Training Mission

Well this is a Mr Bah Humbug tale ...
Mr BH has been visiting a disability back to work training center for 6 months now  a couple of days a week and has found it an interesting venue for his bad sense of humour . He was given a new trainer a couple of weeks ago , having had the last 5 months with a lovely lady in which she has been a huge help to him in boosting his confidence more than anything . Hes had a couple of interviews for jobs , one of which he was sure he would get till they saw the level of his problems , it isnt just a bit of a limp on some days .
The mindfullness  lady he had endless phone conferences with was as mad as a bag of rats , hes still baffled as to how positive energy is going to make his life wonderful .
Anyway, he has this new imported from another dimension trainer , he has only 3 weeks left and this bloke is of the school of, bad back = shirker .
Now his trainer has decided that Mr BH can be a bus driver ...mmmmm
now being  the evil sarcastic swine that he is Mr BH chimed up with .
Great I'd love to do that ! and some of the others nodded their heads .
So yesterday they had to attend the first part of his first aid training course , the job they have in mind for them all is disabled kids school bus driver . So there were a few differently abled attendees . The poor bloke running the course did the usual lets introduce ourselves speech .
Hi im Ian , im your trainer for today , im an ex paramedic .
Most were the normal im so and so , they then got to Mr Strange who goes to the same training place as Mr BH and has rather odd mental health problems , who proceeded on a whole rant about not needing to know his name because he had rights .
He then proceeded on with the course which went quite well classroom style learning till lunch , then they got to the Doris the Dummy CPR training .
They were all rolling around on the floor till they got to MR BH who pointed out that if he got down there it would be good training trying to get him back off the floor . They compromised with chucking the corpse on a table and him trying to kill it that way .
Then they had a tea break and Mr BH got chatting to the trainer who asked him what was wrong , he explained and the poor bloke was horrified .
You cant possibly drive a bus you'd never pass a medical for anything let alone that . Do you still have your driving licence?
Yes but it took a lot of arguing to keep it
then another bloke chimed up with
I have a provisional licence
Mr Strange was by now talking to himself in a corner and Mr Bah Humbug told them hed be fine , hed take his pills soon and usually calms down .
They then started defibrillator training and one bloke chimes up with !
Should I really be doing this , I have a pacemaker
The next thing they know is Ian the trainer Is shouting at the new bloke down the phone about did it not cross his mind that they have a duty of care towards the children on these buses and this miscellaneous bunch of cripples arent suitable .
Somewhat to his amazement Mr Bah Humbug passed the course , he has sent his new trainer an email telling them hes decided that hes staying with the group for an extra 2 months . And hes signed up for all the courses on offer !!

Politicians Needed (previous applicants need not reapply )

So the great unwashed has risen ?  the uneducated went to the polling station instead of Glastonbury ?
Bad choice there Dave, should have checked your calendar a little better shouldnt  you?
So heres another political broadcast from the Old Biddy Party .
Well this is all a bit of a surprise isnt it , my mother won an election !! Shes suitably horrified that her free bus is still been driven by a Rastafarian and that weird beardy bloke with a carpet behind his seat . Mother dearest we arent about to start cattle prodding people into the sea just because you dont like their colour creed or nationality . Your doctor will remain a nice girl in a headscarf who puts up with inherent racism every day of her life and feels no urge to join ISIS except after half an hour in your company .
Dave...there you and the missus were checking the sausage rolls on the buffet at your victory party when the results started rolling in ..ooops .. Your missus wore her victory dress and let a tear fall as you announced your resignation , what was going through her mind was "Oh shit " no retirement to endless cocktail parties in Brussels for us , now you know how the other half feel when theyre partner gets made redundant , hes going to be boring you to death with this story for the next 30 years at least.
Meanwhile George Osbourne has been hiding under the dining table with a calculator and a pencil trying to think of a way to squirm out of this unholy mess. He couldnt think of anything so now he plans to punish us big time by claiming he has to make these cuts to pay for us leaving  George, this may not be  quite as easy as you think . Folks who already have nothing , no jobs, no prospects, no education dont care anymore what you do  .
OK...Jeremy love , you got this a wee bit wrong if you had sided leave, the mob would now be baying for a General Election in which they would be pushing you to Victory . Though im deeply proud that you handed your deputy his wellies and sent him off to Glastonbury telling him everything would be fine ..Then proceeded to axe your party to bits , your training him so well in The Game of Thrones .

To our overseas readers ......dont panic ...we may have done the wrong thing in the worlds eyes and pushed the self destruct button on our economy , but we are a nation of scrappers and survivors and also a very nice and cheap holiday destination with very good exchange rates , low crime , few guns and multiracial taxi drivers just like at home . We even made Donald Trump welcome , him and Boris are going to make politics entertaining for years . while quietly behind the scenes the people who really run this country and yours, get on with the job ...< insert weird horror movie cackle at this point >

The Quiet Before The Storm

Sometimes this is the best bit of the day , just me and the ginger ninja before they all surface for the day , kettles on and im gasping for my first cuppa...lol
Sorry ive not been around much , work and chores have rather eaten my life this week . The constant monsoon season weather we have been getting has turned the garden into a lush green paradise , gorgeous to look at but you know that once we get a couple of decent days there is going to be endless garden work to do . The Strawberries have kicked in , huge berries but very bland and tasteless due to all the rain . The fruit trees are weeks ahead of usual and laden down , poor show on the plums but theyre always erratic .
We had to take Young Baldrick to the hospital the other day , it had been carefully plotted with his keyworker so that he didnt know we were going or that i was taking him , just his eye appointment . So when we got there he was with his latest girlfriend , who was basically his clone  , dyed black hair , lots of piercings jam jar bottom glasses etc etc etc , so just to forestall an argument we kidnapped her and took them both to the hospital . Boston hospital is every bit as bad as its reputation , even worse there is nowhere to park even in the cripple spaces , Mr Bah Humbug had been dragged along so we could park so I abandoned Baldrick and his clone and we took ourselves off to the Brewers Fayre  up the road to wait for them , after all she needs to know what she has let herself in for .
This is the first time we have entered a chain pub in years , Barton House . Strange experience. The staff were all lovely and helpful  then Mr Bah Humbug pointed out they did lunch time specials and that he had sold something on ebay so lets eat .  Well it was food , there was nothing wrong with it . It was just so bland i had fish chips and peas, totally tasteless the fish must have been frozen back in the ice age , frozen chips and frozen peas. The plates were huge and red hot  , it just made the portions look pathetically small and the food itself was lukewarm . Mr Bah Humbug had gammon and chips once again nothing wrong with it just bland . You could have unlimited soft drinks and
I somehow managed to get the button stuck on the ice machine , its was throwing ice everywhere , i told a member of staff and it never did get cleaned up .
This makes me sound like a right moaning old biddy , but we eat out so rarely its a major treat .
Mr Bah Humbug was more surprised by the condition of the place there were trees growing in the gutters , the windows were rotten , handrails not attached very well and the paving wasnt great , it was clean just very time worn , big holes in the car park etc etc . We didnt expect a gourmet experience but this is the only eatery at that end of town and there were a lot of people visably from the hospital .
That was my highlight of the week and it turned into a huge disappointment , it wasnt that cheap either .

Do People Just not Listen?

Yesterday I had a meeting with the bank, it all went rather strangely , I saw the nice little girl I usually explain all my woes to and she rang the credit control people and got me to speak to them . I explained that I now hadnt made a single penny from the business in 3 months due to companies failing to pay me and not paying me at the stated rates . That was fine . We did the income part of the interview , then we got to the expenditure part .
We need details of all your debts
These are my debts
No we need your credit and store cards your finance debts etc
Havent got any
Errrrrrr maybe we should go on to something else .
Well we went through the list of stuff and she got quieter and quieter , then she said i will have to put mimimum figures in all the boxes as we cant put zero .
So it seems i should be spending £20 a week on hairdressing and clothes, who knew?
Healthcare dentists and perscriptions £10 a week ...I wish
the list went on and on .
At the end she said that we couldnt possibly be living on the amount we have coming in and I had to explain that we are part of the lucky estimated 20,000 couples trapped in the benefits limboland created by the switch to universal credit .
She then said she was terribly sorry the best she could do was give me a 60 day break from the endless phone calls,letters and fees. Then set up a review for August to see if the situation had changed .
At this point im grateful for anything .
Now im off to talk to EE ...see if they can explain why when i rang to pay my contract mobile the price was twice what it usually is !! Wish me luck

A Party Political Broadcast from the Old Biddy Party

Today having spent the weekend in Thetford Forest listening to rather good psychobilly and ska , drinking my last tin of G&T for the foreseeable future and setting the world to rights with various scooterist affiliates , I thought we would have of one of my crystal ball looks at the current political scene .
Finally someone has stated the bleedin obvious fact that even if we vote leave it doesnt mean we will leave . Thankyou Samcams stepdad for pointing that one out .
It seems the referendum is a useless farce , we the voting members of the public have no say in whether we leave the EU or not , it is down to a vote by MPs and the Lords and even dear old Queenie who if she wanted to be a pain could flatly refuse to sign and stamp the paperwork , it would perhaps be a fitting tribute to her 90th birthday , "Oh dear Mr Cameron , I cant find a pen "
 I rather enjoyed watching Dave get a good mauling by a second generation Indian gentleman who stated another pretty obvious fact , that he cant get a GP or school place for his children and cant afford to buy a garden shed in the London borough in which he lives due to immigration  . sadly Dave and his little gang of public schoolboys do not grasp that these are the issues that matter to us the working class . It left him stood there flapping waffling and just not answering the questions . Well he could hardly shoot down the bloke with the usual , you are racist .
Im thinking of opening a branch of Hug A Corbyn , the more i see this bloke the more i want to take him home and feed him . But its his quiet smug little grin I like . he reminds me some what of Yoda , small inconsequential and really badass in an emergency . He really doesnt have to do a lot does he just quietly stand there at the ballot box calmly telling the truth as he drowns in Cameron sweat and the bile of the Tories . Dont underestimate this strange little beardy , ive a feeling hes just bidding his time and enjoying the Tory Party imploding . His own Party loathe him they want another Tony Blair but once The Chilcott Enquiry hits the ground somehow I dont think being a Blairite will be quite so popular .
Sadly the referendum is turning into a vote on immigration , we dont object to immigration , we object to the idiotic levels that have been allowed . Immigrants have enriched this country in so many ways . The vote to stay or leave shouldnt rest on a single theme its about so much more , our appalling inexperienced, no common sense government  , have merely shown us how spineless and useless they are . We should let the oldies take over they seem to be the only people showing a common sense approach to the whole situation, regardless of the party they support .

Meanwhile in the Real World

The huge question this week was whether i would be paid this week , did I get paid? Sort of , the payment didnt even cover the cost of doing the extra work , after the bank took their share  I was left with nothing and quite a few things outstanding that need paying ..ho hum whats new . But its only 4 weeks till the next payday and im flat out for the company that pays me eventually at the proper rate , so they will all have to squeal for their money . Thats the cascading fact of self employment , its not till the top of the pile gets paid that us folk on the bottom rung get paid our share , it happens all the time . Mr Bah Humbug has pointed out that taking more of the same work isnt worth doing . Meanwhile I will continue on with the endless applications for other employment it would be nice if anyone ever replied or acknowledged me . Its been pointed out that my qualifications are all useless these days , it seems that o levels are redundant, unless you have NVQs you cant even get a job as a carer they also require  a 10 year checkable work history , somewhat difficult when youve been self employed for years , i did laugh when I realised that every employer I have worked for has now liquidated , the one that provides my current workload refuses to give references to anyone so thats me  buggered. I do have a couple of NVQs but they are in mechanical engineering ..lol, ive had a rich and varied career path over the years .
In fact I talked to a lovely sympathetic lady on the job center helpline who said in more polite terms that im up shit creek without a paddle , because im self employed i cant pack up work unless im declared bankrupt even if its costing me money doing the job , its unlikely  that i would find employment because of my age ..ffs im 52 thats 14 years till i can retire . But because I need some more years of employment to qualify for a full state pension I need to return to employment or sit on my bum while the Job Center pays my stamp . She suggested taking up voluntary work !!
Tempting , if I could afford it , Im sure the Citizens Advice Bureau would take me , I could deal with energy matters .
I once got offered a job with EnergyWatch the ombudsman lots of years ago ..lol I would imagine im now to old for that as well , in fact I might inquire !!
Sorry for the winge , life is really getting me down at the moment .

Motivation Required

Im convinced ive reached my mid life crisis , ok so im past mid life . This Bank Holiday has been spectacularly boring , been nowhere, done nothing . Mr Bah Humbug has been family bonding , something im not very welcome at . Daughter and munchkin trundled off on holiday . Leaving me and sarcastic son sat here . We loaded up the car and under protest he came and did a car boot sale with me , just so i could afford fuel his week..lol we didnt make much but it was mainly rubbish , outgrown clothes etc , so it was money made from stuff that would normally go in the charity bag . Im once again working loads of hours this week , so will be coming home to snore in the chair and view the washing yurt with pride .
Mr Bah Humbug did a stunner last week, i'd been at work and got home at 3 pm only to have a little voice shouting help as i got in the door . He'd somehow managed to fall off the toilet and get wedged head down between the door and the loo , it didnt do his dignity much good when I had to get son to help move him so we could get in the door to rescue him . We are forbidden to even mention this episode and just get the death stare ,and he wont tell us how long he'd been here , so I thought I would post it on here to annoy him . The worst of it was the cat had been up licking his bald patch as a gesture of sympathy , the ginger ninja is good that way .
Ive got to skive off work to go and sort Young Baldrick out today , he has a meeting with the safeguarding team and he has to have an appropriate adult , all the rest of the family refused to go even the interfering relatives , i think im the last name on the list at the moment , so will go and just see what the hell hes been up to this time.
Still awaiting wages with interest , such is life. Talked to the nice benefits lady the other day , she says im the only person on the books who is genuinely worse off for bothering to work . Still nothing they can suggest to remedy the situation . My mother meanwhile suggested her remedy for the situation , I should either murder my other half or just abandon him and get on with having a life , bless she sounds like a commenter on my blog  , maybe it is my mother ? either that or ive developed a split personality due to stress and im posting comments on my own blog .

Look on the Brightside

Im rather stumped by the attitude that we should be banging on the Foodbank door , I guess its just me but after a 23 year marriage to a bi-polar alcholic who couldnt stop spreading himself around , my current life is pretty easy .
Poverty is relative , things have been worse , theyre paying the housing benefit , we have a very small monthly benefit payment , daughter is in work and son is quite good at arguing with the benefits office so gets his pittance every fortnight .
 Getting paid for My job is a nightmare , but I still quite like it , on a good day , it gets me out, which is the main thing . It means i can keep a vehicle as its a tax deduction in most ways , it gives me a break from poo and endless washing .
You cant pick youre relatives , yes my mother is a nightmare , shes also a wealthy nightmare , but believe me when i say there is nothing that would make me like her attitudes and sheer bigotry against the human race . I will not agree with her just so i am in her will and the rest of the family need to get over that .
Young Baldrick is driving us mad at the moment , but it will eventually sort itself out .
Today Mr Bah Humbug sold some weird bit of vehicle on ebay so we went to Moy Park the local chicken factory  and I have £7.50 worth of chicken in the freezer , you can get an awful lot of chicken for your money ..i have tons of plans for it, June is now  chicken month ...lol
We still have the internet , ive just been looking up Navajo Fried Indian Bread, sounds like a good idea to me , tomorrows tea with chicken something ..lol .
Mr Bah Humbug had one of his group meetings with the Shaw Trust today and he said they were shocked when he said we rarely shop in a supermarket . He pointed out why would he when we can get 24 tins of beans for £2.40 , buy 800g packs of Bacon for 85p and buy army ration packs of meat 2kg for £2.75  its a case of careful shopping around. When things are this tight there are things that arent on the menu we dont buy pop squash or soda , we dont buy biscuits or cakes , no crisps  , no cereal other than bleedin porridge . I can scratch cook really well from practically anything , i know how to forage for greens and the garden will kick in shortly , thats what adds the variety to our diet , that and the endless little bags in the freezer . We have run out of cheese ..AARRGGHHH used the last of the xmas Brie on the top of a lasagne yesterday , so tomorrow i will be foraging for cheap decent cheese in the dark realms of Grimsby .
Yes were broke but we eat well, it can be a bit boring and yes i lost a stone when we gained an extra family member but i could lose 10 stone and still be called fat by my mother. I havent had a penny in my purse for 6 weeks , the bank rings 10 times a day , but things could be much worse .

Still Here

No i havent been murdered in my sleep yet , ive just been cooking on a zilch budget , dealing with the fools and idiots that employ me and gardening myself into a coma .
How come something so relatively simple as the government living wage can cause me so many problems ?  I havent been paid because theres a huge squabble over how we will be paid in the future , they refuse to increase the wage they pay us , saying that because it is commission based it doesnt affect us ...mmmmm sorry but it does, saying that there is a possibility we could earn £12 an hour isnt good enough , that means we could work 40 hours and only earn £12 .
 Refusing to pay for work that has got back to you after the completion date, that was returned recorded delivery and signed for 2 weeks before the completion date, but you dont have the office staff to process it because you have made them all redundant isnt good enough .
I just wish I could find another job that fits around my carer duties !!
Young Baldrick ...wherever he is , we dont know.
 He had a major domestic with his dad and his dad wants no more to do with the situation , the police became involved over problems at his scheme and he was told he must leave for 3 days he refused to come here and it went on from there , they were moving him to another unit the last we heard .
Cooking on a budget of zilch is going quite well, ive managed to string a pack of mince out for 4 meals and it wasnt a big packet ..lol   Sadly its now tourist season here, so theres nothing in the local food shops that we can possibly afford, its all gone organic and farm fresh for the middle class masses that holiday here , theres no end of day bargains hardly and all the staple stuff like bread and milk has jumped 20p per item . One more week till we have any guaranteed income at all . Keep going down the garden and staring at the spuds and beans , netted the strawberries yesterday, cant wait im sick of rhubarb . Will the sweetcorn ever grow is the question and will the squash pop up . Fruit trees are looking promising so we will have tons come the season, its just the long boring wait for food variety.

Young Baldrick

 This is a very hard post to write , you may notice ive not been around a great deal . but its not just been a whole lot of gardening and watching the Invictus games , sometimes its something read in the press that can trigger a whole host of things .
Theres been an awful lot of press about the killing of an elderly gentleman in a road rage attack by this individual .   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3592923/Mentally-ill-motorist-GUILTY-manslaughter-pensioner.html
We have young Baldrick problems yet again , last week he met his dad and me for us to give him his post , he was very twitchy and strange and got in his dads face because he had no food , he is now in receipt of benefits but he has no money he says because he bought a phone off someone at his project , his dad told him tough and he didnt like it much . I gather hes been strange with the other relatives who were supporting him and they have also withdrawn from him . He stank of weed and his behavior is quite threatening . The scheme he is residing in has informed us that he wont allow them to contact family if their are problems and because hes an adult theres nothing anyone can do .
His dad told him that if he had no food he could come and stay for the weekend , which he agreed was a good idea .
So come the weekend his dad went to pick him up and he wouldnt get up to let him in , his dad could see him through the window in bed . which set him off an endless weekend rant ...lol
His brother then informed us hes been all over facebook partying and doing drugs all weekend and posting rants against all and sundry , hes obviously becoming increasingly unstable and delusional yet again .
We have long said that we believe he is dangerous  and nobody will listen to us , the idea behind him being referred to the psychologist was to get a diagnosis of some sort , to get him the lifelong help he will need . This plan has been scuppered by other relatives and now he has decided there is nothing wrong with him and he doesnt need help .
So I dont think I can get a more public place than this to state I believe my stepson is a serious risk to society and needs help , I dont want to find myself having something terrible happen to someone and being blamed for his actions but thats is what we have to look forward to as we cant find anyone to listen to us.
Because he is an adult , hes free to do as he likes , meanwhile Im barely sleeping and looking over my shoulder all the time . He has previously threatened to petrol bomb us and kill my daughter , nobody was interested then either .

Limbo Land

This weeks stunning events !! sorry theres just been a very boring week folks the world doesnt have much exciting to offer , just budget shopping , a glorious sunny car boot sale that my daughter dragged me to yesterday where i bought 6 tomato plants for a whole £1 and a bit of fishing that i mainly snored through much to Mr Bah Humbugs disgust ...
So lets take a look at the wider world and raid the Daily Mail for a few thoughts . The big story, Dave is trying to scare us to death about leaving the EU.
 My thoughts . we will probably try to leave shortly , we vote leave we may be heading for interesting times im sure , nobody seems to be asking the big question will they let us leave?
Cant understand why Dave has such a panic on , him and the rest of his vile colleagues will be able to do anything they want without the EU butting in , or is he just afraid we might notice that he knows nothing, has no valid policies and certainly does not speak for the majority of the British people.
Plus theres the fact that UKIP will be no more , theyre a one trick pony , we vote leave, the trick is gone.
Maybe its all smoke and mirrors and he knows hes so universally loathed that he figures we will vote leave if he wants us to stay , meanwhile Boris and IDS are busy sharpening there long knives in traditional Tory fashion .
Somewhat gutted by The Baftas nothing much to fall off my sofa laughing at. the frocks were pretty boring really , theyve let me down this year .
The one glaringly awful article was about the new Downs Syndrome blood tests , that could result in the extinction of Downs children due to the pressure of certain NHS staff on parents who get a positive result , it seems some have been pointing out what a burden to society and the NHS Downs Syndrome children and adults are , personally I would sooner money was spent on them than daft trollope's who cant decide what size boobs they want .

The Parallel Universe

Fun packed day yesterday with young Baldrick , his key worker rang to see if i could take him to the bank with yet more paperwork and have a little chat with him about matters , so we picked him for the day .
We trotted down to the Co-op Bank in Lincoln , with letters from the Job Center and HMRC , it was turning into one of those endless conversations with different parties that we seem to be having these days . But I'd like to thank the lovely Darren who has finally after 2 months sorted this bleedin mess out.
Young Baldrick has finally got his own bank account !! after much reading and thought they decided he was being excluded from having a bank account because of the limits of his disability , so there social exclusion policies meant it was unreasonable to expect him to have a passport or driving licence, because hes partially sighted and unable to remember which day of the week it is .  They didnt ask if he had a gun licence this time !!
 Then we had to drop Mr Bah Humbug off at The Shaw Trust for his daily meeting , hes got lots of homework, thats set him off yet again as he struggles to write and it has to be handwritten . Even they say they cant understand how hes expected to work, plus his condition is continually degenerating . But the good old DWP have spoken and he cant be reassessed because he hasnt got a new condition , this is a glaring flaw in the new system for ESA benefits and will affect many of those with a progressive illness .  They will doubtless be wheeling folks into the Job Center in hospital beds and dragging drips in a few years at which point because of conspicuous publicity something will be done.
We fetched Young Baldrick home for tea and cake and i managed to get a long chat with him , he has been referred on for independent living , probably in a shared house , he meets the criteria for being able to live alone as he is quite domesticated in a teenage boy way .
Other relatives have been raising concerns about him being bullied by other residents at his project  , taking advantage of him and stealing his food etc . But he doesnt see this as being a problem because hes been so badly treated in the past far worse than he is now . In fact he really likes it there and has decided he wants to stay in the small town hes based in  . As we continually have to remind them ,hes an adult he has to be allowed to make his own decisions where possible .
Hes driving his keyworkers round the bend i think , but it does take a lot of practice to be able to handle him , its how you phrase things when your asking him questions or trying to get him to do something . You have to praise the good and mostly ignore the bad unless its putting him or others in danger. Sometimes hes easier to handle than his dad ..lol
Its supposed to be some form of payday tomorrow , I' m currently compiling the economy shopping list , I will be so glad once the garden starts to kick in for the summer , the only fruit we have is rhubarb and theres a limit to how much i dare put into everyones diet

Positively Not Positive

I watched a programme about those trying to gain a place at the Invictus games last night , for those abroad these are games for disabled veterans they are being held in the USA this year . They talked to the partner of one man who had lost a couple of limbs to an IED and had a black hard time coming to terms with it . She said it affected everyone in the family , there were no days out as a family etc etc .
He also talked about the mental health side of what had happened to him , how he couldnt see any point in his existence etc etc.
There are no comparisons but a lot of parallels in what Mr Bah Humbug and we as a family are having to go through .  He goes to some deep dark places in his head at times , the tablets help a little but not a lot , when hes hurting hes bleedin evil to be around , he says the pain never ever goes away and they have told him it will get much much worse .
They did tell him he could self request counselling but he refuses, because he says why would some middle class do gooder understand that this is life over , no amount of positivity will make his situation any better.
 He did have a wellbeing co-ordinator who was at best useless , she suggested he make use of a free gym pass but he cant go to the gym his unstable vertebrae put pad to that , he has a set of exercises he has to do each day. He cant walk very far at all  , it is just yards then he spasms and hes stuck there for however long it takes to unspasm . He can climb stairs but struggles to get down them because he cant feel his feet at all , any slight slope upward in a pavement and he struggles with his balance . He cant have crutches or sticks because his arms are held on with plates and pins and his lack of feeling in his arms and hands gets ever worse . His last operation did a little it stopped his arm spasming, but it now feels like hes got boxing gloves on all the time .
But what has occasioned this negative rant ?
The other day we had the  Jehovah's Witnesses round two gentlemen of a certain age , who for years have visited me in this rural end of nowhere every few weeks , im not about to join them but theyre a pleasure to have an intelligent conversation with .We were discussing Prince and his recent death and how Jehovah's Witnesses dont eat black pudding  Mr Bah Humbug staggered out to see who i was talking to as i was gardening, as they left he said , "do you realise theyre the first people other than us ive spoken to in nearly two weeks" how sad and awful is that.    

Malevolent Thoughts

Well this week is seeming very long,  we have no income at all due to me not being paid , so its been a sort of holiday for me honest . No its been cook creative week  , its amazing what horrors i can construct from the little bags at the bottom of the freezer ..he he he
Ive been walking the munchkin to school each morning , not a problem but its a bit arctic with the wind off the fields   , a moaning munchkin and the ginger ninja as company . the cat decided to walk with us yesterday , he then sits  and howls in the farm gateway till i collect him on the way back, because he doesnt like the traffic at the school .
 I would like to thank the teacher who said they get a house point  if they walk to school, this i think was aimed at  those in the same village as the school , not those of us in the next village, but the munchkin doesnt get many  house points thanks to his behavior and he insists thats why he has no friends , so walk he must do .
No fuel means no work , there isnt much this week so hopefuly i will get away with it going in late due to the holidays.
Weirdest conversation......
Can  i have £10 for the electric
Ive got no money
You got paid last week
But i had to pay the deposit on  my holidays (plural)
So tomorrow youre off to  work looking like a gonk?
No of course not
Well youre hair straighteners wont be working , plus youre fish  tank will have a lot of floaters then theres the weeing in the dark . You do have a torch dont you ?

 Guess mother got £10 for the electric ...lol

Lincolnshire Family History 2

Sometimes you have to chuckle, my mother is  up in arms after her heir  hunters episode , they contacted her regarding a cousin that shed killed  years ago, not literally she had just told everyone she was dead . It would seem that our family history is just as bad as the ones televised, I already knew we had jailbirds not it looks like we can add illegitimacy and bigamy to the family tree so she wont  be getting a big fat cheque..lol

So lets talk about the nicer side of the family my  dads Lincolnshire forbears  this is the wedding photo of  my grandparents, Ivy Clara Exley and (jack) John Andrew at Barrow On Humber in 1917 , my grandmother was in service at Barrow Hall , my  grandfather was going off to war . I know who some of the people in the picture are  but  not all  .  A couple of my uncles did a lot of family history research , but i had all the ephemera i managed to rescue as a child plus bits my Granny had told me , plus now i can look back and patch various family stories to make a whole .So lets put it together in modern terminology  They had 7  children , 6 made it to adulthood and a couple are still around as far as i know . Jack was a bit of a rum lad in his day and liked the ladies , he was a coal merchant and lorry owner so he got about a bit. Grandma had to many children  to quickly and the last couple were sickly to boot so her sister was dispatched to help , 10 years younger and single . The trouble  was Jack took a shine to her and back in about 1930 the inevitable happened and they had to run away leaving my grandma with 7 kids .
Now Lincolnshire in the 30s was a different dimension , it was viewed to be my grandmothers fault and she was threatened with the Workhouse if it hadnt been for Jacks family helping her find a tiny 2 bedroomed cottage that  was where she was going, nobody would rent to her because of the disgrace  , one daughter died of diptheria because they couldnt afford a doctor . My dad hated his father he had  just passed to go to Grammar school but was forced with his brother to go to work in his uncles flour mill , the eldest girl had to go into service. My dad would never allow any mention of his father even on his deathbed in the 50s he refused to see him . his dad had  built another family in Rugby there  was no divorce in those days .
It seems strange now but even in the 50s and 60s the family were shunned for what had happened , they all had to marry out , because they carried the stain of immorality , even as a child there were people warned not to play with me because of my family name .
But the saddest thing of all was that when my grandmother died she still had all his postcards sent during their courtship and from the trenches hidden away and  i have them still . There was never anyone else for her  but him .
These days  this story wouldnt warrant more than a bit of gossip , it wouldnt even make Jeremy Kyle but back then it was the scandal of the county .

Fed Up With Life

Just had a couple of really down in the dumps days , you guessed it the company ive done tons of work for didnt bother to pay me , this is becoming all to familiar . Theyre apparently having a reorganisation , polite management speak for having being asset striped by an American multinational , theres been tons of redundancies and we now have no office to contact about our missing payments ...joy
Also we will shortly have to provide an  experian credit  check  to even work at all in  the industry , my  nice manager pointed out that he will also be out of a job as he has a CCJ from 10 years ago during his divorce it doesnt matter that they are cleared it will still prevent you working . In  fact as he pointed out over 90% of the firm wont be able to work anymore . Well thought out legislation from the Office of Fair Trading methinks . Or if i was paranoid , I could just point out that American companies have bought out most of the firms in the debt  industry and shortly nobody will be able to do the job so they will have to import Americans or go to the American system of Debtors going to prison for trivialities, the same prisons that are being run by G4S another American Company ...mmmmm. No wonder Obama wants us to stay in the EU they have a big stake in the UK in many industries .

On the mother front ive had a very scary conversation with her on the coming EU referendum.

Well its not as if anyone under 40 is interested, they cant get out of bed so they wont bother to vote.

So mother only ranting Daily Mail readers and wrinklies will win the vote to leave ?

We will be leaving , we dont want to be giving in to the Germans ,  theyre just sending us more and more manky foreigners.  The French stink of garlic and  do weird sex things , the Italians  are bone idle cowards and  theres the Spaniards  all they produce is waiters .

So if we vote leave what happens if they dont let us?

By this stage im quite enjoying baiting her and shes building up a full head of steam , shes a bit down because she cant drink on the tablets shes taking , so a good rant really perked  her up . 81 and she loves the world .
Her parting shot after a good half hour rant ?

We will fight them on the  beaches!!!

Crafty Pursuits

My little 10p gem from the jumble sales this  week , courtesy of the scanner that wouldnt work since we had the compulsory change to Windows 10 earlier in the year ...Yey theres now a bugfix for its issues though its taken all morning to figure it out .

I think my teacher at school had this book its an absolute gem , packed with trace off full size patterns for animals xmas decorations and dolls. Though these days i dont think youre allowed wire frames inside toys or non EU classified embellishments or eyes , who cares I will make a few in felt for my own amusement.

Short but Sweet

Why  does  everything I buy from a  real store turn  into a nightmare.   I got a  little Nikon  coolpix camera , they were  half price in  a sale. It now has a battery fault  so its unusable just days after the warranty ran out !! Looks it up online only to find this is a known fault , for which there is no cure its terminal . Nikons response is to post it back to them in Japan , which you cant do because it has a small internal battery that cant be removed . So theyve  sold thousands of these , the fault has been known for quite some time and  you can do nada about it . As it was pointed out online in one of the forums all  you can do is never buy Nikkon again!! .
So im pictureless at  the moment , i dont have a camera phone , just a cheapy Nokia for my endless calls , a smart phone is useless for someone who can be on the phone for hours at a time , they burn out . I need a camera for work so im trying my daughters ,which appears far to complicated for what i need ....Lifes such  fun

Its Been A Funny Old Week

Not a single thrift shop have I visited this week , I was very busy work wise , then i got my wage slip and realised i've been wasting my time on the new work stream that came in ..ho hum it would appear that once again the wage stream quoted bears no resemblance to the wage produced , way below minimum wage im afraid , after expenses it barely breaks even . Perfectly legal we are all classed as self employed on a zero hours contract . As i was told its not there concern that the work they provide  has travelling time of over 30 minutes between jobs, being rural the jobs can have well over an hour between , the jobs are supposed to take 10 minutes and its the 10 minutes they pay for , there is the chance to earn £12 an hour in commission at each job , the reality is you may earn £12 per week if your lucky ..lol they pay the 10 minutes at £1 a job , im good at my job and i can clear 20 jobs a day in town maybe 5 if the jobs are rural . Plus you spend at least £20 a day on fuel !
I rang complained and they promptly removed the work from my computer ..lol...
They're manager rang and asked what was going on , i told him my work had gone and not to bother sending anymore because it didnt pay . I then found out that all the office staff had been made redundant along with most of the management , so quite where i stand at the moment with the outstanding wages owed , I have no idea .
This is a porridge thought. If your poor how much can you grow to hate porridge? Im afraid ive reached porridge saturation levels over the winter , no amount of adding fruit , jam or syrups is making it any less revolting, ive reached the level of baulking while i eat it . Is there a cure?
Mr Bah Humbug is now officially morbidly obese but hes still not diabetic the nice lady doctor apologised to him because theres little that he can do about it , the drugs he takes on a daily basis cause an average weight gain of 20-30 pounds a year , he will need them for life . He also had a pain clinic appointment where they told him theres nothing more they can do . So hes very down .
Best laugh of the week he got till 3pm yesterday before he remembered it was his birthday . He always says not to bother , so we didnt . Really we had bothered, so now he keeps calling us names , his other thought was, we could stick a candle on a ryvita instead of birthday cake . Or perhaps dip it in Chinese 5 spice for old times sake .
His weight always gets him down, hes very self conscious that hes perceived as a fat idle benefit scrounger by those who see him .
Helpful comments about getting a free gym membership , or getting a gastric band arent helpful, there is so little he can do safely, once he gets to the stage where he is wheelchair bound he will be in a better situation , theres not many people can say that is there ?

Thrifty Shopping

So who else would go to a jumble sale and pick up what i thought was a bit of net curtaining and then realise they had bought a vintage wedding veil 30ps worth of nice , not a clue what i will do with this its very 1950s 1960s . I thought the dressing up box could use it , but the munchkin has once again never shown an interest in anything but his Mike the Knight suit many moons ago . Maybe one of them will produce a grandaughter one day , but i think it will be waiting a very long while .

But my favourite find has to be some booklets of 1930s embroidery transfers , complete with my favourite Crinoline lady , they wont go far i can squirrel these away in my vast collection .I paid far to much £1.50, for them , you can buy an awful lot of out of date spuds with that amount..lol

   

Finally from the Bridge Community Venue , I got a whole carrier bag full of crocheted doilies , theres an awful lot of beautiful tatted ones , a myriad of colours and designs , miles of tatted trim , always useful a whole £1 the bagfull I just need a big dark velvet curtain and i can see a cushion project coming on . I will add it to the car boot hunting list . So thats my thrift budget for the week £2.80

Just need the weather to get that bit better and warmer and i will feel the urge to actually do a car boot myself, theres a winters worth of castoffs to dispose of , once i get motivated . But working seven days a week is a bit of a killer I'm afraid