Shop Till You Drop

 Ive had a really odd shopping week , popped to Asda because someone pointed out they were doing Smart Price corned beef , its proper old school corned beef it contains fat and is texturally just right for sandwiches , unlike the grossly overpriced sliced mush you get in packets which is supposedly healthier. The problem is like all the cheap Asda stuff its well hidden and they dont always have it , bottom shelf slid right to the back there was just a single box , it was after 8 at night so hardly any staff about so i climbed down and slid my arm in to grab a few tins , to do this i had to lay on my side on the floor because i was having some if it killed me . Trouble was once i stretched my arm out to get them i was stuck, muscle spasm at the best of times, now all i can do at this point is lay there till it releases, i was there a good 5 minutes as the odd person wandered past just looking at me funny . But thats the thing about ASDA now matter how strange the things you see its best to pretend you have seen nothing and i got up eventually.

Morrisons to take BIL for his eye test , park other half in the cafe , go to get a few bits all heavy big stuff that we havent bought for 3 months , get to the tills and theres only 4 humans and the queues down the shop as no one with an ounce of sense uses their never working  scanner tills . But we were ordered to use the self service , so i got piling it all on the belt as the woman before me had to summon the little dweeb 10 times because it wouldnt scan stuff , the woman across from me was arguing with the little dweeb because the till was charging her more than the prices and offers she had bought she eventually stormed off and left her shopping . It gets to my stuff and the little dweeb shuts the till im on and tells me i will have to move to another till then bogs off , after loading it up and carting it to the queues' down the store  i eventually get served by now its taken 40 minutes !!!  

So then its Farm Foods for all the stuff himself loves , i get the same crap every 3 months and my this weeks bill has risen from 56.00 to 71.00 bleedin hell,  himself goes off his head when i give him the receipt as if its my fault and this was without a few bits they didnt have in . i purposely didnt get any Weetabix !!!
 

Ho Hum

 Its that time of the morning where i get a cuppa and enjoy the silence , just off to get grandson up , well give him a shout and see if he surfaces ...lol ..then potter off to the local car boot , need some veg and hes good for carrying , plus will need extra veg because ive just found out that useful son has been stuffed by Universal Credit and has been left with 12 quid to survive the month hes hoping more work comes in once the jubilee is over with . But hes coming to stay for the week over the Jubilee so im now going to have to perform full on miracles with a budget of zilch and spend the next fortnight as full time domestic servant to them all . Im trying to think what garden slavery i can set them on with ...lol 

When is a party not a party? when its a Boris party !  then once youve declared how sorry you are you promptly change all the rules so you cant get in this bother again . Can no one rid us of this troublesome beast ? . Then you promptly bribe everyone with an energy payment to shut up and vote Tory for your snap election while that tin of spam Keir Starmer is still doing his when is a party not a party performance , pretending that Boris doesnt own the Police in this country is farcical he always gets the results he wants. .

DWP

 well i knew yesterday would be fun so i had planned the morning for a trip to the GPs  about the anemia letter and to pick up prescriptions just to really cheer me up I got the witch at the window she has a new extra large name badge now , maybe so we can all report her easier?  or specially for the pensioners shes so helpful for . Anyway for a change himselfs prescription was wrong , so they were thrown at me with much mumbling , then the usual argument about him having to fetch his own class A painkillers , told her to turn round and wave at him , he was on a non walking day and as i was registered carer i am allowed to collect them . Then i got a whole lecture about people who think theyre entitled as the other staff looked on bewildered , it went quite well really. 

Went home had my dinner and settled down for the DWP  only twice through the endless automatic authentication process it only cut me off once for a change , then only 20 minutes of bad hold music and i even got my favourite Eeyore DWP employee , i think we must have been assigned to him. Anyway he recognizes me by now , and he said he could guess what the problem was , my carers was being stopped because himself had been cured by computer yet again , correct .  They have now had his renewal for a year and they admit they havent even looked at it yet and theyre not looking at any because theres been some sort of legal spat between ATOS and the government . Eeyore admits they are being told nothing and have just been told to press the extend button , ring him again in 3 months when they decide to cut my carers off again . I did once i got off the phone try to look up the Atos dispute , couldnt make a lot of sense of it , must have been written by Boris . Anyway i think it boils down to Atos not being paid because they are shite and its all going to the supreme court next week . See my political insight is great isnt it ?

The Oracle

 So ive got my crystal ball out and polished it and what do i see errrrrrrr. Monkeypox the next big thing?  So this is supposedly very hard to catch without skin to skin contact ? Now for those of us who are old enough to remember the Maggie times when HIV was subject to its whole its just for poufs gay plague on prime time tv ive noticed some rather nasty press articles about this being just for gays , diabolical crap blaming people for sexual practices that are dangerous , its like a rerun of the 80s . 

Sometimes i think the Tories wont be happy till we are back in their glory days Victorian England , shove the poor kids up a chimney and the return of the doss house , theyve already got the online workhouse Universal Credit , moaning that nobody wants to work in the fields or do jobs that wont pay the rent. Affordable childcare is a bit of a myth , you get most of the cost back eventually but that eventually can be weeks or months away , so how do you live till then ? Oh i forgot thats what foodbanks are for . We have a demoralized NHS  slogging away every day , visited them milles away the other day and the lovely bloke said that all the local services had been made redundant , they have no consultant to supervise because hed gone and set up his own private practice ...ho hum devotion doesnt pay your bills does it . We got a letter from the doctors stating all the conditions they are not treating anymore , sadly anemia was on the letter it had been highlighted , obviously other half is expected to become a vampire to get his 5 pint top up in future , he doesnt have go get a packet of iron tablets anemia , he has a rare genetic condition that means he cant absorb iron so he needs transfusions regularly    ...i will argue this one out tomorrow. Then theres the DWP i will waste hours of my life tomorrow trying to find out why they are cancelling my carers yet again they have now had his renewal documents for a year and have done nothing ...Himself has commented its time i murdered him , got a nice warm cell, tons of books and decent food 

Brain Washed and Rinsed

I decided to read the online Daily Mail to see  what bees my mother would have in her bonnet . It never gets any better. Still the Boris comic im afraid . But i had a thought , his dear old dad is set to become a French citizen does this mean we could have Boris deported there?  Then we have the hilarious comic antics of Depp and Heard best comedy in a courtroom for years . Pair of drunken drug addicts playing he said she said, not an ounce of class , she cant act and hes living on past glories they really deserved each other , though the turd in the bed was a tad extreme that and keeping the money she said she was giving to charity .  He thought he was marrying the beautiful starlet , instead he got  a bullying harpy with expensive tastes and a whole host of parasitic family members and cling ons , at which point he just descended into a drink and drug stupor. But destroying his career with her abuse claims is bitter and twisted they were equally as bad as each other and it does point out that society thinks the man is always guilty and the women survivor some kind of heroine. Meanwhile in the UK we get the Wagatha trial which should never have been given court time , lets litigate we are rich should have been the name for this one . What a pair of daft tarts mrs Rooney and Vardy are , the whole thing is like the plot of a highschool movie , defamation my arse a pair of twelve year olds would have settled this better . Mind you nobody would have wanted to steal the others fella or bitch slapped and pulled out a few hair extensions, Im still wondering quite how the size of Peter Andres winky got dragged into this? 

Currently a neighbor is kindly going round and reading the paper to mother as she is now considered blind , partly due to her own stubbornness , one eye has had it due to macular degeneration but the other has a cataract that needs to be removed , the eye consultant refuses to treat it because of her age 89 . the latest excuse is that she has nobody to care for her full time . She could quite easily afford to go private and it would be done within two weeks , she could have a few days as an inpatient and be looked after , then home able to see but she wont hear of it , shes paid into the NHS all her life is the refrain . I keep telling her to be careful they dont just ram her into a pissy high seat chair in a nursing home , the council have been informed and theyre always looking to fill beds up with paying customers. Stubbornness is going to be her downfall , shes all there mentally , and for her age amazingly independent and mobile .      

Swings nd Roundabouts

 Well ive not a lot to say , im still sleeping well over 12 hours a day and getting lots of snide remarks from himself , so yes Covid has given me sleeping sickness as a souvenir im sure it will straighten itself out eventually . Mr Bah Humbugs cronies are all popping round for their check hes still alive visits , though they seem a bit put out that we dont want to go to endless festivals and motown nights , its a bit hard really to explain that we dont drink due to funds and we dont go out due to the cost of fuel . Himself has started fishing for the season so theres bugger all funds extra for anything . We just hit a crap vehicle expenses phase as you do , so 3 months income has gone on them , we are trying to future proof for the move to Universal Credit . The cupboards may be bare but im working on that bit by bit . We just dont want to have to take any government loans towards surviving the Universal Credit uptake . We need to be at least 6 weeks ahead with the rent and council tax at the point they change us over , the way things are going price wise I dont think this is achievable, but hey ho i can try . Im sure everything will go tits up once we go to Universal Credit being as all funds will be paid to him at that point and things wont get paid if he sees something rusty he likes the look of . Ive just got to insist that they pay the rent and council tax direct thats the thing that does concern me . I find it ridiculous that hes classed as head of the household so receives everything and you just cease to exist your his minion  , you receive nothing and if your lucky your partner may give you a few crumbs from the table , its all very back to the dark ages . But isnt that the Tory way 

Grim Reaper

So i get a bit of luck and next Covid enters the building , Mr BH decides hes dying we were just glad he lost his voice , i was just glad he didnt cough much . Anyway by Tuesday he has a hissy fit and decides that i need to call 111 because he cant breathe , soft lad was having a panic attack his colour was good and his chest sounded fine and his blood pressure was good , he merely coughed and his cracked ribs that never get better scared him . Now im very fatalistic , hes got dozens of choices of stuff to kill him , a sore throat and a wee cough arent going to do it . But what never crossed his mind was that he had passed it on to me and i promptly slept for 3 days and woke up with every one of my regular shingles sites burning like somebody had tipped acid on them they all turned bright red and angry but have since gone,  all very weird. So what happens when your carer takes to her bed ?  Chaos  , they ran out of pots, there were no ready meals left in the freezer, no washing done . I arose from my crypt ready to kill them . I got a bin bag and shovelled all the pots into it and informed them they could keep a mug and a plate . told them to catch up with the washing and to eat something that resembled food and went back to sleep . woke up this morning feeling reasonable the clean pots have been fished from the bin , son had done his washing but left everybody elses for which he got a rollicking and theyd defrosted a pack of mince . then himself says im sorry but you need to look at the bedroom aaaaarrrrggghhhh  i opened the door to a murder scene himself had one of his epic nose bleeds in his sleep, we have good quality waterproof bedding so that was salvageable but hed ruined a couple of pillows and had sprayed the wall somehow they had tried to clean up but used hot water so its now needs decorating and the carpet needs replacing which i dont have the funds for , i just shut the door and left it im past caring , i was sleeping in the other room so as not to spread it , now son has it ...lifes bleedin great. 

All this time ive managed to keep Covid out of the house and my BIL donated it, he was fine but his son and missus had it AAARRRGGGHHH

Just Why

 im sure there is some weird mental reason that when himself really pigs me off I decide to bid on a load of auctions , this week i left a load of tiny bids on a tender auction , you dont go to them, all you have is a truly awful picture to go by and if your bid placed online is the highest you win . I won just one auction lot and the only reason i bid was the fact i thought i saw wool in a clear plastic bin and it said material as well ,You can never have to much of either in my book , the picture really did look like a pile of boxes . Now i went to pick this up Saturday with much moaning from himself  and there was twice as much as shown . But on getting it all home errr well , theres wool promptly stolen by my daughter .  The material turned out to be a huge box of clothes never opened all in their bags and with an invoice still in , all tiny sizes but again a lot stolen by daughter , a box of various craft tools , a box of unopened hair scrunchies and ornaments , enough garment bags unused to fill a wardrobe, unopened gifts , a huge stack of hats from mother of the bride to cricket umpire , two brand new with invoice craft bags , one stolen by daughter a big vanity case, Belgium lace doileys new in packs, Belgium lace curtains a pair of american  leather boots brand new in box again stolen by daughter the price was over a hundred pounds !!. Brand new shoes in boxes. lots of cross stitch stuff  that will go into the bag of doom we pass round in a winter among us skint crafters , and  theres a box of greetings cards and notelets that i have no use whatsover for....lol   Theres was also a little set of wooden drawers still price tagged at 29.99  that were rather nice , they got even better when i found that the reason they felt so heavy was that who ever did the clearance hadnt checked them and the bottom drawer was crammed with jewelry, pretty ghastly home shopping jewelry, but some of it is gold so has scrap value if nothing else . So for a grand total of 8 quid  with commission i will gain a chunk of cash towards the winter oil fund !!  Mr BHs comment... and i cant even have bloody Weetabix . I didnt tell him about the gold    

Spring Sprung

 Busy busy busy , but im having to tackle stuff in short bursts then lay about like a Victorian damsel on a chaise unable to move ...lol  not to big a problem so long as a good book is to hand and im able to hold said book and my concentration is something like due to lack of sleep . Mr BH has developed more annoying habits just when im at a bit of a low point AARRRGGGHHH  latest sticking point is he cant grasp that when it comes to groceries prices are rocketing and our budget isnt able to go up . We had a whole argument about Weetabix the other day he only noticed ive been feeding him own brand for months because for some reason they are now a different shape than his usual . trying to explain that his actual Weetabix are 5.65 a box and we just cant afford them has got me nowhere . He hasnt noticed that im feeding him quite a lot of utter crap these days, its strange that we have now started weetabix wars . But im sorry you cant have a steak diet on a workhouse budget . He decided he was going to help me shop better and decided to supervise my online morrisons order . He spotted a pound  offer on Birds Eye stuff so ordered 3 dippers 3 burgers 3 god knows what , i then pointed out that due to shrinkage theyre were only 10 dippers per box which means that he would eat them on one plate , and that we would struggle to find a bun small enough to put the burgers in . Then he got on to fruit and i struggled to get him to understand that paying a couple of pounds for the 3 apples he liked cant happen when for 2.25 you can get a big bag of generic eaters  , same with the fruit pots he loves we cant afford them anymore . Sausages were his next target , he wont eat the cheapest sausage theyre not worth buying , but he decided he wanted the posh ones once again i had to point out that there are only 6 in the pack these days and that as he eats at least 4 to himself what does everybody else do ?  he is hideously greedy at the best of times , which is the main reason hes the size he is . I do try to fill his plate with plenty of veg but this time of year the garden isnt up and producing yet , so pickings are a bit lean . Im trying to cut down on cooking to save electricity so last night id tea and a large quiche in the oven , got up this morning and half tonights tea quiche has gone , hed already been on a moan because it was a meat free quiche due to him snaffling the sausage id saved to make it with , what he didnt know was id made it with half a bag of out of date salad , a dried up half an onion a couple of very sad mushrooms scrapings from his christmas chutney  and mouldy cheese ends hope he enjoyed it!!!

Rwanda anyone?

 Latest spiffing idea from the Tories we will ship our asylum seekers and boat people to Rwanda after all the genocide was back in 1994 its an up and coming country and it has nearly as many human rights violations as say China.  So the plan is to build immigration centers there and conveniently forget the poor sods we send there? theres not many lefty lawyers out there and it may be hard to speak to clients on zoom. Legal challenges are already bring fielded but being illegal wont stop our current government . Patel fancied using any off shore island she could get her claws on then found their were an awful lot of millionaires on the Isle of Wight plus it wasnt surrounded by sharks . How long before these evil shits decide to start building care facilities and old folks homes out there? You know its coming . plus the usual suspects will be making a few bob out of the idea . Plus theres the added bonus of killing a bigger proportion of the elderly and disabled , current favorites are any variety of hepatitus tb and malaria  with added yellow fever dengue fever HIV and diarrhea 

High nd Low

 So I finally got my British Gas voucher on the 7th so that it was worth less than half its cover value , it took a few days to get it onto the meter because the only post office that grasps how to do this is a few miles away . I am touching my forelock with gratefulness and cant grasp how they have gotten away with doing this .  Just to emphasize my role as scrounging benefit claimant , i asked the local council what is the procedure for the 150 pound council tax refund for those of us who receive council tax benefit already , total none response to that question just an apology that their IT system is currently unable to deal with the matter . Being a scrounger is a full time job, that and admin for other half's endless appointments and reschedules , nothing happens easily these days and trying to co ordinate tests to appointments is fun not helped by the fact that if they get himself on the phone he doesnt make an awful lot of sense and will start shouting if he gets confused. 

Heavy gardening season is upon us and im making the most of having the munchkin for as many days as possible but he keeps being stolen by grandad for welding school , grinding school , replace the brakes on the van school ...lol hes quite accomplished at 13 in the world of rusty blokes , grandad sits on a plastic garden chair and rains abuse down on all the boys heads but they learn, munchkin was whinging to uncle who informed him be glad he can only shout these days he used to chase us with a yard brush  . His mother has said she hasnt seen him on line hardly , its because we are working him to death , hes sleeping well for a change . Baffles me that people cant see that boys and girls  need to be doing something other than hanging about on street corners or hiding behind a screen . Donate your teenagers to a neighbor who needs a hand with garden chores or any chores . it forces them to socialize. Being able to occupy yourself seems to be a dying trait . Its all exams are your only reason for living these days   Theres that age in all teenagers where they get into mischief out of boredom.  Then i managed to scrounge a couple of divan bases to strip and make garden cages of , ongoing job theyre stripped and awaiting painting with wood treatment i already have the mesh to cover them. Today is going to be huge bonfire shortly . I have a load of next doors rotten garden furniture going on the pyre and then the potatoes will go in the cleared ground s , ive saved some very green baking spuds for one row . something i seem to spend money on . Then this year i will try my favourite failure carrots , im hoping the cages will stop the carrot root fly we get plagued with . Busy times   

British Gas A Gripe

 So lets raise this matter . I have never had any problems with British Gas we inherited a prepayment meter when we moved in . They did refuse to remove it because we were a council property , they removed the previous occupiers debts and it was just pay as you go all that was 15 years ago in the days when we had a village post office with staff who had no idea what to do with the magic wand to put credit on it and we were the only poor people in this village . When the village shop closed a couple of years ago we had to accept a smart meter to continue to get pre pay . When MR BH became rather spectacularly disabled in a blink of an eye back in 2017 they were very helpful at getting him on the at risk register . We were advised to apply for the Warm Front grant and it has been fine till this year . We usually receive it in March its 140 quid  , in a bid for the disabled to die overwinter so cutting the numbers . This March nothing , despite applying  back in August 2021 and receiving an email confirming we would get this at the time . in the last couple of weeks ive tried to ring them umpteen times and after a 30 minute wait got through to India to be told i had already received it back in February and they couldnt look into it till after the 1st of April . The other day i noticed bragging adverts all over the media about how theyre giving 2 million to the fund so more people can claim so ive haunted them on facebook and twitter asking them whats going on . Then i realised that those on prepayment meters havent received it hundreds of us and they promptly shut down the comments as fast as they were written . cant get through on the phone at all. but early this morning i tried a new one of their adverts on , this is the reply

British Gas

Hi Kay, thanks for sending your details over. I can see the payment was made onto your account in March so the voucher will have been issued in the last sweep last week so you should get it soon. The voucher code hasn't updated on your account yet to confirm but this is due to be done next week if you want to check back after Wednesday. Thanks, Charlotte

Enter

You sent

so when i credit it to my meter it will be worth half the value due to the rise in rates?

Enter

Sun 10:37

British Gas

I appreciate it may feel that way, but I assure you it is not intentional that the payments have been sent out just before the price rise