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