Xmas Rant 1

 Im starting early this year ..lol  Im being plagued morning noon and night by phone calls from loan companies, now i rarely give out my number and the only people i can think of is i gave the number to is the Local Council a couple of weeks ago , so i imagine they have sold it on hence the rash of calls one even said to me that i was ruining xmas for my family by being broke !!! before i got a chance to hang up . As council tenants they assume youre broke so buying the phone numbers must make them tons . Its all over the TV as well hundreds of companies with stunning APRs just lending you a few quid for xmas , just fine till youre late getting paid and end up with default payments .AAARRGGHHHHH all these ads should be banned till post xmas .

My other pet peeve is the Studley old bloke flogging over 50s plans to eyelash batting widows , he lurks in garden centers and pops round to prune their bushes , you just know its not just a bit of commission hes after. 

Now is the season to consider making a food bank donation , please think canny on this one , they see enough selection boxes , chocolate oranges and mince pies . being needy isnt just for xmas day ! UHT milk is the one our foodbank is always screaming for ,  coffee, tea , pot noodles, cup a soup ,anything you just need a kettle for.  Pull top tinned fruit etc for when the leccy has run out is always needed . Dont forget CASH dont judge people it mostly goes to topping up electric and gas cards most foodbanks have an account to do this online . I went into our community food initiative the other day and someone had donated loads of bags of logs and sticks, there was lady stood guarding them and asking folks if they needed them she would deliver them on her way home .  So its not always the obvious stuff and you cant heat your home with a chocolate orange !!   

Bang Your Head

Its that time of the year again , ive lost the will to breathe , every year im the same it gets to the dark months and the will to live disappears no amount of vitamins , weird herbal remedy's or SAD lighting does a lot of good im just  a morbid minny once it gets dark. I feel the temperature changes in every bone and tendon this year its allover the place weather wise which isnt helping . For the first time in a decade we have tons of food and tons of heating oil , himselfs pretty stable health wise , he hasnt been in an ambulance for months so why do i get like this , i think this year its particularly bad due to all the hassle over Mummy Dearest . Just last week i had a phone call from a social worker asking if we were satisfied with her care and did we have any complaints ? all a bit strange . I did say why dont you go visit her and see , but apparently they arent allowed unless theres a complaint logged ???  We are just glad when shes not attacked anyone or done herself an injury.  We then get a call from a neighbour to say the boiler has packed up ...AARRGGHHHH  so my daughter had to do the trip out there , she only got the boiler a few years ago and it had an extended warranty . So the company came out  only to tell us that the warranty is void because the property is empty and it hasnt been serviced this year AAARRGGGHHHH , they charged us £400 for the callout and to order the part we await with interest the final bill , we still cant get any money from Grannys estate , so daughter has an interest free credit card  its all we could think off . It will get sorted eventually but how long is a bit of string? 

Be Prepared

 

So in the world of the fens im still dehydrating merrily , today its grated broccoli stems half a dried up onion from the fridge and the outer sticks of a bunch of celery , its great added to soups and stews i just mix them in a huge storage jar , im using one and filling another , i may even make a couple as xmas presents , that should baffle the recipient ..lol 

Ive just ordered a load of my usual sewing machine thread and i spotted £1 a reel varied colours of the same make in Grafters of Coningsby , weird shop , sells food, cleaning supplies shoes craft supplies in fact its a weird mix but very reasonable prices , hidden on a small industrial estate.

Himself is busy ordering end of season fishing stuff , at least its cheaper than his rusty crap but ive a good tale to tell about him...Yesterday he got a call from the DWP  , so he had to take the call which set him muttering he hates them with a vengeance, they refused to speak to me, he usually passes it across because i know he will start shouting and swearing hes so paranoid about them . Inevitably he throws a fit a couple of minutes in and slams the phone down . Hes then off on one about scammers asking for bank details , he promptly has an angina attack and i was wondering whether to ring the ambulance but he did eventually calm down . Now i had been expecting a call, the DWP lost at the Court of Appeal the other day , i watch all their court cases with interest and they were trying to get out of paying their arrears backlog on the grounds of Covid , they lost and it stated they would phone those affected and inform them of their payment details , for some people its a very large sum of money that the DWP has spent millions on trying to avoid paying , its ruined many disabled peoples lives and a lot of people have died waiting for this to be resolved. It has stopped people accessing other help that was available to them and have you seen this mentioned in the headlines anywhere ? Once again the disabled arent news worthy or does the DWP just silence all criticism ?

Shopping

 In the real world i popped into town yesterday with himself of course , so it was a pain , he wanted a meat pizza from Morrisons but they no longer do made pizzas and Morrisons was it usual nightmare, they have shrunk the actual food portions of the shop yet again and everything he insisted he wanted from their they didnt have , which of course was my fault , did get a cheap chicken on yellow sticker . Then the discount crisp lady , where he proceeded to park in the deepest part of the flooded carpark , they had little actual food just endless booze not even much of a crisp selection for him oh and by then im wet to the knees . Lidl was as usual a little hit and miss but they have got actual shin beef at the moment its not cheap but what is . i got 2 packs and despite the moaning i will split them down to get 3 vats of stew . jusy got half a small trolley full ,a case of milk  and his diet peach tea . Then Asda for the stuff Lidl didnt have it had been ransacked there was little on the shelves but its month end and then i remembered the government have given a grant so their were lots of folks laden up . I did manage to get some expensive pre mixed screen wash , in case you havent noticed its pretty much all been watered down to the point of uselessness its all good to only -2 so you might as well use water , so do check before you buy it . Im struggling with self service tills as my hands are playing me up , so i joined the endless queue at the normal tills there was only a couple and i got the choice wrong, in front of me were a couple of a certain age with 2 heaving trolleys the man was checking it all off with a calculator and kept telling the cashier that the prices were wrong and gripping and moaning  eventually it gets to the paying bit and he wants to pay with his phone £250 quids worth .....well the phone said no , so his wife says wheres your card and he looks at her and says guess , so she scuttles off to get it . Now you would think that meant in the car so we all watched her galloping across the car park , leap in the car and drive off!!!  By then the queue is down the store as we all stand looking at each other in amazement , then the manager turns up the cashier explains and he says can you all reload your trolleys and use the self service . Things got a little interesting as he was told to GTF by one bloke and nobody moved , so hes on his radio summoning back up and more senior management turn up with security telling us all to go to self service as he was closing the till , nobody moved ...then the very pink faced lady reappeared with a sheaf of plastic and paid .  I was ages so i got a right rollicking when i got back to the car , but what got me was the bloke just stood their leaning on his trolleys smirking .