Step Back Relax and Go Ohm

I need to sleep big time , im starting to get rather testy as the kids have noticed .
Poor Young Baldrick Im sure he thinks hes landed in another world , yes I do get up at 5.30 to start the laundry and have a cup of tea , read the paper , do work paperwork and enjoy half an hours peace.
At this stage of the day it isnt wise to complain about anything at all , really not wise . In fact you are in severe danger of death if this bit of the routine is disturbed. Do not whine that the washer wakes you up and a bouncing seven year old wants a cup of tea and cartoons .
Second cup of tea time is when i clock on and not a moment before !!
Everyone gets up and goes to work , the job center , agency wherever they are heading. Hold conference over who will be here  for  tea and who needs  laundry doing today
Then its washing out , breakfast , get Mr Bah Humbug up help with washing and dressing , some days much more than others. Decide by how lame he is, what he can manage today , once the drugs have kicked in . Then the munchkin has second breakfast with grandad and does his reading while i get dressed and sorted .
Do not moan that you cant get in the bathroom , just wait your turn!!
8am start work phone calls and the first Young Baldrick phonecalls . 8.45 School run .
The fact that i come home settle at the computer and have a nice coffee does not mean i am, unlike your mother , who wouldnt be up for hours anyway, idle and playing bingo !! I am working , hours of research and reporting some days and now trying to sort your mess out . AAARRRGGGHHH
There is a jumble sale tomorrow and i will be going , even though im at work in the outer reaches of civilisation, I really need that half an hour of ME time , I will be going round with a begging bowl for coppers later

It Continues

I had to take the day off work yesterday to continue the saga of Young Baldrick , I managed to flatten my phone battery three times .
My next crafting effort will be a doll resembling his mother with very large pins as a fashion statement...grrr.
I have to say that for the most part everyone has been really helpful , but the problems just keep piling up .
He has a meeting with housing next week , for which as he has no ID, we have had to fork out £24 for a duplicate birth certificate , that was this weeks grocery money .
Social Care were quite helpful on the first call . told us a few more things we need to ring and to contact social care in his old home town.
This is the point where I had  to sit down and just go OHM
Apparently he hasnt got a social worker , he has had one periodically when cause for concern has been raised by various people , this will be the times they have contacted us for information and asked if we would take him to give his mother some respite . But what has happened is , and the very nice lady apologised profusely,as they were aware his mother was "difficult" is that at the point where he left full time education he should have been assessed and restatemented for his adult needs , but because no one requested it they have shut his files and because he is no longer a juvenile they are now locked . So his bleedin mother when the money stopped , promptly chucked him out . He seems to have gone to the YMCA because he thought they would help the homeless . Somebody there had helped him but we cant find out who. But when the scheme he was housed under lost funding at xmas , he was then homeless .That was the point where his mother assured us she had sorted everything out .
The second call to our local Social Care didnt go quite so well. They acknowledge that he is special needs , but because he didnt have a key worker they wont help , he isnt in any danger so thats it , unless they get a statement of needs . The women then took great pleasure in informing me that once he gets the statement he will have to wait 6 months for a psychological report because his juvenile files are shut .AAARRRRRGGGHHH then once we get that because of budgetry restrictions it may be another 6 months before he can receive the help he is deemed to need .
So today im going to ring the nice Autism lady and see if theres any way we will be able to get the reports done quicker privately ...somehow we will raise the funds .

Am I Really Doing This

When youre awake at 4am reading up on autistic spectrum disorders , you know you have a problem..lol .
Its a problem that isnt going away and is going to need a lot of work .
Yesterday I popped to the doctors with Young Baldrick , now our GPs are spectacularly awful , theres a couple of good ones , theres one who has come straight out of training and should be sent back and to have common sense and people skills added to his programming, then theres an endless stream of odd and awful locums . The backroom staff however are really good , receptionists, nurses pharmacists etc all go above and beyond . So we got his registration sorted , they explained that it could be done rapidly if his old surgery was on the same operating system and they would ring me when they had done it . Meanwhile i explained to the receptionist what the situation was .
Within an hour they rang back and told me it was done , she also told me she thought shed spotted one of the problems hes being having , he hadnt filled a sharing of information form in anywhere , so there was no sharing of information on his condition between social services , healthcare professionals , government etc etc , so we popped back and did that . But they cant fit him in for a month for his assessment , because he needs a long slot appointment with one of the actual full time Drs who will then deal with him full time . Another problem is he will blindly sign anything he is asked to with no question and will agree to anything , another symptom of his condition .
Then rang the Benefits Help at the Council and explained the situation to a lady ive met previously while trying to sort Mr Bah Humbug out . She has registered him as living here , it doesnt affect our situation because he is special needs. She did however point out a few things , if hes on the old system of benefits , his mother will have been getting Disability Living Allowance and maybe Mobility for him still , he will only have been getting Job seekers if and when he managed to claim it and that would be paid to his mother , we are well aware that he cant be expected to deal with money himself despite him thinking he can , so thats not an issue . What is an issue is that he hadnt seen her for over a month !! so thats why he ended up homeless and hungry , his mate who is 17 and just out of care had been looking after him , he is in a flat with a social worker keeping an eye on him and they had thrown Young Baldrick out .
Im beginning to think im taking part in a comedy of errors , the deafening silence from his mother after her abusive phone call speaks volumes about what has been going on
Tomorrow , i have to contact
Housing Needs
Adult Social Care
Job Center Plus


Wish me luck , i think by the time i get this sorted I will be old and grey...ooops i am old and grey already . ( maybe i should have put a line of smileys and little hearts here , but im to old and dumb to figure that out) pass the valium. Im going in !!!

The Saga Begins

Well on this fine and sunny day lets give you an update on a few things .
Young Baldrick is enthroned on the sofa looking clean and fed , his dad however is just sat staring at him and shaking his head . He has morphed into Marilyn Manson , you know piercings black hair great clothing choices ...lol. As a retired goth i see nothing strange in this , embarrassing teens are part of being a parent , My daughter once owned a white Adidas shell suit , that was worse , far worse .
Step one on the path of sorting his life out has begun , spoke to a lovely lady at Autism UK today. ...register him with our GP ask for him to be registered with a social worker for an assessment of needs. then speak to the nice lady again.  see how hard was that ?
What we hadnt bargained for was an abusive phone call from Mr Bah Humbugs ex and her partner , we are now child stealers it would seem ..bless they didnt want him when he was homeless did they .
They got Mr Bah Humbug on a grouchy day so i think he gave as good as he got , shes ringing back later to talk to me , im not having a grouchy day but i can soon arrange an injunction if she persists and i will make sure there are lots of witnesses if she turns up here creating .
Why is it the worse things are the better i find i cope ? mundane has never been my thing im afraid

Duty Bound

Where to Begin ?
We received a phone call Friday night from a very nice lady , who had Young Baldrick at her house in Birmingham , he was once again homeless and her daughter who is also autistic had befriended him and bought him home , she knew him from college . He was in a right state filthy , emaciated and crying . She got him clean ,fed and let him sleep on the floor . Now most of yesterday was spent trying to find out what is going on and what is happening with him . Adult Social Care, couldnt find any record of him , we knew hed had social workers at various stages when hed got into trouble , but it seems that once he reached adulthood aka 18 they just closed his files and filled them , if there was no requests for help , he ceased to matter . They are going to ring him on Monday ...big help there !!

So after much thought , we are going to take him in , that must sound a little strange , most parents and step parents would just leap in a car and fetch him , but because of Mr Bah humbugs disability and the fact that we are in Council Housing and already classed as overcrowded , this could get us another eviction notice . There is also the fact that we are fairly sure that drugs either legal Highs or harder fit in the picture somewhere and we have a seven year old who adores his uncle on the premises .

But what has really pushed the problem is a rather bizarre conversation held with his mother on the phone , as far as we were aware she was helping to sort matters after he was homeless in the New Year . It goes a little like this .
Well I took him to the Housing Department and they said that as he was special needs they would pay me £14 a day if he stayed with us because its cheaper than him being placed in a hostel .

OK, so what happened

He said hed sooner go into a hostel

OK, so did he go to the hostel.

I dont know and I dont care , theres a bed here for him , I could have got £14 a day for putting  up with him . Anyway they need to stop pandering to him hes got to learn to live like the rest of us . Theres nothing special about him , hes just an ignorant idle waster .

Well we are picking him up tomorrow, he will come to us .

Send me a text when you throw him out ...bye

So as of today we will have a 20 year old sleeping on the floor , doing cold turkey off whatever he has been taking , theres nowhere to run to from here , we really are 15 miles from anyware. Tomorrow I will start dealing with the authorities over this sorry mess, Didnt need this ,dont want this and it will all fall on my shoulders yet again , im thinking of crowd funding for gin ? as an option maybe ?

Petty Irritations of Life

Its been a strange sort of week , im working all hours so everything is piling up at home , they generally start whinging when they run out of socks so im just waiting for the comments to start . Bless them .
Got my wage slip and once again its not the full amount so the bank will be squealing , they will pay me eventually but WHEN is the question . Meanwhile my creditors are frothing at the mouth . You would think i owed as much as a banker , I totalled it up the other day, if one more company rings and tells me to contact the CAB I will hunt them down , im well aware i dont owe enough to go onto an IVA and nobody can bankrupt me but they do try to threaten it at every turn , im sorry but as a couple we have been living on £40 a week since November , you can threaten all you want , Mr Bah Humbug gets his PIP payments and that just covers essential bills ,they cant include PIP payments in any calculation for income they are for his disability ,  hes had to sub me for fuel as im busy at work so things are more than tight at the moment .
Nearly wee'd myself we have been taken over by some strange American company and my line manager has got a new job title ..Performance Enhancer.
Now heres this weeks HUGE annoyance , I had to cancel my insurance for my car , I got a new to me car from my daughter on her buy it now pay later scheme , mums rates.
  Its just a two door version of my car, same make, same model ,same age , i rang Swintons and they couldnt insure it on the same policy in fact they couldnt cover it at all for business usage ..grrrr . The insurance policy has been running for just over a month , the girl says theres a £25 cancellation fee , fine, bad enough . She turns round then and says that will be £111 pounds at which point i spat my dummy , apparently this is to cover their expenses !!! I will be taking this further !! She then says they wont issue my no claims certificate until I pay this , which will leave me unable to get insurance . It has taken 3 irate phonecalls to get them to admit they are in the wrong and they have finally sent the certificate but i now owe them £135 pounds because im not a customer any more . AAARRRGGGHH
My Swinton story just gets better I thought id check on the van policy with them , the little girl turns round and says it expired on 29th DEC , they hadnt renewed it !!! So ive been driving round with no insurance . I had spoke to them on the 23th Dec and they had agreed to continue it , for this year .

Now this story just gets better , I said please take this months payment of  which she did , then she turned round and said , we can no longer cover you with that policy , this year it will be £859 thats a £300+ increase , we have full no claims its more than the van is worth , I did wonder if it was because Mr Bah Humbug is now officially disabled ? I asked the question and pointed out that would be covered by the disability discrimination laws if that was the case, which she denied  . I told them to forget it we would go elsewhere which we have at over £500 pound cheaper , now we get to the good bit .
She then says that she has to charge a £25 cancellation fee , for what ? they are holding ,my no claims certificate  still  and I am going to try again tomorrow ...wish me luck
The moral of the story is dont insure through Swintons , ive been with them for over 20 years without problems , try to leave them and they will try to commit highway robbery .

The Politically Incorrect Immigration Edition

Well lets upset everyone, lets talk about that which should not be mentioned , immigration .
Every newspaper every facebook feed is full of the horrors of the Muslim invasion of Europe , so lets take a look from the perspective of a little old biddy in the fens .
1  Mrs Merkel has aged 20 years in the space of 6 months , she agreed to let thousands of migrants into Germany and didnt get the grateful families posing for the journalists she expected , instead she has ended up with some grateful families and a wonderful bunch of multi racial sex offenders , who dont understand womens rights exist , this is not a cultural difference , this is something that needed to be jumped on very publicly and very loudly by the authorities . But no, they decided to blanket news block the issue and it rather backfired because nobody has yet managed to block the whole of the internet and the truth got out .
2 Skinheads , well thats any bald bloke with a football tattoo tarred with the same brush . Yes there are far right skinheads all over Europe but they are few and far between , the US has the Aryan something or other , we have groups of dodgy blokes who bore everyone in the pub to death with their minority views , they are not getting mass membership enquiries .
3 Despite what the papers say , we actually deport more Americans , Canadians and Australians than anything else . Yes we should deport everyone found guilty of a criminal offense in the UK that is a non national . Regardless of whether they have children born here, own a bleedin cat or have an allotment to tend .
4 The small issue of asylum seekers destroying their passports and pretending to be children . Easily cured if you have a look for their wisdom teeth , but looking is against there human Rights , yes a few late developers may sneak through the check , but the 6ft Libyan beardy isnt going to end up in a childrens home , im sure Bob Geldorf said he had a spare room ?
So in summary lets just state we will welcome asylum seekers and refugees if they just tell us the truth , Europe is full of people who want to help in someway , there is a small very vocal minority who want to waste police time staging pointless demonstrations and having a ruck. Yes we are scared , scared that we are looking down the barrels of world war 3 and scared people do and say foolish things . Political Correctness needs booting out the door and hard core common sense needs to be brought into play ..THE END

This a party political broadcast on behalf of the Old Biddy Party

Cheap Cheap Food

Todays adventures included a trip to the tin factory the little portacabin at Langrick Bridge .
Scary amounts of unhealthy but cheap food have been bought , So what have we hauled home today ?
6 jars of Robinsons marmalade 50p a case  , 12 large tins of spaghetti letters £1, numerous tins of beef curry 50p each, Big breakfast lots of 50p each , 25 packets of tuna in pizza sauce these are some posh survival food packs 25p each, numerous fishy pastes, soup , dates , jam washing up liquid  cappuchino etc etc

These bad boys that they have from time to time , that my daughter saw and said "oh God its dog food season again "  No its not dog bleedin food , its army bulk ration packs . 2.0 kg of mince in gravy , chicken chunks in their own juices and they also do steak in gravy , they have nearly a years date on them and i usually split them down once theyre opened and freeze what i dont use , you can get an awful lot of meals out of one pack the chickens good in whatever sauce you conjure up , these cost a whole £2.75 each .

Now for the good bit  , because we spent so much we were given 12 big family sized tins of marrowfat peas , out of date in the next couple of weeks but perfectly edible for months if not years  and self raising flour was help yourself . As you may have guessed we are back on the bleedin skint
 plan diet, add loads of veg and we wont die .lol  Creative uses for marmalade anyone?

Sunday

Well I made it to the Jumble Sale at the Scout Hut yesterday and it was a regular bloodbath , just heaving with people which was a surprise due to the monsoon . Place had a selection of the blokes with the big bags , the ones who swing round and smack you in the face with them , guess its the penalty for being short ..lol  I was hoping I could show you some pictures but the camera has no batteries and 30 miles for a couple of batteries isnt happening . But I did spend a whole £1.30 making myself happy at the jumble , a posh leather ipad case , some glorious rosy and spot bedding in king size, must be nice because i got a "what the bloody hell is that " from Mr Bah Humbug ,bless him , hed happily sleep in a sack . Then there was a nice mohair mix cardi , that will doubtless get accidentally felted by No One but i wont shed tears because of the cost plus the cat already likes it .
So its a slow Sunday , piles of washing trying to set off down the fen in the icy wind , Chicken stew for tea bubbling away and making me hungry , sorted yet more for the charity shop , sometimes a lazy Sunday is a good thing , I may even ring my mother ,because  im feeling quite positive I could put up with the "you are a useless failure lecture "

Am I going Mad ?

Answer the question.....ive had a funny few days, stomach bug having settled down to bearable with the worst smelly flatulance of all time , back at work properly tomorrow .
So in a fit of preparedness I thought I would log into the company internet to pick up some urgent work they told me about yesterday . That was 3 hours ago !!! and im still trying to log in to the poxy useless , highly expensive corporate system , the chimp from IT has hung up on me 3 times now , if i knew where he was located id hunt him down and insert his mobile slowly and painfully into a random orifice , he just had the cheek to tell me im to old to understand what im doing ..Doh . i think I can spell my name by now , so why does it keep telling me that its spelt wrong ?
Now logged in and the printer has decided its lost a driver AAARRRGGGHHH bloody computers

Year of The Lurgy

So 2016 is turning into the year of staring into the toilet bowl and thinking ..I must put more descaler down there . Just nicely got settled down from my xmas bout and im at it again , still feeling sorry for myself 4 days later , battered and bruised inside. One of the joys of abdominal surgery is the adhesions that can form afterward , the only time mine give me trouble is when im sick , so im hobbling round with a tummy thats bloated to 9 months pregnant and waiting for the inevitable revolting deflation , its going well as i can now keep the pills down...lol Though Mr Bah Humbug was a little horrified the other night when he spotted my belly button had shifted to the right by six inches , he should have seen me when i was pregnant many moons ago , my lump was totally lob sided ..lol
He once asked me what the problem was with my belly button , its sort of a mangled crater at its best , it got an infection after the fourth laparoscopy and it well ...it fell out , they patched it up as best they could its functional i suppose , though once your born why we need it baffles me ,a friend who has Crohns  asked her surgeon to remove hers when he was tidying up her scars , she thinks it would be an an ace trick to whip her top up at parties and show shes an alien ?
I suppose spectacular ill health once your over it gives you a rather tainted view of the medical profession , im afraid i avoid them like the plague , its not helped by the weird conversations you can have with them . Many moons ago i fainted at work and they insisted that i go to hospital it was 3am and they had quite obviously just got the teenage zombie out of bed who was masquerading as the on call surgical junior .
Appendicitus
 Think not sunshine , long gone
Mmm Gallstones
Try again no gallbladder
Mmm could be a blockage xray

one xray later
Did you know theres quite a lot missing in there ?
Staff Nurse . Have you tried reading the notes?

Thrift 2

Twice in one week , this time I spent a whole 45p with Mr Bah Humbug shaking his head in despair. The Pyrex he could see a use for but my other little gems baffled him .
I had a feeling the little Edwardian scene in the photo frame was original , on taking out it was a 1905 postcard announcing a birth , to someone in Waddingham , which has a lot of family connections with my people . Then there was a little bag of patches the two tiny iron on ones will be used on something of Mr Bah Humbugs just for the embarrassment factor , serve him right for still, despite being a cripple, making holes in everything he owns . The third patch is gorgeous woven ribbon that will be staying for a while .

Meanwhile this morning it was wake up to a hellish frost , knew it wasnt going to be nice this morning as we went to bed last night to find the cat curled up in the duvet and there was no 5am howling to go out , in fact hes just been down for his breakfast then gone back to bed ...its a hard life.

First thrift Buy of 2016

Toddled to an auction with my daughter the other day and we bought nada , nothing . There were tons of stuff going for little to nothing and the auctioneer did say theres going to be a cold snap so the dying season is upon us , cheery chappy isnt he?  Next thing you know David Bowie had gone and taken Alan Rickman with him , somehow I dont think there goods and chattels will be going through Trevs auction room .
So heres the big unveil of the first thrift purchase of 2016 !!!

yes I spent the last 50p in my purse on a jug , a very nice jug that i thought looked very wintery , it just looked odd stood sad and lonely among a big batch of denby and stoneware that the Bridge Community Venue has in at the moment , it was signed but not legible , turns out to be Glynnware by Denby made from 1948 to 1958 , not popular so they sell on ebay for a whole £5 . I had planned to photograph it looking cute in the overnight snow we were forecast ,that seems to be missing from this village . So it got photographed in the planter beside the front door , posing with a lonely casserole lid and plate that never made it to the bin .
Then buddha butted in and wanted his photo taken as well , yes I did use a redundent megablocks truck to plant him and a couple of strawberry plants in . Why ever not ?

Kids !!! Who Would Have Them

Sometimes I just want to run screaming into the distance and wish that both me and Mr Bah Humbug had been neutered at age 16 .
So heres the latest edition of the misery saga, one day we will return to having a life , cooking and crafting...honest
Mr Bah Humbugs youngest son, known to long term readers as Young Baldrick , his dads favourite child , ADHD , high functioning autism , jam jar glassed ginger kid , has got him self in a mess occasioned by our nanny state at its best .
He finally while living with his mother reached the age where there are no more training schemes or college courses he can attend , mainly due to having been thrown off every one due to poor attendance . So he was told he must sign on for Job Seekers Allowance , now the problem is that unless you talk to him for some time you dont realise he has problems , hes also registered blind but you wouldnt know unless he tells you , he just seems endlessly clumsy , he has no depth perception at all .
So in November just as he turned 19 he was referred to an assisted living program , he has been deemed by the nanny state as fit for independent living , so they sent him to live in a bedsit at the YMCA, despite his mothers protests , this was full of other teenagers with various problems both physical and mental who had left care . Now during this period I stalked him through social media , he was visibly struggling , he looked like a drugged up skeleton , had gained a girlfriend in the same block who turned out to be a fully fledged crazy person and had him beaten up for being late for a date ! he is very trusting , thinks everyone is his best friend and loves everyone . Now that he is 19 nobody has any say in his life but him , he is judged fit for independent living , he received no help beyond getting him the bedsit .
January 2nd he rang us to say he was homeless and had nothing to eat , could he come to live here ? an hour long sobbing fest to his dad on the phone . His dad said he would ring him back after he had spoken to me .
My response ...ring his mother , get the truth of it all .
It turns out he has been sanctioned for non attendance at the job center , he lost the housing due to this , they managed to get him back into the bedsit with the councils help but a couple of days before xmas the scheme lost its funding and they all got home in the evening to find themself locked out and on the streets . He spent xmas at his mothers because all the agencies involved were on xmas break.
January 2nd she threw him out , her tenancy doesnt allow him there due to the problems with his behavior in the past ,once he moved out he couldnt go back , hes now sofa surfing round his friends. He cant claim a single penny because hes of no fixed abode , he cant get help from agencies because he cant remember what day of the week it is. Ive spent hours on the phone trying to sort this bloody mess out all occasioned by the powers that be deciding hes fit for independent living when he quite blatantly may never be without a lot of support which they dont have the funding for .
He cant come here , the council wont let him because hes 19 and has a criminal record for endless shoplifting , not that we have a shop within 5 miles !!
There is much more to this saga , but its all depressing bang your head against a brick wall , so called caring establishment bullshit . All occasioned by that one decision that he is fit for independent living

Tiny Plus

One of the advantages of a never ending stomach bug is that you get to read a lot while sat on the throne ! demolished 3 books so far while pursuing other matters .
Im getting there , just have to be a little careful till it settles down , so ive been practicing the working from home routine , lots of phonecalls to the office while going no further than the 2 computers i have running plus the ipad,  multiskivving at its best .
Mr Bah Humbug has got a new agency helping him in search for disabled employment The Shaw Trust , he spent a happy 3 hours being assessed by them the other day , bit of a strange experience he said , they think he should start his own business because of his years of experience as a fitter of all things mechanical , but we sat and discussed it and did the figures, his health is only going to get worse , we have no capital and we have a credit score so far into the -figures that nobody in their right minds would give us money , plus having worked self employed for a lot of years I know you end up working for peanuts to pay other peoples wages and not getting paid for work you have done. Mentally if he failed he would be back at square one . Two erratic incomes wouldnt pay the rent im afraid , so we are not sure where we are going with this .
They say it doesnt matter if he earns nothing because tax credits will make it up ????  Sounds a bit suspect to me or are we just honest and the rest of the country is all doing this , he has a meeting with someone next week who will explain how to play the benefit system correctly .

Heres my little plus of the day , Geetas Chutney and Spice Mix freebies from a tick the like button on facebook , once im feeling a bit more normal this will make its way into bacon sandwiches galore and the spice mix should make something for an Indian evening im working on

Starting The Year With a MEH

2016 is proving to be nearly as fun as 2015 was .. ive been crawling around the house with a niggly stomach bug since New Years Eve , so never got to celebrate, not that i do anyway , having had a fair bit of abdominal surgery over the years a crappy little stomach bug that everybody else is over with in a couple of days can leave me a bit rough for weeks , so im feeling very sorry for myself . Not helped by Mr Bah Humbug favourite "just pop to the Drs" mmmmm in the 5 weeks till a non emergency appointment it will be better , he forgets that now hes disabled his appointments are same day , plus theres the fact that theyre incapable of reading my notes and will try to palm me off with antibiotics , which is a very  bad idea , plus theres the usual lecture about how i should be trying the statin wonder drugs , read further sunshine i was one of the first people given them many moons ago and ended up unable to walk move or do much of anything . Maybe i could point out to the latest gormless locum that being as they stopped my epi pens in a cost saving exercise its a bad idea to take anything more than a paracetamol and no a course of penicillin wont just give me a bit of a rash sunshine , last time some numpty didnt read my notes , i ended up with anaphylactic shock . I once ended up in an ambulance as a child from stroking a guinea pig!! So thats my self pitying lecture for the day , pass me a loo roll and send me to my chamber .

The Last Thrift

Of 2015 that is !!
 I dont do resolutions and i cant afford to give up thrifting ..lol
Twas the week before xmas and i popped into the Bridge Community Venue and what was sat there looking sad and lonely for £2 ?  plus a gorgeous metre of retro fabric for a whole 10p

 A tatty huge 3 drawer DMC storage unit needs a revamp methinks, ive thought about it all through xmas and not a single inspiration has struck , total mental blank probably caused by the fact that the entire house is now infested with Minions , mugs ,clothing, cuddly toys every which way you turn , theres even a Santa minion on the top of the xmas tree . Nothing to do with me , but the big kids have problems I think .
I had my xmas highlight last night , Mr Bah humbug took me to the movies , Star Wars filled with geeky people and far better than the hype , even though i cried , shant tell you why wouldnt want to spoil it . But we went to the Kinema in the Woods a totally weird  experience its a complete 1920s cinema , with an organ that appears during the interval , it was a bit surreal  the organist seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much I expected him to turn round and be Vincent Price , it was great but all very creepy why this has never been used as a movie set i dont know , its made for horror . The car park is next to the derelict spa buildings and theres a huge creepy woodland surrounding it

Xmas 2015

What can I say, it was interesting ..
Xmas Eve highlights were an envelope from Lincolnshire Police , that i thought was a speeding fine , so promptly had a meltdown with full hysterics in front of my son . He opened it , raised his infamous sarcastic eyebrow and said
Have you reported something to the police of late ? because this is a customer services survey ...DOH
How many cases of hysterics has Lincolnshire Police caused sending them out in the same envelopes as speeding fines !! or is it just me?
Then to cap everything last thing on Xmas Eve the central light in the kitchen died , not just the strip light packed up, the fitting died , where do you get one of those on Xmas Eve night ? So Xmas Day been grey and gloomy I had to cook by an extension lamp , the cookers in the darkest bit of the house so they gave me a torch so check if things were cooked bless them , our cookers not posh enough to have a light in it .
The Smallest xmas dinner ive cooked in years just 5 of us , positively a snack by our standards , it all went well apart from me having a weepy while doing all the veg and prep . Last year Mr Bah Humbug was able to help with everything this year he couldnt even stand for long enough to do a sink of washing up , cant peel veg even.  As he said he can still make a cup of tea so i cant have him put down yet , but it just hit me badly .
Today another small buffet and a big ham to prepare , so far ive 7 to cook for so another light snack meal . Its been a quiet but good xmas if a little bittersweet .

Welcome to the Snot Factory

Yes in this wonderful xmas season , whats my gift from Santa? you guessed it , yards of snot , dreadful virus type , hot cold , hot cold , running with sweat . Tons of work to catch up with now and only 2 working days to do it in...AARRGGGHHH .  House that resembles something that the tenants ran away from , dont even get me on the subject of the washing machine!!!!
On second thought lets go there .
Do not panic after the fourth flood in two weeks , the smell of mould in the kitchen is starting to fade and you dont have to wear wellies all the time anymore .Me and Mr Bah Humbug  had THE CONVERSATION
 Im sorry I think the washer may be terminal

Well we cant afford a new one

Let me sleep on it .

next morning...dont get angry about this it may work.
watch in horror as they drag a disc cutter and various power tools into the kitchen . look on in more horror as the sons appear with a fire extinguisher . At this point decide to go out for a walk , its the best way .
Come home to a very odd smell and them all sat having a cuppa .
It should be OK in a couple of days

Why is it laid on its side with a gaping hole cut in it ?

We fixed it , there was a hole in the side of the drum thats where the water leaked and blew the pump , so instead of taking it apart i cut an inspection hole in through the side with the big cutter , dont worry you will now have an nice hatch with meccanno fastenings , you wont see it once its back under the worktop .

OK, whats the strange smell

Thats the fixing compound i used to put the patch in the drum , dont worry they use it to fix drainage tanks on lorries .

So Mr Bah Humbug is now the god of washing machine fixers , it rattles and looks odd but doesnt leak and works just fine , if i get another 6 months out of it things may have improved

Thank Heavens the Turkey is Paid For

Just when I could do without more bad news , I got my wage slip for the xmas pay packet, £85 for the month, bear in mind ive been working full time for the last few weeks so ive used over £100 just for fuel !!! I really need to find a better job but in the year ive been trying the single reply ive received has been a con trick . I know they will pay me eventually but this is just ridiculous , nearly as good as last year when they sent out the pay slips the day they closed for the xmas holidays, then the money didnt appear in the bank on pay day . All I can do is turn off my phone so that good old HSBC isnt ringing me 6 times a day from India all through xmas , so thats the plan once we break up for xmas.
Just to make matters even better we have had a pukey child week , he distinguished himself by projectile vomiting over the back of his grandads van , something im quite sure he will never hear the last of . lol

Havent xmas shopped , the turkey was bought a fortnight ago so thats it , shopping is now banned theres enough food on the premises to last well into January though doubtless there will be much moaning and gripping from the other inhabitants , if it bothers them that much they can always go shopping cant they ? he he he