Gilded Cage

Back to frugal

2012-01-29T02:43:00.000-08:00

After the decision for the DLA appeal, I received a letter from the DWP office. Apparently they aren't going to pay out my son's DLA until they review the court's decision. And they may even consider appealing the decision as well. This is unheard of - actually very rare, but just another way the DWP wants to keep screwing about. There's nothing I can do at this point although the letter says if the decision will "cause me hardship" I should contact them. Well tying up about £400 a month with dithering is indeed a bloody hardship, thank you, my son needs new shoes and I need the money to get him into a taxi to get him some. Sods.

So a stroppy letter shall be written and I'll have to get my social worker to back this up as well. If they're stupid enough to drag this to an Upper Tribunal, I'll be beyond angry but I have to keep in mind that they might. However considering the panel came to the decision very quickly with no further input from me I doubt the DWP has a case.

In any event, what this means for me right now is I have to bank on losing a fair bit of dosh away for a little bit, and be careful with money. We've been eating from the pantry but we're running low on supplies, so I've got an order to make, letters to write, and have to dole funds out a bit over the next month or two. It's not a dire situation, but it's tighter than I'd like it to be. Even so, the perks are I am looking at the extensive mini-orchard I've got going at the moment and I will be sorted for fruit, onions and garlic this year!

At home, due to one too many blowups (and also getting rather tired of child doing little but video games) I've put up a timesheet which has various activities spanned out over the day and week. We have cooking times together, and reading and writing times (not without considerable issues, it must be said). He has play time, room clean time, time doing OT balance board, time outside. He can now look and see what's coming up, and there's a lot less fuss. He actually spent a half hour doing his room in a way that pleased him - I was impressed! It's not a perfect system; if son knows that an activity he doesn't really like is coming up, he can obsess over it and wind himself up for hours before the activity. Not fun, but it's just all part of the parcel, and we carry on.

Next week is busy as I have appointments to make, letters to write and things to do. But I'll get them done. I've stitching to do as well, and plants to prepare but with daily outdoor activity on the cards I hope moving around will do me some good.

Changing gears

2012-01-26T11:16:00.000-08:00

Even though it's only the end of January, I've been feeling the urge to get ready for planting and moving forward this year. Things are still rather grim for many people (if you've been following the "progress" of the Welfare Reform Bill, it ain't pretty), and I've had to make a decision, once again, about working. As in, I shouldn't be. Health and sprog stuff still too tenuous. I can do half-arsed in just about everything I'm currently doing right now, or I can take some time to actually concentrate on one thing at a time, and when I feel stronger and more steady about Life, the Universe, and everything, I'll work.

So painting and writing is back to "hobby" status. I do it when I want to. I don't do it if I don't feel like it. Yes, I'll miss the tax credits but I won't miss the stress and late hours and frustration of trying to ship orders without a vehicle. The "Frost Thurse" and the painting of "Mani of the Moon" were both done with no pressure over a very short period of time, just playing, experimenting, and having fun with the process without expectation. It was easy, at least as far as compared to grinding out "popular" pieces for people to buy on various holidays. I like that really. It can stay that way for a while; it means I have time to play and learn without sticking slavishly to a schedule. It also means I have time to make glorious mistakes, and maybe learn from them in order to keep from doing them again. I suppose I should be freaked out about the lack of income, but I'm feeling rather sanguine about it. That's probably the sign it's the right thing to do. Sleep, heal, grow, learn. Rinse, repeat, enjoy.

In the interim, I've got a bunch of stuff to get into the ground - I've planted seeds for herbs, I'm still putting shallots in the ground, topdressing all the potted minarettes I have. I've put the hazels into position, started thinning raspberry canes and still trying to get an idea where the loganberry will go. The ligonberry is currently in a pot, the bilberry as well (and I've put some orange peels into that pot to keep the acidity higher). The honeyberries will get put into a long box until they get rather well established then I'm considering putting them down in the mini orchard. I still want to know how the light falls down there in spring and fall. It seems the sun gets lost at the moment due to the wall and the lower elevation, but maybe the sun hits pretty full during the summer.

I haven't had a chance to slog about looking for hazelnuts yet, but I've heard people say the catkins are out already! In January! Yowza. If my feet will manage to allow me, I want to go out and slog to try and find if there are any hazels nearby. I know where the acorns are, but I haven't found much else. Will have to do a full forage when I have more time, energy, and less pain, but that will take time.

Yes, that's the thing - pain. Too much of it, and I'm in a place where my support base is well away from me now. I've no fall back plan if I'm flaring, and so I have to keep flares at bay. I am now exactly in the cusp of three counties; on the one hand, there's the hospital I had before which, while nice, didn't have much to actually help me with the arthritis I have. On the northern tip is a very nice hospital specifically dedicated to rheumatic diseases (one that is so nice, some of the patients who recommended it me say it's more like going to a resort than a hospital!). There's a lot more treatments and management - entire clinics for conditions rather than a leaflet and a "good luck", and that's what I need. Can't erase the conditions but I at least don't want them ruling my bloody life as much as currently.

Have to manage the pain and fatigue to be able to drive, to learn how much of the latter I can handle, learn everything. Lots to do. Lots to do.

I'm giving myself the time to do it.

So tomorrow I have the social services in to discuss a very complicated plan solely to give me four hours a month of coverage if I have to go to hospital or doctor appointments (yes, it's a joke but still, four hours better than the nothing I had previously). They want to give me "more choice" by fobbing the job of finding someone, keeping track of pay schedule, actually act as an employer and do taxes, get maternity coverage, and all that stuff I've just had to STOP doing. Thanks, but I'll hire a service and save myself some hassle. On Monday the local "Neighbours" which helps to connect elderly and vulnerable people to make sure they're getting everything they need. Then I have GP visits and blood tests and all sorts of stuff I have to get done, paperwork, and preparations.

And sleep. And painting. And seeds. And cats. And tea. And devotions. And breathe.

Breathe.

Winning the War

2012-01-23T04:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a grim time, really; child regularly excluded, me not able to get to appointments, everyone dithering, two tribunals (yes, two, I'm about to get to that). But I'm winning the war. Things are happening. Things are falling into place.

Today, completely out of it due to utter lack of sleep, I got a phone call. My son's tribunal hearing today, and I was nowhere near ready. Wait, what? What tribunal? The clerk explained to me it was for my son's DLA, contesting his low rate mobility. Blearily I tried to remember when I had tried to apply that. March? May? In any event, the Panel was there looking at the files I had sent and asked if I wanted to attend (which means they'd have to adjourn). I felt rather stupid but said that would do.

I got a call five minutes later. The clerk again; apparently the panel had had a good look at the paperwork of my son's report and decided that on this basis they would grant high rate mobility and his high rate care stands as well. No review till 2014.

I hung up, speechless, then squee'd like an idiot for a half hour. FINALLY, the full package. No more being told "well surely he could just walk 2 miles...". No more "well can't he just get on the bus?" Done. Sorted. Dusted. Squared. I am over the moon - I can even think about applying for a bunch of other things now; discount rates on taxi fares, Blue Badge, all sorts which will make life easier. And a car! I could get a Motability car now, provided I can get assessed for driving and so on.

Such a huge deal, I can't stop grinning. Independence would be nice - I know, it's early, there's still a lot to consider, and while I'm sleep deprived is not the best time. But just when I thought the Monday was a good start, it got better; social worker called and the panel has approved me getting hours of care so I can attend appointments (so no longer need to panic if I can't get a hospital appointment while son is in school). I also have the respite weekend approved so one weekend a month sproggo will go to a foster family so I can have a break. This is also coming together - granted, it's nowhere near enough help but it's better than nothing at all.

Now, I'm ecstatic - things are going well and we're making progress on all fronts. This is good. But...well, the thing is, I had to fight for how long for all this to happen? Why even deny my claim when a Tribunal panel takes five minutes to realise what the real issue is - (and that goes for my DLA and the SEN tribunal)? Why did it take a year of useless Social Services, three different assessments, four OTs and nothing happened until I wrote to the Ombudsman? In these times where the Hardworking Taxpayer is whipped into a frenzy over people like myself and my son, why oh why make it more difficult, more expensive, and more time-consuming? The evidence was there. It was always there. Nothing changed but the fact I had to beat the bureaucracy over the head and shoulders before they'd admit I was right in the first place.

How can that possibly be saving the big bucks the Government insists on by kicking us off the system? How can this give the results they're projecting? And how is it anyone can possibly believe a word of it?

Ugh.

Anyway, the good news is still the good news; help and support is trickling in, and considering the utter dearth of same up to this point, I'm content with it. A few more things to push on at the moment, true, but this is still some great progress.

On the gardening front, being the early bird wot I am, I ordered some kiln-dried logs for the chimenea and fire pit, as well as a bunch of potting soil and manure to start planting and topdressing everything properly. Son and I have had some celebratory toffee cake and even though last week was a big kerfuffle (I banned him from computers and video games due to behaviour), we're slowly getting back into things and the house is a cheerier place as a result.

I'm still absolutely shattered, but I'll carry on today. It's a good day.

The Elephant in the Room

2012-01-17T07:00:00.001-08:00

I went to the Tribunal Panel today; feeling rather calm. I felt there was plenty of evidence and I also felt that maybe, just maybe, the Panel might actually have a look at how mainstream was, or wasn't working for my son.

I wasn't prepared for the fact that the first thing that was said to me was "How do you feel about your child being in mainstream?"

The LA rep - a man the local authority actually hired out of retirement to fight against my Statement, that's how desperate they are - was completely gobsmacked. I gave evidence about the fact I had been told before we even started that I had been warned mainstream would be a nightmare. I pointed to all the evidence which had been given, I told them that even here in late January my son was only attending one hour a day. I told them he had been excluded eight times, and had just been excluded after 15 minutes last week. The current head even gave evidence to how resistant his teacher is to re-training, and I was able to reiterate that this was going to happen no matter what mainstream school my son was in.

The LA rep tried to say "I thought we were only going to discuss Parts 2 and 3", but the Panel replied with "That is very true, and technically yes. But the simple fact of the matter is there's an elephant in the room; namely that mainstream may be entirely and totally the wrong place for him."

The Panel asked my advice, spoke to the head, again, and then asked for a recess. The other witnesses called by the LA actually came over to me practically cheering - I get it, they are required by their jobs to back the LA up, even though they may personally feel it's completely wrong to do so. But they were so relieved I had made the right statements, asked the right questions, and danced rings around the opposition.

However, there was a bit of a down point. We were called back and the Panel decided to go with an adjournment; to get the behaviourial team into the school to try and get my son into at least SOME school for the time being, but also to give me time to start looking for other schools if that is what I wished to do, and for the school itself to give its views after a month of the behavioural team's intervention. Everyone was struck dumb and completely silent - I guess we all thought the Panel would said "Right, he has to go to a specialist school" and people were gutted that didn't happen. Still, it's not their jurisdiction - they don't know what's around, they don't know what's available as they're not local.

It's not a perfect solution by any stretch. However, it is still a lot better than I could have hoped. The truth of the matter is there's so much that the independent advisors insisted needs to be in place for my son, the most sensible thing to do would be to send him to a school that already does this sort of thing, rather than expect a mainstream school to reskill for one child. And that apparently is exactly what they felt as well.

So, I have come home and I've started the hunting down yet again. There's one school left which we may be able to look at in Wiltshire, but only the one. There are others in Dorset but they're so far away it then becomes a question of whether or not my son needs a residential placement. Right back where I was earlier last year, in other words, but at least this time no one can tell me I should back down on it, as even the Panel sees the need.

This is a victory, really. I hope I can finally get things secured for my son this year and then maybe we can all breathe a lot easier and just get on with life.

I have sticks!!!

2012-01-15T01:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm seriously that excited about a bunch of sticks being delivered. These however aren't just any old sticks - these are the three hazelnuts, the minarette Victoria plum and cranberry I've ordered. I am very chuffed indeed! These are all going to get heeled into the ground today as it's just a bit too wet and frosty out there for me to put them into their final places, but I'm thrilled for their arrival and looking forward to production.

Yesterday was a spa trip and it was a bril trip, six hours of sprawling in various steam rooms and having a snooze on the waterbeds and heated loungers. My skin looks clearer than it has done in yonks. About the only complaint was that the chatty gaggle of women who flooded the place couldn't quite understand what "quiet rooms" meant and sang and cackled through their whole trip. Ugh, I'd pay an extra £10 for earplugs.

Today is a day I dedicate to finishing up my final touches on the tribunal report and hopefully get some painting in, do some gardening and a few other bits and bobs before the rigours of the week. Tuesday is going to be a very long day and I hope I can get through it. I've got a lot to do, and I despair a bit at the sheer immensity of it all. But I'll endure and once we cross one thing off the list, I can get the other 146 things done in time.

So, while the sun is shining and the day is glorious, I'm going to do that.

All a-flurry

2012-01-12T01:57:00.000-08:00

Child was excluded again on Monday, for an entire week. I actually said this to several teachers I know and they're staggered. "A school that has a child in it for a grand total of an hour a day and can't even cope within 15 minutes has a lot to answer for." Yes, I know. Tribunal next week so I'm going through the bundle. School again calls me and asks "Why isn't he in a special school?" They keep saying this as if it's somehow my fault and I'm personally being the obstacle. I had to explain all over again that the LEA keeps telling me special schools aren't an option and that child should be in mainstream.

The school is telling me one thing but has written something completely different. I am trying to structure my arguments to stick to the main points being raised and not just call them out directly, but that's requiring sheer force of will. The thing to do here is to get the provision in place. If the school simply cannot cope, then within three months time an emergency meeting is held (again) and the school (again) brings to the attention of LEA that mainstream isn't working. This time, I'll attend that meeting and back the school up. This time, I'll be sure the LEA doesn't give us a "wait and see" message. We've been doing that for the past year and a half. It hasn't worked. This time, I'm not going to tell anyone what I'm thinking. The last school was flailing and floundering but at least they tried. This one can't be arsed. I know it - but I won't call them on it. I'll just use what they can give me and if I have to push again for special placement, then I will.

In meantime, stealth-education at home has continued on. Child is learning cooking, cleaning (under duress, but he's beginning to understand the merits of it), he's got a science-and-maths weekend booked with his dad and we're doing reading at home. It's not quite homeschooling and it's not quite as effective as I'd like either - I know I'm missing things - but it's better than the absolute nothing he's getting from the Local Authority.

On the health front, I'm running out of medication again but I just don't have the energy to chase it up right now. It would mean dragging child out of house with me, booking taxi, waiting, trying to get bloods done with child standing right there (not a chance, he's terrified of needles and they really have to dig sometimes for my veins), then bundling back home. Ugh. I'm exhausted and possibly heading into a flare but to be truthful I have no time for flares right now. Soldiering on is the point right now, so will do.

I was awakened this morning by birds. It's a good two months too early for the birds to be trying to impress the...er...birds, but they're doing it. Stridently. And with feeling and emphasis. Is this our spring, then? In January? Blimey. While it's certainly too wet to be doing anything gardeny, I did get some joy when my honeyberry, bilberry and ligonberry showed up yesterday! The ligonberry is fascinating; a very common plant in Scandinavia, it's sort of a "wild cranberry" and is as common in Sweden and Norway as the bramble here in the UK. I'm very glad to have it, and looking forward to working with it. The bilberry and honeyberry are, at the moment, mere sticks. I couldn't get any ericaceous compost this year but what I do have (from all my blood orange consumption!) is a lot of orange peels, and these will get added to pots as the year lengthens a bit.

I am also now the proud owner of a fire pit and chimenea - the latter arrived broken, but I got a refund and even upgraded to something larger. This is good news and means sprog and I can lounge outside and cook as well, enjoying the outdoors as is our wont well into the night. One for front and back spaces seems a win! I am tempted to put the sprawly bed out front however rather than in the back but we'll see how it goes first - as it stands the best sun is in the front and I suspect I'll have to be moving most of my potted plants to the front to get the best production of fruit so it may end up rather crowded!

Today's mission - I have some partridge and wild rabbit to cook up with mushrooms and wild rice (noms!), as well as trying to prepare my brain for next week's push. On Saturday I am going to the spa (which hopefully will not end with emergency child stuff, must stay positive, must stay positive!). Really going to live it lush this weekend, as the hard stuff is on Tuesday, then maybe, just maybe, I can take a breath and get child back into school, get back to painting, get back to life.

Well, hello Flare

2012-01-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm going to swear in this. I'm that pissed off. See, Mr Flare has come a-visiting again. I thought I had kissed him goodbye and sent him to a colony somewhere, but no.

Hello, Flare. Haven't seen you in a while; how have you been keeping yourself?

It's a pity flares aren't so pretty when they involve an immune system attack. But this is sort of what it feels like; boiling, flashes here and there of heat that becomes pain, mugginess that makes me feel slow and stupid and barely "with it".

I've been feeling the pain in my back and wrists and, true to form as someone with a chronic illness, I've just been ignoring it. I know it's there - I also know it's going to stay there. Precious little I can really do about it other than just Carry On as Normal. It's meant I cut my days at working rather short as I can't sit in the chair long enough, and it means even though I want to write I find I just can't manage it.

I've been stretching and doing yoga and a bit of time on the Wii, just getting into the routine of it, trying to work out all the kinks and pain, but after just a simple knee extension I found myself rolling around on the floor in agony. It didn't bode well, not well at all. But I still hoped. The migraines were coming back slightly as well - waking up with headaches which lingered round all day and wouldn't shift. I'm out of migraine medication but at least I have the anti-sickness pills. Still...I hoped that's all it was.

My jaw started to swell a few days ago - my teeth aren't in the best of shape but I've been brushing and flossing and using mouthwash and all that jazz to keep them in my mouth for as long as I can. I thought at first it might have been an abcess or something, but there was no pain. Calling the NHS Direct, they said I may have had swollen salivary glands. "Oh that just happens sometimes." Yeah...but the last time that happened to me it was agonising, and then the mouth ulcers started, and then the eye inflammation and then lots of hospital trips.

Don't think about it, don't think about it.

I've had to stop the naproxen due to the asthma getting rather rubbish, and I imagine that's a contributing factor; I've got no anti-inflammatory meds at the moment. It's winter. The weather has been weird, man, and I've managed to get through the holidays and over a month with child only attending an hour of school a day. The rest of the time I've been full tilt, better than I've done in a while, but it's been an insane pace.

Today was okay; I went outside, checked storm damage, put together the new fire pit, visited a neighbour with child in tow (they were lovely). I made myself a really nice lunch of lasagna and even homemade bakewell slices. I've been sipping tea and painting and taking photos in sunlight to try and perfect technique to make prints. All well and good, or I would have hoped.

But as the day crept on, I felt the pain getting worse. Realise I have no ibuprofen left - can't get anymore till Boots delivers, probably not till Monday. So, old school remedies of getting into bath, putting on my wrist braces and slowing down a bit. But it's not working. My eyes are blurring, my brain is fogging out bigstyle and I'm finding even lifting a cup of tea is very painful and requiring two hands.

Damn. I guess it's time to face the music. I've been flare-free for four months. The new medication has been fantastic and I even managed to get through a move, a stressful holiday season, and all the issues with child's school and his father without too many blips.

But the arthritis and the fibro was only lurking. The weather has been mild so it isn't been as bad as last year, at least not yet, but it was only lurking. I had just about convinced myself that I had finally slain the beast, and then it turned right around and attacked. Sue at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger has described this perfectly as the Sickie Jinx - how the real bitch about having an illness is that there are times one feels great, one can almost forget how bad the lows were in the past, that maybe the joyous state of Remission has been achieved, and then just when you're about to sing hosannas, wham! It hits you again. It's devastating. It's like discovering your illness all over again.

And just like the illness itself, there's no cure. There's no magic moment when you don't want to howl at fate for sending this shit your way. There's always a few moments where it's just as horrible as the first time your body started to betray you.

So I've had my dark moment already, when I cursed and "troubled deaf heaven with my bootless cries". I then dug out the wrist braces, ordered the ibuprofen, trying to figure out how to get Tiger Balm, taking some of child's coveted "Wumpy 3's" (omega 3,6,9 oil). I've checked the frozen food stocks if I can't do any cooking this week. Child has spent most of his day on his computer and his Wii. Any chance of reading the illustrated Hobbit book with him is gone as I can't focus long enough to read a single page. This entry has taken an hour.

Maybe I'll be able to paint from bed tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to get up and make a cup of tea. Maybe I'll be able to take care of my son and try to have a decent weekend with him. I can hope.

But for now, going to get a tea cup I can hold and get myself to bed immediately. Do not pass go.

A bit of meading

2012-01-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

The honey has arrived today! I managed to branch out a bit when it comes to honey varieties, and the first one I nabbed is what is called the "caviar" of the honey world - heather honey. This is thick as treacle and very dark, containing very "green" notes to it. I think this will lend itself brilliantly to a metheglin (herb/spice mead), I just have to decide what herbs and spices would do well. Still having a think about that but wondering if a "chai mead" might be over-reaching, or perhaps a traditional spicy "mulled mead" type loaded with spices and hints of orange. I'll continue to have a think on it, as I want to try and use some herbs from my garden - hm, lavender? Still thinking!

I also bought a non-local treat - Spanish orange blossom honey. Light, clear and sweet, my son fell in love with it the instant it came out of the package and he's eaten two helpings of honey-with-yoghurt today. I indulged as well, and I have to say this is a delightful honey - something about it just seems to whisper of spring. It's a very delicate honey and to my mind would lend itself well to an orange-spice mead (and I have blood oranges and to spare!). However its main use today was to top up two batches of mead I started in December.

I started with a raspberry, and then did a cherry shortly thereafter. I originally used a raw variety of honey from Europe - I had originally intended to use some raspberry honey but the taste was so divine that I couldn't bear to simmer it, and we ate most of it! The results after two racks and the yeast dying has been pretty good, and both are starting to clear now - note the sediment in the bottom of the fermenters.

So, it was time to sterilise the new containers and also to try out a new bit of kit - normally in order to rack your mead off the lees, you just use a bit of tube and do the whole "suck on the end and try not to choke". However, it's not always a fault-free process, and if you botch it you end up taking a fair bit of the lees off the bottom, thereby ruining the whole point of racking. This siphon however is brilliant - just a tube that you pump, which creates enough vacuum to move the mead from one bottle to the other. The really ingenius bit is a "sediment cap" which keeps all the muck off the bottom from transferring. This makes the job so easy, I couldn't believe I didn't get one sooner (but then I wasn't really mead-making again till recently - still, it will do nicely for country wines as well, I imagine).

While I was sterilising my new kit and the containers, I mixed up some top-up-mixture - there was a bit of space in the secondary fermenters which could do with adding a bit more honey, but you can't just blob it in and give it a shake; honey is a natural product and therefore has its own yeasts and bacteria - normally these are good things for you, but when you're making mead you simply can't have that happening; it means you could develop some really off flavours or your whole batch will go bad. So, I mix a ratio of one-part honey to two parts water and put it on the stove, then bring it to a simmer. The resulting scum (which is starting to form in the photo) is skimmed off, then the whole thing is brought down to room temperature. It's a sure bet to start this pretty early in the day as it will take time to cool down. I can do this as and when during the whole racking-secondary fermenting process but I prefer to wait till the yeast has died off, otherwise you run the risk of starting the yeast all over again. This is also a good way to correct a mead that is too dry; if you want it sweeter, change the ratio to 1:1 and add accordingly. This sort of top-up for melomel (fruit-based mead) seemed to lend itself well to the orange blossom, so I broke it out, made the mix, and let it simmer. The house was smelling like a boiled sweet in no time!

I racked off my first batch, then sterilised the siphon before moving to the next bottle - VERY important step that some folks miss out. Don't mix your kit between batches. Yes, it means a lot of sterilising but as I was washing the old bottles as I went, it was easy to just run some of the sterilising solution through the siphon, then run rinsewater through the lot.

At this stage, I decided to give a test with the hydrometer just to get an idea of where the sugar ratio was. Using a sterilised "wine cheater" to get a bit of the mead out the bottle, I measured and found to my surprise that both were very dry. I didn't mind this so much with the cherry as I think the acidity of the cherry flavour made for a very crisp mead, but I definitely wanted the raspberry sweeter. I have topped both up with the cooled honey/water mixture and these settle and clear a bit more, I'll take another hydrometer reading and adjust the sugar levels accordingly. It could actually take a few months before they clear entirely, and that's fine. What I was rather surprised about was the cherry actually tastes pretty good already, and it's only been a month! It's going to be brilliant when it's finally ready. The raspberry is a bit too tart and does taste rather raw, but I can also taste the hints of how it will be once it matures, and I think I'll be quite pleased with that one when the time comes.

The only drawback to all this work is the fact I've already used half the bucket of orange blossom honey. The horror! I admit I'm eyeing my brew bucket at the moment and debating what I could mix up tonight, but I've already got some fruit beer on the go in the secondary fermenter, and I've a mind to wait till we're in proper spring before making any more mead.

So, tonight it seems I'm going to be having myself a bowl of toasted muesli, yoghurt...and honey. Dinner of champions!

What to take on this year?

2012-01-03T02:24:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling the need for a new challenge (yes, I'm possibly mad); maybe due to all the scrounger rhetoric we keep getting beat up about by various political parties. With all the ranting at me that being an artist isn't a real job, and the feeling at the back of my brain that I had better make sure I brace myself for when the money stops, I've been casting about for more of what I could do round the house to get more into the "slow-living lane" - I don't want it to be a necessity, but a choice. Even so, I'm aware it may be the former soon if the Powers That Be have their way.

I was also inspired by the post Rima Staines has done recently about getting back to life, getting away from all the commercialisation and "spend-ism" that we're forced into, in order to save an economy which doesn't really have our best interests at heart. Something which gives us even more self-sufficiency, gives me more joy in the day to get up and carry on not because of some economic schedule, but because of mine and my son's. It's a gift to be able to do this...but it should be a right.

I've really struggled to try and figure out what that might be. Chickens might be an obvious choice but I don't really have the energy to deal with chickens on top of everything else I'm doing here, even though the eggs would be very welcome. If my health and responsibilities with work, child-tending, and We're All In This Together stuff was eased a bit I might have a crack at it again, but I just feasibly can't see it happening at the moment. Maybe someday, but not right now.

I considered cheesemaking - it's something I've done in the past, and I very much enjoyed it, but truth is I actually try not to eat much cheese anymore (even though I love the stuff). Cheesemaking makes more sense to me if you have a home dairy supply - it doesn't seem that efficient if I have to buy milk through a local grocery unless I can get it direct from a farm. So sadly no will do.

Preserving isn't a big one on my list either as child really isn't interested in jam, and I don't eat it much either. Most things we store either by wrapping well in the pantry, freezing in the freezer or I just dry it round the house. Surplus fruit doesn't stay around long enough to be surplus - we eat it too fast usually. Anything that is surplus is turned either into a country wine or mead.

Wildcrafting? We live in a forest area and therefore I have been trying to learn what's out there to collect and harvest. However, this also requires me to be able to splelunk through the woods for hours at a time, and that's not always possible. Not to mention, I find so far the only thing worth harvesting out there is acorns - no elders that I've found yet, no wild roses, and even the brambles seem to have been cleared out. Acorn flour is mostly for fun factor, I haven't made it in years, but even then I'll probably have more nuts, seeds, and fruits growing on my little bit of garden I won't have to tromp out in all weather.

Indeed, growing food at home is going very well, and I'm going to be improving on herbal-growing this year. We're very covered on fruit now! Veg I'm not so worried about as we can honestly buy root veg for cheaper than I can grow it, and salads and greens are easy for me to do. It has always been fruit which has been more expensive, and that's why I'm growing so much of it. If I can keep us in fruit for most of the year, I will count that a win.

I do some fabric craft (though I've yet to set up my sewing machine in the house - sewing is a summer activity for me as my hands tend to hurt too much in winter). Embroidery is fun but I've always treated that as a night-time activity after child is asleep, but these days I just don't have the time or energy - I use the evening to paint and then collapse! I suppose I could be doing more sewing, but gone are the days that used to be cheaper than just buying clothing; I tend to reserve it for special projects, but I'm not exactly in the social circle anymore. It's well useful when I have to alter child's clothing however.

I make soap and laundry detergent same as ever, just keeping it to the basics these days. This is almost vital as child reacts to so much detergent on the market and even the Ecover stuff isn't working (not to mention it's very expensive). I can make several kilos of powder at home for about a third of the cost - it's not all that time-intensive as I made up a huge batch of child-safe soap last autumn and there's still a good ten bars left to grate up. I do have to order the borax substitute and the washing soda but these are very inexpensive.

Meat-wise, I'm just about where I want to be with it; I get most of our meat locally, and we eat a lot of "wild" meat rather than standard stuff; a lot of pheasant, rabbit, venison, wild boar and so on though now and again I buy chicken. Beef is a rarity. While I've tried the more vegetarian approaches and sometimes will indulge in meat-less meals, for my health and my son's, it's important that there's meat on the table. If I have to turn to artificial supplements to give me what I need in my diet, I feel I'd rather adjust my diet first.

Painting - I admit my painting and creative efforts (which are over at my Lon'Aite blog) have hit a bit of a roadblock for reasons you can find in this blog; child, health, all sorts of things. However, I haven't stopped painting. I am just trying to find a way to get prints to people even if I'm stuck at home. I'm trying to figure out how to get transport to galleries, and this is probably something the adult services should be helping me with - not just doing the basics of washing and dressing, but staying independent and working. I'm not magically cured because I'm able to paint, far from it! But I'm trying to make a living, and with all the pressure to be a "functional part of society" then I may as well do that on my own terms as an artist. Whether people approve of my choice in trade is not my concern - that I love what I'm doing, is. I'll keep painting, and I'll keep thinking.

So I honestly had a look at everything and I've come to the conclusion that, for us at least, we've got as far into self-sufficient as we can. I'm sort of surprised about this; how did that happen?! But then it's been a process over the past few years - taking little steps to cleaning the house with natural products, baking bread by hand again and introducing child to the joy of homemade bread over storebought, picking elder-flowers with him for cordial, putting any extra money from the budget into pantry food...and here we are. My little oven makes all our bread and pizzas, I have cast iron pans for indoor and outdoor cooking, bulk flour in the pantry, russet apples wrapped in paper just waiting to be turned into crumble (and I made some yesterday with ground almonds, oats, and hazelnuts). There's things I'd like to do, but all of those things requires a future I may never have, and why hanker for it? The NOW is pretty good.

So I guess what I'll be doing this year is just enjoying the days as much as I can between tribunals and meetings and doctor's appointments and campaigns. I'll enjoy the harvests and the cup-of-tea days like today - it's storming so much outside there's not much else to do but have tea, sit and read books. This is no bad thing! I'll feed the birds, and make good, simple food, and read the Hobbit to my son (I think he might understand the humour now). I will keep an eye out for places I can improve, but I will not do so solely because an outside influence feels I should.

I will rise, and root, and live. Not just exist. May all have such a blessing.

New Year Shape-Up

2011-12-30T11:11:00.000-08:00

Well, looking back on this year there has been a lot going down - it's been a bit of a roller-coaster, but I've managed to keep my limbs in the moving vehicle at all times and not lose my lunch when it corkscrewed.

On the whole, I kept the resolutions I had made; to support artists and disadvantaged people. I am doing all right for money myself but I know all too well that all that could change, especially with all the cuts moving down the wire that it seems most people are only just starting to twig onto.

Child is sort of back at square one but with the Tribunal looming I am hoping we'll finally make some bloody progress in getting him somewhere where I can maybe, just once, breathe a bit of a sigh and relax. And, truthfully speaking, until that happens everything else is pretty much a holding pattern once again - health, getting out and about, trying to get more of my work out to the public. Everything has come to a screeching halt and while I am still painting, any chance of selling any of the work I have is laughable. I need time for that, and time I do not have.

The health front has become better, actually - diagnosis and medication has certainly helped. I've still got more to do however and the fact I'm now in the sticks with no transport is something I am continuously brought back to. I don't have a reliable transportation/respite system in place yet but things will be investigated and sorted soon on that score. And believe me, it was no different when I lived in suburbia and the bus was only about 100 yards from my front door - housebound is housebound. Still considering options; scooter? On rural roads? Dunno, man.

On the whole, honestly, things are okay - and I know that seems weird considering that we're a disabled household cut off from society and he's only in school an hour a day, but we manage, and we do things together, and my son is growing up and learning bits about the world a little at a time. Sometimes, he rages, sometimes, he's angelic. Sometimes, I have the energy to cook an amazing meal and we slurp our noodles and laugh together. Sometimes, we take walks. Sometimes, I'm too exhausted to do anything and I let him play video games all day. This is just our lives. It's just how it rolls.

If I do anything this coming year, I'm going to try and just...enjoy it a bit. That's hard to do when there's pressure all over the place to Validate One's Existence, especially with forms to explain why you're even remotely entitled to enough money to live. And I have to KEEP filling in those forms, and having meetings, and attending appointments, and getting to doctors to be told to just Keep Your Chin Up. It's hard when I know at any point the phone could ring with another child-crisis.

And yet, I washed my dishes tonight and looked out my window into the woods, watching the woodpecker that visits the feeding station outside. I watched the mist roll in thick and beautiful, and I stood outside for a few moments just to drink in a sky that isn't marred by street lights. I thought of all the planting I'll do this year, and the painting, and the sitting on the outdoor Languishment Couch. I thought of all the walks in the forest we can do, child and I, and all the things I can teach him that isn't on the National Curriculum - stuff he actually needs. We'll bake pizzas. We'll make ice cream. And maybe I'll actually have this social life thing or (gasp) - date people- like friends keep hinting.

Just before my dear friend M died, she took me to one side and said "Live. Do it. Life is too short, and you deserve it." That was me told. So if I have any resolution next year, it's not to just survive and get by - I know how to do that. But to actually live for a change? That's actually a lot harder than it sounds. I'm not sure how to do it anymore. What is it like to get a full night's sleep without interruption? What is it like not to feel any pain? To not plan your entire day around someone else and always be aware that you and only you are the one who can handle it? Dating? You're joking right? I couldn't be any more damaged goods unless you visibly put duct tape on my limbs, no man in his right mind would step into the middle of that and I'm well aware of it - most of them tell me flat out, after all.

In short, living? I've forgotten. It's like opening your makeup bag after umpteen years and realising you have no idea how to put any of it on anymore. It's a lost skill - buried somewhere between the 2am change of sheets due to the second accident of the night and having to be gently assertive (or not so gently assertive) when attending yet another meeting to stick up for your kid's rights. But one has to make the effort in any event, and try. Because honestly speaking life isn't worth a spit unless you do.

So, let's see how I do. And I hope you all manage to get a slice of Living yourselves in 2012.

Garden workout

2011-12-28T00:44:00.001-08:00

It's actually coat-optional here even heading into New Years. Go figure! The winter has been very mild, milder than the past few years, which is both a blessing and a bit of a "hm". This is rather how the weather was when I first got here however so maybe something is balancing out with the climate. Either way, it seemed a good opportunity to see what I have actually inherited out there.

First foray into the split level garden was a bit un-nerving; it's very wet down there and quite slippery. There's no paving stones as I thought there were, and I wonder if maybe at some point I should invest for the sake of stability. I'll have a think about it and maybe keep an eye out on freecycle or something.

A lot of the area was overgrown, although it had a good start; I am pretty sure the small bushes are currants (the lack of spines says no gooseberries to me) but the raspberries are also spineless, which is actually rather nice. However, they were very overgrown and the old canes hadn't been cut, so I had to do a bit of thinning. There was a fair bit of nettle in there and I have the rash on my arms to prove it! Still, I got the canes sorted. There's some wire along one of the fences and that to me seems like a perfect place to put my other raspberries for support. I also had to cut back a fair bit of rhodie as it's very invasive stuff to clear some space.

A lot of low-growing plant is all over the ground in there, and I've had to do a bit of research. I THINK it's common mallow. This is potentially a good thing, as mallow is very useful for coughs (and considering how much I've been coughing as well as sprog, I could do with the harvest). Granted I want to grow some of that myself, but rather hoping I can keep it contained in a pot! I'll yank out what I can, and I won't be harvesting and using it till I'm 100% sure what it is, have no fear.

I got a good beginning on it even so, and since today is proving even milder than yesterday, I think I'll get a bit more of the ground cleared, then get the loganberry put into position. The stems are very brittle and grow VERY high, as I found last year, so they need plenty of stability and training. This means doing a lot of fancy lace work with some twine, but I'll get it sorted, it's only end-December, I've got time! But I am so excited to get to know my new patch of Mother Dirt, and enjoying the process so far. The weather is easy on my joints this year which certainly helps!

In sprog news, he's been pretty glued to the telly, but I do drag him out and about now and again for a walk in the woods when I can. I also get him working on the Wii for his balance, which is actually improving (go figure, a video game with a use!). I've been using the Wii myself and while it's slow going, I'm actually losing a bit of weight! Not as good as the good ol' days when I HAD a metabolism, but one of the Xmas presents from my mum was a full blood test for my thyroid - yes, seriously. This is the US based test which picks up thyroid trouble when the standard blood tests just don't, and she's been insisting on it. Yeah, weird present but if it can explain why I get nowhere with losing weight (don't quote "eat less, exercise more", people I was a bodybuilder, I KNOW the drill) then cool.

I'm not sure what's going on with either school or tribunal, which is a bit un-nerving as it's technically only about three weeks till the hearing and I have no idea where it will be, so I can't make any plans for sprog-tending yet. I know, in theory, the LEA has a "plan" to get child into current mainstream school but I think they're seriously underestimating the current school's reluctance to do it. They may not say it directly to the LEA, but they've certainly said to me that they don't want him there. I've gritted my teeth and just said "Fine, go to tribunal and say that, please." That's all I need. The discrimination is something I'll have to deal with later. But the more people who say mainstream is the wrong place for child, the better for me and sprog so I can get him where he actually needs to be rather than do a bunch of half-measures and assume it will work.

It's halfway through year three and I can't help but think of secondary school though of course everyone in the LEA says "We'll worry about that later". In this country year five is when the focus on secondary school begins. And if anyone thinks my son will manage in a mainstream school, they're utterly trippin'. I do have a secondary school in mind but we have GOT to get a handle on his rages or they won't take him. His statement will get him in (unless they ban statements like the Green Paper advises, which means that councils will have a 'responsibility' to tailor programmes, but without any money, it sounds like they can just reduce the standards to 'satisfactory'), but I have to get his rages under control or we'll have a huge problem, and that's an issue. I may contact the school itself for help as I'm getting nowhere with the LEA; they may have a name of a school their students have attended and then I can bring that to the Tribunal. Here's to hoping.

God Bless Us Every One!

2011-12-27T00:57:00.000-08:00

I don't normally go into political shiz; I think all political parties are full of it and until people realise that just voting and then grumbling isn't actually a solution, not much is going to change. But a post over at Sue Marsh's Blog "God Bless Us Every One" and the whole Xmess thing got me seething. See, apparently in addition to all the cuts we dug up, there's a few more that we didn't know about. Apparently there are stealth cuts of Tax Credits which could see me about -£4,000 worse off. Great. So in addition to all the other screwing over I'm getting in the next year, it's going to be even worse. WTF?! What Big Society? What Happy Holidays?

Of course, the usual Tory-it's-your-own-fault-you're-poor person had to come up on Sue's blog and make a snippy comment about those poor unwashed "demanding" State money. How dare we? Indeed - Christmas is an extravagance! Reserved only for those who can spend it, the rest of us should eat gruel, after all The Taxpayer is the True Citizen, and anyone else is the dregs.

With this moment of Scrooge rearing up, the whole "God Bless Us Every One" sort of Pollyanna attitude of Tiny Tim that it seems we're supposed to show for any scrap of "charity" given our way grated. So, I had a rather vitriolic attack of writer-imagination to spin out the Christmas Carol for our Modern Times.

Here we have the Coalition, grimly spouting that we are all in this together and we may as well buck up and accept our cuts; if we're complaining of sitting in our own filth at night or losing our care plans or our DLA, we should just carry on like the patriotic citizens we are (we ARE all British, right? None of those unsavoury 'foreigners' correct?). Cameron goes to bed in his refurbished No 10 which cost more to change the colour of the kitchen than I'll ever see in a year, Clegg brushes his teeth and gets dressed not looking in the mirror if he can help it (mirrors make him uncomfortable these days but he doesn't understand why), visions of how grateful their bank buddies are for the bonuses that will be untouched dancing in the heads.

And then, a noise, a clang, a moan and groan - they awaken with horrified eyes and see Maggie Thatcher, her eyes ghostly and haunted, a shade bound with papier mache chains - Daily Mail, Sun, speeches she made during the 80's all bound round and round her form. "Repent! Beware! See what damage my words have done."

"I don't believe it!" cries the Coalition. "You're just a fragment of the failing Euro! It was Labour's fault! Foreigners have ruined our economy! And the banks needed bailing out anyway - begone, shade!"

Maggie roars and rattles her chains - chains that should burst; they're just paper, just words, but words can be stronger than steel, and they can never be banished once spoken. "Three spirits will visit you this night, let's see if you are so quick to blame others for the faults of yourself."

And through the uneasy night, the Coalition heads wait - suddenly the expensive houses and suits and public education isn't worth much as it won't save them, and won't spare them.

The Ghost of Life Before the Welfare System comes forth - a dowdy, weary looking woman who is maybe all of 60, but looks 80 after all the years of hard work and childbearing. In her arms is a newborn babe that looks asleep, but isn't - many children never made it to their first birthday. And behind her, a sea of people with eyes as black as night from edge to edge; the crippled locked in attics to hide their shame, the girls who were institutionalised for being pregnant from abuse or rape or for actually believing when they were told they were loved, the men who came back from WW1 haunted and broken before there was a word called PSTD, the suicides, the consumptives, the children who died in prison or workhouses. "This past is not so distant," says the Ghost is a wheezy whisper. "Your grandparents remember it, they have told you it was not a good time. And here we visit you again. Your past will be your future."

Shaken, but undeterred - after all, Cameron and Clegg are hale and hearty, have insurance and private doctors - they try and gain more sleep, but there is a shuffling on the floorboards and opening their eyes they are greeted by hollow masses; The Ghost of Modern Cuts approaches, his wrists dripping blood and a noose round his neck, holding a brown envelope; the envelope that told him his DLA was being revoked. Strangely enough, he LOOKS fine but for the blood dripping upon the boards, but he holds his body at an awkward angle and his joints creak. "I am the Ghost of Modern Cuts," the man murmurs. "Look at me...doesn't look as if there is anything wrong with me? That was why the decision was made, but look!" He opens his eyes wide, which are yellow with jaundice, and as he tries to take a step forward, his hips pop with a hideous snap and he crumples, both legs pointing in impossible positions. "Brittle bones and kidneys failing....but you found me fit for work. Think I am the only one? We are the "most vulnerable" that were never protected, for all your assurances." The very walls fade and there is a crowd of people, some with wheelchairs and some without, some looking mere skin and bones, and others who seemed in the prime of health but their eyes were wild and their hands shook. Some alive, some dead - and who can say which was worse; every one held a brown envelope or a slip of paper, sent out enmasse to end their lives as they knew it. They starve, they ramble the streets having no homes to go to. The charities and organisations which might have helped them were dissolved and there was nothing left but a slow fade, or the final release. It was a release they chose with pills or petrol or a razorblade.

Un-nerved now, the Good Ol' Boys forego sleep and go to the fumed-oak liquor cabinet - maybe a drink to settle the nerves. Or two. Or three. Mustn't overdo, of course...because alcoholism is a demon just as disabled are and there will be no sympathy. But as Clegg, Cameron, Osborne, Pickles, Smith...one and all try to move forward to take a step away from their nightmare, they find that they cannot. Their limbs won't move, lying as dead weight upon the mattress. Tingling pain that they cannot ease, barely able to raise their heads. Or perhaps Freud, Miller or Dorries find themselves missing details in the day - dementia creeping up on them and burning out their memories. One's personal hell inside one's own skull. The Ghost of the Future has no face, has no name, has no form - it doesn't need one. It's too inevitable, too unavoidable, merely a whisper in the mind. "I come everyone eventually - no one escapes me, even if I take you suddenly, I will strike your family in their mourning. Watch as your friends abandon you as they can no longer relate to you, be reliant upon another whether you wish it or not - and be at their mercy if they aren't as honourable as they seem." Reviling in the street, physical and verbal attacks by the Honourable Taxpayer, whipped into a frenzy by scrounger rhetoric. Suddenly the private health care doesn't cover you due to a clause and one must rely upon services which are no longer there due to privatisation. A GP that may want to help but is to pushed for time and has no idea what is even wrong with you says helpfully, "Well the good news is you've got a long life ahead of you!" But this isn't a reassurance...it sounds instead like a sentence. A decade, or two...of this?! Suddenly oblivion seems a mercy.

Now of course, if this were just a really good story, the Coalition would have awakened yesterday and patted down its limbs, nearly hysterical in relief. "I'm able! I'm whole! I've had a change of heart - it doesn't MATTER whose fault the past was, the present is something I can change! Oh, sod it, I can do without several million in the bank I cannot possibly spend in my lifetime!! So...so, here, have some! We'll redistribute it, we'll find a way to make it work. God Bless Us, Every One!"

But...it hasn't happened, had it? At least, the bit about the change of heart. The Ghosts? They exist. Every single one of them. The Ghost of Your Future is waiting.

Garden plans

2011-12-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's only two days to Xmess but I turn my attention to the new garden, which requires a new plan. It's a woodland garden; what little bit of garden I have is wrested from the grasp of the wood around us, and it isn't much! Tilling earth here is rather pointless; it's a place of tree and weed and fungus, so while I may do some root veg gardening, most of my energy will be put into fruit and nut trees from here on out. The trees I have are staying in their pots, and I have a few more arriving which will round out the fruit offerings we've got already waiting for us here; raspberry, gooseberry, currant.

I've ordered three varieties of filbert; I'll be using these as edible hedging. I considered the dog rose again but I'm keeping mind the hazelnuts will mean a fair bit of coppicing and tending, so I'd rather not overcram things. My portable pots and the side-bed will be pressed into service for growing various herbs medicinal and culinary, as I'm working on further developing my relationship with herbs.

The garden here will be more about herbs and fruit than the more cultivated garden I had in the other house. I'm looking forward to what I can get growing in this woodland space.

Goodbye to various friends

2011-12-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, on solstice, I am saying goodbye to fellow expatriate of pagan priestess, M. I could always count on her to snicker about some of the customs the English seem to find so important, like sneering about "The Foreign" yet ever so happy to take taxes earned by said furringers. She was brilliant...and yet, as I had done several times before, when she said she was feeling tired, I directed her to see her doctor as the last few times friends of mine had complained of sudden weariness, it had turned out to be cancer.

Sure enough...

She fought hard, but terminal is terminal. As one of her last wishes, she wanted me to attend a rite of the local coven in full voudoun regalia. Yes, I am certain she knew EXACTLY what she was asking, and what sort of shit that would stir, having that Foreign Tribal Energy at a very subdued ritual. Oh yes. She knew. And I was charged with this duty - and so shall be attending her funeral in white, with my hair bound back, chains and trinkets tinkling at neck and wrists and my carved cane in hand. Wherever she is I know she'll be laughing hysterically at the effects, damn it.

It's a hard enough thing to go through, but has been compounded by exes still quite sideways (although for the first time in years he is calling his son regularly to talk to him - child no longer asks his dad "What's wrong? Why are you calling?" so this is a step forward). Another blog I follow, a fellow carer has lost their son - an adult son, but a son nonetheless. My heart grieves.

It's a very grim Solstice this year, but I have still cooked a huge ancestral supper today, and I have served up the first and best portions to Powers That Be, and poured the wine and libations. I have greeted the dead and have said my farewells.

And tomorrow I bury a friend.

Hit ground running

2011-12-16T02:26:00.000-08:00

I know I've got to write something here but holiday season and autistic children makes for No Time At All. I'm working on a painting between wumping - child is getting up around 4am in the morning these days so I've no time to do much else but update a few blogs and then study reference for a painting session. Tired isn't the word, but I carry on.

This isn't helped by the fact ex is acting as if the weekend never happened; that I very much remember my absolute terror and witnesses reassure that I wasn't just making it up doesn't make his rather ignore-the-elephant-in-the-room attitude any easier to deal with. Of course, I am being "obstructive" by refusing to allow my son out the door with my ex, but I am not going to deal with that right now. I have a holiday to survive, a funeral to attend, and two weeks without respite to get through.

Back when the dust settles.

Gimme Shelter

2011-12-11T22:53:00.001-08:00

This is a hard entry to write - and I know it's going to be read by people who never frequent my blog; people who aren't interested in autism, people who don't "do" self-sufficiency, people who so far haven't bothered to pay attention cuts as they're not disabled. But this is important. It's important to realise this is happening, and has been happening, for a year. If people are getting shocked now, then as nightmarish a scenario as it is for me and my son, it's worthwhile for people to see, to understand, and to get angry and try to do something about it. Please understand I'm not opening up a "debate". I'm not doing an intellectual exercise here. This isn't just something to talk about for pages on end. This is my reality. It's not an anecdote, it's not conjecture. Either you agree to help...or you don't. And I hope there's enough humanity left out there that the help is more forthcoming.

The weekend was a daddy-weekend, with child getting picked up by the ex. I've already had a pretty crap week; the stuff with the school, the constant questions about why ex isn't more involved with his son (and that's always been a bone of contention, as readers of my blog are well aware). When ex walked in the door I realised he knew absolutely nothing about the school's meeting and their disablist language, about how child was losing his education and how the LEA was dragging its feet again. For over two weeks I have been at full-tilt as child has only been in school an hour a day and has spent the rest of the time at home. None of this my ex knew, because he never bothers to call and see how child is doing...I have to chase him down and tell him. Then he takes it upon himself to tell me what I should be doing, from a distance, like I'm a personal assistant and he can't be troubled with such things.

So I boiled over and was resentful and took quite a few potshots at him. His calm and detachment infuriated me, which made it worse. I guess now I understand why he was so passive and remote - he'd already made up his mind what he was going to, and probably had done for months now.

Yesterday, around noon, I received an email - it was the only way we communicate these days. It was a suicide note, essentially, I won't go into it. But what he was planning was obvious. I was immediately terrified; my son was with him. Just like everyone else, I've read the horror stories about parents who give up and decide to take their children with them. I was beside myself; I ran through the house, sobbing and howling like something lost for a few minutes before I grabbed the phone and called the police. I then called my friend to come and get me and texted my ex to please not hurt my son, to let me come and get him.

My ex eventually sent a text back to me saying he was taking my son to Winter Wonderland as he "deserved good memories" and child would be fine. But how was I supposed to take that? He obviously still planned on killing himself and at any point his mind might change and he might decide our son would be better off going with him. After all, child is struggling in school, he "doesn't fit in" and maybe never will. I get no help from Social Services due to cuts. I stand to lose about a third of the funding I get for child due to even more cuts in 2012 - all these things we have been fighting for at Broken of Britain that most people aren't even aware is happening...and try as we might, we can't get anyone to listen. So wouldn't it be better to just fade away? A lot of people think so...it would scare the hell out of you to realise just how many people have an "escape plan" for mid 2012.

In desperation, I turned to twitter, and desperately asked anyone who may have been attending the fair at Hyde Park to keep an eye out for ex and son; I gave descriptions, I used my son's name. I never use my son's name online - you never know who is watching and my son has no sense of danger. This only sounds "paranoid" when you don't have a child who would walk off with a total stranger if they promised him a ride in a car. In any event, twitter exploded with tweets. My tweets were trending in London. I was completely floored at the reaction, but was it going to be enough?

Friend and I managed to get to London and ex was in enough presence of mind to bring child to me. I kept it together best I could whilst child rattled off that ex had told him he "had to fix something, and if he couldn't fix it he would die and he said I could have all the video games at his house." Friend and I drove in stunned silence - child has no idea what any of it meant, he doesn't have that kind of understanding, but what a thing to say to a child! I was furious, but we managed.

A lot of people on Twitter wished for son's return and hoped ex would get some help. And this is the point of this blog-post; I need to let people know the help isn't there. It doesn't exist. The cuts to the mental health programmes has seen to that. If you can wonder why a football manager could kill himself when he "had everything", then this is why. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. I had the texts and emails right here at hand and the police questioned my ex before he went to Winter Wonderland, and then let him go. He was still suicidal but he was so calm and convincing - and even pulled out the card that his partner has a PhD in psychology - that they just let him off and out. But I'm pretty certain his partner has no idea what he's planning on doing. And while I'm staggered the police bought the line, the truth of the matter is they're not trained to deal with this...and there's nowhere for one to go anyway. I know from experience that the mental health teams are so strapped right now they tend to just schedule an appointment for you weeks after contact. For many people that's just too late. And for someone in my ex's position - working a big job in London for the financial sector - having it on his record that he had a mental breakdown would spell the end of his career. The stigma against mental health is just too strong. In this economic climate, he can't afford to lose his job...and for his sanity he can't afford to keep it.

And so there is the quandary - suicides are on the rise, and the plans for same as well. But the answer is not to find non-existent "help". Depression and suicide are the symptoms of a much greater problem; for people like myself, the cuts are the biggest trigger. I get no respite care or assistance from Social Services as I am not considered "critical" - although "critical" honestly means "too late". I've tried to get child into an independent school for children on the ASD spectrum but the advice was there's no chance I could get child into one as councils are too strapped for cash and said schools are too expensive; £100,000 per year, per child. No way they're going to cough that up. Autism units are closing all over to cut corners and force the whole inclusion thing, piling work onto mainstream schools instead who resent all the extra work with no resources. And although I am desperately trying to work against doctor's orders, I am surviving on tax credits alone - tax credits which are going to get cut as I lose the severely disabled premium for my son. The DLA which will probably be cut for me as I only get low rate care for myself - and I wasn't able to fight for the med care/low mobility rates I should have been getting as the Citizens Advice team that dealt primarily with appeals was cut last year in mid-process. If I lose DLA, I lose disabled status which means I lose the premium for being disabled on tax credits as well, and also the premium for my heat and hot water, the additional funding for housing and council tax. If my ex commits suicide, there goes my maintenance payments, which is another couple of hundred pounds a month. We will go from relatively comfortable to below poverty line in a matter of months. Bang. Gone.

This adds up to a pretty grim scenario. Have I thought about suicide myself? I'd lie if I said I hadn't - but I am not made of "stronger stuff"; just of the realisation that there is no one who would take my son in. He'd fall into the state system and probably be lost forever. It would solve nothing. It would help not at all. So all I can do is fight as long as I can, to the very end of my strength; endure, resist, manage.

This is the reality of the cuts to the "most vulnerable". And "most vulnerable" doesn't just mean people in wheelchairs - it means people in high-paid jobs who seemingly have everything making suicide plans and following through. It means all those people who in desperation for help calling phone numbers just keep being given other phone numbers to call because the organisations have run out of money. It means that we're told the things that will cure us are non-existent jobs that no one will hire us for as Work Makes Us Free...and that we're just not trying hard enough - so, as added incentive, how about they remove all our money in 12 months if we don't find one?

In all the helpful tweets I had yesterday it was bound to happen that one person would tell me to "get a grip". It was only one person - and for the internet that's a rare thing, isn't it? But it was one too many. "The cuts aren't happening yet. Get a grip." I know what the papers are telling most people - that the "most vulnerable will be protected" and nothing is happening yet. But I have been involved with helping the Broken of Britain for a year now, I have spoken with other disabled people, and I can tell you right now the cuts started as soon as they were announced after the election. The councils were desperate to shore up the funds and started cutting almost immediately to protect their jobs. Care packages were never generous, they were often just the bare minimum - now those plans are being "reviewed" or halted entirely. Night time care is being cut and people are being given incontinence pads instead. Severely disabled people's plans are being halted for "review" as their plans are the most expensive and although absolutely vital, sure they can shave some dosh?

It's happening. It's all happening. And it's been happening for a year. This is why the Job Centre has been given leaflets to the Good Samaritans for the suicidal people the Government knows they'll be swamped with. The blogs I frequented from the Broken of Britain blogstorm - which most mainstream people have never heard of - is increasing filled with plans for suicide. This is happening. This is real.

People have asked how to help - and I have pointed them to Pat's Petition which still has a very very small amount of people signing it. It is still a rather bitter pill to swallow that 38 Degrees got people fired up about saving trees, but we have tried time and time again to get people on board about disability with no avail. If you want to try and help I would point you to the following links:

Pat's Petition - a call to halt and review the changes, because at this point the changes and cuts ARE going through. We've tried to raise the issues, we've tried to stop it. We've failed. This is our last chance.

Please read the 38 Degrees article - understand we have tried to get 38 Degrees to help support us but apparently we are not "popular" enough to campaign for. Please help us change this so we can get Pat's Petition to the mainstream.

Diary of a Benefit Scrounger - my fellow spoonie-warrior; even though she is desperately ill she has been appearing on television and on radio to try and get the word out. She currently has a campaign to appeal to the Lib Dem's to halt the time-limit on ESA.

I don't know if my ex will get saved; for the protection of my son I am keeping him home with me for Christmas. I have had to refuse my ex to talk to child in light of the fact he actually has been communicating his plans to child, which is just entirely inappropriate. I know he's ill...but I am not a professional. I am just a mother, and I have to protect my child. I know that's going to piss him off but this isn't the first time I've had to make an emergency trip to London to get my son when my ex lost it...and I'm tired of the emotional rollercoaster nightmare. Visits are going to have to be structured and on neutral ground for a while. I know he's going to take that as a personal challenge, I know he'll want to fling the times he had to run back here to get child as I was going to hospital as proof I'm no better - and I had a very dark day where I also wrote my goodbyes and told him to come and get child. But this isn't a one-upmanship game. It's not a vengeance ploy, it's about my son's safety here. And I can appeal to the mainstream, to the people who didn't even know my twitter stream existed, who maybe saw but skimmed over it right up to the point the nightmare hit a bit too close, and maybe turn things around for anyone in this sort of situation.

It could happen to anyone. It could happen to you. Wouldn't you want the safety net to be there?

Now, it's morning and child had nightmares. I barely managed to sleep myself. But I have to put on the "everything's fine" mask and carry on. Just...carry on. As many are doing today, unseen, unheard. There's a lot of people like Ex out there. They need your help too.

Thanks.

And even more house stuff

2011-12-09T05:50:00.001-08:00

Operation mould-buster is a go! I just ordered a dehumidifier for the house, and I've given my air filter a proper clean, inside and out, washing the filter and hoovering out the HEPA filter with my uber-hoover. It's now on high and should manage to give a good cycle to the air inside.

I've also attacked the black mould spots with the steriliser solution again - not that the mould has come back from those areas, but since I managed to get the crisis points, I felt the need to swab down the walls and kill the under-surface mould if I could. The steriliser won't penetrate that deeply into the wall, I'm well aware, but even so I'm going to give it my best go, going slowly room by room, wall by wall.

I'm considering changing rooms with child; granted this means I would only just be able to get my bed into his room, and nothing else. He's going mad in that tiny box room, there's nowhere to play with his toys and no space for him to run around and do what he tends to do in order to burn off his energy and stress of the day in his usual stim-behaviour. It would require a lot of shifting about, and I'd have to create a whole different space to paint and craft, I wouldn't have my big beautiful window where I can gaze up at the moon at night, and I'd have to move my ancestral altar-space somewhere but I could do it. Sacrifices for child is all just a part of life here, it's nothing new. My room is just somewhere to sleep.

I could do with having my proper arthritis meds today...but without them I'll just have to grit my teeth and cope with the pain of shifting things about. I'll see how far I get.

Square One. Again.

2011-12-07T02:59:00.000-08:00

I went into the school today for what I thought would be a discussion on how to integrate the Wump into the school on a longer timetable. It soon became clear however that the real point was to usher me in, sit me down, and just tell me flat out that they had no intention of doing so, and furthermore felt child is in the wrong school. Wait for it: they insist he should be going to a specialist school. Yes, seriously, what I've been saying, what the last school originally started saying, and now what the new school is actually wanting to go to Tribunal and say so.

Yay. I guess.

Truthfully, I was almost buying the "He can totally integrate into the mainstream with support" line I've been hearing so long. After all the last school did a completely 180 degree turn and started to say it themselves. I keep getting told child is "difficult to place", that he is "clever but just needs some focussed assistance" and all those lovely white-washing terms to try and "see the positives." But when a teacher and headteacher sits at a table with you and says flat out "He'll never make it, we can't cope with him" and realise that they're completely unwilling to do anything of the sort - they even seem to resent having child "Airflown in" to their school and effectively "dumped" on them. He doesn't "fit in", and he'll be in the same class for four years, so the same people will have to "deal with him" day in and day out. Honestly I know on some level I should be offended as the "Not one of us" language coming across was rather teeth-clenching.

Son's teacher in particular seemed to think that I was just being obstinate, that I was the one who was insisting son should be in mainstream and surely with a snap of my fingers my son could just go to a specialists school in Somerset or Dorset or somewhere. I had to explain repeatedly that the LEA was refusing to do so; that all the advice I had was that a specialist school was never going to work, and the one school left in Wiltshire county now had a waiting list of two years because of all the other parents in the exact same boat as I am trying to jam entirely too many kids into the one specialist school left.

Seriously, I know. And nothing my son has managed to achieve over the past three years came without a fight; I fought for assessments, for TAs to attend training, to call in specialists, to petition time and again to get my son what he needed. No one offered it out of the goodness of their hearts. According to the school my son is in now, he'll never make it in a mainstream setting, and secondary school will eat him alive. I know. Believe me, I know. My ignorance isn't the problem here - the problem is no one wants to do anything about it. Cutting costs, you know. Even the LA's measures, which seem to be that they expect the school to take on a vigorous training programme from the ground up rather than bring in specialists is about saving money, are all about putting the work onto someone else for the sake of integration. The proposals which are being pieced together at the moment essentially amount to building an entire education programme specifically for ONE child in a school already taxed with teaching another amount of pupils, small or large. It's not rocket science to figure out there are very few if any schools, large or small, even remotely willing to do that kind of work.

So, child is now currently only attending an hour a day of school, and the school doesn't sound like they have any intention of doing any more than that, ever; they're just waiting for Tribunal when they can hand my son back to the LA and say "Here, find someone else." On the one hand, I'm furious, but on the other hand this is what -has- to happen. This is why there are so many delays happening, why the call for another adjournment. The bluster and whitewash routine they managed to bully the last school into accepting isn't working at this one, and this headteacher is prepared to stand before a court and say so. That's got the LEA very worried indeed.

In the meantime, my son is attending barely an hour of school a day at the moment. He's getting next to no education, and I'm just supposed to sit and wait till late January. I am calling on the primary tuition service to get child educated by the LA at home until we can get him an appropriate placement and figure out what the hell to do. Yes, it's going to be another fight as they don't like having to do that. But needs must.

So, onward and forward. And yes, it means my health and anything else goes on the back burner for now. Same as ever - I have some more work to do.

Tramadol Haze

2011-12-06T02:12:00.000-08:00

I managed to get to my new GP office yesterday, driven in by a neighbour and bustled about and generally tended to rather sweetly by everyone in the office. My GP was very concerned about the fact I was out of meds and hadn't been able to get seen, but once she started to get the scoop (son only in school for an hour, no social care or respite for either of us), I saw the grim set to her jawline that said "Yes, we'll see about that." Rock on. In any event, I was told to come in for some baseline blood-tests, to call with some info on the doseages I had been on previously and they'd get the medication sorted and dispensed for me onsite, I could pick it up after I went in to get the bloodwork done. This was very good news; while the local post office-cum-pharmacy isn't far, it is down a very twisty and steep bit of hill. Going down it would be treacherous - coming back up it impossible. If I can get meds at appointments then more the better - failing that, I was told they could deliver it to me or my neighbour would pick it up herself.

I'm grateful for their willingness and care of one another here. The community is a good one, and I hope I'll be able to contribute to it.

I also realised yesterday (with a bit of a shock, really) that Xmess and Yule is only weeks away. Somehow I had completely managed to forget this, and was at a loss where to put the tree. I didn't really like the way the room was set up as I didn't really have much say in placement; I was off getting child to bring him back. So things were bunged in rather willy-nilly, and the space wasn't very well utilised. So I set to and did a fair bit of shuffling round to get the tree placed, and also managed to open up the living room a fair bit, as well as set up my sewing/painting area. I like the whole arrangement a lot better now, but I will have to admit I overdid things considerably re-arranging the room and getting the tree up. I was in agony, could barely stand up as the pain was so bad, and I had to make child a rather haphazard dinner, and one for me as well as I hadn't had the energy to make myself any lunch. I had to resort to the strongest painkillers I have just to allow me to be able to move, and unfortunately the residual effects have carried over today. I'll manage, although I feel a bit zombified.

Of course putting up the tree was very exciting, and child was running around like mad, working himself up into a tizzy and insisting he couldn't possibly wait till Yule. Eventually, the inevitable happened and he had managed to get himself completely beside himself, howling and screaming that he wanted Christmas RIGHT NOW. Of course, in his mind, I should have been able to do just that. Things weren't improved by the arrival of presents in their Amazon boxes, and it only started up the shrieking even worse.

Sigh.

But every year, it comes to this, and every year we just have to deal with it. So I took a very hard line - he knows full well he's only getting one present this year. And I also told him that poor behaviour wasn't going to make Yule come any faster. He's obsessed with getting and having stuff and I'm well aware of this - acquisition is a Big Deal when it comes to child, and he rates things a lot higher than he does people. The present he's getting this year is rather big but that is due to the fact it's for me as well as him, and I'm hoping it will be of benefit to him not just as a bit of fun, but a bit of OT development as I consulted with the specialist OT about the use of the Wii before buying it - I'd never have looked twice at the thing otherwise. He knows it's here, and he'll count down the days and go on about it every five minutes. He'll wake me up at 4 am, then 5, then 6, to ask if it's Yule yet (and he started that on Sunday, so I've many a sleepness night ahead of me). Once he starts to calm down and accept he needs to be patient - and if the weather takes a turn for the worse - I'll open the Wii early and we'll set it up to try some games on it. But he won't get what he wants just by yelling for it.

He is getting a new game for the Playstation 2 - which he paid out of his own pocket, as his taste in games is always toward the one he doesn't currently have. It's a good system however, and it does encourage better behaviour at school: if he does all right without blowups, he earns a pound a day, and gets five pounds at the end of the week to spend as he sees fit. It does work, but games do require me to limit his playtime. He gets frustrated and angry when he doesn't win, and the end result is rarely good. His behaviour has already cost him being able to play the game today however, and he'll have to wait till tomorrow to open it up and give a go.

So, recovery for me today; I got a lot done yesterday but I'm done for the moment. Rest, eat, sleep (if I can, but I suspect another wakeup and "Is it Yule NOW?")

Black Mould War

2011-11-29T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm having my first war in some time with the dreaded Damp.

When we first moved into the bungalow, I was rather put off by a rather odd smell in the house which even child commented on. At first I just figured it was due to being an old bungalow and the smell of bonding glue for carpet is rarely pleasant! However I was shocked the first few days by the condensation which accumulated on the windows - I spent many a morning wiping down the puddles on the window sills and opened windows here and there, thinking I had it sorted. Lately however I have noted that both child and I spend a lot of time coughing; I've even had to resort to my puffer for asthma on more than one occassion.

The damp is incredible in here; I have never seen anything like it. The windows are almost perpetually moist even with windows open. I actually got some Himalayan salt t-light holders today and once I had unwrapped them and put them out, I realised within five minutes they were covered in condensed water as they were drawing it right out of the air; I turned on my space heaters which helped considerably but it does mean the house is now just a bit hotter than even I would like.

Today I was actually feeling a bit sick by all the stuff building up in my lungs and I had a look round the house, thinking it was probably a dust accumulation somewhere. But I noted with dismay it wasn't dust that was starting to bloom on the bathroom sills and ceiling, but black mould. It was coming through the new paintwork - which had probably been painted right on top of any black mould which had built up.

Oh no, I am NOT having that.

It's actually midnight right now - child's coughing in his sleep woke me up and I grimly decided I'd had enough of the damp problem. I've furtively opened windows slightly throughout the house, turned on the space heaters, grabbed the sterilising compound I use for sanitising my brewing bottles (which also did a great job on the decking, I hasten to add!) and I've sopped up all the condensed water and then wiped the mould with rather strong sterilising solution. Child's heater in his room has been cranked up and I've opened his window a touch - there was a bit of mould starting round the frame of his sill and he had the door closed all day today as he was watching his favourite videos. The smell of the house, which has mostly disappeared from the rest of the bungalow, is still present in his room so I've a feeling I should pull his bed away from the wall and give that a check as well later in the day.

The washing machine also needed a service - there's black mould that has accumulated on the rubber seal and while I've tried to get rid of the stuff, scrubbing it isn't the best way when my lungs are already struggling. So after the cleaning solution was used, I poured it all into the washer and cranked it up onto high heat wash, no laundry inside. This is something I should be doing more often anyway as I make my own detergent with homemade soap, washing soda and borax substitute, and there's a lot more buildup with this combination. So I'll make that a once-a-month routine from now on, and remember to leave the washer door open. Eventually the mould will come off in a hot-wash.

So now at nearly 1am, I have managed to nuke the black mould buildup with bleach. The washing machine is done with its first wash and I'll pour some more of the sterilising compound in with some washing soda and run it again, giving the detergent and softener pan a good scrub after it's soaked as well. The heater in the bathroom and the living room is running, and child's door is open a bit to allow for better air circulation in his box room. The salt lights are now dry rather than threatening to make puddles. The mould has mostly been eliminated, but what I haven't been able to scrub up has been effectively killed stone dead by the cleaning solution I used. A bit OCD perhaps but I already feel like I'm breathing a little better, and child isn't coughing this morning either - though I think I need to do some investigations with his new GP to find out whether asthma is something child has inherited. Considering both I and his father have it, it would figure.

I had a look at dehumidifiers and whilst they're expensive I think they're going to be a necessary addition to the house. I still have the air purifier I bought two years ago but it's going to need another filter, which I'm also planning on purchasing in the very near future. A bit irritating to have to buy yet MORE stuff to plug into my walls (and I'm already feeling like I run a lot of small appliances as it is) but we're talking health here, and the last thing I want is a mould issue in my house on top of everything else.

So battle won for now, but the war will probably continue.

Preparation

2011-11-28T06:37:00.000-08:00

I've been rather busy the past few days, as I'm preparing myself for a difficult week. I've run out of all my medication this week; yep, everything for pain, everything for controlling the arthritis, all of it. I had every intention of going into the new GP and registering, getting my blood test done, filling my scrip, all that, however with child getting excluded there was no one to cover him for me and no way I could get to the surgery and back again. I've got only some emergency-reserve codeine and the tramadol, both which tend to make me more into a zombie than anything else.

I've been cooking up a storm today while I still had one final naproxen left as I know I probably won't want to be standing for too long over the next few days; I can just reach into the fridge or freezer and heat up a meal I made earlier. I did manage to print off and mail the registration forms for self and for child today, but I'm also well aware it could take till Wed till the new surgery gets the forms, and I've no idea how long it will take for them to be processed. I also know I can't get more of the four-a-day meds I take to halt the arthritis till I have a blood test, which is a test only done twice a week. Possibly could get in Thursday if I am VERY quick and just hope I can be back in time for child.

There's enough food for the Wump for another week, some of it is homecooked and some is frozen if I simply cannot manage. He has some videos coming which hopefully will keep him happy and occupied (provided they arrive, nothing worse than waiting for someone and it not showing up, he tears the house apart in a fury when this happens). Lungs aren't too brilliant but this is an issue child is having too. Too much damp and there's mould here and there on the windowsills, so I suspect a dehumidifier is going to very much be on the cards, which should help a bit.

I have plenty of art supplies near to hand, several canvasses on the go (one for each medium) and plenty of tea. Bring it on.

Settling in.

2011-11-26T03:18:00.000-08:00

The birds are happy at least; I am putting a ball of food out nearly every other day. I do have all the stuff to make more if need be (all that coconut oil from soaping!) so that may be a project for the week as I whip some more up for the rather long line of birds who are stopping by of late.

The decking cleanup is going pretty well; I'm still a bit gobsmacked the Council just wanted to rip it all out rather than just, you know, CLEAN it. The waste is shocking; going on and on about "scroungers" and how tight the budget is when they rip everything out of a Council house and do who-knows-what with the stuff rather than leave it in and save people some dosh. Boggling. But I'm slowly getting it scrubbed down so it's not so dangerous to walk on, and a bit more scrubbing on the concrete as well. We're getting there.

Since I'm back to the Portable Mother Dirt, I've been planting bulbs for spring colour, and today I managed to get 20 cloves of garlic into a pot. I had really good results with the shallots this year, loved the flavour so I'm going to reserve some space for those two - they actually did rather well paired with the fruit trees, so I may do that again to keep the insects away. It's finally starting to get a bit chilly out there so I'll have to get it done soon, or it will have to wait till spring.

Inside...well I still have things to do, like get curtain rods! Yes, there were curtain rods and curtains in the house before I got it, and they're all gone and stripped out. *sigh* Now I've got to get some new ones, and I'm not sure yet what I want. I would have managed to get some a bit sooner but the dryer really sucked up extra cash, as did the emergency cooker purchase (yes, there was a cook- ...I'll just stop there, shall I?). So hopefully in a week or so I can invest is some proper rods and so on.

I'm also considering a dehumidifier. The amount of water on the sills in the morning in this house is staggering, and it's already starting to stain the sills a fair bit. My plants on the sills have been going grey and moulding slightly with all the damp, hence deciding to throw convention to the wind and pull open the drapes today to let the air circulate. But this really can't continue or mould may get a foothold. So I'm going to look into costs. I have an air filter already but it's a good two years old and the filter more than likely needs replacing.

In the meantime I had a little cash to do up the bathroom with some towel rods, a new mirror (you know what I'll say here, right?), and some storage under the sink. It still needs a few things but we're getting there with it, and I've also got a shelf I need installed in the pantry once I finish shuffling and getting rid of things. You may note the boxes in the picture above which still need to be trundled off by the bin-men on Monday - and once that's done I've still got a few more in the house that need doing!

All in all, we're getting there. I'm establishing a rhythm here which suits a slower pace. Still not perfect (I have no idea where the post box is nearby, even if there IS a post box which I have no idea). I am still going to run out of my arthritis medication this week and probably won't get more till the week after, which is going to suck but nothing else for it right now. I'll manage.

Still formulating

2011-11-24T01:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a cooking day (and also a screaming day *sigh*). I had the oven on all day, feeling the urge to get a bunch of cooking and baking done. I now have a fresh loaf of bread, the toasted-muesli tin is full again, and I made a Spanish-inspired dish yesterday - although I need to get some proper paella rice I think as this rice went completely mushy. It was still really nice! And I'll improve on the recipe in the future.

As far as the screaming went - that was a result of trying to get child to do his homework yesterday. I've never seen this kind of reaction from him, and I guess this is what the schools see on a regular basis. Full on yelling, roaring, ripping and going under his desk, the full deal. The neighbours probably thought I was killing him as everything was an over-reaction. However, we're at home and, like it or not, I'm used to this, so I didn't budge. The homework WAS going to get done, end of story. And after several hours of yelling, roaring, slamming things, howling and general shouting (towards the end sadly I joined in, which I think was the kick-over as I rarely lose my patience, he looked completely shocked!), we got it done...and child realised it wasn't so bad and he had made a fuss over nothing.

However child won't be going to school for longer than an hour again for quite a while. Again, I'm screwed to get much done in such a limited timetable. I have a meeting in early December to "discuss" integration. Again. At this point however I'm beginning to think we'd better come up with some alternatives; the reduced timetable wouldn't have worked when they proposed it as I was still getting ill regularly, but the medication seems to be doing well and I am finding I have more energy and am not in as much pain as I was before, so a reduced timetable won't be a bad thing. Even so, a full-time curriculum is what they've insisted he should have, but no one seems to be bothered to figure out how to do it.

I've just called the primary behaviour team - once again staggered that the departments of the UK are not hooked up to the same system; this team doesn't even sound like it's remotely aware of my son's case or that he has some special requirements and needs for his behaviour issues. Wow, someone hook up the networks, please? In any event, calls are being made and we're going to get into "yet another meeting, yes I know you're probably sick of these by now". But at least we're going to maybe press forward now.

Today we've finished up child's homework, he's had time outside with his bubble gun and I've been inside getting more numbers under my belt as ammunition. I've also filled out the paperwork for our new surgery to enrol (but no idea where the stamps are *sigh*). I'm hoping we can get out and about this weekend but will take some planning.

And now, lunch

Tick tick tick

2011-11-21T08:27:00.002-08:00

Again, I'm in a pattern of hurry-up-and-wait; child has been excluded in new school and I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall. I get that no one wants child to hurt any other children, I get that, truly I do. However nothing sends a conflicted message to a child on the ASD spectrum than sending them home when the going gets too rough. Child has it firmly embedded in his mind now "If I don't want to do anything, I can kick up a fuss and I'll go home." He has spent more time home than in school already and I thought I had explained this to the head. So it looks as if I'm going to have to get on the phone tomorrow and have a word, make arrangements for me to probably go into the school and be present on Friday, and then probably be "on call" for the rest of the week. I really need to stress this with the new school and find a way to get there either hell or high water and try and break this routine. It may mean I need to spend considerable time at the school - maybe I'll bring my paints, who knows? All I know is things can't go on as they're doing; mainstream or homeschool are the only two options as special schools are closing all over the place and there's nowhere else for child to go, so we've got to make it work.

Ex and I tackled the decking again - he brought his sander this time - and the discovery is the decking is maybe about three years old; it's not rotted, just hasn't been scrubbed in an age. To rip it out entirely is so wasteful it makes me wince (and I've already had it confirmed by neighbours this house had nice furnishings, curtains, cookers, and carpet...all of which was ripped out. Where does any of that go?!). So, I've called the council today and told them I'd like a crack at getting it sorted out myself. It will take some doing of course, and there's not much I can do in the middle of winter, but I'll keep cleaning it for as long as the snow holds off.

I am waiting on word from a lot of things; some things I completely forgot about, some things I'm trying to do again. Yet another complaint against social services at the encouragement of an outreach group as they simply cannot believe I'm without a care plan of any sort (but it's true, and I'm certainly not the only one to have to fight for this stuff). Ombudsman is also in on the act. And all this waiting about on education also has to do with the fact there is Wump's tribunal in January, still some time off (and a fair bit of time to wait for the provision he actually NEEDS to be put in place). I had intended on getting more of my medication this week, signing up with the new GP, getting blood tests done and exploring more of my local area but due to the exclusion this all has to wait.

Waiting on the insurance stuff to pay for the dryer, waiting on child attending a week at school long enough that I can get what I need done for my own health, wait on tribunal, wait on complaint details. Waiting.

Waiting.

Organise

2011-11-19T01:32:00.000-08:00

Right, well the house is still piled with boxes, which naturally I've installed specifically to turn it into a feline playground, as you can readily see. The boys are going a bit stir-crazy now as the house is very small, so it's about time to let them out and about outside. And there's a lot of outside to explore. The front gardens are rather lovely as can be seen. The little cottage garden space out front already has a bunch of dahlias and so on growing in it, as well as some hydrangeas and rose bushes and so I'll be cultivating that best I can. That at least is the hope! I'll have to take some photos of outside, as it is quite stunning, a view I rather enjoy when I have to wash dishes at the sink.

Unfortunately the boxes are just getting shuffled to wherever I can manage to put them as I don't dare to put any of the stuff into the shed outside and navigate the rather questionable decking steps. It means the house is a lot more untidy than I would like. But needs must for the time being although I am slowly trying to add bits and pieces - I've just ordered storage things for the bathroom, a new mirror cabinet, towel rack, organisation shelves for under the water basin, that sort of thing. The curtains and curtain rods will come next I think. I'll have to save up to get the dishwasher working.

All in all, things are going all right, if rather slowly. I don't like the boxes all over the place - it still feels as if I'm in flux rather than settled, but this is just the way it's going to have to roll for now. Hopefully it won't snow within the next few weeks so I can get down to the shed and bung some boxes down there. I have NO idea where the Xmess tree is going to go yet as the fridge is dominating the living room as there was nowhere else for it, but I guess we'll have to figure that out. For now, I'm loving the place and while I'm in the "trial phase" of being a tenant here, I'm still going to do my best to make the place as much a home as I can.

Back garden view...nice huh?

And here we are!

2011-11-17T07:50:00.000-08:00

Made it to the new place and we've been here nearly a week on Friday. There's been a lot of adjustments - the movers broke my dryer in a spectacular way and I'm going through all the bollocks of insurance claims and so forth which has left me without a working dryer for a week. The house is also half the size of the house I used to live in so there's a load of boxes and so forth which are just bunged wherever until I can get to the shed. The sheds are a bit of a problem, actually - one is in the very bottom of the garden, and another apparently is just on stilts down a treacherous decking stepway, so I can't really get to either of them right now. The decking is looking to be removed entirely in a few weeks' time which is rather disappointing as I don't know when the new stairs will be put in, and the new fencing will certainly not be done till spring either. At least it's getting done, I was told before it was My Problem entirely so if the council realises they're very treacherous then fair dos if they decide to fix it and put in something sensible.

I have discovered I have a load of gardening space, however! Several cottage garden spaces with loads of patio space in the front, a raised bed of foilage and bulbs out back, and then down the steps is what used to be a vegetable garden I believe, chock full of raspberry canes! This is good news actually, and I am very chuffed. Loads of scope then for more gardening efforts and with no mowing to worry about. It's honestly a beautiful location and I'm willing to deal with a lot of inconvenience to live here.

There's still a lot to do however; I have no curtain rods or curtains, my son needs a new computer chair (once I figure out why his laptop won't access the internet). I need a catflap on the door, need to make sure all the utilities are set up, need to cut my work hours come January (New Year's Resolution: Work Less). I've got mead to get brewing (finally got about 10 kilos of wildflower/raspberry honey which will be fantastic once I get everything ready to go), new schools to attend for Xmessy things, clothes washing and drying at the moment is nearly an all-day activity, as well as stocking up the HUGE pantry space as I have to shop with the thought of being snowed in firmly in mind - ex drove down here once to pick up child and has already informed me if snow falls he will not be trying to come to pick child up. And to think he's from Yorkshire *snort*

So looking up for wind-up torches, making sure I have plenty of flour, sugar, yeast, and other bits and bobs.

The area is very quiet and I have yet to explore much as I keep having a stream of people wanting to check things out for one reason or another - repairmen, Council repair, insurance agents, and well-meaning neighbours who have been absolutely charming since we got here. Child and cats are both going a bit stir-crazy due to the smaller size of the house and I hope to let them both out in the near future so the cats can investigate a bit (probably before breakfast when I'm sure they'll come back in to eat) and the Wump and I will have to Wump the forest a bit.

In the meantime, I plot and plan where to put the boxes, how to get some painting done in the midst of the chaos, and where the Xmas tree is going to go I have no idea at all...

And off we go!

2011-11-10T01:16:00.001-08:00

I am just gathering up the numbers and addresses I may need while I'm off the web before I pack up my computer today. Everything in the house now has reached the "bung-it-in" stage where I just bung everything in a box just to get the job done. There has to be at least one box left for anything I've forgotten, but it's all sorted now (I hope!). When boxes don't work, it's bin-liners (usually for soft furnishings so I know where they are. All dishes need doing, all laundry I can needs washing as I don't know when I'll next be able to do it - depends on whether the fittings for the washer will work in the new place.

The carpet is being done today and should be sorted without a hitch (I hope). The movers have now been paid and while for some reason Virgin Media has tried to deliver my parcel to my new address (even when I told them I wouldn't be there yet) I've contacted the courier company directly to rearrange the delivery properly.

My main frustration right now is with the service for my son's transportation; after finding a school, getting everyone on the same page (SEN, LEA and the Headteacher), arranging for my son's transferral and being reassured by my son's caseworker that the transportation unit would be in touch, I contact them to find that not only do they refuse to do the pickup for an hour-a-day for a week as being inefficient costwise, I also find out I should have filled out a change of address form a week ago. This would be all right if I hadn't been reassured things were in the works...and if I hadn't been told the transport had agreed a possibility of child attending his old school for a few weeks - which is a half hour trip. How is a half hour perfectly acceptable when a five minute trip is not? I am not even messing about and have just written the MP of the East Knoyle area. I don't have time for arguments. Solicitor is also going to Have A Word so I imagine something will get sorted sooner rather than later.

So glad there's someone else to fight these battles for me.

Now, time to get as much laundry as possible washed up and then get everything I can into a box. I'm giving the pain medication an hour to kick in first and then it's full steam ahead to get this sorted today.

Again, balance

2011-11-07T03:26:00.000-08:00

I was able to read the signs this morning so it didn't come as a huge surprise to me when my energy levels flagged. I realised I had to pack child's lunch this morning and also realised this meant cooking most of it along with making breakfast - a quick assessment of energy "spoons" and I knew I would be able to do no such thing. Instead I queried with child whether he wouldn't mind school lunches for the next three days - once he realised his three favourite meals were up, he was fine with this. One chore crossed off the list.

Still, I knew the day was going to be a difficult one, but I was going to have to press on - the boxes won't pack themselves, the carpet cleaner still needed to be booked. I decided to delegate this to the lettings agents even though they charge an extra £50 for the pleasure - a ripoff sure but I'm the type of person who always assumes my deposit is long gone anyway, because I know how the industry works and if any landlord can redecorate a house out of deposit rather than his own pocket, they will - and the house needed decorating long before I came in. I don't have the energy to repaint my son's room to naff-beige, or wash windows or do the thousand-and-one jobs required; I consider deposits as insurance for the stuff I don't have the power to do.

I made a crush of phone calls today even though my head is foggy and my communication isn't the best (thankfully most people on the phone are aware of these symptoms and just managed to give me time to think a bit longer of what I needed to say and how to say it). There was a phonecall I needed to make which I realised after about five minutes' waiting for someone to answer I wasn't going to be able to communicate, and I made the decision to hang up and I'll try tomorrow.

Packing today has meant stripping all the stickers off child's door, taking down a few papers from my wall in the room (and wincing as the incredibly-ancient-wallpaper came down with it - there goes more deposit money *sigh*), packing half my room and a bit of the pantry, and even though I know there's more to do, again I realise I can't do any more.

My friend just sent me a text about if I need anything from a small local shop for the house. I stared at the text...and couldn't think of a damn thing, barely able to translate the text I was reading into language. After a few minutes I gave it up and laboriously replied that I have no idea, I'm not thinking well enough to make a decision.

Sometimes, this is just how it rolls. I do the best I can manage to do and then I just have to call it a day. Yes, it sucks, but there's nothing else for it. I'm aware I probably won't be able to cook tonight for myself either - a bit of dosh will have to be used for takeaway, and that's also just the way it has to roll. There's things that need doing, and that I know I have to do...but I can't. End of. Don't even try, you'll just botch it.

So, about to have a cup of tea, a pie, possibly zone out to a DVD and that will be that for today. There's always tomorrow.

The message is clear: "Stop. You've done enough today. Rest; and if you had any doubts, it took you over an hour to write this post, woman."

Final week!

2011-11-06T03:57:00.001-08:00

Well here we are, about five days before the move. I still have a load of packing to do and it's not getting any easier even though I've been doing several boxes a day! Granted, I'm also discovering a major amount of what is in the house is actually not going with me and will stay here for ex to pick up but it's still a load of organising and shuffling and shifting and dratting and muttering. We're getting there, of course, but even with all the pre-planning I can tell there's going to be a lot of last-minute bung-it going on.

I've also been doing a lot of research on how to get out and about even though I'll be in a very rural setting, and I'll be taking some self-indulgent daytrips now and again as I learn the area and where things are, how to get there, and what to do as far as emergency transport if needed (I can hope I won't get panicked calls from the new school when child blows up but it would be a vain hope to think I'd not have to at least prepare for the possibility).

Shopping orders for the following week have been made (making sure to put in the new address!), the cooker is due to arrive in Tuesday though I'm still not sure where I'm going to put the damn thing. I've got a bed to take apart and put outside along with some other rubbish which will just have to go. My room is nearly packed (and indeed a fair bit of it just needs to be binned, so it means a few less things to take). Child's room is sort of in the same state at the moment. I'll have to wait till the computer stuff arrives before I can hook everything up and that quite honestly could be several days, depending on when the phone cables are delivered. Royal mail redirection is sorted, and while I've set up the new power company and the utilities I'll need to call to be sure I'm on the reduced tariff and signed up for priority lines if power goes out.

Bottles, ugh...what to do about bottles? There's loads of them left over from ex's brewing efforts and he had insisted I didn't throw any of them away. There's literally boxes and nearly a whole wine rack full of the bleedin' things. More stuff to figure out where it's going to go. Le-sigh. I think I'm going to have to clear out the under-stairs best I can, get my stuff out and packed and put into the dining room space, bung his stuff under there so it's out the way and just roll with that.

All in all it's shaping to be a very busy week, and I am therefore taking this weekend to do very little but rest, recover, breathe in, breathe out and prepare for the final push.

A slight change of plan

2011-11-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

I received a call last night that the Neighbourhood manager for the new house somehow believed I had moved in already and she went to pop round. Of course there was little to see as not even the carpets are down yet, but this visit did actually spur a change in motion. Apparently she went round to the back of the house and as soon as she hit the decking, she literally -hit- it; flat on her back. It's that slippery and neglected. As a matter of fact, -so- slippery and neglected she couldn't get back up and had to scoot over to get onto the stones instead, then do a fair bit of treacherous shuffling to even be able to get back round again to the front. As a result, the Council called me and apparently they are getting a team out to the house either today or Monday to assess what they can do. In the meantime I am not to go out the back door at all.

Now on the one hand this is beyond frustrating for me obviously - not having access at all to the back garden until the Council deals with the decking (and this could all very well fall under the "Soon" clause) is frustrating. It could be months before they decide to do anything about the decking and by then knowing myself I will probably already have dealt with it. However on the other hand it's not something they want to wait too long on - I'm sure they're already aware I'm the type of troublesome person to start writing complaints and to the Ombusman or the newspaper. They really don't want that, any more than they want me to break a hip and sue.

So the hope is that "Soon" actually means "within the next few months" and not "sometime in the summer of next year after numerous complaints and reminders". We'll see which one it is.

Soaping for necessity

2011-11-03T02:57:00.001-07:00

I've actually been nearly running out of soap for a while now and I have been putting off making more due to all the moving and so on. However, I've noticed child has been breaking out all over his legs again in tiny little bumps; the laundry soap is probably bringing this about - even though I need to use non-bio soap for him, he still has very sensitive skin. What I need to do is get back to making my own laundry soap again, which is a bit of a process as it also means I have to make the soap for the base in the first place.

So tonight's mission once all my other chores and so forth is done is to shoo the cats out of my kitchen space and make some monster batches of soap - one for laundry and one for personal use. I've unfortunately packed away most of my herbs but I can go out into the garden and gather up a few such as lavender and chamomile for soap for child, with some oats as well to help soothe his skin. Maybe I'll get inventive and put in some swirls like I did for the Lavender Fields soap I made last year (in pic). But mostly this is for necessity to try and get back to my principles and be a bit more self-sufficient again rather than using cheap stuff which causes child discomfort.

Admittedly, I really enjoy making soap and I've missed doing it, so one last hurrah before I begin to box up the lot would be just fine by me! I didn't think it would be possible for me to actually run out of soap but lo and behold, the only soaps I have left is a batch of the Frank-&-Myrrh (which has glitter in, last thing child needs on his itchy skin) and the coffee-Gardeners Soap I made earlier in the year for the beginning of gardening season.

*********

And speaking of gardening - this week marks one final push to get everything out that I'm going to take with me, then tidy up everything that is staying and bid it farewell. The whole raised bed will need to be cleared, but I'm taking as many of the winter greens as I can, also the loganberry which started growing great guns in the garden corner. I'm not sure how I'll manage to grow my berries next year but I'll put some thought to it even if I have to build a raised bed along my fence-line. I even consider taking one of my dog rose canes with me as well and plunk it in a pot as I know I will appreciate it, needle-thorns and all.

I have been dithering about the peony I found, knowing they have a penchant for "sulking" a bit once transplanted, but as I discovered the secret to that one last year, I have decided I will take it up and put it in a pot until I find a suitable place to plant it at the new house. There's a huge bit of front-paving which will probably end up getting filled with potted trees and things once I get there.

I've just managed to get back from the carpet shop and while the owner of the business was rather brusque and terse, I feel I did get a good deal and the carpet I've chosen is a deep charcoal-brown (I defy stains to show up on that!). I'm still going back and forth on cookers as it would probably be safest to use a ceramic hob as child wouldn't be able to tell if one of the usual electric ring ones was hot or not and he wants to do more cooking with me. It does bring the price up about another £100 but needs must.

And on we go!

Oshi-

2011-11-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

Being unfamiliar with the council housing system, I have had to do a lot of real fast learning. I only experienced the system in the US and so I wasn't really aware of how the system here worked. I thought great, it's a house, I move in, sorted. There may be problems but I can sort those out eventually somehow, I'll manage. I always do.

I was aware that the curtain rods and so forth would be gone and while I had been waiting till I moved in to get decorating ideas (a rather fun process for me actually; decorating my own house, squee!) what I hadn't been prepared for was the report from my friend who went to drop off a bed for child last night. The carpets are gone. The cooker is gone. There are doors which are so damaged and poorly hung they won't close. Lightbulbs are missing which is okay I suppose, but LIGHTS themselves are gone, which isn't. It seems most of the internal doors aren't hung properly and few of them close, which will also make putting carpets back in rather problematic.

I move in next Friday and there's nothing on the floor but tackboards filled with hundreds of tiny nails and no cooker in the kitchen, two lights gone and no drapes or curtains anywhere.

Oh, shi-

Now I am a chronic planner; I had everything sorted as far in advance as I possibly could do - utilities, moving, cleaning, everything I could manage so that the final week would be nothing but packing as leisurely as I possibly could do. I have a fair wad of cash in the bank to deal with "just in case" situations as I've found those tend to creep in when I least expect; a fair bit of that cash is thanks to nearly killing myself the past two months doing more studies and painting rounds to try and sell for the holidays and the tax credits are now very handy indeed as I am looking at spending roughly £1,000 just to make the house habitable. I now have to add a day or two of hobbling round shops and trying to get comparisons for the cheapest carpets and labour I can with the whole "beggars can't be choosers" mantra being said to me - but if I'm paying about £1,000 a go, I'd say I'm not exactly a beggar.

I've got the money thanks to planning and my own obsessive foresight; but I'm still angry. Not for myself as such, I'll manage, I always do, but I can't help but think of other people who would be in worse straits - what the hell would they be expected to do? Where would the money come from? How would anyone get things sorted if they were even less able than I am?

More to the point, what about the legislation which is trying to be passed through which would limit access to these council homes for two years, young, old or disabled? When you have to literally refit a house from the ground up, could anyone afford or want to keep decorating a new place they moved into? A game of musical chairs to satisfy some books somewhere means there would always be the knowledge you'd have to uproot everything and shuffle about, taking up all your hard work - eventually I imagine people wouldn't bother at all, and I'm well aware that some now just...don't.

Ugh.

But for myself, yes I can sort it out. It still requires shuffling about - I'll have to let the estate agents handle the carpet cleaning now and they'll have to take it out of my deposit to do so; this will free up a bit more dosh I had intended on putting away to have the carpets done out of pocket. Today will instead have to be spent searching round various carpet shops and trying to get the fastest quote I can manage, then arrange somehow for keys to be given to the installers so they can just go in and get the job done, and then somehow get the keys back to me. Cookers will require some internet shopping with a delivery the day after the move, probably. Curtains and so forth are pretty low down on my list and I'll worry about that once I'm actually in, along with a hundred other little jobs I'll have to do on the place.

I'll manage. I always do; not a disaster. But I'll be doing the place up in my style best I can manage - and I will admit I've got a very fru-fru streak with I'd never dare to admit to anyone but which will probably become obvious after a while *cough*

Blessings to the Dead

2011-10-31T01:20:00.001-07:00

I normally keep pretty quiet about my spiritual practices, but this Samhain - which is the end of the year on the pagan calendar - is rather important to me.

The move to a new place is a huge shift for me, and I can feel it's going to open up a new chapter of my life; a life which I quite honestly felt was pretty much at an end and the rest was just slowly waiting for a halt. That may sound grim, but a chronic illness that slowly starts to destroy one's health has that sort of effect. However new treatment and a bit more understanding on why and what is affecting me, as well as how to treat it, has certainly given me a better outlook.

Returning to rural living is something I've wanted to do for a while now. No, it's not ideal - it's a council house with no chimney, so I'm totally at the mercy of the electric company during the winter for my heating. My gardening will now be limited to what I can grow in pots from now on and "a walk to the shops" is about two miles, so all those threats about learning how to drive need to come to fruition now (mobility scooters are pricier than a car I've found, and now I'm on new pain meds I can concentrate again). But it is still great opportunity to get back to peace and quiet and inspiration and taking life at the pace I need to take right now.

Today I've placed offerings to my dead in many forms, within and without my house; homebaked bread and a bean stew I've made with leeks, onions, garlic, hot peppers, pumpkin, bay leaf and honey. A bowl of this is offered with home-brewed beer indoors and I've put a plate outside as well in a special place in order to thank the genius loci for allowing me to stay here in this area. I've feasted myself on sushi (an especial treat) and now have tea and biscuits to enjoy as the celebrate how far I have come, and also prepare myself for where I'm going on many levels from here on out.

Today was also the day I picked up my keys to my new home and the woman who filled out the forms with me smiled brightly as I was getting ready to leave. "Good luck, I think you're going to love it out there!" she said.

Yes. I think I will.

Blessings to the Dead and the Living today - Ashe!

Absolute REFUSAL

2011-10-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

I will not get sick. No. Absolutely will not. I refuse. In the words of my ancestors - "Screw that!" I managed to get my medication delivery sorted out (after I believe my Dr had Some Words with the pharmacy that someone with a chronic condition waiting for pain relief CANNOT wait five days for the meds to arrive, thanks), got more vitamins and supplements sorted, some juice, more Lemsip and a plethora of throat sweets which I am combatting a faint feeling of lurgy with. This was probably bound to happen as the combination of feeling slightly under the weather, having nasty bouts of insomnia coupled with moving a lot of dusty stuff about (my dust allergy has returned with a bloody vengeance over the past few years) is pushing me to the limits a bit. Today child is off on a weekend camping trip - almost sure to bring back some new and virulent plague I haven't been exposed to yet - and I'll have to fight that off as well, packing all the while.

So I have lemsip to hand again, with a squeezed lime and a teaspoon of manuka honey added in. Medications and vitamins taken, and I'm about to have yet another nap to try and prepare myself for even more packing and so forth tomorrow.

Anything even remotely viral can take a flying leap.

Packing...so much packing....

2011-10-28T03:42:00.001-07:00

I'm doing a lot of rubbish-shuffling, clearing out tatt and things I don't need, sheaves of paperwork which is now lining the compost bin (I need to get another one actually), old clothes which have been in the bottom of the washpile since I don't know when, old clothes in child's room, boxes of books and toys I know child has outgrown or has no interest in, old supplies and boxes I haven't opened in years and therefore they can't be all that important anyway. Out it all goes.

And then in it comes; I've ordered cat food, a new domed litter tray which I hope will keep the cat litter INSIDE rather than OUTSIDE the tray (the door had snapped in the box when the packers unceremoniously piled about 5 kilos of cat food and 10 kilos of litter on top of it, but I can't be fussed to argue about it). The cats are looking rather dubious, but that's to be expected I suppose. I'll give it time. They also have some toys which they are merrily chasing all over the flipping house at the moment.

Child is off to camp this Hallow's Eve and I've got two pumpkins I had every intention of carving but...hm, my hands don't seem to be too thrilled with me attempting to cut through over two inches of pumpkin. Heigh ho. I think I'm just going to cut them down for cooking, although I'm rather gutted about this, Halloween is one of my favourite holidays and not being able to do it proper justice is a bit of a bummer.

The house will be in right proper upheaval for a while as I upend it, give it a shake, and decide what I'll keep from the mess. So scuse me while I do that. Meanwhile, chicken gumbo is on the stove for later (so not all bad!)

Crafting season

2011-10-24T05:17:00.000-07:00

It's upon me again - the need to curl up and find little crafty/crochety/sewy projects over the winter months. It is a bit of a challenge with borked hands however, and I started cutting some very thick fabric for a corset before I had to give up the job halfway through as my hands were shaking from strain. I'm a little frustrated as pain means typing, painting or drawing is difficult for me today, and garden work is right now. I can just ride it out...maybe embroidery? I've some tea towels I want to do.

In any event, though I'm packing things up for the move - and I'm not quite sure where all my crafty things are going yet to be honest! - I'm hoping to get the corset done and maybe cut and do some border sewing on tea towels so I will have some embroidery work to do over the next few weeks.

But...with this said, my hands hurt too much to type for long so cutting this short. Really need to get a new scrip for anti-inflammatories sorted. In the interim, I'll be taking some ginger tea!

Things I'm glad I got when I could

2011-10-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

- Computer; having a fast computer which isn't intermittent is fabulous, especially when I rely on online abilities to communicate with the outside world. Add my printer/scanner to this which I recently bought as well.

- Carpet cleaner; Since I've finally pinpointed where my son has been weeing in his room (sigh) I just had to lug the thing upstairs to do a thorough clean of the carpets. So much better than getting down on hands and knees to sort a messy job (though I won't miss stairs one bit when I move!)

- Space heaters; I will not miss this drafty house one jot. There are storage heaters in the new bungalow which I sincerely don't like; they have a tendency to get much too hot and I have burned myself very nastily on one when I first came to this country. So space heaters may save the day and allow me to move a bit better when every joint wants to lock in place.

- Le Creuset dutch oven; cooking a Caribbean curry right now and I am once again in love with this pot. Bung it in cuisine is brilliant, and since I've done an already difficult job today of son's room I don't really have the energy to spare on standing at a stove all day. It boils, I sit. This works.

- Housekeeper; this has been vital. Other people do in two hours what I couldn't manage in a whole week. My friend's mum is very close to my new house and has happily offered to come clean for me weekly, which will both be rather social as well as being quite useful for me to have.

I am preparing for the move and then, once done, I'll be cutting back my work hours considerably. Drawing and painting and sewing will go back to being "Hobbies" for a while as I will have the breathing space and finally enough money freed up thanks to a reduced rent that I no longer have to kill myself trying to sell items no one wants to buy in the current economic climate. I can work more on my recovery as a result, and my joints are getting better...but I could be improving if I had more energy to do so, rather than continue to work 40+ hours, seven days a week. I'll still enter competitions but I'll more or less just produce work slow and steady on my own terms rather than make myself ill trying to fulfil someone else's.

So I'm glad I bought everything when I was able to do so, and I'm taking a general stock-take of things I should get now while I can; printer paper and cartridges, lightbulbs, batteries, power cable extensions and anything else I can think of which would normally not cross my mind until I need them. I'll be losing a fair bit of tax credits and disposable income, but I'd rather cut back on what almost feels like (to me!) a surplus of money, and make do on what I need rather than buying stuff that isn't all that important in the end.

Stocking up

2011-10-20T02:28:00.000-07:00

The move is now very official now, and I'm finding myself trying to get prepared as best I am able to carry on and get off and away. It's a difficult balance really which I need to strike up as, even though we're not completely cut off (the new house is in an area which gets high speed broadband due to the amount of people who work from home there), the roads are VERY difficult to navigate and it would be a very simple thing to get utterly snowed in there. Therefore, even though I'm trying to pare things down as much as possible as far as boxes are concerned, I am still trying to be mindful of the fact I need to be sure to keep my pantry supplies up - even if it means more boxes!

So, while the autumn harvest is going on en force and the squash has had a much better year this year, I am getting in as many of them as I can and putting them into storage. So I've now enough squash to last me for the winter months. This is enough for roasting, soups, stuffings and pies. There's quite a few potatoes in bags as well, some of which I'm going to have to just get to cooking now as they're starting to sprout, but as son will happily eat chips with every meal, this shouldn't be a problem! It inspires me to keep cooking and to have plenty of spices onhand so I can create meals which are interesting, even when he tends to eat the same thing over and over again.

Fruit...my son the fruitbat goes through a load of fruit and I always have to have fruit onhand. I have actually managed to not eat as much fruit as I should as I've become used to saving all of it for him as he goes through so much of it. This however has had the usual knock-on effect on my health, and I've had to remind myself to not only order a fair bit of fruit, but to actually EAT it myself. Limes get made into drinks or into hot toddies for when we're not feeling our best (child has a very nasty sore throat/chest thing which has been going around, and I have so far managed to stave it off). This will all get eaten though it seems like way too much for just two people. I have to remind myself to buy considerable amounts of fruit as and when. Apples and pears can keep if I store the excess properly and I have been doing that.

Bread has been baked with one loaf in the freezer. More pantry supplies have been purchased and put away. I've tonnes of Abel and Cole boxes, some of which I'll send back next week, and some which I'll keep to transport cold food items and so on, for the boxes to then be given back after the move. I have a good 10 kilos of flour now but will need to get more yeast so I'm sure to be able to bake bread as and when. There's plenty of semolina and polenta, rice, oats and tinned toms, as well as my son's other food group, ketchup. There's still things to get so I'm sure that the pantry has a full allocation of food we'll actually eat, but I've a few weeks for that. All in all, the stocking up continues on apace and I'll soon be in my "pantry-comfort-zone" again.

And so it begins!

2011-10-18T01:56:00.000-07:00

I have accepted the offer of the bungalow in the Middle Of Nowhere, and have sent the paperwork off and away. Once I get the official papers for the lease I'll be writing to various cleaners, authorities, utilities and schools in order to get everything transferred over so I can start moving things forward, as well as booking a move date for the removers to sort out my house, get onto a new broadband (which I should actually be able to set up before I move in so I only lose a day in hooking everything up). I also need to take stock as far as what I'm going to need to get sorted while I still have relatively easy access to do so, such as getting all appliances in for a service, preparing to hook up things like my washer and dryer and dishwasher, getting some shelving and a new table and chairs for me and child to use as an eating table, and installing a cat flap if need be for the lads (and the resident cat, whom I met as well, old very LOUD tortie).

On the school front I am crossing fingers for a very small, very rural school which may be able to handle my son better than the current one. The total of children who attend is 44; yes, that's it. In short, the class is already a small-ratio learning environment for him and therefore stress may be cut down considerably. Yes, it's Church of England, yes I expect lots of arguments with his father about this. But my son has decided at the moment that Christianity speaks to him, and as it was always my mission to allow him to make up his own mind in that regard, I will support him. I'd rather have a spiritual child than a bitter one.

Things slot quickly into place; I'll be getting a new bed from a friend that is much sturdier and also has under-bed storage for child. Her mum lives very close and is starting a house cleaning business and is very happy to clean my home for me weekly so that will carry on now as well. There are lovely grandparent-y neighbours and I forsee my son having a close full of nan-nans again like we did in London (envision much spoiling here!).

There's also plenty of garden work to do; tidying up in general as well as deciding which plants will stay and which plants I'll take with me. For the most part, what's in the ground will stay there; I will take cuttings off the mint and the catnip, and pot up sage and chives and so forth but everything else will stay. It's a shame as I planted a load of winter greens but unless I can lift a few chard plants I simply can't take them. Everything I plant from here on out is going to have to go in pots. No issue, as I have plenty of these, but is still something I need to remind myself as I get prepared to head on.

All in all, things are clicking into place with such rapidity I know it's all meant to be. This new place will be all mine, with none of my marriage-baggage about the house. Gone the furniture I neither need nor want, gone the free-storage for ex which eats up the space I'd like to use myself. Gone anything which still represents compromise rather than my own self and what I enjoy, decorations round my house that reflect me rather than someone else (although with child there are still the usual caveats - no pictures of people, no red).

Rattle Rattle

2011-10-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

This isn't actually everything I have to take...I'm out of one medication and need a refill, there are liquid meds and more supplements as well (aloe vera juice is one I've started taking just because of all the stuff I'm currently taking now) but this is at least my current dosage stuff. Some is medication, some is supplements to help my body deal with the medications...in any event it's a tonne to keep track of and I now have to sort them out in this handy pill-keeper which is actually proving to almost be too small now. Still, I manage.

Today was a day for drives in the country as I went to view the new house and the setting. A beautiful blow across the Chalk Downs as well, with a spelunk through the area to get a look at it. Is it rural? Oh yes...and it's also on a rather hilly bit which may prove to be a bit of a challenge for me to walk up or down - at least our going through the actual village and following the signs found us both me and my friend chuckling and saying "Yes, in the winter, this is right out!"

The house itself when we came to it had a lovely cottage garden out front, and I have enough cheek that I went into the back as well to have a look at the "large garden" - which isn't large at all. And as a matter of fact, it isn't even a garden; it's a lot of decking and gravel. No grass. This would be a bit sad if it wasn't for the fact the whole thing then backs onto forest and wild land which slopes down into a valley. In short, it's lovely...but there goes my need for a lawn mower (no big loss). I'm not a huge fan of decking to be truthful, but needs must. As long as I can treat it with some wood preserver to keep it from being treacherously slippery, should be all right.

But the view...yes, the view is heavenly. I consider I may need to do something a bit more fence-worthy than is what is currently up considering child's penchant for running about like a mad thing but will deal with that when I can. Certainly won't be this year. Still, I am a little worried about the loss of space in his room, which will only have enough room to eat, sleep and use his computer but little else. The sensory moves he tends to do of running back and forth will be totally forbidden as there's just no space for it. I'm hoping I can find another form of coping mechanism for him to burn it off and give him the sensory input he needs. Lots of walks through the forest would work if I could get the boots to manage it as welly boots with slippery soles will not do at all. I'll have to think about it.

Next door's neighbours, a delightful older couple, allowed me to come in and have a look round their property to get an idea on the size. It's not massive by any stretch, but it's still not too bad and I'll manage. I am ever happy for NO MORE CARPET IN THE BATHROOM, ugh. We'll need a much smaller table and chairs, and the larger lounge does mean I can use some of the space to work in as far as my painting goes. There's even a smaller shed which MIGHT work as a studio if I tidy it up considerably...the summer house in London worked for that actually. I'll have a think.

All in all, looks promising! Yes, it's rural and would be tricky getting round but just need to stock up well during the winter.

But farewell my huge garden. I loved you while I knew you. Still sad about leaving it but there's still a lovely cottage garden currently growing out there and I'll just revert to growing in pots from now on. Plenty of space out there for the bbq, the sprawly couch and of course the view to back it up. Cats are going to be in heaven.

Here's to hoping

2011-10-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

It's strange how the world moves, isn't it? I have been keeping an ear to the ground with regard to a bungalow as council housing. They're as rare as hen's teeth usually as they tend to be given to the elderly and disabled and (to be blunt) only come available again when their tenants tend to pass on. I've been looking about since May but rarely found anything available.

Recently I put a bid on a bungalow in a beautiful and very rural area. It seemed a long shot as I do not have a car but I remained somewhat hopeful and then thought nothing further about it. Today, however, I received a call - I am being offered the house.

Wow. Lots to consider here.

Firstly, I would be rather remote and due to mobility, travel is difficult for me. This is hardly a negative in my mind as the whole area is surrounded by forest and countryside. Secondly, the garden sounds quite large - indeed, the front garden has a copious cottage garden which looks lovely if it's the right house I'm looking at on the map, so while it's a different locale, I lose little on the garden front. I can keep my cats, I can move schools for my son (although shall still be going through the tribunal as he still obviously needs OT/Behaviour work). I can be in a lovely country setting.

"The house is in the middle of nowhere and the garden is quite big." This was said in a somewhat warning tone, which made me smile. I was housebound due to pain, but that pain is easing. I don't go out and about anyway even though I have opportunity. Just can't be bothered. I want peace and quiet and wumping space. And living in a forest sort of gives that in spades. I'm not a city dweller - did that when I had the energy for it, but now? Give me music, light and space to work and I'm happy.

Of course, yes, there are negatives to rural living - without transportation the remote setting will prove to need a lot of creative how-to as far as getting around. I'll need medications delivered, and a new surgery. Not sure what kind of hospital I'll be transferred to but that also needs consideration. All food needs to be delivered and when we get snowed in, we REALLY get snowed in. And of course just moving in general tends to be a nightmare, there is SO much stuff here, for all my decluttering efforts. The plants I just put in foodwise now all need moving. I'll be losing my weekly cleaner, we can't take the Wumpy House with us. Cats may stress the hell out and I need carriers for all three. There is no chance I can either drive a van and would have to hire someone but I already know I can't afford any of the big companies.

But a friend of mine who knows me well, and knows all of Wiltshire like the back of her hand, urged me immediately to take the place. She knows my ways, knows my tastes and also knows how rare it is for houses like this to become available. The few friends I do have, I'll certainly miss, but they're all offering to come along and lend a hand as and when.

I've been secretly hoping and praying for a return to rural life, sighing wishfully actually just yesterday about a blogger who has moved into a delightful space and found myself bummed out yet again about being nigh on unable to use my own garden due to nosy neighbours, a house full of leftover marriage memories I don't want (but I was the free alternative to storage space and I felt taxed not to get rid of any of it) and living in a rather un-lovely area with few prospects of being able to leave it. Now...opportunity is hammering on my door and I feel rather strongly guided to take it.

So...plots and plans in the back of my head though I still need to go and have a look at the place. It may be totally wrong for me, I don't know, I'm holding myself in reserve...but it's still a good excuse to get rid of anything I really can't be arsed to keep. And if I do move, all the better!

Bedding down.

2011-10-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

It's one of these days actually where the cats are distinctly giving me sleepy vibes but I'm doing my best to press on.

I've harvested all the toms and brought them indoors, putting their green selves in with some of their ripening brethren which I hope will get the process going. I use these as and when, as I made a rabbit paprikash last night in my Dutch Oven which was delicious, using onions and tomatoes and carrots from my own garden stores.

I've just put in the winter garden now - broad beans, winter lettuces, and leafy kale, more rosemary, more sage, more chives. We have LOADS of chard and I'm actually struggling to figure out what to do with all of it, but shall get inventive.

The apples are harvested now off our small tree and are delicious, not enough to store but since I only just got this tree I'm surprised it gave me anything at all. The apples are huge and flavourful and my son has designated they all need to go into his lunchbox.

Bulbs have arrived and I'll be making some time to put these into the ground this week for spring colour, and maybe getting one last mow of the lawn sorted as well. There are leaves to rake and some bramble to beat back while everything is going dormant to save myself some time next year. Sewing season is also about to start for me and I'm making a list of everything that needs repairing or making over the winter - I've repaired my quilt, need more tea towels, may even embroider them a bit.

I bought myself a beer keg as I was finding bottling rather troublesome for my hands, unless I get some willing helpers to bottle these for me! This isn't an ideal solution as I know beer doesn't stay well in a keg (maybe a few months) which sort of requires you to drink the stuff rather regularly - something I simply cannot do, really. but I'm sure again I may have some willing helpers who will happily sacrifice their sobriety to put some batches away as and when, especially if this batch is done by Halloween. I am considering making a second batch of very dark Belgian beer but it takes some time to age, and I don't think it would be ready for Yule if I started it now. Definitely needs to go in the bottle and probably stay there for some time, but even if it wasn't done by Yule, I wouldn't mind a nice dark pint in January.

Christmas potatoes are doing very well, and I've lined them with straw which hopefully will keep them warm. Strawberries are covered and I'm considering wrapping the pots of my miniature trees in old blankets and towels for the winter, as our winters have been getting more and more bitter over the years and I don't want to risk losing the lot.

Getting things done slowly but surely...the new medication cocktail seems to be working as, even though it's overcast and there's a chill in the air, I can keep moving and my energy level isn't too bad. So, roll on!

Lovely days

2011-10-04T00:50:00.001-07:00

I haven't been posting much because I'm now starting some new medication and trying to find my feet with it. I've been slowly getting back into routine as child was excluded for a whole week this time, and I've been unable to work or get much done. Now, I must allow myself recovery time and sleep as much as need be rather than try to push and get too much done all at once.

Also, the past week's heatwave was absolutely gorgeous - yes I know English people were all complaining that they were melting in the "heat" (if it's not 32 degrees to me it's not hot yet!) but I was loving it, taking a final repose upon the sprawly garden couch before I bagged up all the pillows and covered it with a tarp.

The garden is in need to be put to sleep for the winter - tomato plants need to be torn up, beds need to be tidied, the weeds and grass needs one final beating back, and I've got a winter garden to plant and tend as well. However, while I'm trying to get back into things I have to go slowly - the new medication makes me very drowsy and I am having to pace myself till I adapt. Slow and steady...steady and slow.

More to the mix

2011-09-26T00:53:00.000-07:00

I've just received the independent OT report for sprog's tribunal. To say I'm both shocked and hopeful is an understatement.

I have always been aware of sproggo's clumsiness but was persistently reassured that this was just a part of autism or because he cannot slow down due to hyperactivity. I've been given all sorts of half-measures and even had medication suggested. I suppose I should have followed up a lot better with regard to dealing with the issues as they stand but in my defence I have been trying desperately hard just to keep my head above water, keep working, and keep myself out of hospital so I haven't really followed up on just why my son was having so much trouble with coordination.

The OT has now diagnosed my son as having dyspraxia as well as autism and hyperactivity. I am floored - he isn't just "clumsy", he has another condition on top of the other two which is literally preventing him from doing a lot of things. He doesn't just "choose" to not write (which I knew) but it physically hurts him to write because his muscles aren't developed enough to use a pencil (which I also knew but had just hoped with enough work he'd get there). The report is actually quite scathing as it seems a whole facet of my son's education and life has been completely overlooked. I'm guilty as well, but I'm not an expert I suppose and I can't diagnose everything, but I would have hoped someone would have.

The sheer size of this report is staggering - over 30 pages long - which thankfully does state in no uncertain terms that my son is in a situation which guaranteed to fail; a mainstream school is not where he needs to be, and we now have more and more of a case to put him into a special school at the worst, or a residential school at the best. The sheer amount of work (small class of maybe four kids total, OT work on a regular basis per week, lots of exercise to strengthen core muscles, the fact he is in "fight or flight" mode the instant he walks in the door because mainstream schools are chaotic), all of this and more shows that unless the school he's in wishes to build an entirely new classroom and curriculum just for my child, it's probably best he was going elsewhere.

While it's good to know this wasn't all in my head and I'm not just one person yelling into the wind, it's also rather heartbreaking. My logical mind says I shouldn't be blaming myself for not having the know-how to be able to put another diagnosis in with the rest; but my mother brain is saying something else entirely to me. You know how it is.

I need to go have another cry now, but I'll be right back into the fight with a vengeance. The tribunal is only a month away now, and I'm fighting hard. Considering son was excluded again on Friday and every day of sending him to school becomes a nightmare, I will win this so we can all have peace.

O son my son, hang in there.

***********

ADDENDUM: Shortly after writing this I received a call that son had once again lost control in school. I tried to talk to him on the phone and was rather horrified as it didn't sound like my son at all. He's been excluded now for another week. I have made the decision to just remove him from school entirely as the lesson has now been learned; he knows now that all he has to do is hurt someone and he doesn't have to go back to school anymore. There will be no stopping this behaviour now without a completely new school and approach.

I'm actually unable to treat my own disability symptoms and care now as the drugs I need just to be able to function put me in a stupor; with child home that sort of care is impossible. Not sure how I'll get to appointments and things now but I will have to figure something out. It's not going to be an easy time of it by any means but all my hopes now hang on the tribunal.

So, fingers crossed.

Getting back to basics

2011-09-20T01:42:00.001-07:00

Habits, routines and cycles - in my house they're actually vitally important as anything new or unique needs to be added slowly, anything which has been an established routine needs to be dealt with in a very slow manner in order to get it to change and it's always a challenge both to child and to myself to do things - myself due to energy levels and "spoons", my son due to his autism.

Over the summer I let him play on his computer as long as he liked because the medication I was on made doing pretty much anything utterly impossible. Hence he spent almost all his time upstairs on his computer, and I spent time downstairs on mine, saving up energy to do meals and so on and that was pretty much it. Now that I've voluntarily taken myself off the stuff, and I am trying to do more things that are off the computer, my son has an established routine that I didn't really want him to have...and now I have to try and break it. This won't be an easy thing to do as being with child is a very fast-pace thing that often exhausts me as I can't keep up - and the slipping in his routine to "oh go ahead and go on your computer" is more my fault than his really as I allow it - but little bits can be done to break up the time he spends plugged into something when he could be doing something more interactive with me.

If I have a defence it's that the change of the year is making itself felt considerably; I find myself in growing pain by the day and so I tend to want to hunker down and not move at all. This is of course a rather ridiculous way of dealing with the problem and while I have an appointment to try a new sort of anti-inflammatory, I still have several weeks before I can attend.

So I also have a habit to break to get out of my computer chair, off the bed, and try and inject a bit more energy into my day. It's easy to get too lazy and not actually do things for oneself when the computer is right here and seems to give you your life completely at your fingertips, but the computer cannot do the laundry or dishes, it can't make sure I take my medication, it doesn't sort out the phonecalls I need to make, doesn't make sure I get enough sleep and while it keeps my son busy - it isn't his mother.

Forgive me if I'm a bit scant on the updates as a result as I try to retrain myself for the winter months

Hurricanes

2011-09-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

And here we are...the beginning to Week 2 of the return to school and I was out for coffee with a friend. The first time I've done such thing since - and I had to look it up - June. I don't leave the house, you see; not only is it hard to walk anywhere under my own power, not only do I tend to talk and sit like a zombie because I'm too tired to be sociable, but I'm always aware that when I go out, I end up having to cut things short. Something tends to happen. Something -always- tends to happen.

I was actually reaching for my phone to check messages and saying to my friend "I should check this seeing that every time I'm out, my son kicks off and there's a crisis - " I got to "I'm out" when the phone rang. It was the school, I knew it before I even answered it.

Exclusion for assaulting a teacher; this time he hurt her so bad she's probably going to have to go to a clinic as I was told - child didn't care. More to the point I could tell he didn't care. He was smirking. Actually smirking when I went to go and get him. They said "Oh, he's acting tired and he's had a bunch of water to drink!" as if somehow they wanted to pin neglect on me (as if) but as soon as I saw him, I could see what he was doing - putting on an act to get minimal scolding.

Suddenly I felt like one of those parents who gets fined for their child's horrific behaviour, the type of parent that readers of Red-Topped Papers love to say Deserved Everything They Got, They Had It Coming. Maybe I am. Maybe it's too late to even think about turning my child round now as the one thing I had hoped like hell wouldn't happen seems to have occurred - he's turning into a thug. I'm...yeah. Pretty speechless.

So, more phone calls and more attempts to try and phrase that my son being sent home isn't considered a day off (what a dumb thing to do, he doesn't get why he's being excluded). Let's just hope I'm not about to get a fine or something for injury...and where I go from here, I don't rightly know.

Back to the phone.

Making allowances

2011-09-09T00:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a bit of a blowup day; child has become more and more into "acquiring stuff" and then not bothering to use any of it. My bad, really; I finally had some money to get him some nice things, and so I did, but that only resulted in him wanting MORE stuff, he has no appreciation of what he buys. He spends most of his time on his computer (and I can't blame him, so do I!) and so asking him to get off the computer is often a huge issue as he refuses to do it and throws a tantrum. Between this and his constant demands for more toys ("My toys are OLD and I want NEW ones!") I've had to lay down some rules: the computer stays off till all homework is done. And there will be no more toys until Christmas, not even for his birthday. Called his father on this and he agreed as well as he recognises the pattern in himself and even acknowledged it. Forgive me while I fall over in shock!

Yes, a harsh policy but again you could knock yourself out creating the biggest birthday bash ever for son (and I certainly have done so) but within an hour he'd only start talking about what he wants next time. It's just The Wump; but for now if he wants things he'll have to buy them - it won't make the toys any more valuable to him (he has been buying most of his stuff himself and it still collects dust after a day), but it will reduce the frequency of toys cluttering up my house. As it stands I currently give a lot of my son's toys to a friend with three boys. They love coming to my house! :)

Still, the point is that I have neither the money nor the energy to give child all the entertainment he wants. It's possibly the most disheartening thing for me; no matter how much preparation time it took for me to get ready for a day out, how expensive it was, how exhausted I'd be afterwards, there is no appreciation of effort from the Sprog. He only wants more, to do more, to have more. There's no such thing as making allowances with him, and yes, in this I am rather bitter. Even so, I am planning to have him home for his birthday as he has some anxiety about going to school on his birthday, and even got rather worked up about it. In order to keep the peace, I will be keeping him out with me and we'll play truant, have some cupcakes, go see a friend, maybe have them round for a bit. I might be able to get him into town with me, but we'll see.

Other allowances need to be made as well; I woke up horribly stiff today - everything aches and I've been creaking and groaning all morning; bones snapping and popping alarmingly loud today no matter what position I try to sit in, and I imagine I'd horrify innocent bystanders with all the noise. Sky is overcast and there is a definite chill in the air...there is no chance of me getting the strimming and hedgetrimming done today in the condition I'm in, so - why not baking? I've started the bread, will get the flapjacks mixed and ready to go as well. May not be able to sew with my hands feeling as they do right now but I can bake and cook and stretch a bit in between; I've taken regular breaks out of typing this entry to stretch in my chair, to get up and move a little, hissing in pain, creaking and popping the whole while as I try to work the kinks out. Not a terribly exciting sort of day but this is how my winters tend to roll. I am hoping for a less crap one than last year, or at least that is the hope.

However if I am stuck indoors again and can't get out and about, I now have other things I can do; paint, sew, cook, read, and stretch out on my Languishment couch. It's a very slow pace, almost hibernation, but it's necessary, and I'm grateful that I can currently allow myself to do this as we're doing all right for money at the moment - no pressure for me to work myself into the ground this year trying to get even a tiny bit of cash in for a Christmas dinner. I'm still working at painting, still working at making a bit of money but I'm prepared to refine my craft first. The book is still selling (typos and all!) though it isn't selling much, and that's without any promotion on my part. We're managing. It's not the stellar stuff I'd like to be doing but this year I make allowances for that.

It's not necessarily a bad thing; I'll have fresh bread at the end of the day, and there will be flapjacks for son. I'll have energy to paint today and hopefully in a few hours my body will be limbered up enough to not crack every time I move. Allowances are being made, and they do tend to pay off, provided one learns to be able to see them. I have to learn that as well, same as my son. No, I didn't get the walls painting or the floor shampooed or discovered cold fusion, but I did the baking. I painted a study. I stretched a LOT.

We all need to learn to make allowances.

Languishment, the Franchise

2011-09-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

I learned this from various Star Wars spin-offs; do something enough times and it's no longer a sequel, but a franchise. And I seem to have the Languishment Franchise considering how many times I get hit with it.

I've been pretty active (for me, anyway) the past few days and therefore I have now been hit with the aftermath of languishment; not enough sleep, too many heavy meals, no vitamins...pretty self inflicted really, but there you are.

I've found myself staring at various jobs I need doing today and I'm completely incapable of doing them at the moment. Even typing out these sentences has taken a silly amount of time, and so...

sleep. Sleep required.

Now.

Not Just a Saucepan

2011-09-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

Growing up, my mum had one of these dutch ovens; it was her prize possessions and under no circumstances were we even so much as allowed to clean it without her supervision. She had taken it with her to the Yukon Territories and back, and it was easily 20 years old. Now, I've always been rather nostalgic of the flame-orange pan as it seemed to cook just about anything in it, being nigh on indestructible and able to take an open flame as well as a clay oven or a conventional stove.

I always swore I'd get one of these myself but as time rolled on, the price on LeCreuset cookware went up - drastically up. Up in a "there's no flipping way I'll ever be able to afford a set of this stuff" sort of way.

However, I finally decided earlier this year I was going to replace my old, tired ruined cooking gear with stuff that would last. I didn't just want cookware, but an investment, something I'd use for ages and never have to replace again, wouldn't release questionable stuff into my food, and could handle anything.

I saved up for two months for this dutch oven. Yes, two months, and even then it was pricey as hell, but here it is, happily cooking away its first maiden meal of risott; I even upgraded and got it in PURPLE.

It's strange, isn't it. It's -just- a pan, but I can't help think of all those meals I first learned how to cook growing up, what a delight it was to saute in my mum's pan and how exciting it was to finally be trusted to cook in it on my own. Some food just tastes better cooked in this - like cooking cornbread in my cast iron skillet or making pancakes and I'd never use any other pan. I'm already plotting and planning what to make with it, and I soak my cazuela (spanish clay pan) for the first time and plot out making paella and other lovely dishes in that as well.

Not just a pan, I guess. And the risotto - mushrooms, chard, leftover chicken and onions in broth and white wine with a bit of cheese - was delicious.

Windy Blustery Day...

2011-09-05T00:53:00.000-07:00

I'll stay inside thanks!

First day of school today and so I'm currently sitting here rather early in a silent house. My intention was to go out and get a cheque into the bank, to post a painting I finished (as shown, gods what a pain that was!) and to maybe bimble about town. However the truth of the matter is...I'm tired! And it's early. And it's COLD and windy outside. I opt for staying indoors at the moment, bolstering myself up to go to Market this week and get some shopping done - and I'm going to be doing this all by taxi now rather than trying to brave doing it by bus to spare my energy levels and dole out my ability to stand.

But for now, tea, and then a bit of a short workout on my recumbent bike (trying to get back into habit as I fell out of it when child was home). Then a bath, and then...sleep. Yes, seriously, I'll be sleeping most of today. This is my usual school-time routine with child as I recuperate from all the activity of weekends and things. Rest. Recover.

So off I go.

September Comeback

2011-09-01T02:34:00.000-07:00

Mr. Bucket was the only person in the family with a job. He worked in a toothpaste factory, where he sat all day long at a bench and screwed the little caps onto the tops of the tubes of toothpaste after the tubes had been filled. But a toothpaste cap-screwer is never paid very much money, and poor Mr. Bucket, however hard he worked, and however fast he screwed on the caps, was never able to make enough to buy one-half of the things that so large a family needed. - "Willy Wonka"

I got a box today from a major supermarket which had my son's iShuffle (thank gods for sales) and a new winter coat in for him as the one he's had for the past two years has finally been outgrown and mended too many times for me to fix. Ordering shopping online is the only way I can shop these days thanks to mobility issues - issues which might be solved if I had a scooter and a proper path to go down with it but as the council says "Oh, you can't expect for us to build accessible paths all over the place for you!".

Anyway, the box says "This box has been made by Remploy, getting disabled people back into the workplace!" along with a bunch of other cute stuff like "Doing the Right Thing" and other fairtrade/eco buzzwords for the middle class to feel warm and fuzzy about. A catchy slogan which, I presume, is supposed to give you a good feeling that the disabled are working again and you're to feel like a proper helpful person for buying stuff so they can keep making boxes.

And honestly all I could think of was "boxes...seriously? Boxes?!"

I am sure there are people out there who do want a job, hell -any- job. And yes, brilliant for them if they've never had one or had any particular training. But I couldn't help but think of a article featuring person with Down's Syndrome who actually said they'd be happy to work for nothing. Now I know what people are going to say, but to my mind it's like asking my son if he'd like to get into your car because "Mum said you could." He doesn't have the tools and the skills to understand whether or not he's being taken advantage of - he's sweet and he can be helpful and there are times he desperately tries hard to please. But that does not mean, and should -never- mean that people jump on it. However, this is the sort of society we live in, and people jumped onto that article and clung to it for dear love and conclusive proof positive that disabled people want nothing more than to tug the forelock and screw the tops onto tubes of toothpaste because at least then, they'd feel they were "contributing".

But the thing is, I'm not an utterly unskilled person. I'm an artist, former writer, former head PA and Paralegal, welder, heavy equipment operator and cook. I've had two businesses, one of which I had to quit not due to a lack of orders or sales but due to my fact my disability prevented me from continuing. I have quite a few skills and a fair bit of experience and yet...boxes apparently would be the best I could do. Toothpaste tubes is contributing, surely, and I shouldn't complain, at least it means I'm not getting money FOR FREE.

Is making cardboard boxes the best work I could possibly secure? Seriously? After I've exhausted myself every day to hold a job, spent money to get transport, money on specialist sitters for my autistic son, money on uniforms and food because I no longer have the energy to cook, money on a cleaner because I have no energy to clean, potentially get fired because I'm too tired to go into work, to drugged up on chemo-meds or codeine to remember my own name or what day I'm supposed to be working, or because my son has had a meltdown at school and assaulted someone ....the best I can do is making cardboard. The perfectly good business I had going, and which I would STILL be doing if they hadn't scrapped the Access to Work programme, is obviously too good for me, and boxes will have to do. "Hey, we're all miserable! You should have your share of misery!" is not a good reason to shove anyone into a crap job, let alone someone who is already facing a shedload of issues just to be able to get up and go to a job in the first place.

I like the job I do, thanks; and it is a job, not just a fancy way to say unemployed...but I'd be doing a LOT better if all the tools I previously had to keep going weren't all be cut and thrown away - sort of like myself, really.

Want to help? Seriously? Don't give me a job making boxes - don't take away anything that was ever in place to be able to allow me the few jobs I can do, and for the love of all things, stop assuming that unless I'm as miserable as everyone else, I'm not trying hard enough. Let me continue to do what I love to do, and why not actually HELP me do it?

Go figure, eh?

****************************

As per Diary of A Benefit Scrounger: Today is the 1st September. In a few days, the welfare reform bill faces it's 2nd reading in the House of Lords. There are lots of good articles appearing today as we all come back to the battle for a life of dignity and respect before it's too late. I will add links here as the day goes on, but please do join us in tweeting, sharing and linking articles wherever you can. On twitter, please use the hashtag #septembercomeback and let's show our politicians that we will not - cannot - accept a society that goes back to excluding us.

Let's create a social media storm. Let's refuse to be "disappeared".

Autumn Harvest

2011-08-29T01:19:00.000-07:00

Child has returned home from a week in the surf and sun, with plenty of stories to tell and all kinds of fun and games. The day is sunny but I can feel the fall-time creeping in as I went outside and brought the rose wine in to see if it's cleared, and it has. So, into bottles this will go! If I had a fancy corking machine I'd do these traditionally, but my hand strength is pretty shot so the best I can do these days is the bottle capper I use for beer. It doesn't make much a difference to be honest (though don't tell the purists I'm doing it this way).

I also went out and harvested some Bromley apples straight off the tree, and while I'm grateful for the free fruit (it isn't even my tree!) a lot of the apples are rotting on the branch and taking all the other apples with them. Eek! I'm not even sure they're ready! But I'm trying to gather and pick as I can though I don't have the best storage for these - today I'll maybe make a crumble.

The elderberry/rosehip syrup is on the boil right now as we speak, and I added a bit of clove and cinnamon for taste and to help with coughs. It's a shame I can no longer take this syrup but it's a big immune-system booster and sadly that's part of my problems with the inflammatory arthritis. However in a pinch when I'm feeling a flu bug creep up on me I might just throw caution to the winds anyway - I'd rather have a bit of a flare than the flu! I save some of this in the fridge for the first couple weeks of school-return (any parent knows what a nightmare of bugs that can be) and then some goes into the freezer for winter.

I've just picked the pears off our little pear tree and I must say for a little minarette I'm rather impressed to get even one pear off it, let alone four! Not bad going for our little tree, and I've brought the pears in now to ripen up in our fruit bowl.

Strawberries and raspberries are still going for it at the moment, giving me fruit to the very last. I'm having to tug out various old sheets to plan for coming frosts but I'm hoping for a bit of an Indian Summer before that happens (though I now have space heaters at the ready!)

And so it goes: child's 8th birthday coming up (dear gods above) and so I'm keeping an eye out for present ideas and plots and plans for a birthday party if I've the strength - though I'm also mindful I may be trying out some new medication and I just don't know the effects yet. Maybe I can coordinate something with the school, we'll have to see.

Preparing for Year 3

2011-08-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

So, child is about to begin year 3, even though I'm still facing his tribunal in November. Things will therefore be fine for about three weeks and then kick off again with lots of panicked phone calls as more and more demands that he sit down and learn in exactly the same way as everyone else backfires in a big way.

I'm also having to prepare to deal with a young boy that is growing up considerably. I found him playing rather violent games on his computer last week which horrified me...but then I'm sure his mates do the same. I banned anything with too much blood then gritted my teeth when he started playing Clone Wars instead (no, he can't play Thomas any longer, I need to get with that). He's also been asking about music, and so I've ordered a smallish iShuffle for him (after actually getting my head round what an iShuffle actually is, hell I remember Walkmans!), and will show him how the MixPod site works and what to load on it, and so on.

I've been slowly updating his room to allow for his growing boy-ness; new sheets for his bed, a bigger desk, more organised shelving for his stuff. He'll need a new mattress actually now that he's stopped wetting it with such frequency, and his clothes are now reflecting an individuality as well. I allow him to make more of his own choices in expressing it - his taste in toys have changed (though his greediness hasn't, he still wants new things daily and no matter what he gets, he still wants something -MORE-).

For myself, I've ordered space-heaters so I don't freeze (I still debate just getting a chimney sweep to come in and I'll have an open fire if I really needs must), a oven cleaner to give the oven its annual clean, take the serger and sewing machine in for servicing as the winter is my usual sewing time, and bulbs and so on for planting. I've a winter garden to start and looking forward to doing it, and may do some more crochet work as well. There's embroidery to do as I need more tea towels and reading and final garden tidies. Autumn bulbs to plant and squash to buy to last me through the winter season for soups and roasts..

I can feel the autumn in the air as I plot and plan to paint more rounds for the holiday season, make some soap and bathbombs this weekend (some for sale, some for self, I haven't made soap in so long it's scary!). I want to have one week out with child before he goes back to school, one last just-us time of having fun and games before we have to prepare ourselves for the school year and all the other stuff that looks like it's going to hit toward year's end. I just have a feeling I need to gird the loins again.

Bunking down and hunkering in. Then...bring it on.

Inside the gilded cage

2011-08-24T03:20:00.000-07:00

What a lovely day it is today outside! I've been trapped most of the time indoors with illness, overactive child and pouring rain, but today, today is fabulous and I can't wait to get outside, sprawl on the couch and maybe do a bit of painting and just -be- in the moment. I've got to give the sprawly-couch a clean however; all the rain and dirt and so on has soaked it through, and it will probably need a cover for the winter as well.

I've got some berries and herbs to gather - rosehips and elderberries to make the winter syrup for child though I probably can't take them myself due to immunity issues. Still, he's very fond of the stuff and it kept the flu at bay. The tomato plants are still growing like mad as one can see though I haven't really been out to harvest much - growing them up in the main bit of the garden is proving to be a wash as the trees are too high next door to allow any sun to enter there. I'll have to think up something else, though growing them in the bed seems to work nicely. I'm debating starting even more peas though!

Every morning I go and gather some strawberries by just leaning out my window. Lazy gardening at its finest. The cooler weather will come soon and I am not a huge fan or fall or winter due to being trapped in my house most of that time, so I will drink down what I can of the final bits of summer.

Enjoying it.

Gardening for Languished

2011-08-13T03:30:00.000-07:00

Can I just take a moment and power-tool geek? Let me just count the ways I LOVE this new strimmer.

The old one was a corded basic thing which, technically was okay. It was very basic and at the time that was fine; I just needed it to cut. But as arthritis got worse, I found that bending slightly to do the trimming was painful...having to wind the cord out then wind it back was just another step to add to an already fatigued body and the cord spool became utterly impossible for me to adjust after a while due to hand strength. My garden has been turning into a bit of a jungle as a result of not being able to get the strimming done, so I decided to look for a new strimmer.

This little beauty is brilliant - it telescopes to any height and the head adjusts to upright or to lie a bit flatter if you want to get under trees and shrubs. It's cordless - runs on a pretty powerful battery - and it doesn't have nylon cord at all - just a plastic disk which changes by literally just popping one out and then popping the other and pulling slightly. Ridiculously easy! It's a powerful little bit of kit and I love it, but it does have a few drawbacks - one, there's no grass guard on the front so while its nice to see what you're doing, it doesn't protect your eyes and grass and bits fly everywhere, so eye protection mandatory! (I do this anyway...so should you *eyes everyone*). Secondly the vibration; this wasn't as noticeable on my last strimmer and is on this one now - which the grip is going on this baby, I did notice after using it that my hands were useless after an hour; my hands shook uncontrollably and I had no strength in them, not even to lift a cup of tea. I've still got my wrist braces on which help but it's pretty clear to me once I do the strimming, that's it for a while...can't do anything else, really. Feels like I was using the jackhammer for an hour (and I know how those feel).

Still, I love the job it's done and I'm so glad to have the kit here! For anyone similarly struggling, Bosch Accutrim 23, and with my blessing.

Also giving a shout out to Wolf Garten yet again - the saplings are going mad all over the garden and I haven't been well enough to deal with them. They're creeping over from next door and have also managed to get trapped between my garden fence and next door's, but were much too thick for me to attack with hand held secateurs. So, I've got some proper telescoping loppers from Wolf Garten and will be attacking the encroaching saplings over the next few days, as well as the sumac which is attempting to expand its territory. This is however -not- a job for today when my hands are still feeling a bit weird.

I have also invested in a leaf rake so I can deal with our autumn leaves from the trees next door. I actually want to start a leafmould pile but in order to do that I really need to be able to gather the things up - and also of course child needs the obligatory experience of rolling in a bed of leaves, which isn't quite possible when they're all scattered about. It seems strange to think about fall already but it seems the weather has decided to give summer a miss. And I cannot love autumn, really - I know many people do but for me Autumn is just a harbinger for winter with all its cold and sentence for being stuck indoors as it's too treacherous for me to be able to walk anywhere under my own power. I spent too many years in wintry climes to ever love it much, and already I'm trying to plot and plan how to keep occupied, how to keep child from going mad as he has to share my winter sentence with me. This winter I may actually have enough to keep us both occupied for some time to come, so let's hope the hypothesis is true!

It's overcast and cool today, but I have still managed to get out there and pull some cherry tomatoes off my rather stunted plants. The peppers are still doing their thing but I'll have some ready soon, and maybe I'll be able to make some salsa. I've been pulling rosehips to make into syrup which has been lovely, and giant strawberries are never a bad thing either! Mint for days out there which I harvest and make into tea as and when, and I also add to honey for sauces. I've got loads of potatoes still to plant, but it's now a matter of trying to figure out where they're all going! We still have only scratched the surface of the spuds I have harvested earlier - I need to remember to be more free-and-easy with the tatties in our meals.

We continue on. The garden has been productive this year and the herb garden expansion is most welcome as well. I did neglect the garden a fair bit but it's still going strong and I'm very pleased about this. I'm turning my attention to what I should propagate on - the lavender could be divided I think, and there's a peony I'd like to move as well to a more prominent place. Lots of plans to expand things a bit without resorting to buying more plants for a while, so we'll see how I manage on that one.

I'm in love with little things

2011-08-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

I've managed another shopping spree with a definite purpose in mind on all counts:

The Beast computer runs well and I am more than pleased with it. It was a bit of a "didn't quite need it really" buy but now I have it I am very very happy. And technology has certainly passed me by over the past decade as I have tried to learn the whole system from scratch, which took a lot of work but getting there in the end.

New flexible wrist supports so I can wear them without them interfering with everyday stuff like typing and painting, yet the support is there. And they're deep blue, not that utterly naff beige colour. Look better and feel better than the last pair.

The incredibly overgrown garden is getting sorted with some Wolf Garten loppers once they arrive and a cordless strimmer which uses blades, NOT that nylon stuff. So all I have to do us tighten with a spanner rather than trust to my rather dodgy wrist and hand power. I will be so happy when that arrives as the garden is in a terrible state right now and desperately needs sorting out.

Microbrushes have also been purchased. Hand control when painting is still a problem for me and I've had a hell of a time getting brushes which were fine enough for me to get really good detail in. Now, I've got brushes that can - they're the kinds of brushes people use when they're painting models and so on, so they're absolutely tiny tiny, and I'm looking forward to using them. Especially important for me as my busy season of prepping for Halloween-on sales in painting and so forth is coming up and I have to be able to do it justice as I've been way too slack.

Garden harvest is still happening and it even looks like my raspberries are going to give me one last handful of berries before they give up for the year. The strawberries are producing huge berries for me and the winter tatties are going into the ground. The pace here is slow and steady due to my own rather low energy reserves, but we're managing with cups of tea and smiles.

New Computer

2011-08-07T01:25:00.000-07:00

My new system has finally arrived! I have dubbed it The Beast as it's possibly the swankest system I've ever had; considering that it's been years since I've had a desktop I'm completely baffled at everything this thing can do so it's a bit of an adjustment period! However I'm really happy with it. Still setting everything up as I've imported my files (I remember when you had to do that with dozens of floppy disks - anyone remember those?) but it's coming together, hurrah!

Child will have old computer and he's coming home today so should be thrilled; I hope to take him out tomorrow into town, pain willing, and get some cheese-straws and general wump-mum time. This requires cash however and it's been so long since I've been out I think I may have forgotten my pin number. Yes, that's rather pathetic but true - socialising is a bit of a nebulous word, and even while child was away I spent more time faffing about than anything.

Still, I have managed to harvest from the garden - one sage bush is now up and drying for culinary and medicinal use, I've got all the peas and broad beans out, and the Christmas spuds finally arrived and are being placed in the ground. I'm getting tomatoes by twos and threes, and strawberries are coming in big and ripe, harvesting greens for stirfries and soups as and when. The garden is being nursed back into shape, the front now looking decent again, now got to work on the back anew.

It's a good day.

A blissful week incoming!

2011-07-31T03:47:00.001-07:00

Child is off on holiday with his father for a week. After getting two back-to-back illnesses (oh thank you lowered immune system *sigh* I've been feeling decidedly rubbish. However the house today is quiet, the sun shines and while I am only just starting to stir out of bed, the house is clean thanks to cleaner and I am planning my week of getting desperately into the garden to do some tending, painting, and even if I'm really indulgent going out and about in town for the first time in yonks.

I'll update as and when...coming slowly back to the land of the living and need to catch up a fair bit.

Cooking day!

2011-07-21T02:40:00.000-07:00

In comes the harvest; and that means I'm doing lots of baking and cooking, I've been eating rubbish due to exhaustion and just not having the energy to cook and my diet has suffered. When I hobbled out to get some cat food today I realised my plans to take child into town were foiled. Everything hurt and even the pain medication wasn't cutting it. So, it's a day inside and rather than waste it being online, I decided to eat something and get caught up with a few chores here - but there wasn't anything for breakfast I could actually eat. I decided to do some heavy foraging outside as well as what I've frozen from earlier this year, and see what I could come up with.

Some white-chocolate/berry muffins have been made, half for the tin, and half for the freezer. Sprog isn't a fan, but for mornings when I only grab tea and maybe some toast, I now have something a bit more filling as well as a bit of a blueberry/redcurrant hit.

I also did a spelunk of the veg drawer; I admit I don't eat anywhere near enough veggies due to the fact the cooking and preparation is often too much for me; it's a shame as child actually loves his tatties, carrots and broccoli but even cutting and washing puts a lot of pressure on my hands, and I like my veg a bit more interesting than boiled. So after gathering what I could from the drawer, I went outside and harvested in some veggies, chard and herbs, and made a big pot of veggie-pasta soup, with a touch of miso added for flavour.

While doing all this I realised my garden is also very neglected; still don't have a strimmer and it's been raining too much to get the mower out. I've got to deadhead some blooms and may as well bring a bouquet inside today.

The house smells lovely and while I still have some takeaway in the fridge, I don't actually want it. The food I've made is much tastier!

The Dilemma

2011-07-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

After consulting with the folks with regard to a woodburning stove...it's just too much money. WAY beyond my means and even though I have quite a bit saved, I'd need to double it just to get everything sorted out as it turns out the chimney does need lining. After much soul-searching, the truth remains: I am renting. I'd rather buy a few space heaters and have done, save a bit for the winter costs and leave it at that.

However, I still have this windfall sitting here and I am still trying to figure out what to do with it. Child's room has been updated, he has new clothes, new shoes, a bit left for his checkup with the dentist this summer (he has to go private for heavy sedation and they are so lovely it's worth the money), I've had some clothes for myself done, shoes as well, cleaner for house...what else?

Well, I'm considering getting myself a new computer and giving my son my laptop, for many different reasons. I like being able to update bits and bobs rather than having to do the whole thing, and more to the point, if the hard-drive fries I can just get another one. If the hard-drive on THIS fries, I have to buy a whole new computer regardless. Sproggo could have this one and then I could get a new system entirely since I need the power and the storage.

I'm still going back and forth about it, frightfully indulgent but my portfolio and writing work is stored on this thing and I simply cannot risk losing all of it yet again.

Little bit of harvest

2011-07-11T00:36:00.000-07:00

Today the sun is shining outside like mad and I am determined to get out there in it before taking my medication for the day as it tends to knock me for six. I've also been "garden grazing" this morning, checking on crops, slug damage, and picking and eating whatever takes my fancy; pea pods, raspberries, strawberries, loganberries, a leaf of lettuce, and a sprig of mint. I'll be bringing mint in for tea, harvesting one of the entire sage plants in the next month with much pomp and ceremony since it is one of my sacred herbs, lavender bunches and amazing marigolds that look like gerberas. Our huge sunflower grows well and will provide food for birds during the winter, and I share my toasted muesli with the blackbirds which have double-nested this year.

The chimney experts were here and as per usual tried to sell me lining; no thanks, I'd rather have someone check to see if I need it first before I plunk down £1,000 on lining alone on a house that isn't even technically mine. So a camera will be sent up the chimney flue to see whether or not the mortar is all sorted which should cost a few hundred quid. If it's all right, then we'll proceed, if not, I may just skip it and heat the lower bit with an extra space heater though it's ridiculously expensive; there's a lot up in the air.

Child's summer break comes soon and I have just realised (ugh) that I have hospital appointments the day after child is off from school. This is a worry of mine, honestly; I have a lot of appointments and blood tests I have to take and none of this stuff is anything I can wait on, yet at the same time I cannot go dragging a hyperactive autistic child along with me for blood tests. I keep trying to find solutions but there's precious few options. I'll wrack my brains a bit more.

Still trying to plot out things to do with child which won't cost the earth or exhaust me and I'm coming up a blank. This maybe is due to just being Monday which is hard for me anyway to concentrate (even though child was with his father this weekend it was anything but restful). Everything involves not just planning for child but also planning for me whether or not I will have taken the chemo drugs, had my reactions, come out the other side, had a flare, dealing with fatigue...yeah. But we'll see what we can do, as I miss our times out.

For now, a walk in sunshine before I fill my body with poison. Raise a glass in my honour!

In praise of Power Tools

2011-07-02T02:58:00.000-07:00

I am a power-tool sorta chick and always have been; I didn't want Barbies as a kid, I wanted Tonka trucks. I've been working heavy equipment since before I could drive, and knew how to change spark plugs and oil filters before I was ten. The right tool for the right job has always been my motto, and my ex (who was utterly CLUELESS about DIY before I met the man) has been converted to The Way of the Tools.

When we went our separate ways, most of the powertools went with him, and I managed with what I had. However, over the past year and a half, things have changed; the tools I have no longer are sufficient for requirements. I can't use screwdrivers anymore because the twisting action is too much for my wrists. The bear-down-on-it drilling isn't happening either because there's masonry in my walls and I'm also rather unsteady on my feet so I don't want to slip and risk injury - in short, the drill I do have isn't powerful enough anymore. The loppers and pruners I have require too much hand strength, which I no longer have, and the strimmer's spool system which requires a bear-down-and-twist motion is now effectively useless. Jobs are not getting done, are being put off until they become even more difficult to do, because I have no tools to sort it out. I have by necessity turned into the rather girly type who has to ask people to do things for her because she's apparently too frail or clueless in DIY to sort it herself. I...ugh....I hate it, but lately I've had to play into that sort of testosterone-fueled mentality if I wanted to get anything done and had to ask a neighbour, only to grit my teeth, nod and smile as he patronisingly explained to me why I should be doing A, B, or C - yes, I know jolly well how to change a lightbulb/put up a fire alarm/fix a blocked pipe/drill and set guides into a masonry wall...I just physically CAN'T right now.

So, in a bid to save myself a bit of dignity, I'm hunting about for tools which will allow me to do the things I already know how to bloody well do myself if I just had the right stuff to do it with. Electric screwdrivers and a cutter a bit more powerful than my Dremel for one; a strimmer that does the job without me having to fight the spool for more nylon line; loppers with a ratchet action to get through saplings; and a new hoover and carpet cleaner so I don't have to keep getting on my hands and knees to get the job done. This should help a LOT as there are a load of jobs around the house which I have been utterly unable to sort out due to just plain not having the tools to get it sorted out.

However, there's also some brutal honesty which needs to be faced and dealt with: gone are the days I can just work with any power-tools I choose. It's like the elderly person who is half-blind yet still insists on driving; a mentality I refuse to allow myself to get into as the risk of injury is not just to myself, but also if anything happens to me, my son is affected whether he realises it or not. Anything with heavy cutting blades is now officially right out. No tablesaws, no chainsaws. The board on the chimney is something I'm going to have to call someone in who is infinitely more able to open it out, and then put it back than I am. Sucks, but that's the way of it. Anything that would be disastrous if it slipped because I lost my balance or I dropped it is not a tool I can afford to use - no nailguns, no petrol-powered mowing/strimmers (because they often don't have an instant safety cut off button - the electric ones I have do, however). Safety actually does over-ride performance now which may irk me a bit. Ultimately, I'd rather have equipment that isn't super efficient but controllable when I'm only-half aware of my surroundings than a potentially dangerous piece of equipment I will eventually hurt myself on.

So as I've said to my ex every time he asks me what I'd like for my birthday/xmess whatever the answer is the same - "Buy me a drill!" Hopefully this year I'll get one!

Summer spuds!

2011-07-02T01:40:00.001-07:00

Are you planting your spuds for winter? I'm doing so soon! As I've been taking up the first and second earlies (which have grown rather well) I'm now planning for some big ol' bakers, and that means placing another order to put into growbags and get outside. Now is the time for October/Christmas potato planning and that's what I'm sorting out at the moment; I've placed an order for Maris Pipers and Charlottes to get us through and maybe even have some for Yule dinner.

Pumpkins? *sigh* what can I say? I lost another vine! So gutted, but I've decided after three years of trying to grow the things, I just don't have the right conditions. It's a shame but leaving it at that and I'll continue to just buy them from suppliers I trust.

The berries are coming in, very slowly! Which is fine, as it means every time I go out to water I can nibble on a few raspberries, loganberries and strawberries. I'm encouraging some stronger canes on the raspberries for next year, and the loganberry in its pot is already looking to need a bigger one shortly.

After much faff and fuss, broadbeans and peas are finally starting to set - took AGES for these to get with the programme, but they're finally doing it and I'm looking forward to a bit of variety. I'm also going to be planting a few more seeds off each this week, and maybe some more runner beans. This has been a bit problematic however as a local cat used my bed as midden and was apparently rather ill :( . I therefore decided to remove contaminated soil and replace it with compost from my compost bin, just to be safe - this however meant digging up quite a few plants as well but couldn't be helped. I now have another layer of sliced garlic and chopped lemon to try and encourage the cats to do their business elsewhere!

Toms and peppers are now trying to set as the weather has finally taken a turn for the better! My compost pile is crammed but hasn't broken down sufficiently enough to give them another topdress as I used quite a bit of it on the beds already, so I'm resorting to liquid compost feeds instead, as well as a bit more fish, blood and bone meal.

The weed/sapling/overgrown situation is proving eminently frustrating right now. The strimmer I have has been with me for years and while it works just fine, the spool feed is too difficult for me to untwist with my hands in their currently completely-borked condition. I'm also really not keen on fighting with many cords at the moment so I'm looking for a battery-powered strimmer with an easier spooling system. I'm also going to be looking into a drill/screwdriver (yay powertools!). I think I may need to look into a strong set of loppers or something which also takes into account borked hands, as the saplings on either side of the fence desperately need to be dealt with before they get too big to cut. This is when Carry On Gardening comes into handy as they give reviews and insight on tools to help you keep working in the garden.

Decluttering of house continues! It's a long job, to be truthful - I dumped a load of junk from child's room and re-installed a more sensible storage system in his room, but let's see if it gets used! The shelving he had went into my craft room to help tidy that space up and it certainly does look a lot nicer in there. Now, if I've got the energy to actually do any sewing/painting/crafting, then more's the better, but I am struggling mightily at the moment; in a bid to try and sort out my arthritis before it gets worse, I have been placed on chemotherapy drugs - I thought the fatigue was bad BEFORE; I was wrong. I am absolutely shattered beyond belief, and while I keep getting encouraged to "rest", "resting" does NOT work when one is the sole housekeeper with an autistic child in the house. There's no time for rest, so I just slog on best I can; hence the lack of pictures lately as I am literally too tired to even try to make the blog look remotely interesting. It's a huge effort just to type.

As a result, I have been trying to straddle the sufficiency gap with the energy conservation issue; food gets ordered in a bit more than I would like, I don't get to the market. I don't sew as many clothes right now or work on as many crochet projects. But I do bake cakes when I can, I eat the veg I have growing (and this is rather important at the moment, fresh veg is something of a luxury for me when it's right outside), and I have lovely flowers to brighten my house when I need to pick-me-up of colour, iced tea made from my own herbs with local honey, and Connect Four games interspersed with hours of child watching videos because I desperately need to rest and nap and need him to be safe. I'm having to adapt again to the current situation which means spending a bit more on locally made ready meals if I want quality rather than packaged supermarket stuff, but I'm also very aware that what I'm doing is infinitely preferable than suffering from malnutrition due to rigid principles.

On the woodburner front, I have someone coming round next weekend to have a look at the chimney, which means I will have to take the board off and clean out what will probably be a mess of pigeon droppings (and probably a few pigeons as well). Not a fun job, but if this means I can get the fireplace sorted soon, more the better. I suspect the mantle will have to go or at least some of the brick surround as the opening is too small to fit a stove unless I go with something absolutely TINY, but I'm not too bothered about that. I've got a fair few funds allocated for the heating project though I am still on the hunt for someone to do the front path before winter sets in.

Oh...and as a total aside because quite honestly this stuff just doesn't register on me, it's my birthday. Whoopie. A friend is coming over with some takeaway tonight but to be truthful I have zero energy for major parties or fuss so I'm coping right now.

Onward!

Further plots and plans

2011-06-27T01:51:00.000-07:00

It has been raining for weeks almost nonstop - the garden as a result has been rather, shall we say, lush. I only just managed to bat the grass down yesterday but it was hard going! I'm also finding that the weed hacker is giving me much too much trouble at the moment trying to constantly adjust the nylon wire feed with my dodgy hands, so I'm looking to get another one that doesn't require me to constantly push-twist-fight-and-curse just to get a few inches of cord out of it. We shall hope for a miracle!

The potatoes have, alarmingly, reached a point where I actually have to start bringing them inside. The very early season coupled by loads of rain means they have matured way in advance of requirements! So now I'm bringing in first and second earlies in abundance and getting them stored. No big shakes as child is happy to be eating potatoes by the score and will do so ad nauseum but I was hoping for a good stash for the fall. Oh well, if he eats them I can't complain!

We've been eating raspberries and strawberries by the trickle, which is good. Tomatoes are starting to look promising now although the constant wet looked as if I was going to be defeated! The cherries didn't make it through all the battering we've had, which was a shame as I was looking forward to those, but nevermind. Apples and pears are still doing their thing and the loganberries are also producing.

Inside the house, I am slowly updating child's room with new draperies and storage space. The craft room is getting the same treatment so it's more organised in there. And with all this bustle about I realise that, yes, I need more power tools. With my hands in the state they are at the moment, gone are the days when I can operate a manual screwdriver! Electric all the way, baby! So I think I'll be heading to B&Q in the near future and plunking down a bit of dosh in getting some equipment round the house (and believe me, when it came to power tools and DIY I was head of household long before the ex).

I've got clearance to get a multi-fuel stove for the house and I'm calling round now for quotes. It's going to be pricey, but I will NOT freeze like I did the past two winters. I've had enough of it. I've got a fair bit of dosh to get some decent and worthwhile so I will get my money's worth on that. The front path I'm still calling around on as that seems to be the most "cowboy-prone" endeavour and I want it done right.

Summer is coming, and I want to get the house squared away as best I can so I can enjoy the summer with child in relative peace. I need the quiet and the fun times, as I'll be pushing full steam ahead again for his education as well as the right to transport of same - and it will not be an easy fight for either one. Cross fingers!

School gauntlet

2011-06-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

The current school struggles away to try and keep child from wrecking the class or injuring children; meanwhile I managed to make the trip to the rather remote residential school (£50 cab fare...good grief how will I pay for that on a regular basis?!). The school was in a rural setting and for being a school for autistic children I was surprised at how quiet it was; also noted how many things there were to do - go karts, they had their own horses and stables, indoor pool, gym with climbing wall and a "boppit competition" wall, sensory room, and so on. All in all, it looked pretty good but the transport (which exhausted me for the rest of the day and I still feel a bit ropey this morning) is a huge issue - so much an issue that the school agreed that while their usual policy is to start a child on the 38 week programme, they have decided to petition for sprog to attend the full 52 weeks. This was further demonstrated by the "rabbit in headlights" look I'm getting used to when people ask about my respite/social care/assistance at home when ill (no, no and no). The more I have to answer this question, the more I see the reactions, the more I realise that the general public really has no idea who all these cuts are affecting, and that the whole "protect the most vulnerable" isn't actually happening.

I managed to drag myself home after several hours - and it was a beautiful if expensive blow in the country - and fell out totally. Utter exhaustion; I ordered in for myself as any chance of cooking was slim to none, and I could barely put a sentence together. It does seem a toss-up of late whether the joint pain or the fatigue is the worst issues. I'd have to say the latter as the former I can ignore; pain? Yeah, so what, I'm always in pain. But fatigue is impossible to deny and I just have to put everything up and sleep it off. It will be several days before I recover from the trip out, and I'm rather frustrated about this as I have things to do! But again, it can't be forced; no matter how much I want to sit here and seethe, it's pointless. It has to wait...again, everything has to wait until I can take little bites and chunks and pieces out the tasks it takes most people an hour to do, but takes me a week.

Rest....rest....sleep.

The June Garden

2011-06-11T02:12:00.000-07:00

In a word? Lush! As in, I was ill two weeks and due to rain and recovery haven't been able to mow or weed at all! So things were getting a bit neglected out front and I've managed to remedy it. With a housing benefit backpay coming in, I have been turning my mind to what I should use it for; I've already ordered some things to update sprog's room a bit - he's in a Ben 10 phase at the moment and his curtains have needed replacing anyway, so I decided to do the full works! But the pathway has been a bugbear of mine and I'm also turning my mind toward the fireplace and a solution for the cold winters we've been having. Yes, I know, I'm only renting but both things really need doing. I just have to figure out how to accomplish it.

Let's give a quick tour as an explanation:

This is the front path. Yes, seriously. It's such a bodge it isn't true - this is exactly how the "path" looked in the back last year until the volunteers came and took it up, and this path is the main reason I was more or less housebound and unable to even take my bins up and down during the winter. It's also one of the main sticking points for me as far as purchasing my own scooter as I simply cannot get anything up or down this mess, let alone the step at either end. A solution needs to be worked out this year - namely, I pay for it, because if I do any sort of landlord wrangling/social services appealing, I'll be waiting for years. I have the money now, so I'll just try and call round and get it done.

This is the fireplace; essentially as far as I can tell it's perfectly sound, it just has been boarded up is all. I imagine it needs lining and maybe a new flue, but otherwise I think it actually would work fine as a open fire. I had grand ideas of restructuring, a cast iron stove and so forth, but I just don't have the money for that. I have no idea how much lining and on will cost, and I know it won't be a cheap job but it can't be any more expensive in the long run as having to plug two space heaters on downstairs just so I can get my fingers to work. I really miss having an open fire, and even though my son is fascinated by fire he is now of an age and understanding that he knows the dangers. Getting a fire guard to keep the cats out of it will also be a requirement, but I'll work on that and get some quotes going for this too.

In addition, even more house de-cluttering, paint ordering, and general tidying. Whilst Ex seems to think I've hit some sort of windfall and therefore can be "generous" with money at the moment, I've been sitting on house repairs for months as I thought I was going to be moving, then that all fell through so I've got lots of stuff to catch up on to make the winter a bit easier for me so I don't have to move unless absolutely necessary. Everything needs updating in here from curtains to carpet, and I'm not going to wait around for someone else to maybe-possibly-if-we've-the-funds-to-sort-it-out. So "windfall" will be used accordingly.

Today? We have our first strawberries from the garden to enjoy, and the broad beans and peas are starting to set some pods albeit rather late. Let the summer bounty begin to present itself!

Getting back on the Wagon as it Were

2011-06-09T03:21:00.000-07:00

Just back from rheumatology appointment and have received the first doses of medications I'm about to be tried on to try and slow the joint destruction down. At the moment I still have "mystery arthritis" as they're not sure what category I'm in right now. However they are finally taking it very seriously and I've had more blood tests, injections, more stuff scheduled in the future and things progress pretty quickly, so that's all good news. The side effects don't look like they're going to be a lot of fun if I get hit with them, but it just means I have to be rather vigilant and just be sure not to write off a symptom and try and tough it out.

I'm glad for these developments as the past week has been...Difficult. With a capital D. It's often a toss up whether the pain in the joints or the crushing fatigue is the worst bit of the issues I've got at the moment. It's difficult to say. The lawn is overgrown and looks neglected but I just know there's no way I can tackle it today; I'm so fuzzy and brainfogged I didn't entirely trust myself to get home without sticking to a very careful plan of just getting on the bus and staying on it. Operating equipment with whirring blades is definitely right out! I sleep through most of the day and only get up when child gets home, and so I've been doing for the past week. It makes me boring but I hope today I can break out my china and we'll have a little tea party together. The lawn can wait a bit (though it hurts my pride, it really does!)

In sort of squee news, I've bought two HUGE canvasses which were on clearance - I've wanted to work BIG BIG BIG for a while now, so I'm looking forward to giving those a shot. I also have water mixable oil paint as well to play with, and looking forward to experimenting with that. With the arrival of new paint child's painting interest is up again - he hates using "baby paints" as he calls typical tempura with some disdain! - so I often let him break open mine and have a play. I don't really think of it as "wasting paint" as there's no other way to learn how to use the stuff, and sometimes just watching him I get a feel or idea for a new technique. Besides, it's just another of those little things we can do together.

But for today, I'll be putting my wrist splints on, popping some food into the oven (foresight has required I have a stock of prepared food on hand, maybe not handmade by me, but locally made by others so my principles are intact), and doing blissfully nothing at all today while I wait to see what the injections and pills do to me.

Here's to hoping we're taking the right steps toward me gaining at least a small percentage of my life back. I'll take that, smiling.

DLA fail

2011-06-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

And it seems even though the DLA case for my son has been extended for five years, the mobility hasn't changed. There is mention of a "medical report" and to be honest I want to know where in the world that came from as my son hasn't seen a GP for his autism in years - because there is absolutely nothing a GP can do about it.

So it looks like I'm filing an appeal. Again. Gods give me strength.

Scaling back a bit

2011-06-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

It's half term and we're managing to get through it, though I'm still recovering from being ill and haven't really been able to do much. It's boring for child but we've managed to play games and do some playdoh things, baking cakes, and so on.

The pace keeps reminding me that I've got to slow down; I'm trying to work, and I enjoy it, but only if I have the energy to actually do it. I'm gritting my teeth and having to admit to myself, even though it stings greatly, that I simply cannot and should not be working right now. At all, really. I'm gutted, but it's true. I have several scripts, I've got paintings and so on out there, and a book finished, another in the works. But all of this is slow, slow, slow. There are days I actually open the good ol' Word programme and just...stare at the screen trying to figure out what it was I was trying to say. I have three paintings going which I haven't touched - two candles I want to paint, as well. And I DESPERATELY want to paint them. But I just...can't.

I have been persevering because I'm scared to death of losing the house, of not being able to buy food for my son or get him clothes or the hundreds of other things we need but, naturally, neither DLA or Social Services will bother to get for us. I've been doing what I had to do because I have little choice. But the same old signs are starting to appear as last year; simple colds become more than just colds, exhaustion kicks in to the point even brushing my hair is an ordeal. I'm charging headlong into the next crash and burn, but I'm just trying to hold out until the housing benefit kicks in, until the Mobility DLA for child (and am I even remotely well enough to drive if we manage to get it?), until the school stuff is sorted...there's always another reason for me to keep pushing my failing system just a little farther, just a little longer, even if it's the worst thing I can possibly do.

But I think before the summer comes, when there's six weeks of full time child-duty to sort through and I know any work I have will absolutely have to cease if I'm going to get through it, I need to face the music and shut it all down to "hobby" status. No more tax credits (and believe me that's a huge portion of my income right now). No more trying to hit the deadlines no matter how foggy my brain or how much my hands hurt. And that means having to be careful with our food and other expenditures as the money just won't be there - neither will any help if things go horribly wrong.

Not sure who these "most vulnerable" are who are being protected but it damn well isn't us. So, I'm going to have to see what I can do in order to keep the wolves at bay.

Vote of No Confidence in Maria Miller - With Uncomfortable Personal Bits In

2011-05-26T01:20:00.000-07:00

I wrote this as the beginning portion of the form letter which was mailed out today to every paper, tv news station, MP and party I could find. The letter itself will probably be dismissed because the Powers that Be argue it's just "repetitive spam" - sort of like their form letters we get sent to "The Occupier" - and therefore can be ignored. There's a strange disconnect between the fact that a bunch of people too ill to even type somehow managed to find the energy to copy, paste, and send and just being Viagra spam. I felt it took a personal touch for the receivers to understand why they're getting the emails they're getting.

Whether they listen or not is anyone's guess, but if they think we're just going to give up, they can guess again.

Today marks the only form of action or protest I can take due to recovering from a severe chest infection. As a disabled parent with a disabled child I am unable to attend "listening exercises", public rallies, consultations or anything else which involves politicians nodding and looking concerned. I am not the only one as there are millions of invisible disabled people who are being subjected to cuts - not that I ever received help no matter how much I begged and pleaded.

The following letter is "just the facts"; since it seems we the disabled are constantly told to not be emotive or allegorical. We are not to describe in acute detail what our lives are like and how much we struggle - that's not considered a fact, even though we live it; merely an anecdote. It is not considered a fact that I have sacrificed my life, marriage, and health to the care of my child and now look to lose my home and what little health I have left - that is merely a unfortunate story. It is not considered a fact that my son has been forced un-successfully through mainstream schools to the point he has become violent and I have to take on the Tribunal to see him get proper education - that is just a statistic.

But when we try and use facts - some of us barely capable of putting a paragraph together therefore we have to draft a universal letter to use- we're told it's "duplicative". How many of these emails will be thrown away because it's the same thing being said over and over again and therefore must just be spam? Is it really such a mental stretch to see that every email being sent is by an individual who is desperate, but doesn't have the words or political language-speak to be able to describe their despair, their fear and anxiety. It may be too "emotional" for you, but I want you to understand that every one of us who presses the "send" button today does so because we are desperate - we are LIVING THE FACTS, and it's more cruel, more terrifying, and more life-threatening than any mail-count or statistic sheet can ever truly convey.

Maria Miller is desperately out of touch with OUR facts, OUR truths, and OUR experiences. To be in her position with such a total lack of empathy for the people she is supposed to support is a huge slap in the face we have all felt compelled to let you know, whether we're flat on our backs in bed as I have been for the past four days or not.

And so, here is my horribly emotive, dismissively allegorical, uncomfortably personal intro to the repetitive emails you're going to be receiving today. I hope it made you cringe. I hope you winced. And then I hope you decided to act upon it for the better.

Starting to potter about

2011-05-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

I'm relatively recovered - well not 100% but I've reached the "I'm Fine" stage that I tend to tell people who ask because it's easier than describing all the stuff that I consider "normal". They don't really want to hear it anyway - I've learned that from the rather glassy looks I get. "Fine" works; the antibiotics are doing their thing at least but I'll have to pop into my GP at some point and investigate the annual-chest-infection thing as it's a bit alarming. Used to have it all the time as a kid so really not looking forward to a reprise of that stuff.

Child is being returned from London this morning after a fair bit of pressure from ex - who actually demanded I hand over some money for child's care for the past two days. I have no comment re: his own child being a business transaction. Just....don't ask. If anything it's just more ammunition for having child in a residential place; when I get ill it disrupts his education in the worst way - he's been out of school repeatedly over the past year due to illnesses and hospitalisations on my part; and my friend-carer has had her own traumas and issues over the past two months and hasn't been able to help. I'm worried about weekends still - if I get ill on weekends there's no one to get him, but I'll have to get some kind of backup plan for that.

Next week is half term - good grief, didn't we just have a long time off school? So once again, a week and a half of child and I stuck in the house going slowly stir-crazy. I've got nothing planned as I've been feeling too crap, but I hope to get a friend or two over and maybe even if it's just a drive in the forest it would be a little something. It's so horribly boring for sproggo but a lot of the proposed measures (Aim High for Wiltshire, the Boy Scouts, respite trips) are either being cut, the funding isn't quite there yet, or I don't have transportation to and from. I'm still trying to figure it out though - summer is coming soon and six weeks is a long time being housebound with a hyperactive autistic kid bored out of his skull, but I suppose the good news is we're coming out of the "gap time" between 5-8 when there was absolutely nothing for him to do. Now he's coming to 8 it will be easier - though I have to admit I don't understand the age restrictions on autism sometimes.

I haven't been out to even water the garden in days - going up and down the stairs is enough to wind me still - but I hope to today before things start drying out. I have to try and make an effort to get upright today as there's just too much to do; I still haven't heard about the housing benefit and I applied in March - it's now end of May, which is just ridiculous. I am still placing bids on bungalow council houses but I've realised for whatever reason I'm on the wrong band on the website - even though I received a letter saying I was in a higher band now. Brilliant. Will have to call on that too and figure out what happened.

Stuff to do, and starting to feel capable of being able to do it. So I had best shift it; nearly 7am (yes, I know, it's only 6:45 and I'm all motivated and stuff; that's how it goes here!)

Recovery, again

2011-05-24T03:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm ill. Again. Child is in London being babysat but some unemployed bloke with no credentials - but it's either that or he'd have to be in care for a few days. Nothing else for it as I have been struggling to breathe and had to call an out of hours doctor last night to give me treatment as I couldn't even stand.

So, recovering. Again. Will be back when I can manage.

Help! My catmint is eating my flowerbed!

2011-05-20T01:58:00.000-07:00

No, seriously - it's taking OVER. I can't believe how huge this plant has become, even with regular feline visits. It's giving the sage a run for its money. The catmint is literally crowding everything out of the bed and I'm going to have to do some serious pruning. I think I'll give a call to some of my facebook friends who have cats after I cut it down and offer out the love. I had tried to wait until all the flowers had been fertilised as it brings loads of bees to the garden, but now that most are wilting it's time for a big prune. It's really the wrong time for me to harvest this for medicinal means but I'm sure cats far and wide will appreciate it.

Today I am extending my haiku gardening and doing some mowing, strimming and hedge-trimming. This costs more than my usual allocation of spoons; as a matter of fact I've had to just call it a day at, oh, 10:30am otherwise I won't have the energy to make lunch; I've a whole chicken in the fridge today and I need the energy to quarter it, marinate it, cook it somehow and then freeze the rest of it, then after all that prepwork actually make myself a meal, then figure out what to make my son tonight. Still, in order to conserve energy I'll definitely be munching some salad tonight thanks to the baby leaf lettuce, which is a Gift That Keeps On Giving.

I was able to get the garden cut and beat back some of the weeds. The wumpy space now looks a bit more habitable (though sprog always loved his "jungle"). It has taken some work to get child back into the garden this year - a good portion of that is my fault; I haven't had much energy to play and therefore couldn't sit back there with him and engage him so he's been going onto his computer. Also, whenever the kids next door come outside the wildness builds up a pitch as they or he clamours for each other's attention. This rarely ends well and therefore I've gotten into the habit of ushering child inside well before it starts. As a result sprog needs a load of encouragement to go outside and play. I did however manage to get him into his sandpit a few days ago while I sat on the lounger (until I'd had too much sun and had to get back in) and he was happy for an hour, so we're getting there. Now if I can get him back into the Wumpy House we'll be double-sorted.

The catmint isn't the only thing exploding - the rose wine I started a few days ago has just decided to make itself known and the yeasty must is going everywhere! This isn't anywhere near as much of a disaster as the ex's ill-fated bramble-berry experiment which dyed my walls and ceiling, but it does warrant watching and topping up the water in the airlock. This will settle a bit in a day or so, but I watch it and make sure it isn't reaching nuclear meltdown.

There was a load of windy weather a few weeks ago which sent all my fruit trees pirouetting - was glad to have the supports to keep them from snapping in half! The downside to this however is we lost quite a few fruits, and I've done a survey to find, to my dismay, the cherry tree has only two cherries left on it. Woe! The apple didn't fare much better, losing about half its proto-apples. The Pear's fruit was a bit more protected and managed to survive thankfully. This is a problem and I'll have to think about solutions.

I had more things I wanted to do outside; weeding, topdressing a bed or two, some more intensive garden faff and prepping a spot to move the discovered peony but the truth is - I can't do it. Simply can't manage if I also want to be able to make myself something to eat today rather than subsist on toast. I've used up the day's spoons, but I revel in the thought I can go outside while the chicken is soaking in coconut milk, coriander and lime, sit down on the Languishment Couch and doze in recovery mode for a little while.

Not a bad day.

Finding the spoons

2011-05-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

Today child is showing symptoms of The Lurgy after having a week from Hades resulting from yet another crap weekend at his dad's. Any attempts to discuss this with his father fell upon deaf ears and I really give up even trying. Sprog and I against the world I guess. In any event, seems child has picked up whatever bug his father had and I hope it doesn't get bad or we could Have A Problem; if I get it I'll be down for the count for weeks and I simply cannot have that happen right now. I'm still trying to catch up with all the lost time from having nearly all of April off from doing any major work due to holidays and wedding faff.

Here is where I am very thankful for having the herbal garden and herbal stocks I have; a mallow root tincture combined with some ginger and cinnamon in honey/lemon water has dosed child properly, moved the gunk in his lungs more productively and soothed his throat. I can add chamomile and lavender to the honey-lemon to help him sleep tonight, and put some sage in hot water in his room, beneath his bed to help him breathe a bit better. All very useful!

This week I try to divide my time between painting and writing. I've got another script nearly sorted and written, and a watercolour is on the verge of being finished. Two pieces are in two different art competitions and one script in a writing comp. That sounds really brilliant until I realise I used to be able to write and send to my work out weekly - now I'm lucky if I can get it done within a month's time. It's frustrating but I grit my teeth and try and do what I can to prove that saying I'm a writer and artist isn't just a fancy way of saying "unemployed".

I'm trying to hold onto my health for dear life this week as on Monday I am off to try and solidify plans for a prospective residential school for the Wump. This is starting to look more and more like a possibility - even to the point the LEA may even back down on the appeal tribunal as I just have too much evidence that mainstream is the worst place for my child. Even the school wants to move him and has stated this in a report I sent in. To therefore argue that all the LEA will do is send him to yet another mainstream school is folly in the extreme. What I do worry about however is the possibility of them sending my son to a behavioural needs school (somewhere for kids who are 'naughty' rather than a place specifically for autistic children). No. Just....no.

In any event, things do progress and I have asked for every single incident report on my son over the past two years, invoking the Freedom of Information Act. I'm cringing already, to be honest- I imagine it's a very thick file. It's been a difficult couple of years for everyone involved but I feel we're reaching the crux point now.

There are still plenty of worries however; the proposed changes to the SEN papers which will essentially abolish Statements entirely is more than a little worrying. So is the cutting of mobility allowance for anyone in care homes or residential school (i.e. I've no idea how I would get to and from sprog's school without the funds to do so, but I'd have to find a way). Then there's Labour now clamouring once more for ID cards for anyone not born in the UK, which turns me once again into "immigrant scum". Anyone who has been round here for a while is already well aware of the whole issue with being disabled full stop. It seems like I'm being attacked from all sides at the moment and no matter what part I try to cover, it just leaves another bit to be exposed for another sucker punch. This is the way I and many other people are rolling right now - and it's how I've been rolling for a few years now.

It sort of makes sense why the ex bailed and found a normal family to shack up with, sometimes. Gods knows I'm getting tired of this mess.

In any event, onward. The thing about fighting these kinds of battles is that I really don't feel I've got anything else left to lose.

Quick pics

2011-05-15T02:07:00.000-07:00

Just posting up a bit of what's been on for the day:

I managed to get out and about to do some elderflower gathering very early in the morning (child went to his father's house, but I am so set to his schedule I can't sleep in even if I try!). It's still a bit early and they're not fully open but there are loads of elders about. I was able to range into new areas today. I found some rather sweetish blooms and managed to bring these home to start some home-made cordial. This is one of sproggo's favourite drinks and since it's not that hard to make, I try to stock up and bottle up some of the cordial in sterilised containers as well as freezing some for later on in the year. It tends to last till the elderberries start to ripen, and those combined with rosehips make a syrup my son loves to have during the fall and winter. So, sorted here methinks!

I just had a look at the Gnarly Wine and it has nearly cleared. I need to take a reading however because I used a half-sugar/half-honey combination, and these are very different sugars. I wasn't making table-wine with this, however, so I'm not all that fussed if it knocks one's brains right out of one's skull; with this wine it's sort of the point (general-witchy-stuff-should-be-insinuated-here). The colour is really impressive - I was hoping the rich colour of the dandelions would stay and maybe the addition of honey has helped with that. Hope so, anyway! The half-and-half combination is quite interesting to work with and I have been thinking of working with more honey - I keep promising myself I'll have a go at making mead someday but I never get round to it. Hopefully this year!

The strawberry cider is going as well - once again I used a different sugar than usual after doing a bit of online research and consultation; I used unrefined sugar rather than the sugar I usually use; I'd heard that it adds a richer flavour to a brew - not ideal for a lager, but rather welcome in ciders and bitters. I thought I'd give it a go. Yes, another bit of an experiment. The colour is certainly much darker than last year's batch! I'll have to take the hydrometer out, sterilise it and use it to give a read on the Gnarly Wine as it may be ready to bottle, but for now it is doing reading-duty on the cider. Still, I've got a week before I really need to be bothered about it, just doing the usual old-yeast scraping twice a day for the moment.

While all this is in various stages of maturing, I've started harvesting rose petals from my various rosebushes. I have a rule that I never take the first or last blooms from any of the plants in my garden, but these are already opening and doing their thing, slowly but surely. I'm gathering large, about-to-open buds and freezing them for another attempt at rose-petal wine this year. Managed it one year and it was gorgeous, but there hasn't been a chance to do any more for a while. This year, most of my roses are in good health and I feel like they can handle the loss of several punnets of blooms with no harm done. The petals get picked as and when, and I store them in the freezer until I have enough. I try not to freeze them for longer than a few days so they don't get freezer-burn, but I've already got a large punnet's worth. I should be able to fill a second one and then get the rose-petal "tea" started to put into the demijohn. I've got to hunt down the second airlock for that, however - not sure where it's got to; anyway, pics of that stuff when I do it - probably will have enough petals by Tuesday.

And of course there's general garden tending and keeping everything tidy(ish). I've had to move a few of the sacks of potatoes due to the fact the patio was actually getting a bit crowded with greenery! The toms and peppers are looking better for being parked into dirt and watered well, and while I pottered about digging out some of the compost from the bin (after disturbing a family of mice) I found one of the comfrey I had planted and forgotten last year is now coming up. Hurrah! I'll be adding some of that to a "tea" I'll put into a bucket to start fertilising my fruit and veg, along with some powdered seaweed and the fish-blood-bonemeal I already use.

I'm really pleased with the look of the garden this year. Last's years trials and tribs have really paid off and while everything is growing in and doing its thing, it looks quite impressive out there. A perfect chill out spot to just sit in the sun and have a doze, which is what I may find myself doing in a bit before son returns.

So far, a good day.

Lost a post, heigh ho

2011-05-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

I had written a pithy or perhaps whingy (depending on your viewpoint) on the Hardest Hit march, but it's gone poof. I can't dig that up again, especially when disabled hate crimes have risen in my area (three people in wheelchairs have been attacks in the past two weeks in my area. I live in Wiltshire, not London, FFS).

*Deep breath*

So I'm going to talk gardens and beer; which I know isn't nearly so interesting for the disability-rights folks who come to visit. But the thing is if you're not enjoying the little bit of life you have, everything becomes hell. I need to take my time out from watching my child regress (yes, it's getting worse, his concentration is going as well as his interest in the outside world). So, I do other things to get my breath back and try desperately to get through the next bad patch.

Today, it was racking the Gnarly Wine and getting the second treatment of finings into the demijohn. I've done this once already but it's still rather cloudy. It might clear, but who knows?. Perhaps not - it may need time in the bottle for a year or two before that happens. In any event, I also managed to get the strawberry cider started - and even did this in between working on the final draft document for sending in my son's appeal for LEA tribunal. Go multi-tasking me. The Primordial Cider is now sitting beneath a towel, yeast starting to activate, and it will be a few weeks before it's ready to put into the bottle, and then a month more before it's ready to drink but I'm looking forward to it.

Also arrived in the post; my "Salsa Garden" from Rocket Gardens! I'm rather chuffed about this, as there's a great selection on offer though now as the weather has become a bit colder I wonder if I shouldn't have kept the growframes up for a bit! I have some Yellow Brandywine toms, Gardeners Delight Toms, Greek basil, three new mint plants, and a dizzying array of peppers both hot and mild. I managed to get these all potted up and watered - though the Brandywine toms are very leggy! - and as I eye the weather for the week I am considering going out and covering them all with some plastic for the night. I took the growhouses down as I felt they were superfluous but now I'm not so sure.

Everything else, however, is shooting up like mad. The spuds are growing amazingly well, and the raspberry and strawberries are setting fruit now. The loganberry is starting to bloom and the dog-roses I planted outside are the favourite stopping place of honeybees, stocking up on pollen and nectar and buzzing like anything. The roses are all getting ready to bloom and I'm stunned at all the bud formation on my flowers - the ones in the back garden are looking to be quite impressive! The front garden not so much but that's mostly due to all the dry and the fact I'm never certain they won't just get vandalised.

There are bits of the garden which have got away from me a bit - the side of the house is well overgrown and I'm going to have to take the hedge cutters to it to beat it back. The front hedge is going a bit nuts as well but I am actually trying to get it to grow a little higher so no issues there, I may give it a "short back and sides" and encourage the top to grow a bit. I haven't bothered to do anything with the snowberry this year, and the cleavers is starting to compete with the found peony, which I'm going to have to move once I can figure out where to move it to.

Still, it will give me stuff to do, and the one moment child came out of his head for a bit, he pointed out the roses were blooming. I'll be looking forward to bringing our first bouquet of flowers inside as I'm sure that will put some light in my son's eyes again. I pick salad every few days to have as lunch or tea, and grin at the latest cat exploring my huge patch of catmint. The albino blackbird comes down to strut about and flash his white feathers at rivals, and I prepare to have my first home grown fruit of the year.

I breathe in, and breathe out, paint and create, fold clothes, and just put aside the fear for a while, as we all must learn to do.

InLonAite on 3rd Ward Open Call

2011-05-12T01:19:00.000-07:00

InLonAite on 3rd Ward Open Call

Yes, I've done it - I've submitted my artwork to a London Art Show. This is a rather big thing for me, just to even take the step. If you'd like my work, please vote for it at the Art Takes London site

Cheers

The March No One Heard About

2011-05-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

This week the solicitor is filing the appeal for my son's case. The hearings have a three month backlog, but that just means there's more time to gather independent evidence. Child will probably need to go through another battery of tests, all of which will need to be done by professionals independent of the LEA, which I'm rather wibbly about; I have been hearing a lot of "think positive" from the LEA for the past two years, even to the point they were reluctant to call him disabled due to "labelling" or "epidemic" issues. Mostly I think they wanted to keep the numbers of autism diagnosis down, even if it meant not diagnosing children who were actually autistic. It took a completely differently authority giving him a high-functioning diagnosis, and my son's paediatrician actually giggling when he read this and saying "No, he's autistic" before anyone would even say the word.

So now I am having to prepare myself to hear what I have suspected, but that the LEA can't or won't say directly: that my son's autism is more severe than anyone has admitted to yet; that his chances at living an independent life at his current state of learning and awareness is rather limited; that he is a candidate to be put into care if I have one more major blow to my health as his father refuses to take over his care. These are things I know to be true but like just about every other parent-carer out there I just try not to think about it.

Yesterday was the Hardest Hit march - a march which wasn't even televised on BBC; up to 10,000 disabled people took part and try as we might, we couldn't get the major news channels to give even so much as a look in. It didn't make the front page - it barely even made the back pages. And while I was womaning the twitter feeds and trying to get interest, writing articles for various groups and adding input in comments, I was once again hit head on by what appears to be the majority consensus that it's just too bad the disabled are suffering, but since most of us are fakers anyway, we should just go and find jobs. And, of course the inevitable "If you can march, you can work" rhetoric as if most of the people who were marching were just scrounging unemployed, rather than employed people who are terrified they're going to lose their jobs once the help to actually access those jobs is cut. One of the best pieces I've read about the march can be found here: "The Downsides of Dignity"

...a glance back at Millbank and I felt the sensation of being on a precipice before falling. I stopped and looked for a moment. These thousands of people were representing themselves and those who couldn’t make it and who can’t speak up. And their lives- our lives- are being thrown into the pits. This is not hyperbole. People are going to die because of what the government is allowing to happen. People are not going to pass the WCA, people are going to find it too stressful to even go to the assessment, people are going to fall into financial hardship, people are going to be stripped of their Disability Living Allowance and lose the privileges that comes with it (as it is a, “passport benefit”, and indeed, without it, I would not be on my part time course and I would not have had the privacy of a one bedroom flat to be ill in). People are going to be left housebound and what dignity that have- that word again- is going to be taken away. People are going to have to rely on their partners to support them when they can’t. This is not hysterical. This is real, and it is happening to people. Not just now. In the future, this is it.

I'm sure people would call this "emotive" or "scaremongering". I'm not really sure how people who live this life and are terrified are supposed to communicate. Obviously the showing mere numbers of 10,000 marching people isn't enough. Maybe "emotive" is all that is left now, and that can be rather dangerous stuff.

For our reality, my son needs a special school. Of course if he does that, bang goes his DLA payments, including his mobility component. The assumption seems to be if he's attending a residential school I no longer have to buy clothes for him, or take him on outings, or trips to the doctor or dentist if he gets ill, or attend meetings about his care or education, or make appointments for him to attend assessments. I'm not quite sure how they figure this one but that's the way the cuts are going. If by some completely idiotic process of assessment someone assumes when they see my son on a good day that he isn't worthy of High Rate Care (and you'd have to blatantly ignore every single piece of evidence to the contrary) I would not only lose his DLA but carer's allowance and the disabled element of child tax credit. That's nearly half of what we live on right now - without that I'd have to move into council housing (basically, right onto the dole I've managed to avoid till now), and probably into something completely unsuitable for either of our needs; sticking My Son, the Walking Target to Bullies on a sink estate would be a disaster, and me having to navigate anything with stairs would put me right back to housebound again.

I can't think of any other words to explain this. I can't think of acceptable statistics for it. I can only say what is happening to myself and my son. It doesn't appear to be enough - after all, I'm not an economist, or a statistician. I just live it, and therefore it's merely whingeing. Or something.

Best year for strawberries? I can believe it!

2011-05-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

Friend and I went strawberry picking yesterday and managed to get two kilos each. They're huge and about three weeks early, and plenty of scoffing was had. The farmer remembered us from last year and we've told a few friends about the place as well as it's clear the farm is very in family (the grandparents are buried on the property beneath a set of very old apple trees), and also clear the farm is struggling to keep its head above water. Just the sort of farm I'm willing to support, especially when they have such amazing strawberries! Over the past 24 hours I've got my five-a-day and child feasted on berries this morning for breakfast. That's one punnet gone already but there will be more as this looks to be a good year for local fruit.

After our ramble about yesterday, however, today I am very much in recovery mode. A bout of insomnia last night and struggling to find food child would eat this morning has me more fogged out than normal. I wonder why my hands hurt, then realise I haven't taken the anti-inflammatories. Hm. Why not? Oh yes, I didn't eat breakfast. I walk out the door - hm, I was going somewhere, why was I...oh yes, the letter I have to post. You know, the one I left inside on the stairs. And so on. There's a point where it gets amusing, and even a point where such a dreamy-brain-state can be inspiring (I was hit with a wonderful idea for a painting as I wandered up to a shop, only to turn back as the cash machine had already been hit by the locals and there was no more cash left). But for the most part it's a sign to me to reserve my strength and get more rest if I can. Trying to mind my son whilst in the midst of fibro-fog is not a particularly good scenario.

So for me, powernaps and trying to force my mind to deal with things it would rather not be bothered with - fully aware that while I doze the phone will ring, or emails will need answering as the rest of the world isn't on my own schedule.

I'll sort out the chicken carcasses for stock and chicken chili later. Later.

Maytime!

2011-05-02T01:16:00.001-07:00

I have never been so happy to see spring, and this spring has been glorious, albeit very dry. We've had days out on the outdoor Languishment Couch, eating Bailey's ice cream lollies and having rather convoluted discussions with child that 1) just because there's a bit of Baileys in his lolly doesn't mean he's 'drinking alcohol" and 2) telling people at school he's had alcohol isn't very sensible. I think that one is going to bite me in the bum later on.

Even though it's well windy out there, things come on in the garden The roses are forming HUGE buds on them (though one rosebush is showing signs of black-spot and I'll need to get some treatment started or I'll lose the whole bush),

the peonies both gifted and found are starting to open up.

I've been harvesting lettuce for a couple of weeks now and the carrots and favas are germinating. Peas and runner beans are up and I've just sowed another couple of rows of carrots and even more lettuce.

The Sage That Ate the Vegetable Bed is going great guns! Just look at all that - I'm amazed at this plant. I'm leaving the flower buds on it as they bring lots of bees to the garden and I certainly won't complain about that. This isn't white sage - which is the traditional sage for smudging - but it is still a sacred plant and I have been tying it in bundles for smudging and to burn at night now and again. Hope to get a chiminea to burn some in the near future, but in this wind it would have to be a pretty heavy one. I have another sage in my herbal bed, which is flanked by thyme, lavender, mallows, two different types of bergamot, enough catmint to bring all the cats within a 10 mile radius to my garden, and a horehound which Voodoo has since managed to kill with his excessive digging (I'll replace it at some point).

The potatoes are growing like mad things in their growbags, half filled with dirt, and the rest with finely shredded paper. I may put another top layer of dirt on them just to be sure to seal them off from light - and I know the paper will break down eventually. The squash is looking pretty good, and the two toms that made it are now stationed outside (the grow houses proved to be superfluous this year and I'll be taking them down and storing them away.)

Proto-cherries! I've never actually seen cherries ripen before so I'm rather impressed at the brilliant green colour I have currently. There's only a handful of cherries on this tree, but this shows some good promise considering how short a time I've had this tree. The pears and apples are doing well too - nothing on the mulberry but as it only just decided to try doing the Leaf Thing I don't expect too much.

I haven't been out mowing or doing any weeding work as it's turned just a bit too cold and windy for me to do so, and my hands haven't been cooperating; on top of that, the sproggo's time out of school has meant I've been pretty much go-go-go for the whole month. I will have a fair bit of catch-up to do to get the garden tended and neatened up here and there, but I'm looking forward to having breaks from troublesome phrases or painting ideas by tugging a few weeds and waiting for inspiration to come from the least-expected corners.

Good stuff!

Come Talk to Me - Blog Against Disablism Day

2011-05-01T04:21:00.000-07:00

I want to address something I imagine other blogs probably won't. I think it's important and it's something I don't think people want to talk about.

As a multicultural woman, gods knows I've seen both sides of the racial equality battle in the US; I've had African-American folks have a go at me for having fair skin and green eyes, I've had white people introduce me to the n-word at a very tender age. I've been pressed to "embrace my culture" (meaning, African and African only) and I've had the struggles of my mother's family during the 60's considered null and void because they were white. I've gone through the not-ever-dated-by-a-white-person thing (and am going through it now in the UK), and the "Can I touch your hair?" thing. I suppose this could have made me rather aggressive about the whole "race thing" - there does get a time when you get tired of being the Spokesperson For Racial Togetherness by being multiracial - a point where you have to smile and nod rather woodenly whilst people assure you they're not racist and then say something completely ignorant within a few minutes.

But the one thing I can say is I never got that "Angry Black Woman" thing happening. I don't jump down the throat of a black man who dares to say something about me, I don't argue for hours with black women who have their own issues with my skin-tone and how being able to "pass" must have made my life so much better than theirs. I don't force every single white person I've ever met into a long discussion about the Diaspora. If people ask and want to talk, I talk. I'd rather they asked their questions - even if some of them are monumentally stupid ('Who is your favourite rapper?' - I once answered the last one rather tersely 'Chopin'; I hate rap). Questions which are answered honestly educate people a bit more and the point is education, not smashing something down someone's throat. White folks don't listen when you get angry and force them to acknowledge what happened ages ago - and even though all one tends to want is acknowledgement, not just some offhanded "yeah, well, sorry" that means nothing - you won't get it going into Angry Blackfolk mode.

Over here in the UK was the first time I never had to have the "Multicultural talk". It just didn't seem like a big deal. However I think that may have more to do with the fact the English rarely say what's on their minds; when served a really rubbish meal one night I was surprised my ex was all smiles to staff, but then as soon as he got into the car he announced he was going to write a letter to the manager. "Um, why didn't you just talk to the manager?" This earned me a horrified look. "We don't do that here," I was told with a bit of reproach. I suppose the direct approach is just too strange - instead, people either stare at you or, worst still, look right through you. Don't draw attention to oneself, don't force someone else to be embarrassed into acknowledging you. I can't help but think that my decidedly Not-English appearance is certainly noticed, but rather than comment on the weirdness of it, people ignore it. I haven't had a compliment on my appearance by a man in the UK in the 12 years I've been here; it does a lot to one's self esteem, let me tell you. But I suppose that's better than being called an ugly fat bitch to my face so I guess I'll take the silence.

This can sting a fair bit for a person who is disabled. But I also wonder if perhaps there isn't something else at work - what someone recently called the "Crip with a Chip" person; sort of like the ABP, the CWAC is the type of disabled person who will slam into you with their wheelchair and then dare you to say a word. If you cast a single glance in their direction, it's automatically returned with a hostile stare. Any attempt at maybe trying to start a dialogue about anything, the "You're wondering about my hearing aid/cane/etc, aren't you?" sentence comes in a voice dripping vitriol. Even if you really wanted to know about their illness, out of wanting to understand or compassion or human regard, you'll get your head snapped off and handed to you. The CWAC is The Only Crip in the Village, and everyone else is either not nearly as disabled as they are or faking it.

When people meet with the CWAC, they never forget it - they also have a real hard time not seeing anything but Chip-Crips when it comes to protests and social actions. Their version of "white man's guilt" kicks in and they knee-jerk against it. We shout, they clap their hands over their ears and hum. Try and get eye contact and their eyes unfocus as they pick up the pace rather briskly. It's not that we don't have a point; we certainly do. It's not even that most of the non-disabled are utter jerks without a shred of humanity; it's that they just plain don't understand. How can we even begin to explain it when our bodies are programmed for forget pain and illness shortly after recovery? Sure, the Spoon Theory does so brilliantly but in order for that story to be told, the non-disabled have to be willing to listen, and we disabled have to be willing to talk.

And I will say right that if people ask out of genuine curiosity or wanting to know, I'll talk to them; believe me I know the difference between the person talking specifically so I can hear about what a crap parent I am to have such a badly behaved child, and the person who gives a somewhat guarded laugh at my son's antics and then asks (with considerable anxiety) "Please don't think I'm being rude but...is your son all right?" Yes, it might be said rather clumsily and I suppose I would have grounds to get rather angry at the idea of my son "all right" or not, but the fact is the person really wanted to know, they just didn't know how to say it. That deserves as honest and as gentle an answer as I can give them, and most of the time I am thanked rather profusely for taking the time to do so. I am not going to jump down your throat because you didn't use the "right term" - I don't like the word "nigger" coming out of ANYONE's mouth, and I certainly am not going to be happy if you refer to my child as "retarded" or "weird" but I won't faint in coils if you use "cripple" or "disabled" at me. If anything I find the flowerly crap really annoying ("People of Colour"? WTF is that? Makes me sound like a damn rainbow...don't get me started on 'differently able'!), but everyone is different. Personally I'm just happy you're talking to me, we can work out the semantics later.

So, today in honour of the Blog Against Disablism, rather than batter the non-disabled with stories of how hellish my life can be and somehow insinuating that it's their faults, I want to open the dialogue, I want to brew a cup of tea, I want to sit down, offer a biscuit and say "I am disabled, and so is my son. If there's something you want to ask, please do, and I'll answer the best I can provided you can try and respect my feelings whilst we do so."

Come Talk to Me.

Busy me, brewing, and a Growing Wump

2011-04-30T01:29:00.001-07:00

I had a scant three days to cram in a backlog of two week's work, whether my wrists hurt like hell or not. I've got a restriction brace on my left wrist now and I think I'm going to find myself going to get something a bit more sturdy and supportive for both wrists if I want to keep typing and painting. It is a bit of a jesus-this-is-really-destroying-my-joints-and-I'm-not-dreaming-it moment that felt more than a little weird as well as rather depressing but I've learned over the past year if a piece of equipment makes a difference, I had best use it without whinging. It's better in the long run.

So, with a semi-supported wrist which hurt like hell (and realising there really wasn't anything stoic about trying to struggle on without) I managed to open my Etsy shop to sell some of my art and my prints. I'll be pimping this about, and hoping it generates a bit of revenue. I've got some new ideas as well which I hope to add shortly but I'm just waiting on a delivery - I think it will suit my style rather well so let's see how it works out! Book promotion is stepping up a notch as well as I am uploading my work to Smashwords but I don't think I'm going to be the next best-seller; the thing about indy book publication is I spend more time promoting my work than writing the next piece, and I really find that to be a huge drag. So it's either going to have to be an agent in the future or I'm just going to do it as and when and not try to make a career of it. With my fair-weather hands, that seems the best I can hope for anyway.

Brewing beer and so forth? Oh yes. I caved, I admit it; I bought a strawberry cider kit again and this week I'll start the brew-bucket with the cider for the year. Last year's batch was lovely and I felt if I was going to go through all the effort I may as well choose a brew I really enjoy. I need my wrist to recover a bit as lifting heavy buckets full of primordial beer won't do me any favours. I need to rack the Gnarly Wine as well but see above. Recovery from whatever injury I did to myself is the name of the game at the moment, in between getting through another longish weekend of wumping.

The Wump is hitting another growth spurt. The trousers I bought a mere month ago are now too tight. He's also managed to break two more slats on his bed (WHY oh why do manufacturers make beds for children with slats??? Flat boards please!). It's now sagging in a ridiculous way and I really have to get thicker, sturdier boards cut and placed but not sure how to do it. He is also very in need of a new mattress (all that bedwetting has taken its toll). On top of the clothes, new shoes, new socks, new school uniforms as I don't know when the Tribunal will happen or what school child will be attending next year, but fall back options are in place. Unfortunately, doing all the shoe shopping requires me to have strong hands in case he manages to make a break for it while we're on a busy street, and today is not that day! Heigh ho, another week will have to go by but hopefully I can pick up more trousers and socks when I go into town for errand runs on Tuesday and maybe another market shop.

Off we go to get it done - or in my case today, to rest my wrist up enough so I can get things done.

Rustic posh

2011-04-26T04:09:00.000-07:00

I bemoaned imported food recently, wondering about the smarts of having blueberries in a country where they aren't indigenous and so forth. Well, here's one import that I'm sort of glad is here: morels! Oh gods, these little mushrooms of heaven have made it to the UK and I am so very very very happy; we used to pick these as kids in the forests of Minnesota and Neil Gaiman, a Brit now living in my native state, has waxed philosophical about these lovely little morel morsels. I honestly never thought I'd see or taste them on these shores and I have to admit I'm rather glad they've made it.

Since son was in school today and the fruit-bowl only had one slightly past-its-best banana in it, I decided it would be a good day to go to the local market and get as much fruit as I could carry. This used to be a regular trip for me but of late not so much for the usual spoonie reasons. However the sun was shining, I had saved up as many spoons as I could and taken my pain meds as well. I covered up for the sun which is still shining bright outside, and off I went with cane and backpack.

I have missed the market trips, but what I hadn't realised was the market had missed me as well. I've known most of the stall-holders for years now, and they've known me since my son was just a baby in a Tigger suit. The young lad on the fruit stall is now a young man in his own right and I almost didn't recognise him this summer. The organic stallholder asked where I had been and whether I was all right - I tried to put the brave face on but these folk know me - "Right, now the real answer is...?" Everyone was glad to see me and even shaved a bit of cash off the top to round out the numbers and spare me digging for change.

And there was the mushroom stall with its lovely wild fungus, and the wild garlic which I have become such a huge fan of. We chatted a bit and I was thinking just to get the garlic but then realised he had morels. MORELS! Good grief, I couldn't believe it. They're selling well, too - in a place where folk don't tend to like to try anything too new, these were selling well and he showed me that they were starting to spore in the containers he was keeping them in. I said I was thinking about shaking a few over a pile of woodash and trust to luck! The price was scary, but it was worth it, so along with loads of fruit and other nice tidbits, I had a small punnet of morels to go with the load of wild garlic.

It's funny, really, how everyday food in one place becomes haute cuisine elsewhere; morels are breaded and fried in the US and come heaped on plates like chips or onion rings after a good gathering session. The idea of slicing them fine as a garnish and charging a fortune for the pleasure is foreign to me, so I decided to make some rustic posh-food; homemade brioche, a local cheddar, local bacon, free range eggs with pan-fried wild garlic and morel mushrooms. I topped it all off with the first berries of the year on the stalls - a rare thing for me as I almost always saving the fruit for my son.

I am now pleasantly stuffed to the gills, about to enjoy a cuppa on my daybed outside and reserve the last few spoons I have for the return of my son from school.

Bliss.

It's great out there, but...

2011-04-24T02:03:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd say "Hm, maybe it's time for some rain..." but I'm actually thinking it. Srsly.

It hasn't rained in weeks. This is one of the driest springs I've ever seen. Everything has come up quite early and I know from past experience what this usually means is we're going to have an incredibly naff summer but I have to wonder: where's the rain?

I've actually taken to watering my lawn - yes, one of THOSE people - because I just laid the grass seed down last year and it's still quite patchy. More to the point, there isn't anywhere near enough rain for the spring and the young stuff may die if I don't. I'm not a huge proponent of grass really but I'd rather have grass than a garden full of bindweed, so I give it the best chance I can. And with this lack of water and the rapidly lowering level in the waterbutt outside I can't help but hear the words "hosepipe ban" whispered in my ear. It's a possibility so I may as well water and spread the seaweed fertiliser and the fish, blood and bone meal now before the crisis point hits. I'm aware the reservoirs in the area are very low, much lower than they should be, and the wetlands didn't flood locally like they tend to do every spring. It's a little worrying.

It's slightly hazy out there today but there's not a hint of proper cloud, just the somewhat almost-misty atmosphere we get up here sometimes. Everything is growing like mad and I keep eyeing the raised bed for seeds and wondering where the seedlings are, then having to remind myself we're only on the tail-end of April; the broad beans aren't late, it's barely time for them to start doing anything, actually, and they're just starting to poke up out the soil, same as the runner beans. The peas are still dawdling. I have baby leaf lettuce and my carrots are showing some signs of life, the shallots and garlic going great guns, but everything else is still taking its time. The newly planted strawberry crowns are doing their best to spread and there's even a few flowers starting to form from previous plants I thought I had lost. It's going to be a sporadic strawberry harvest, but it will do!

The Halloween Cats are now a year old and are growing into fine specimens - getting used to being outdoors and absolutely convinced they can take on pigeons, seagulls, guinea pigs and possibly small dogs - (brave or stupid? not sure which!). Voodoo is the more adventurous and often gets himself into trouble; he's tried to range wider in territory several times now and I've had to rescue him. This morning I found him cowering on my front step - HOW he got out I'm not sure, but seems he jumped a very high window and lost his footing. Silly kitten! He's fine now and of course he and his brother Jester rush to the back door at the same time to do it all over again. In between they sprawl in patches of sunlight or, in Jester's case, fight for lapspace whilst I sit here at the computer, staring at blank documents and waiting for the writing to come. Jester is the attention-sponge, and Voodoo is, shall we say, incredibly aptly named and takes pride of place when I'm doing witchy-things.

Already done the garden watering, baked a lovely loaf of brioche which I've had a slice of for elevenses, had a small hobble-about to survey a few things I want to do in the garden over the year, and I'm tackling the laundry pile today. Child is at his father's house and so it is quite and chilled. I want to paint but my brain seems to be telling me the return to the school-work routine will come quite soon (Tuesday in fact) so I had best get the mundane stuff done first or I'll find myself scrabbling about tomorrow wondering why I didn't get the ironing, uniforms stuff, shoe polishing and all that sort of stuff done first.

It doesn't mean I can't do so whilst the breeze blows through my house, savouring a cuppa, and listening to music (a rare thing in my house as child is so sensitive to sound and he hates the stuff I listen to). Domestic bliss day, basically. Sometimes, that's a good thing.

Preaching to the #spoonie choir

2011-04-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend the Wump is off to his dad's and therefore I have recovery time to be outside and just chill, draw, paint, whatever. I have a fair bit I'm trying to shake out of my head over the next month and the best thing to do in that regard is get to work.

Firstly - getting the boring stuff out the way - the rheumatologist got back to me; he said when I last saw him that he wouldn't call me in unless I was "riddled with arthritis". So, guess what? Apparently I'm riddled with arthritis and inflammation markers are raised. I have honestly tried to refrain from consulting "Dr Google" as I don't really want that colouring the issue right now, but I can't help but think it would explain why there are days when all I can do is cup one hand in the other and try not to move them at all. My hands and joints have become atrocious over the past year, and now my joints can swell and become painful even when the weather hasn't changed a jot. Still, whatever it is, I cannot get back into the rheumy office until June as there's such a backup of patients due to various holidays and breaks and half-terms, so it's a quick trip to my GP to see about getting a 'scrip for anti-inflammatories. What steps happen after that, I honestly can't say and while I hate having to try and look around the elephant in the room, there's no chance of pushing anyone to spit out their concerns till my appointment.

The past glorious week however has been greatly disturbed by pain issues which even co-codamol is refusing to touch (mostly I think it's due to my joints being inflamed). I've stopped wearing rings, which sucks as I loved my jewellery and adornments but I'm now rather boring. Brushing my hair is becoming an ordeal as I struggle to hold the brush-handle. I have to admit that during the winter it was worse so I am very grateful for the turn of the seasons right now, but even so, I'm well aware I have to add a whole new way of managing pain after years of just ignoring it as "just pain".

I've also had some weird stuff going on with other fibro sufferers; I've never experienced this before, but I'm actually getting the residual mutterings of jealousy. I get what it is and why it's there, I really do - fibro is such a nebulous ailment (and there are still quite a few doctors who don't think it really exists and you just need CBT sessions) the treatment is not very forthcoming, if at all. Mostly you're just thrown some analgesics and told to cope. To have something tangible like arthritis suddenly validates one as a patient - I noticed the difference when the EKG actually showed a problem as opposed to being in hospital for surgery and having inflammation reactions that no one would bother to test. Managing to get doctors willing to look beyond the initial "just fibro" diagnosis wasn't easy, and I had to change three different GPs in the space of a year just to get the tests done.

There may actually be treatment now for me rather than a shrug and a distant look. And yes, I can see how unfair that is. It angers me it should be this way and believe me I have said several times now that it makes things much easier all round if symptoms are not dismissed as "just pain". There are so many symptoms which are indications of underlying problems, you have to be willing to be labelled a "problem patient" to get a GP willing to look a little deeper, and a specialist willing to get to the bottom of things as well. And I can heartily assure anyone in that position that it won't happen if you spend the majority of your time bemoaning your fate. Get angry. Drag yourself into a new GP, and then another. Fight for your health, your right to treatment, your life, because no one else is going to do it for you.

Just do what you have to do - if you fall over and pass out, vomit or fall on the GP's floor in a seizure, then it becomes pretty damn hard to argue that you're "just not coping". Again, that is something you have to be willing to do in order to get the end result you want, and no, it isn't fun. I've just gone through a year of it. I know people who have gone through years more.

Fight for what you need...the more who do, the easier it will be for others behind you to also get what they need; it's why I'm doing it. I don't want anyone else to have to go through all this shit.

Gnarly wine- the brewing begins

2011-04-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

Made some gnarly dandelion wine; it's been on the ferment for two days. It's "gnarly" because this isn't the refined fruit-wine I tend to make; I literally used whatever brewers yeast I had on hand, picked the dandelions myself, brewed it on the stove and let it sit, threw some yarrow fronds in as this is a libation wine, and did half sugar, half local honey for the sugars. This is some rough-and-ready country wine, the likes of which your granddad probably used to make (and more than likely just as lethal to drink!). I might be pleasantly surprised as it smells absolutely amazing and almost like a melomel, but I'll age it properly and rack it a few times, clear it with finings and at least do my best to get it to drinkable for certain holidays during the winter months next year.

Just limbering up the wine-making muscles again as even though I don't drink that much these days, I do like to crack a bottle during certain times of the year. It takes a while for fruit wine to be drinkable but they're invariably worth the wait. However, because I find corking a bit of a struggle and can't afford a big corking machine, I'm going to stick wine into beer bottles. Horribly uncool, I know, but I've got bottles and caps aplenty, may as well use them!

For my now-and-again needs when it comes to pints (when I can actually have pints), I'm going with the strawberry cider again this year. It's economical and I've got storage space. If I can't drink it, there's the added benefit of being able to use it for barter sometimes, where it comes very in handy (even the 'girly' strawberry cider goes down well).

So I turn my eye to my plants and planted hedges, watching and waiting for flowers and fruits, whispering encouragement and feeding them well and hope they'll reward me this year with a bit of bounty. Partly because the end result is rather nice, but mostly because I find the whole process rather fun, really. May as well admit that.

Creative solutions

2011-04-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

Crossposted to "In Lon'Aite"

I have been unable to paint for several weeks now; writing hasn't been much easier though I've managed to blog only by writing a paragraph and coming back to it, then again, and again. Some blogs take the whole day to write but it keeps me writing, even when the creative well has been a bit dry lately.

The not being able to draw or paint wasn't helping as I tend to get a lot of ideas for work through sketching something random, making a story to go along with it in my head, then sitting down and writing it out. This has been flagging due to pain my hands and the haiku painting was becoming shorter and shorter till it wasn't even worth breaking the paints out. Not on.

It's no good trying to appeal to the social services for this sort of stuff; they only cover the bare minimum of essentials, and ironically keeping me working is not one of those things. Go figure. The usual solution is they give you a booklet of aids which are usually extortionately expensive and you are expected to buy these yourself somehow.

No chance of that, so I appealed to the Twitterverse - O unlikely place! - to see if fellow creative folks had any ideas on how to combat the problem, and an ingenious person suggested pipefoam; cutting it down and putting it round implements eases the joints as it gives you something bigger to grip. Tennis balls with a hole bored through works just as well apparently. I just happened to have some of the stuff as I used it to insulate some of the outbuilding piping as well as to line some sharp edges round the house when child was a bit less aware of them when we first moved here, and I was able to cut some of this down and wrap it round a few of my graphites.

Can I just say I am OVER THE MOON about this solution? It's so stupidly simple and yet it works a treat; my hands don't cramp, I have better control over the pencil, and I can even put it round my paintbrushes. It's loads more comfortable for me than what I was doing, and I'm so chuffed! Can't wait to get back into it this weekend as I intend on sitting on the daybed and painting, sketching and writing for two days if I can.

The change in my hands is something I've constantly had to combat over the past year and at least now I know why it's happening and will hopefully get treatment for it (it's not "just pain" - hurrah, I'm not going mad and dreaming it up). I was thinking recently that one of my favourite walking sticks which I've had for ages and absolutely love has fallen out of use for one particular reason: the ball on the top has made my hand cramp something terrible. But I LOVE this cane; as my friends say it screams voodoo priestess (and it jolly well should, too!) and my own sense of diva-dramatic loves carrying this around. I love the art of it, the carving and the beauty of it - I found it in a antique shop in a country where women don't tend to come as tall as I do and it is the perfect, perfect height, something which was such a surprise at the time I knew it was mine.

Yet I haven't been able to use it as my hands can't grasp the head of the cane without pain. I had to purchase another cane instead and this one has been languishing in a corner. It occurred to me however that what I need to do is find a woodcarver or something experienced in carving and woodworking to take the top of the cane off and fit something a bit more "hand-friendly" onto this - but to do it in such a way that it blends into the current work. I'm not really sure how that would be done, do be truthful - I think this is the sort of thing I'd leave to the artist. Just have to find one - I can trade with some ritual kyphi!

I'm facing new challenges, true, and it's not really all that fun, granted; however if I can keep painting and creating without having to give up yet AGAIN on working due to a disability issue, I will be most pleased.

In other news today, we had a lovely visit from a friend who gave my son someone to play with and me a chance to laze on outdoor daybed and do not much in particular. This was good news as yesterday was a Tramadol-day painwise; something I dare not take when sproggo is in the house as the meds are just way too strong and turn me into an utter zombie. But yesterday they played Star Wars monopoly and car racing games and played with bubbles and ran back and forth in water from the hose together and she wore him out good and proper! It's been a lovely break for child and as it comes to a close I'm grateful that mates of mine came out of the woodwork to give me a break now and again.

Today I'm off outside to read as child is up on his computer. Later on we'll have a BBQ and I have to prepare the chicken for marinating.

It's a good day.