine

If I hear "Audio Audio , one two three " much more i will kill him , Mr BH has a new toy to play with and hes driving me steadily mad either that or the current monsoon has me housebound today...lol
So what have i been up to ? endless pacing myself  gardening , i think if i could wield a machete the progress would be quicker , lush greeness can get a tad too lush . Their may be the remains of a delivery bloke in their somewhere nearer to the gate, but im getting there .
Once the leg of doom gives out for the day, I can still walk miles it just suddenly decides its had enough, Mr BH has helpfully suggested I may have Fibro , hes an expert on Dr Google , so I sent him to look up PHN this seems to have shut him up somewhat as its just one of those things, its just a no treatment annoyance you have to wait to pass , Shingles the gift that keeps on giving !! Still getting odd patches of blisters 6 months on .
  Im progressing on with a few craft jobs and reading lots of bad murders , I think ive read most of the good authors even the vintage ones , so now im trialing new authors, I had a pile of proof copies and Kindle freebies from Twitter competitions ,  theres a big bag waiting to go on Tescos charity book shelf that have been abandoned half read . I always wait for the 10p sales for book buying and of course the Jumble sales , theyve just about finished its all Summer Fairs now .
I actually managed to sneak out to the little car boot sale on Sunday , Mr had gone fishing with his brother , Munchkin wouldnt get out of his pjs . Did i buy a lot ?  Two Tupperware cereal boxes,  the only truly mouse proof storage for fishing bait and a couple of Nutella glasses being as the munchkin has broken all but one.
But then i lapsed in my promise to stop buying stuff i dont need ....big time
started flicking through a few knitting patterns then realised it was 90% toys , had a handful and the lady said 20p , my leg was fast giving out having to get down to look through them so i offered her £5 for them all and she snapped my hand off , she was telling me her sister died suddenly and this was just the first car boot load , i have purchased a full recycling box of knitting patterns dating from the War to  the present day  , there are literally hundreds and hundreds of them , that im sat sorting through , mostly from magazines , but also lots of the ones i collect . So if theres a particular pattern anyones after just ask ...But it does make you think...if you snuffed it what would they do with your craft stuff ....scary

Blow Job

Well that should up the visitor figures shouldnt it...lol
Though it seemed appropriate talking about Boris doesnt it ? In the bizarre political theater served up for our amusement of late , Boris is the lead horror character in the Conservative Party leadership battle , dear Christ , what have we become . Another polished turd from that academy of dreams Eton . Scarily uncouth and craftily intelligent hes rubbing his hands together in glee at the thought of a country at his mercy till the next General Election , just think of the money he and his mates will rob in that time period , it will be like the vikings on a pillage.  If Blair could sail away loaded and without ending his days in a cell just think of what damage this creature can do .
But is it all a front? is he just the wingman for the real horror candidate Rory the ex MI6 , honestly i wasnt a spook candidate , if he worked for that lot theres a fair bet hes got something on all of them and may well be playing the long game . Is this scary weasel the actual puppet master?
Meanwhile theres Saint Teresa lurking in the wings with her axe , not sure shes going to go quietly at all, you get the feeling theres one last blast left in the old lass .
We live in interesting times , its enough to give you galloping paranoia

Plodding

Ive not had my weird dreams for a while i am  kind of missing them , they were the psychedelic bonus of the menopause , best ive managed was Kate Bush in a mates tent at a scooter rally of late . Does this mean im officially an old hag , apart from the odd night flush it seems to have come and gone rather uneventfully more like endless petty annoyances than a major event .
So its now officially monsoon season , the strawberries are huge and tasteless this year , my beans are looking lush and green and ive given up on the weed situation , sod it the greenery can fight it out among themselves , cant even get to the bottom of the garden because a bush has taken over the path ..lol
 raspberries ,well the birds are enjoying them im sure i will get a load off the autumn ones for the freezer, so i dont mind sharing these ones . I dont need to save as much this year if its just us . Not many plums or apples on the trees but the pear is its usual mental self , in fact the little triple apple tree doesnt have an apple in sight , wont do it any harm to take the year off  and i can manage with just eaters this year .
Ive been looking into voluntary work of some type but there doesnt seem to be anything locally all would involve traveling, which i cant afford , plus i need a babysitter for Mr Bah Humbug . decisions decisions. 
If nothing else i may start to make a mountain of useful stuff for the charity shop , ive so much fabric and thread kicking about , seeking inspiration, anything but bags , i do think that bags have been done to death of late in environmental zeal . Though ive some ghastly 80s curtains that could go into foodbank shopping bags i suppose .
So lets face it im plodding through life at the moment , more like hobbling through life as my already motorbike damaged leg appears to have suffered permanent damage from the 3 months of shingles , the joys of aging you fall apart bit by bit

Retro

So yesterday in his sudden urge to go out loads i was dragged to Newark Showground yet again, this time for Retro Fest  , a tired naughty munchkin in tow and Useful son . Im so glad when he comes anywhere with us as the new buggy is far heavier than the old one and it will be the death of me , still no nearer to his lordship getting the lift fitted that has sat at home for over a year .ho hum
After the monsoon on Saturday the weather was glorious , tons of stalls for me and the munchkin to potter round and we did manage to lose the others for a while as MrBH was on his Grumpy in pain mode . Munchkin was amazed that the stalls were selling the tat ive collected for pennies down the years. It seems i am accidently trendy these days in the world of homewares . There were tons of clothing stalls and lots of folks in as the munchkin calls it, Fancy Dress. Mainly on an americana theme but also lots of Wartime people . I did quite like this one its more varied than other events , tons of vehicles for Mr and Son to drool and lust over , lots of bad live music .
They all looked rather worried when i decided to roam round the vintage caravan encampments , they are growing on me, Mr BH says theyre no use to him with his level of disability .
Thats right, but we have a towbar and i could have a little one just for me , so now hes got that horrified look on his face yet again...lol

Snooze

Oh to have the time for blogging , i think ive slept more this week than i have in months every time ive sat down ive been snoring ,  in bed for 10 every night but up at silly oclock when the birds start singing, not so much singing its a pair of Magpies having a rave outside the bedroom window . The joys of the countryside im afraid , i can even hear them with my earplugs in ..lol
Thought id bring you up to date on the latest Young Baldrick fiasco , hes cut us off altogether im afraid , we havent seen the baby or them since March , now im not sure who is the guilty party in this latest spat between MR Bah Humbug and him over something or nothing . Im not getting involved , im not interested.  I have my suspicions what is going on as Mr BHs ex wife is back in town having split from her partner and she moved in with them for a while. But I thought we had got past all this years ago . . But i like Young Baldricks partner , her kids were even as odd as mine were growing up, plus Little Charlie is gorgeous.  Families who'd have them , stubborn males at their best .
Its fish spawning season so at least were getting a break from the fishing for a couple of weeks , but now Mr BH has a new chariot hes trying to get out more , we went to Newark Auto Jumble last weekend , memo to oneself do not walk on crappy lumpy limestone tracks for miles , your ankles will throb for days , didnt buy a think apart from a rubber doormat . Somehow i found a gorgeous Singer sewing machine from the 1870s but i needed to buy bulk cat food the next day , so i left it for somebody else . Mr Bah Humbug even took me for Sunday dinner out , a major miracle , it was pretty crap to be truthful , the meat was lovely the veg was soggy and the roast potatoes were a deep fried abomination , but he paid for a meal out ,a minor miracle,  usually its a whole rant about wasting money. Hes been very gratingly pleasant to me at the moment , im sure i will figure it out...lol

Scare

Heres an odd tale for you . we sold Mr BHs old chariot on ebay , hes had to have an upgrade due to his weight ..ho hum
It sold in minutes and they came to pick it up yesterday , lovely couple in much the same boat as us , shes physically not to good and her husband is a very sprightly older gentleman. She was impressed at the number of chairs round the garden to help MR BH get around , she also can get about but only short distances . I was chatting to her other half as the boys were showing her how to get round on the chariot and he was telling me her horror story . His wife ended up in care 15 years ago after a fall ,  on the grounds of having dementia and poor mobility , he and his sons had tried to get her home for years but resigned themselves to  her remaining  in her very nice care home, it shut early this year and his wife quite literally arrived on his doorstep in an ambulance. Social services stated that her care needs could be better met at home.  She had to have a full reassessment so that they could allocate her a new care place ,  It turns out she didnt have dementia at all it was the side effects of her drug regime !!  As he said she was always a bit dippy and sarcastic and he and her sons kept asking why she wasnt getting any worse but nobody was answering the questions at the care home . Social Services and her Doctors just kept saying it was the best place for her etc etc .
When he went to the loo she was telling me its all a bit strange , theyre courting again as she put it . He visited her 3 times a week and got on with his life .  He panics and she wants to be out and about all the time..lol ..after all whats the worst that can happen ?

So thats my scary tale , makes you wonder how many people end up in care for no reason due to drug side effects and an odd sense of humour .....Bloody Scary 

Change

So im all of a bother about how to move forward . Daughter has bought a house so the plan is to be moved by the school summer holidays , this means i have to figure someway to move forward on paying an extra £25 a week rent , i figure maybe £10 to £15 a week may be saved in electric and food but that still leaves me to find £10 to £15 each week . Other half wont contribute this is my problem he has terminal ostrich syndrome when it comes to money , he spends every penny he can on his hobbies if it doesnt benefit him he will contribute nothing . He cant help this so no amount of squealing and shouting will change this fact , his utter selfishness is caused by his illness this will get no better . In fact once we go over to Universal Credit im well and truly screwed , everything will be payed in his name , I will receive nothing payed in my name . Ive just got to somehow get them to pay the rent direct to the landlord AARRGGHHHH  if the money lands in his bank account he will just spend it  He currently pays for everything on direct debit the day he gets payed if hes left any money , the parcels are arriving every day.
So change is going to be a bit of a pickle, the stress is starting to get to me big time im afraid , no matter how i do the sums i cant make the figures add up , everytime I think were getting ahead something trivial kicks us in the teeth .
He presents well when he has visitors and guests , but its all front, he panics when you try to get thought out of him , hes a nightmare when his physical problems worsen in any way even if its temporary.  He has to live with the thought of is it today I cant move at all , what joint will give way next or which nerve will be dead when i wake up in the morning , his bones are crumbling away and doing more and more physical damage but its the mental aspects that are hardest .

Jumble On

Just spotted this morning a rummage sale a couple of villages away it hadnt popped up in my search due to it being a rummage rather than a jumble .
It was a jolly good sale as well, im just back , i could have spent a fortune lol not really think the dearest item was a £1 , run by a hoard of venerable ladies if only i was allowed to ebay , i would have needed the van . I left behind gorgeous Rose Denby , Porthmeirion lots of seriously gorgeous Victorian china , even a 1911 Coronation tea pot all 25p an item . So what did i actually buy ?
4 items of clothing a whole £1 , 3 fit and are already in the wash , A huge bag of wool loads of big balls and a couple of brand new decorative tins for craft storage ..Ho hum if nothing else i may get to a car boot tomorrow if im lucky

Forwards

So thats a house move for Useful son achieved over the weekend . I have my house back finally , he just has one shedful and his car still here neither are in my way , but the house just looks a right scruffy tip now ...lol  plus we havent found the bolts for his bed yet that he informs me are in a western Union bag here somewhere .
The vague plan was to get on with a bit of decorating but thats now on hold because daughter has informed us that she finally has a mortgage with her partner and theyre house hunting and hoping to be gone by summer . That will leave sarcastic son and me and Mr Bah Humbug here so at that point we have to find £25 a week for the bedroom tax. Ho hum hopefully this will be covered by them moving out , not quite sure what problems this will cause with the council , I will cross those problems when we get to them , we have a disabled adapted property so cant exchange or move unless something happens to Mr BH .
But ive realised that i might soon have a fair bit of extra time on my hands once im freed from childcare duties , not a clue what i want to do with that time , im always busy , theres still Mr BHs needs that vary so hugely from day to day , so its a wee bit more complicated than it should be .
Best comment from sarcastic son .....does this mean we can have a tumble dryer when shes gone...lol

Political Old Biddy

Well its another beautiful fishing day on the fens , in theory at least , depends on Mr BH getting up half way human and me motivating myself to do the picnic ..lol ..cramp at 4am hasnt improved my mood any.
We had a Labour Party leaflet through the door with Saint Jeremys grinning mug on the front , it would seem we have to vote in the EU election , you know that organisation we left in March? quite why ive no idea . So ive glued a nice halo on the leaflet and placed it next to the Virgin Mary and a selection of Lego men on the mantelpiece. Still have no idea who the actual candidates in this area are , we could be voting for the remaining Chuckle brother for all i know .
The party political broadcasts have been hilarious for all parties , if they dumbed them down much further CBeebies could produce them .All ive grasped so far is that Anne Widdecombe has crawled out of her Shackletons High Seat chair , Another Rees Mogg has appeared from the family crypt and Boris Johnsons sister has the longest arms on the planet .
Theres so many different factions im baffled , but frankly i dont care a toss . best Laugh is the fact that Nigel Farage's bunch have a nice new black logo on the ballot paper pointing an arrow to the box you must tick , how obvious that they expect to be voted for by those who can barely see.
My mother practically drools over Farage, 84 and she has the hots for him , somewhat worrying , but at least with her cataracts she can see where to put her cross now .
So who do you vote for? I always vote it was drummed into me from a young age that people died for that right , but theres nobody leaping out its all very mediocre talentless self serving parasites .
On the Daily Mail subject , I was reading it in the Doctors the other day , it was the only newspaper there and copies of glossy house mags and Golf monthly didnt have any appeal . Horrified the paper copy is ten times worse than the online version it was more like Viz for pensioners ,  racial hatred in a newspaper , every article was a dig at benefit scroungers , foreigners it just went on and on . Once again the only folks who get a daily paper tend to be pensioners , my mother is a case in point.
But maybe we are still better off than the USA, it seems to be having a Gilead moment over abortion, I am  pro choice but im of an age where its an irrelevant choice to me,  I can see that logically the age limit for abortion should be lower , medical advances making more viable babies at an earlier stage possible,  but the endless procreation of the human race is madness and birth control is fallible. 

Sunshine

This is a bit better isnt it glorious sunshine all weekend , probably wont last....Days fishing yesterday , I even took of my coat , so its officially summer now , got lots of sewing done , he didnt catch loads but hes in a right state today.  So now i have a mardy grumpy old toss pot to put up with ..ho hum
Lots of garden chores to be getting on with but i will pace myself and do a little bit come in and do housechores in between , already pulled out tons of cleavers from  the raspberries . Come in scrubbed the loo , you know the kind of day .
Went out to the wilderness of Bassingham for a jumble sale Saturday , nice calm little Jumble , came out with a book a jug and a couple of bits of clothing for the fabric ..lol ..i never change .  But i have noticed theres more and more stuff at Jumble Sales that is brand new and tagged , very strange .
Popped into Metheringham car boot early yesterday on the way to fishing , bought a plant , and a couple of books that i finished reading at fishing .
Useful son has to move back on to the sofa this week if his flat isnt ready , it needed repairs it seems , but at least it gives him a chance to sort through all the stuff thats stored here . We have found out why the flat was cheap the staircase is so narrow he will struggle to get stuff up there ..lol ..hes not to bothered he has a laundrette within a hundred yards , and he uses a microwave more than a cooker , just has to measure any furniture before he buys any bits .
Lifes boring and relatively quiet at the morning it makes a change , just a tax demand to cheer me up today ...thats life