Lets start with the good , we had a visit from the council surveyor today about the adaptions for disability they are fitting , it seems we are now getting a wet room to replace the bath a new loo that isnt where Mr Bah Humbug will burn his leg in a winter due to it resting against the radiator in fact he looked at it then said "has this ever been replaced since they built the house" nope its still from the 50s they just put in a plastic bath at some stage long ago probably the 70s , apparently this means they have to totally gut it and fit all new and tile the damned place because they are supposed to do this every 30 years and this house has never had a single thing done to it in the 20 years that we know of apart from upvc single glazing when a window fell out , its also supposed to be double glazed but they cant do them again . I pointed out the ceiling collapsing downstairs under the bathroom , the fact the stoptap has never worked and theyve been out umpteen times sucked their teeth and walked away from both the jobs, he brought up why the kitchen has never been replaced since god knows when . Its our fault for looking after things he said , if you wreck it all they have to replace it on health and safety grounds . He was also very impressed with the water tank replacement for the hot water tank , it seems they have used a toilet tank because they were to lazy to fit a full size tank and thats why it takes forever to run a bath and why we need endless new water heaters . the work is scheduled to take a week and should start sometime in October .
The bad once again theyre asking us where the downstairs toilet has gone , they took it out before we moved in because it kept freezing up and you didnt need two toilets in a house with only two people . Hes going to look into it ...lol
The Ugly was a trip to Lincoln Hospital with Young Baldrick , I had to pick him up on the Sunday and when I went to pick him up he smelled like a ferret and looked like a feral druggie . This lead to a small disagreement outside his housing scheme . and him coming home with me in a foul mood hugging all his laundry and with the windows wide open in the rain . Mr Bah humbug had arranged a fishing trip with his dad and brother by strange coincidence.
I just got him home ordered him to bath and pick the smelliest products in the bathroom , while i washed all he owned . He had a huge tea and slept on the sofa with a face like hed sucked a wasp . The hospital trip to orthopedics degenerated into a bit of a battle , he can be hard work when hes stressed , he just kept telling me in a very loud voice that he wanted to stab people and fffing and blinding the whole time , I had to apologise to three waiting rooms of older people and explain he has ASD which didnt go down well as he hates people knowing . He was racially offensive to the young Polish xray technician , so that by the time we actually saw the doctor he was getting very close to a major dressing down .
You should have seen his face when the doctor was so huge he had to duck to get through the door and to make matters even better was very well spoken and black as pitch . It seems that his wrist is still broken after 18 months he then started a whole rant about getting a solicitor with much more ffing and blinding , the Dr raised his eyebrow and looked at me, so i pointed out that been as he was to stoned to do anything most of the time and couldnt remember anything accurately from day to day it was more than likely his own fault , I also told the Dr about his ASD and that he is supposed to be taking anti psychotic medication .
Talk about an atmosphere he didnt speak to me all the way home to his housing scheme , we'd picked up Mr Bah Humbug up by then and even he commented on the deathly silence
I think I may be off his xmas list either that or ive changed to his stabbing list ...ho hum
Wednesday, 28 September 2016
Monday, 26 September 2016
Jumble Sale Season
The Bowls Club Jumble Sale at Washingborough was its usual source of wonderful at the weekend , What can I say a whole two bags full came home with me . Mr Bah Humbug got an entire winter wardrobe for a £1 3 pairs of cotton trader trousers , made for dwarves aka extra short legs, a fleece and a pair of jeans that didnt fit , I could tell he didnt much like them, so just to be mean ive cleared all the stuff that he cant get into into a bin bag and charity shopped it all , plus all the t shirts with paint and welding holes have gone into the rag bag and are already at the charity shops ,they went this morning before he got the chance to stop me , what is it with men? he hasnt worked for nearly two years and he still wants to wear his work scruff day and night , this will doubtless cause a huge argument that im more than ready for .
Well that was one bag full the other bag is all mine !! Even im not sure why i bought a modern Aynsley vase that I dont like and dont need, but for a whole 20p with the labels still on it , it came home and I keep looking at it in horror, its so not me . I like my roses full on Victorian .
Gorgeous 60s pinny , cant have to many of them squirreled away can you?
And look who was hiding among the barbies a lovely little jointed composite dolly , great condition , im sure she can find a home somewhere , along with a big bag of 50s and 60s dolly clothes everything from baby doll to Holly Hobby 70s style . I got the cocktail markers thrown in , havent a clue what i shall do with them . Theres also a stack of knitting and craft magazines that i shall flick through and pass on . £2.50 spent in total ...
Well that was one bag full the other bag is all mine !! Even im not sure why i bought a modern Aynsley vase that I dont like and dont need, but for a whole 20p with the labels still on it , it came home and I keep looking at it in horror, its so not me . I like my roses full on Victorian .
Gorgeous 60s pinny , cant have to many of them squirreled away can you?
And look who was hiding among the barbies a lovely little jointed composite dolly , great condition , im sure she can find a home somewhere , along with a big bag of 50s and 60s dolly clothes everything from baby doll to Holly Hobby 70s style . I got the cocktail markers thrown in , havent a clue what i shall do with them . Theres also a stack of knitting and craft magazines that i shall flick through and pass on . £2.50 spent in total ...
Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Never Let A Book Rescuer Go To Auction
So Last week I thought I would go and squander the family budget at auction , no not really , I just go for a break from endless granny jobs and endless real work at the moment . Didnt want anything and got stuck in one of the endless rural diversion schemes for road works so arrived late and couldnt view . Buying blind can go very wrong...lol
But I only bought 2 lots unseen , a little box of damaged china dolls heads, always useful , its amazing what can be created with a few Poundworld LED lights , so thats another project stuck in a draw I might get round to ..lol
Then right at the end there was a pile of comics and sci fi books that nobody seemed interested in , so yep i bought more books only to find i'd got my favourite pulp fiction sci fi and lots of simpsons comics for the munchkin . The sci fi dates from 1961 right through to the 1990s and theres a lot of reading for me to get through , some are sought after just for short stories by certain authors and im a sad nerd who knows this . Plus they can be thrown on the scanner to show you a few . Still debating about ebay , I do have a vague long term plan but it needs a lot more costing and planning yet .
Meanwhile in the real world Mr Bah Humbug is having a few computer problems bless him , he was supposed to attend yet another course only for them to say he was to far advanced to take it . So we rang the job center and spoke to the very nice and useful lady advisor he as at the moment and explained that he needs to take his ECDL next but theres no available funding . Within an hour shed found one group that has funding for the disabled to take this free and hes going to see them tomorrow . Its weird you need to make endless calls round different providers and Job Center had a few that arent on the list I have .
On the Young Baldrick front , weve seen very little of him . In fact we find more out from social media than he realises , he came for Sunday dinner last week and once i got him on his own we had a chat about how things are going . Hes currently top of the housing list to get a flat , silly idea because he wont cope on his own and we can see he will be homeless yet again , he needs supported living of some description , but the safeguarding lady has finally managed to get Community Psychiatrics involved and he now has a case worker and he is on medication awaiting proper assessment . Sadly he told me he hasnt been taking his medication because he doesnt like the way it makes him feel , theyre sure hes having episodes of psychosis and schizophrenia has been mentioned again .Theyve also managed to get him on to PIP and ESA which means hes getting tons of money that all seems to be going on drugs and cheap cider . He had nothing for groceries and hed only been paid the day before , he said someone had stole his money , but we've heard it all before . Mr Bah Humbug lost his temper for a change and told him he needed to get a voluntary job to pay something back to society at which point he wanted to go back to his scheme .
So thats the unexciting week on the fens over with , im sure life will get more interesting once the real world job calms down a bit
But I only bought 2 lots unseen , a little box of damaged china dolls heads, always useful , its amazing what can be created with a few Poundworld LED lights , so thats another project stuck in a draw I might get round to ..lol
Then right at the end there was a pile of comics and sci fi books that nobody seemed interested in , so yep i bought more books only to find i'd got my favourite pulp fiction sci fi and lots of simpsons comics for the munchkin . The sci fi dates from 1961 right through to the 1990s and theres a lot of reading for me to get through , some are sought after just for short stories by certain authors and im a sad nerd who knows this . Plus they can be thrown on the scanner to show you a few . Still debating about ebay , I do have a vague long term plan but it needs a lot more costing and planning yet .
 |
| even older than me ! |
So thats the unexciting week on the fens over with , im sure life will get more interesting once the real world job calms down a bit
Sunday, 11 September 2016
Grammar School Girl
So Mrs May has decided were going back to the Grammar School era to help with social mobility ?
I was a Grammar School Girl back in the 70s , most kids got huge gifts and much acclaim from their families if they passed their 11 plus , My mothers response ?
"Do you know how much the uniform costs ?"
Thus began several weeks of arguments between my parents , my dad was solidly working class to the core, a Labour man who had missed his chance to go to Grammer School due to his dad doing a runner , he wanted me to go . But my mother just got more and more angry at wasting "her " money on the damned uniform . The rows just got more and more unpleasant , it go to the realms of her screaming at me that she supposed that I had done this just to spite her , because I didnt have the looks to find a decent man to support me .
My dad eventually won by just not moving an inch whatever vileness she spewed , he funded the uniform , I dread to think how and off i went to the other end of town and another world . Congleton Girls Grammar , long demolished and replaced with yet another identikit middle class housing development .
To say i was a square peg in a round hole was an understatement , I just didnt fit in so many ways, but ive never fitted , these days i would have been statemented . As everyone says , im just like my dad , a man who believed in the Workers Education programme , read endlessly but was a proper working class male of his time .
Mrs Sproson stuck in my mind forever , that woman hated me with a vengeance , she was our French teacher and was French married to an Englishman , she just spent her time sending me to repetition and detention , mainly because I informed her I saw little point in learning a language that had no relevance in the modern world .
The super bright kids were streamed up to learn Latin and Greek the rest off us just toddled along , Im quite sure we had a staffroom like no other , Miss Maynard our maths teacher seemed to spend a lot of her time weeping in the store cupboard , I did hear she eventually married and grew a spine .
Miss Foukes , scary Domestic Science teacher , she seemed to think learning to clean a cooker correctly was akin to a Nobel Prize , I still have a filthy cooker by her standards , so that was time wasted . Mrs Fanshaw stereotypical 70s teacher , with a trendy bob and little car and endless enthusiasm , in fact she was the only teacher i ever got along with . Mr Mitchell a very strange bloke who seemed to be terrified of women , yet was teaching in a girls school? There was the history teacher who hated me for knowing more about history than she did and the fact that i got 100% in my end of term exams despite never doing a stroke of coursework . I was good at the sciences , hopeless at music and the arts . I think a lot of my problems back then were that i get a bit obsessive about a subject and learn it to death but if I see no point in it , its not going in my head whatever the punishment .
I think I saved the best till last , Miss Wilkie our headmistress . Scary lady, drove a little car like a mental midget , wore tweed trouser suits and smoked endless fags , usually had one of her cats draped around her , they came to school each day in the car . She taught us English Grammar , we were all terrified Back then we hadnt heard of lesbians but she was was i think very asexual, very educated and a bit of a man hater . She actually resigned on the day she was told the school was going to become a comprehensive , with boys!
I think I baffled her , by then my mother was "a bolter" so it was just me and my somewhat baffled father , who had to have endless meetings with her about my behavior . I was the first child to have divorced parents and the first to see a psychologist , but i was the second to be asked to leave . The first having been my cousin who was the only girl ever to get pregnant .
So do I support Grammar School education ? Not really , a good school is a good school . there could be much more equality within the schooling system than there presently is . The current educational lottery system for senior schools serves no purpose , the wealthy will always get the schools they want . Probably the best educational move would be to issue senior school teachers with tasers , fear was the one thing that kids understood , the truly scary teachers always had the best results . Streaming kids works , it doesnt need to have the label of Grammar schools stuck on it , every kid has potential , just not with how many A grades they score, which sadly is all they are judged on .
I was a Grammar School Girl back in the 70s , most kids got huge gifts and much acclaim from their families if they passed their 11 plus , My mothers response ?
"Do you know how much the uniform costs ?"
Thus began several weeks of arguments between my parents , my dad was solidly working class to the core, a Labour man who had missed his chance to go to Grammer School due to his dad doing a runner , he wanted me to go . But my mother just got more and more angry at wasting "her " money on the damned uniform . The rows just got more and more unpleasant , it go to the realms of her screaming at me that she supposed that I had done this just to spite her , because I didnt have the looks to find a decent man to support me .
My dad eventually won by just not moving an inch whatever vileness she spewed , he funded the uniform , I dread to think how and off i went to the other end of town and another world . Congleton Girls Grammar , long demolished and replaced with yet another identikit middle class housing development .
To say i was a square peg in a round hole was an understatement , I just didnt fit in so many ways, but ive never fitted , these days i would have been statemented . As everyone says , im just like my dad , a man who believed in the Workers Education programme , read endlessly but was a proper working class male of his time .
Mrs Sproson stuck in my mind forever , that woman hated me with a vengeance , she was our French teacher and was French married to an Englishman , she just spent her time sending me to repetition and detention , mainly because I informed her I saw little point in learning a language that had no relevance in the modern world .
The super bright kids were streamed up to learn Latin and Greek the rest off us just toddled along , Im quite sure we had a staffroom like no other , Miss Maynard our maths teacher seemed to spend a lot of her time weeping in the store cupboard , I did hear she eventually married and grew a spine .
Miss Foukes , scary Domestic Science teacher , she seemed to think learning to clean a cooker correctly was akin to a Nobel Prize , I still have a filthy cooker by her standards , so that was time wasted . Mrs Fanshaw stereotypical 70s teacher , with a trendy bob and little car and endless enthusiasm , in fact she was the only teacher i ever got along with . Mr Mitchell a very strange bloke who seemed to be terrified of women , yet was teaching in a girls school? There was the history teacher who hated me for knowing more about history than she did and the fact that i got 100% in my end of term exams despite never doing a stroke of coursework . I was good at the sciences , hopeless at music and the arts . I think a lot of my problems back then were that i get a bit obsessive about a subject and learn it to death but if I see no point in it , its not going in my head whatever the punishment .
I think I saved the best till last , Miss Wilkie our headmistress . Scary lady, drove a little car like a mental midget , wore tweed trouser suits and smoked endless fags , usually had one of her cats draped around her , they came to school each day in the car . She taught us English Grammar , we were all terrified Back then we hadnt heard of lesbians but she was was i think very asexual, very educated and a bit of a man hater . She actually resigned on the day she was told the school was going to become a comprehensive , with boys!
I think I baffled her , by then my mother was "a bolter" so it was just me and my somewhat baffled father , who had to have endless meetings with her about my behavior . I was the first child to have divorced parents and the first to see a psychologist , but i was the second to be asked to leave . The first having been my cousin who was the only girl ever to get pregnant .
So do I support Grammar School education ? Not really , a good school is a good school . there could be much more equality within the schooling system than there presently is . The current educational lottery system for senior schools serves no purpose , the wealthy will always get the schools they want . Probably the best educational move would be to issue senior school teachers with tasers , fear was the one thing that kids understood , the truly scary teachers always had the best results . Streaming kids works , it doesnt need to have the label of Grammar schools stuck on it , every kid has potential , just not with how many A grades they score, which sadly is all they are judged on .
Thursday, 8 September 2016
Heritage Open Days
Dont forget its the weekend of the best freebies for a day out. Theres even a few tomorrow, friday , I like these because its not all big venues theres lots of local obscure things that you dont get to see at other times . https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/ theres stuff all over the country .
We were supposed to be going scootering this weekend , but comman sense has prevailed . Mr Bah Humbug has rather leperous feet at the moment and i always worry he will take his socks off and a toe will remain inside. Im sure that would be the highlight of my day !!
So tomorrow I will get to pop to a couple of obscure churches that are open and combine this with the glories of working in Grimsby . Saturday may even involve yet more obscure local events with the munchkin in tow .
Now the fact that ive made rather a good thrift score this week has scored me loads of brownie points , I went to Unique Auctions on Wednesday night , more to escape from the family and just enjoy, than to purchase anything , because funds are as always very low . Sat there till the last few lots and he decided to auction off a rather nice sofa , nobody showed the slightest interest so he got down to a whole £5 then I popped my hand up and he nearly died of shock . He even said are you sure? lol
Now I knew it was mustard coloured, but folks had been sat on it all night . Went to pick it up this morning and discovered I'd accidently bought for a whole £6.60 with commision, a very new , spotless G Plan sofa that is currently selling in John Lewis for £1200 , it even smells as though it has just come out of the plastic , in fact one of the porters pointed out it had just come out of the plastic just a few weeks ago, when they fetched it from a estate clearance ! So the thrifting gods have smiled on me , it matches nothing we own, but being as it will be swathed in throws to keep my grubby lot off it , does it matter . We wont even go into the performance me and sarcastic son had trying to get it into the house , ive currently got the slaves dismantling the old sofa we sawed in half to make getting it out easier , so we can burn the frame and filter the rest of it into the bin over the next few weeks . I will take the pile of cushions to the skip when im passing and its actually open , something of a rarity these days . I had the old sofa for 12 years and i bought it from the YMCA charity shop for a whole £10 because it had sun fade on the covers . So it would seem i have always been a meany . Thats one more item off my thrift wish list , still need a few things yet .
We were supposed to be going scootering this weekend , but comman sense has prevailed . Mr Bah Humbug has rather leperous feet at the moment and i always worry he will take his socks off and a toe will remain inside. Im sure that would be the highlight of my day !!
So tomorrow I will get to pop to a couple of obscure churches that are open and combine this with the glories of working in Grimsby . Saturday may even involve yet more obscure local events with the munchkin in tow .
Now the fact that ive made rather a good thrift score this week has scored me loads of brownie points , I went to Unique Auctions on Wednesday night , more to escape from the family and just enjoy, than to purchase anything , because funds are as always very low . Sat there till the last few lots and he decided to auction off a rather nice sofa , nobody showed the slightest interest so he got down to a whole £5 then I popped my hand up and he nearly died of shock . He even said are you sure? lol
Now I knew it was mustard coloured, but folks had been sat on it all night . Went to pick it up this morning and discovered I'd accidently bought for a whole £6.60 with commision, a very new , spotless G Plan sofa that is currently selling in John Lewis for £1200 , it even smells as though it has just come out of the plastic , in fact one of the porters pointed out it had just come out of the plastic just a few weeks ago, when they fetched it from a estate clearance ! So the thrifting gods have smiled on me , it matches nothing we own, but being as it will be swathed in throws to keep my grubby lot off it , does it matter . We wont even go into the performance me and sarcastic son had trying to get it into the house , ive currently got the slaves dismantling the old sofa we sawed in half to make getting it out easier , so we can burn the frame and filter the rest of it into the bin over the next few weeks . I will take the pile of cushions to the skip when im passing and its actually open , something of a rarity these days . I had the old sofa for 12 years and i bought it from the YMCA charity shop for a whole £10 because it had sun fade on the covers . So it would seem i have always been a meany . Thats one more item off my thrift wish list , still need a few things yet .
Monday, 5 September 2016
A Thrifty Shuffle
No its not code for a dodgy perversion !! Take a look at these beauties, a whole 50p the pack from the Bridge Charity Shop and Cafe , I dont think anyone realised their age , I didnt think they dated from the 1880s till i checked online , not valuable due to the condition . But a little bit of wonderful . The Counties of England Midland edition , geographical card game , so into my rescued Victoriana pile they will go .
Now this week im sort of gutted that im not now going to prison for benefit fraud , I could do with the rest , a very nice lady rang from the council to enquire what on earth was going on with my housing benefit . I explained and she said , but i only wanted the information stated on the letter , which her colleague refused to take and started the whole rant about . So I arranged to take it in only to find they had a computer system problem and couldnt accept the bleedin forms again ...AAARRRGGHHH Can you bring it in tomorrow ...err no im at work and im not off again till next week ...Im sure we will get there in the end .
Then theres the toilet problems , it broke over the bank holiday weekend , reported it online as they tell us to do , then heard diddly squat . Rang this morning to be told the online system doesnt actually work you need to ring them ..AARRRRRGGGHHHH
So between work and useless bleeding computer systems im having a great week .
Plus its harvest in the garden , im trying to do one chore a day , ive made apple pie filling for the winter , apple and blackberry jam ,the raspberries have just started for the autumn season , theres cob nuts coming ready and the apple and pear trees are down to the ground with fruit , got to put up the winter raised wooden boxes and clear the last of the spuds , great fun with a back thats spasming due to my bright idea of shifting a load of big planters, i never learn .
Then theres wasps , thousands of them , its just one of those years , between that and the invasion of the house spider its my favourite time of year for bugs
I shall return shortly , just a wee bit busy at the moment
Then theres the toilet problems , it broke over the bank holiday weekend , reported it online as they tell us to do , then heard diddly squat . Rang this morning to be told the online system doesnt actually work you need to ring them ..AARRRRRGGGHHHH
So between work and useless bleeding computer systems im having a great week .
Plus its harvest in the garden , im trying to do one chore a day , ive made apple pie filling for the winter , apple and blackberry jam ,the raspberries have just started for the autumn season , theres cob nuts coming ready and the apple and pear trees are down to the ground with fruit , got to put up the winter raised wooden boxes and clear the last of the spuds , great fun with a back thats spasming due to my bright idea of shifting a load of big planters, i never learn .
Then theres wasps , thousands of them , its just one of those years , between that and the invasion of the house spider its my favourite time of year for bugs
I shall return shortly , just a wee bit busy at the moment
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