Mum

 I had little to say and himself has his nip and tuck tomorrow so i will be glued to him for a couple of weeks at least , so lets do a mumsie update 

Currently shes still languishing in her Elder Care Prison , creating mayhem wherever she can . The good old council summoned us to an online meeting as part of the process of determining her longterm care only to find out that the representative for the carehome was unable to attend due to an outbreak of Norovirus at the home , mother was fine i hasten to add , They said they would reschedule but its been a month and we have heard nothing and nobody is answering calls yet again at social services or the council so shes still getting government sponsored care, Daughter is proceeding on with the application to the Court of Protection . we have finally managed to pin down who is medically responsible for her and its cost us £150 for a letter confirming that she will not get any better and that she has psychosis and dementia  . The next stage is two payments of £ 395  to send the application in and actually review it . I did suggest we porn her jewellery , which was greeted by absolute disgust from the rest of the family , but it seemed practical to me . The jewellery is in my safe where its been since she went into hospital .   None of the family are rich and there will need to be a lot more cash outlay to get the Protection Order which we can claim back from her estate once its granted , but it may take 2 years because there is a backlog .

So if I had one suggestion even if your running round fit as a flea , give Power of Attorney to a family member it costs £85  and can save thousands in the event you become incapacitated , plus it can stop the council leaving your property to rot into the ground till its your last asset and they can then sell it off cheap to a friendly builder they use for next to nothing as its dilapadated . This happens all over the country. 

Prep On

 Hows life treating you in the real world ?   Still reeling from your grocery bill, frantically turning off everything electrical and killing yourself growing your own ?  I was watching a video online from a lady of a certain age ,who was struggling to manage grow your own , why do people still think you have to struggle to grow the traditional veg garden ? No dig is excellent and a great use for the endless amazon packaging they gift you with . I crave another wood chipper i had to sell mine during a cash crisis so my fantasy is an even bigger model the sort you could put a body through , just think of the fertiliser you could make !!  but the simple fact is that if you mulch your plants to death theres little work involved other than the odd bit of weeding needed plus theres much less watering involved . On the mulching front scrounge the neighbours grass cuttings if they dont use lawn chemicals.

I also watched a seriously batshit prepper of the UK variety , but he had a few nuggets of wisdom . People who are transferring cash from the bank into gold and silver . Dont bother you cant eat gold and silver , youre better buying bottles of spirits  to barter with and theres the bonus you could just spend the end of days hammered...lol  My abstract thought was the most valuable item in the event of a serious collapse of society would be tins of babymilk not everyone can breastfeed and it would be a really good barter item .So heres a few things i would like to think most of us would have kicking around if we were a tad paranoid .

A good herbal book with lots of pictures , and a good few herbs growing that you might need 

Jam jars and lids , make sure you store them somewhere dust free its irritating if they get filthy in the shed 

lots of home remedies , diarrhoea pills, antacids, generic hay fever pills, painkillers

lots of herbs and spices , dried or growing 

duct tape and a big mixed jar of screws and nails can usually be found at the car boot sale 

so thats todays list to think about ...lol  Prep On     

Sunshine

 Its that hint of sunshine out come the shorts time of year , im trying a work till i run out of batteries for the garden power tools one day , sit and die unable to move on the second day . This is day 3 of the cycle , light garden jobs , plant out the jewel sweetcorn that himself has requested because he uses so much for his fishing adventures do a bit of strimming and pull out sticky buds from the flower side of things. I also have a pile of mending i need to tackle , himself seems to have spit the crotch of everything he owns and now even son in law is sending his mending ...AARRGGHH will i be stitching up crotches for the rest of my days ?

Another sign of the poverty around here , is the big increase in the amount of scrap men trundling around our usual suspects call often because himself usually has stuff for them , hes promised me that two of the little sheds that are dropping to the ground are going but hes been saying that fot years if they call when hes fishing i may well tell them to empty them and then point out years later that he never noticed . We seem to have vast amounts of window cleaners door knocking , Then theres young lads in vans looking for odd jobs , i got chatting to one last week bless him , he was offering to cut down and tidy up all the front yard , i told him it had taken years to get a mature orchard and nut trees all round just so we have privacy . Then later i got a visit from the neighbourhood watch , ironically one of the traveller community living a few doors away , warning me for encouraging thieves yes we get the odd outbreak of theft once in a blue moon , we have someone at home 24/7  , we have cameras because himself cant get up to answer the door if hes on his own , so im not much worried . I think himself has frightened a whole generation of delivery blokes to death with the disembodied voice shouting at them to drop that parcel as they toddle back to their vans .

Yesterday i accidentally scored a bonus we had to go into town and himself decided he wanted a bag of chips for his dinner from the little precinct at hykeham  i went into the little tesco direct corner shop and they had butter in the dump bin at £1 a pack so i snaffled it all for the freezer, i only went in for a drink and got to watch a smackhead doing his daily shop into his big coat , the staff spotted him shovelling stuff but did nothing, it seems they just film them and forward the video to the police, sign of the times yet again . Have you noticed how many shops are moving all the pricy stuff to the back of the shop , that and security tags on packs of sausages and the like  , baby milk and nappies with security tags .

Time

 Wanders in , before i need to wander out again..lol ..busy garden season im afraid , epic amounts of rain have turned it all into a lush green paradise that i need to control a little .  Between himself being a bit of an epic nuisance , shouting and balling at the munchkin for the whole neighbourhood to hear and the munchkin belting round the garden on a scooter they have resurrected , They are now  performing  an epic rebuild from parts that have languished in boxes for more than ten years of some very expensive pile of rust that he tells me will be his last project .If i believe that i will believe anything .

  He has an appointment for one of his many little day surgery jobs that will leave him helpless for at least a month at the end of the month , hence the frantic gardening im indulging in . Its a good bet i will be on nursey duties for at least a week 24/7 so im really looking forward to this ...and the shouting !!  But at least the munchkin will be here for his school holidays so can help move him. He was supposed to have a little nip and tuck work done last week he turned up and they said it wasnt quite bad enough yet see you in six months . Im not sure if they will do his day surgery either but we will see , he had his blood tests done yesterday and thats when stuff usually gets put back .

So life plods on as normal , trying to shop cheaply gets harder and harder and the total abscence of Lidl cheap fruit and veg boxes is one of the main reasons for expanding the garden back to its pre most of the family leaving home size , im working my way through the bags of fruit in the freezer in an array of pies and crumbles and keep promising myself i will find a vacuum bag sealer at the jumble ..lol 

So heres todays question what little extras do you think we should be looking for to add to next winters food stores ?  mine is powdered egg , its not cheap but it does come in useful with egg supply being a tad hit and miss at the moment .

Shopping

 Busy busy busy , the potatoes are all finally in the first batch planted at easter have just popped up , stirling effort from the munchkin though quite how he crammed the last of them in i probably dont want to know..lol , parsnips and carrots sowed , cucumbers and squash just peeping in the outside propagator need to find something to provide extra ground cover because i need to open the bottom of the garden and digging isnt an option , i dont grow stuff we dont eat so nothing exotic . 

now heres a tale , we have a large upright Indesit freezer 18 months old , last week it started to make a horrible noise , more horrible than its normal weird noises looked online and theyre noted for weird noises , but mine was having a fit and the top drawers were a bit soft . I was now panicking a bit it wasnt more than half full but i couldnt really afford to lose anything and daughters freezer was full , So after much searching online i found a supposed fix , it said i had icing on my evaporation fan so i placed a bowl of boiling water on the very top shelf and shut it for 10 minutes , mopped up all the water and turned it back on at full bore with a towel under the air vents and low and behold it started to work properly . I chucked the bit of seafood from the top drawer onto the bird table the cats got a couple of packs of ham and weve had a weird menu for a few days . The trouble is i dont really trust the damned thing now so im having to change my food stash a little , put the meat at the bottom and maybe just use the top for bread and stuff .

 Meanwhile start to add to the tinned food stash ho hum more expense . This week ive ordered a mixed pack of Grants tinned meat offerings direct from Grants , i have a load of tinned haggis of theres that i managed to get from Asda for the first time in a couple of years at just £1,50 each ,  https://grantsfood.com/collections/grants-foods    I think they may have found it lurking in the warehouse because the date is quite short and this is the price it was 2 years ago , we didnt much like the tinned mince and peas it was tasteless , but i know himself loves the barbecue ribs so i ordered a case and we will try the other stuff and see whether they warrant an order , theyre not particularly cheap but if he likes them it saves cooking . They also had yellow label corned beef this week !! 

Plod

 So im lax blogging yet again , problems with mother dearest , problems with hospitals and himself and the bleedin mice ate the second lot of broadbeans i put in .

I really feel life is just one endless chore at the moment , you go shopping and theres nothing you want or need , or its just to expensive . I went to Asda the other night and it was as if there had been locusts, there was just empty chillers and freezers , they had loads of bags of spinach with a yellow sticker that was visibly rotting in the bags ...ughh  im not sure if this is because they have just payed out the latest cost of living payment or just the end of the month , who knows but i think this month could be a problem child with three Bank Holidays  and gardens not contributing a whole lot . All i got from Asda was a few random bits and a load of wraps at 15p a packet so wraps now hve a drawer of their own in the freezer , There were hundreds of packs on yellow sticker, again very odd.

Mother managed to have another psychotic few days and injured herself , so everything moveable has had to be taken from her room the home rang me in the middle of the night and sent me photos of her injuries , its just scatches and a thick lip , pretty much what she used to do to herself when she was drinking . This now means that they have agreed to pay £120 a week towards her care costs and we have another meeting with the hoards and acronyms next week . Had a chat with Dave the nursing co ordinator and he said he hadnt realised we were estranged and didnt understand why i was fighting her corner . Simple she has been a monster all my life but that isnt my mother so why would i let them walk allover her?  she has sufficient money to pay for good quality care , i dont want her money . AAARRRRGGGHHH

2nd Class

 Sorry i havent been around , its gardening season and i had the munchkin for a week , hes 14 and now towers over me...lol...genetics are  wonderful within a family of dwarves hes going to be the odd one of this generation , we seem to get one changling now and again .

So heres a strange one , it seems i am viewed by certain members of the family as a second class person  one of those who languishes in a Council House and scrounged all their life my neighbours for the most part take the same view . Some of you wont have followed for long enough to know the whole story.

Once upon a time we wernt rich but we were managing , MR BH was working as a bloke with a very big spanner fixing lorries and farm machinery . He earned a pretty good wage but he only got to keep £40 a week because of his endless spat with The Child Support Agency back in the days when they wrecked many lives and families . I was divorced from an alcoholic dick head and working for the bailiffs , he also managed to shaft me financially, the sale of our house covered all the debts he ran up and i ran away , he didnt bother to pay all of his debts and is still hiding from his many creditors with his 3rd wife . I had a huge debt with the DWP because my ex had claimed benefits for the kids while they wernt living with him , so they came after me for the balance as they used to do. We decided to move in together and we were always skint but happy , we both worked endless hours to clear this mess then he managed to have an accident and break his neck , and mash his legs , they were more concerned about his legs so didnt spot the neck till 18 months later when he couldnt move his hands , admittedly they operated within days and plated him up but it was never quite right and he struggled on , in 2017 he went to work one morning and rang me to say he was parked in a layby and couldnt feel his legs . They found that his discs had popped at the base of his spine but it couldnt be repaired because he had an inoperable benign tumour  so every time he was lifting anything heavy he was bruising his spinal cord . They have since decided he has degenerative spinal problems and umpteen other weird and wonderful things wrong in his bones . He then had seizures and heart problems probably caused by prescribed drugs that have left him mentally a wee bit odd.

So here we are stuck in the benefits trap ,  its not going to change till the day he dies and believe me hes got a whole range of things that can kill him . Im just the zoo keeper of a bloke who has endless bowel and bladder problems constant nose bleeds of epic proportions , shouts because his volume control doesnt work all the time and dont even go there about the weird neurological stuff when he cant speak what he means and just a jumble of words come out , thats the one that makes him really angry because he thinks we are just not understanding what hes saying . hes now back at the hospital for nerve degeneration so hey ho .

So there you are dont judge the fat folks you see racing around on mobility scooters , dont judge the neighbour whos barely coherent and in their jimmys all day , you dont live in their skins , you dont live the daily humiliations of their lives and you never think that life can change in an instant ... thats todays rant over with ...Thankyou  

Mother Dearest

 So after a pretty good Easter its back to earth with a bang Tuesday . We had a zoom type meeting today with my daughter and social services , her physio and her rehabilitation nurse . ERRRRrrr well it was interesting . despite the consultant declaring that she has mixed dementia in writing it would seem we cant get control of her affairs , she would have to give written consent for Power of Attorney which she wont give to anyone . So because she is classed as self funding i will be liable for the cost of her care as next of kin . There is a 2 year waiting list for the other means of getting control of her finances . So every thing is up in the air at the moment , i stated laughing when they said i would be liable and they would take me to court if they had to . I told them fine , i own nothing and my only income is £70 Carers  Allowance go ahead . i got the usual lecture on how she is my responsibility . Then they decided that the social worker would visit her this afternoon and do a financial capability assessment and ask her to sign a document they need .

This afternoon i got a call from the home Mummy Dearest had gone off her head at the social worker and because she was getting so worked up they asked her to leave ...lol  Once again shes refusing her medication and her hearts allover the place 

Daughter was their again at the weekend , she was asked to fetch her new clothes , nothing fits her anymore she is visibly wasting to nothing and is rarely lucid at all . Sadly i keep wishing that nature would resolve the problem 

Jumbled

 Its officially Jumble Sale and Spring Fair season around Lincoln and ive had 3 Saturdays on the trot so ive gone a little bit mad , at least by my standards , New summer wardrobe purchased , lots of household bits and bobs that id broken replaced , This week i got a huge storage bag full of snowflake Pyrex and a couple of worktop savers , it was a good job i had daughter in tow or i would have struggled to get it to the car , The bag of Pyrex had 8 tea plates 4 side plates , meat dish , 2 casseroles, two jockey bowls , two different sauce or gravy boats , 3 nesting glass mixing bowls and of course the 2 large worktop savers . This mountain cost me £4 so well worth the trip out and it does as replacements for my disintegrating plastics caused by our evil microwave . Not sure what the problem is, the plastics all say microwave safe.

Then there has been a bit of success at the box auctions we had two  3000 lot sales when the sales are that big its a fair chance there will be days of half decent stuff and one day will be all the couple of pound a box rubbish which i love, part of the fun is trying to guess what is on offer in the lousy photos , so i won a couple of lots , one is a large vintage tapestry Crinoline Lady fire screen that is already in use because my fireplace is truly hideous , But the other lot was described as knitting and sewing and just showed a plastic crate nobody wanted it so i bought it , to my surprise when i got there it was a large plastic crate , a huge pile of books on cross stitch , several carrier bags of ribbon etc etc etc . When i opened the crate it was a weird mixture , there is a heap of brand new cross stitch and embroidery fabric all modern , plastic canvas , a bag of dressmaking patterns from the 60s to 90s , full set of knitting needles , 300g of vintage DK bright yellow, lots of little kits etc it really is crammed . I usually just give stuff away to my circle of skint crafters . So is their anyone out there who is skint and has needs? 

Isolation

 Heres an odd fact, i think im forgetting how to talk . I see so few people in the flesh these days and himself just expects yes dear to his endless rambling about rusty crap and aliens . Daughter took me out on Saturday night to see the Peatbog Fairies at Lincoln Drill Hall it was my late xmas present and i struggled being in a crowd then started to lose my voice when we were sat next to the most boring man in the world . He was telling me all about Robert Plant and his love of Genesis ...AAARRGGHHH the band however were very good so not a bad night . First time ive been out in years . So this got me thinking i can go months these days without conversation other than on line , most of my friends have died and im no great age .  what friends used to visit dont come by any more because of fuel costs or have moved nearer their children, in the summer himself used to get a few of his minions passing through but once again death and illness have taken there toll. I suppose im fortunate in that i can amuse myself and im self reliant for most things . I have never had a social life wherever ive lived , it was always work work and more work till himself became ill . The neighbours all keep themselves to themselves , except in the summer when its all sitting outside slugging bottles of wine till all hours , then in a daytime its a ghost village because everyones at work . We have no shop , the pubs all meals for the tourists and the few hardcore bar sitters , they have a community market a couple of times a month in the village hall , which i cant afford to use and the  Post Office van for a couple of hours a week and thats about it. So i sit here counting pennies and mileages in my head most days ...lol   Lifes good but it isnt very intesting  

Everything's Fine

 So i had Mothering Day on Tuesday this year Daughter had gone to Iceland for her birthday so we went out yesterday instead !  I say went out we popped to the garden center for more dead plants and i got  a tray of mixed cabbages for mothers day....lol  Then we went and did her grocery shop , Lidl was very barren of fruit and veg but they had what i needed which wasnt a lot due to cost .  I dont think my daughter grasps life on benefits once you get to the bottom of the pile . we have to save for things like the car insurance and pay it in full because our credit rating is to low to pay it monthly plus its a hundred pounds cheaper if you pay it in full. so a bit of a no brainer ive spent £150 since xmas on grocery bills etc , the freezer is about a quarter full still and the cupboatds are a bit barren , we have managed to insure 2 vehicles MOT them both and that while on basic benefit payments , we now have a payrise and hes blowing it on what he wants, yet again everyday the parcels are arriving , he hasnt got the back pay , but nobody has, so once again it will get dragged to the High Court, take a couple of years blah blah blah etc etc etc. Anyway back to our shopping trip , popped into Asda on the way back for what we hadnt got from Lidl a basket full for me and a trolley full for daughter , just inside Asdas porch it was chaos they had boxes and cages everywhere half pricing all the mothers day flowers and plants hundreds of them , i suppose its a sign or hard times that they had so many left or the fact that the cheapest were £10 . So we went back to my daughters for a drink and shes unloading her shopping into the fridge she goes to chuck a plastic wrapped lettuce and himself practically gave birth , she says her other half wont have anything thats out of date so she had to throw  everything away , so i came home with a huge bag of carrots a full bag of parsnips a bag of baby tomatoes a huge punnet of salad tomatoes with one split one ,a big pack of leeks and a head of broccoli all will be processed into the freezer today , i did point out why dont you just buy loose veg that you need each week , then it wont be dated , but i got the stare . Then i also got 3 out of date bottles of beer , so a whole shopping bag of freebies 

Perspective

 Im not sure if any of you remember the Father Ted scene when Ted was trying to explain perspective to Dougal with a plastic cow. Near Cow far away cow etc . well this week i did a blinder , now im a chronic online auction stalker . But im always broke so i dont win a lot because i tend to only bid a couple of pounds here and there . This time of year is always busy with sales , the auctioneers call it the dying season .  Well bonny bright person i am , i decided to do a wee bit of bidding due to not been able to go anywhere because of the foul weather last week . there was a 2 day auction locally and i had seen a jam jar of buttons in one pile something i have a terrible problem with, i have literally thousands ive collected them for years so i do know their worth and a jam jar full of old ones is worth paying a couple of  quid for and the rest of the stuff could go to the charity shop if i couldnt think of a use for it . Anyway when i went to pick it up the jam jar was a huge sweet shop jar , a huge flowery ancient Dresden planter that can stay , a huge modern farmhouse jug with a chicken on it and various other large pots and plates . i could barely carry it all , serves me right really . i also bought a set of camo clothing that was new and tagged, figuring one of the boys or grandson would claim it another whole £2. Turns out the trousers alone are £150 grandson wants them because it specialist paintballing clothing ??? who knew, i certainly didnt but for £2 how wrong can i go ...buttons anyone?

Mumsicle

 So despite the endless problems with mummy dearest and the fact that nobody wants to speak to us or reply to messages . The Home manager managed to get the psychiatric consultant to do a block booking with a few patients mother included, he says she has mild to moderate vascular dementia accelerated by her having asymptomatic covid to another type of dementia that i cant remember , not a good sign is it ? But at least he has signed his name to this and hopefully we can now get things moving a bit plus they can get her forcibly medicated by putting her anti psychotics in her food , shes also still refusing to eat a lot of the time because they are trying to poison her !! The home are willing for her to become a full time lodger once her government funding runs out, but its still down to the Social work team at the council to decide where she goes and nothing is certain with those cretins . So once again we wait and see , her money and the bungalow can pay for her care for a good few years yet and her heart isnt going to get any better she needs the anti psychotics to keep her calm for that reason.  My mother may have done some pretty despicable things to me over the years but i wouldnt see anyone in her situation treated badly when there is no need for it  

Wooly

 I made a bit of a mistake today and dragged three big laundry bags  of wool into the living room and the warmth. to sort through , himself just sat there gobsmacked . im happily sorting them into weights for my currant non project , which is hundreds of granny squares for no particular project other than using up odds and ends and keeping my hands moving . During covid i found my hands were so painful i couldnt crochet so now im making up for lost time. He has no idea these are just my odds and ends bags and i already have loads of full packs from long ago hidden away . I buy the odd bit of wool at jumbles and carboots but thats for pennies but most of it is given to me or its from clothing ive unraveled from the jumble. I inherit loads from relatives and friends of my daughter all are more prolific garment knitters. She turned up with a big box the other day which is what i was sorting into the bags any that wernt any use she told me to give to charity which was four or five balls of the lumpy or frilly stuff i cant abide to use .  Best find that i forgot about was a marvelous Aran cable cardi thats complete , it came from my son in laws gran a knitter of merit years ago. i have claimed it not to unravel but to wear...lol ... Its really a good job i dont do 'on trend' in any shape or form .

A friend says whatever i do dont start making twiddle muffs every wrinkly home in the country is infested with them , but garden season starts in the next few weeks so all i will be doing shortly is trying to cripple myself outside and jumble season may well mean i gain yet more wool...lol

Weird

 i had a really odd conversation with himself yesterday .

Youre going shopping , its all arranged , we are meeting the munchkin from school and you can do a big shop . 

Errmm OK

Well ive not set foot out the door for over a week , so i wasnt going to turn that down. But still a bit odd as i wasnt due a shop for another week or so . I checked he hasnt received his back pay...lol  So it was a trip to M&S to hunt for yellow stickers and not a single one did they have apart from one of their huge bags of bruised bananas for 25p , bit odd they usual have a few bargains .  Waited for the munchkin at Asda  got a load of  chopped mixed veg stew packs on yellow sticker at 10p each there was a mountain so i didnt feel any guilt and i will blanch them in the microwave then pop in the freezer . Several packs of mini pork pies and bhajis for the freezer but the food bandit had most of them for his supper . They had mountains of cheap sandwiches i was looking through them for the cheese based ones which freeze well and can be just tossed in the sandwich maker but an old lady was doing the same so i helped her get a basket full and settled for a couple of pasta salads for lunch today .  in fact the thin layer in the bottom of the trolley was all yellow stickers and the yellow basics range talk about advertising your poor , they didnt have a single one of the bulk items i wanted so it had to be a trip to Lidl where i managed to get a case of uht milk and there cheap bog roll, if little else . Somehow i managed to spend nearly £100 on a boot full of very little,  a lot of it is bits to make up a meal,. tins of Asda yellow label corned beef for the fishing season . Have you seen the price of Atora suet these days ? shocking , Asda own make gravy granules , who can afford Bisto ? 

So i achieved little yesterday except spending loads on stuff i didnt need and being visibly poor, isnt it weird that even a trip to the supermarket can label you ?  we are becoming a nation of haves and have nots , defined by whether we have a trolley full of Heinz and Bisto 

Tomato Tomato

 Ho hum here we go again we all going to starve due to the tomato peppers and cucumber shortage , really , i cant think of a less seasonal fruit or veg for February . Even had the food pantry sending an email apology for their lack of fruit and veg . Once again the press is creating artificial images of huge shortages . I even managed to get hoards of hatred for posting on a forum that all you need is a bottle of £1 multivitamins if youre that deprived of vitamins , apparently i have an evil Tory mentality ? I noticed today the panic buying of veg in general has started  before payday weekend , so their will be yet more pictures of empty supermarkets, but this will allow them to hide a huge price hike not that the farmers will see it . I should think supermarket profits will be interesting this year . Out of curiosity how many are buying lots of salad at this time of year ? Is it just vegans getting a sweat on ? Or are most of us still creating soup and casseroles from seasonal veg ?

Heron had plenty of fruit and veg this morning admittedly no tomatoes cucumbers or peppers but i came away with my usual strange haul of frozen stuff , couple of big bags of bread crumbed  white fish broken fillets a whole £1,50 a tray , most of the Excel range has gone up but what hasnt, theres still odd gems to be had and they will keep us going for weeks . Nearly bought a big bag of Calamari in error i thought they were battered onion rings...lol instead i got a bag of ready cooked sausages , saves having to brown them for sausage casserole, due to electric prices i mostly use the microwave or slow cooker these days . Its weeks like this when i realise what a privilidge it is to have fruit and veg in the garden . Still got a load of leeks that i will pop in the freezer before they go to seed  though something ate the last of the celery ? bit baffling never had that happen before . tons of stuff in the freezer . I even managed to find some lemons for his pancakes yesterday 

Whats Going On

 Been out today partner at dentist did a wee bit of an Asda shop nearly fainted  at the price but id got a few bits of yellow sticker meat that was hidden under the usual mountain of vegan offerings , why has meat become so expensive ? even in the scale of other price rises its not looking good , we really can only just afford it . Popped some bits in the food bank hopper they keep asking for stuff that doesnt need cooking , so i added a load of little jars of spread  of one sort and another , then bulked it up with various tinned soups that were on offer . 

Anyway i had to pop into the local coop to post a parcel , there was a gang of the young new Romanians who appear each spring to work for one of the big farming estates , not much English but always nice polite kids . Anyway they were being stalked by the Coop staff and there was much muttering about them from the older generation then i realised these moaning old gits are probably younger than me !!! what is happening to people these days ?

But the one that had me spitting was i got up this morning?  I had Katy Hopkins in my feeds with a video about the dreadful hotels of foreigners at Skegness , what shitty facebook algorithm thought i would be wanting to see that vile harpy stirring trouble?  is it because im of the age that should be outraged at foreigners everywhere ?  Shes blocked now but i cant imagine how they thought i would want to see her !!!

Garden Budget

 So the munchkin and i popped in to Pennell's the very large very expensive garden center while his teachers were on strike these last week  , i was looking for last years price potting compost before the silly season and ive not been in their since it went upmarket with lots of little shops a huge restaurant and totally scary prices , theyre on a winner really 90% of what they sell is dead in a year so they say so you will keep coming back , i wandered round a bit looking for the plant graveyard every big garden has one all the stuff that doesnt look pretty this time of year and the stuff they will replace by Easter weekend , Theyre were bargains, big dead looking chrysanthemums reduced from 16.99 to 2.00 but if you looked closely many were already shooting from the base , huge potted pinks reduced from 10 and 12 pounds to 2 just need splitting and repotting . Lots of stuff was as dead as a doornail , but among them were some real bargains.  i will try to visit a few more garden places the next couple of weeks and of course B&Q home of the plant graveyard . i buy a lot of plants from the boot sales once they start at the end of March . 

Bargain of the week comes from Wilkos, i ordered some potato sets just the wee 5 packs and a new propagator top because id smashed mine ...more expense lol..Anyway they turned up the next day in a big box which i thought was strange and they had sent me two big bags of potato sets , dozens of them, the invoice said they were 5 packs so someone got it wrong and i shant complain it just means we will have an awful lot of spuds this year or the kids will. 

next strange question does anyone have a walnut tree thats cast a seedling or has nuts i can plant , the ones in the shops are not usually English Walnuts 

Poor 2023

 How tactless can MPs and the Royals get by showing up for photo opportunities at foodbanks and food pantries? It seems that every day theres pictures in the press of them , i just dont understand token support , have the Royals offered a few jewels out of their vault to donate?  30p Lee Anderson MP  running cooking courses maybe?

Anyway i thought today id scare readers away and mention the benefits system, but then i looked at the government website and found out that its so complex that its no wonder that those who qualify have no idea what they should be getting . The Government likes to perpetrate the myth that these payments are so generous that everybody is trying to scrounge them , so how come billions remain unclaimed sat in government coffers ? Then theres the great Housing Benefit scandal , whereby they set the levels for payment so low and havent raised them for years . Many people have to fork out most of the benefits in top up which leaves them with nothing to live on . I noticed the other day that we had a statement and theyre increasing our top up this year and we are in a Council property .  Ho hum . We will manage . Just shant buy any Weetabix ...lol 

I have noticed that theres lots of trying to be useful people jumping on the bandwagon offering cooking lessons and helpful hints , im tickled by those who say shop cheaper brands when if your at the foodbank youve been doing that for a long while . Or the cooking gurus who never factor the cost of actually cooking stuff these days , once again youre hardly going to be shopping for  A rated appliances if youre skint . A sandwich and a bag of crisps may be as good as its getting for a lot of people . In most families its the grownups who are doing without and necking Poundshop vitamins, as ive said in the past oranges are our measure of if we can afford fruit and veg and it isnt an orange each, so i grow what i can , ive still got a ton of leeks and fruit in the freezer for crumbles and my infamous ugly baking . Its been a tad interesting this winter till the DWP sorted their mess out, but we are fine till they convert us to Universal Credit sometime this year. im sure i will find a few informative posts out of that debacle   

A Big Plus

 So for once a little positivity , after 2 years more phone calls than a telephone canvasser , arguments , 600 pages of verification information , hours of my life on hold etc etc , the renewal for his disability benefits has finally come through .  He got the letter on Saturday and he just went white and i said i guess we are going to court yet again , hands me the letter and i find he really is a bit dumb , he has actually got another 5 years till his next review and a small increase in his mobility allowance . I havent told him that  this is backdated for the 2 years its taken to process it . 

This small increase will at least allow us to keep the vehicles on the road , we have been running just the one for the winter and barely running it at that .  Next fun thing will be getting his back payment out of the bank as soon as it lands before he gets to spend everything on rusty crap on the internet . Getting cash these days is hard work , we have no local branches and you can only take 100 pounds a day out at the not so local coop . ive got to take as much off him as i can because we have the change to Universal Credit this year and i dont want to take their loans which sentence you to a lifetime of debt while they take months to process the claim .

Id like to point out that being a benefit scrounger is a major stress , you spend endless hours on the phone you get endless threatening letters, nothing you do is ever right because they constantly move the goalposts , you have to keep up with all their latest tricks to defraud you .  In fact when dealing with them its better to view them as liars and tricksters at every turn , they are not there to help in any way . Consult every online forum you can find before filling in anything , keep copies of everything .  In fact its a shame they dont apply the same scrutiny to those in positions of power that are the true benefits scroungers