avoiding reality again

Wow, things certainly have got going today, sorry to bore you all with this thing, I just cant contain myself but this will be the last one in the sorry episode, I hope anyway.

 Well I didnt sleep too well last night, I was kind of going through what I was going to say today, I knew that two people would be there the builder and Miss first name terms, to be honest I think she is a caring person, she has a friendly face.   I dont know what it is about her but I find her fairly easy to be honest with, not sure if its a two way thing but hey, its not like we are going to be living together is it?

 I was still awake when the sun came up and I couldnt really sleep then, I am wary of strange noises, so I kind of almost poo poo my panties when the heating starts glugging and beating through the floor boards.  There is an alarming bulge in my sons room and the plaster is cracking, it didnt sound walls falling on Christophers (not that I am an expert on this sound) naaaa thats the heating.  So what could I do?  I was all fired up to batter someone or just get someone and shake them until their eyeballs popped, I wasnt in a particularly good mood, more like a bear without a sore head really.  I thought better of the battering or shaking, I decided to do some washing.  Syra was playing with what look like a cat turd on the kitchen floor but on closer examination it was a curled up mega slug, the kind wearing a ski mask and holding a gun.  So I gave that what for, sluggy was soon happy flying over the cemetary fence, perhaps happily might not be the right word for him.

 Then I decided to write to my MP, I just needed to get it out, this was included.

2) I have asked questions of our housing authority in writing, mainly by email, none of them have been answered.  We believe that we are at least entltled to some answers here, these people must be answerable to someone.  I believe the policy is to respond in within 5 working days, I do not seem worthy of a few words on a page, why?

3) I have some disability issues in my family, we feel this is further compromising our right to fair and just treatment. The previous tenants were moved out permanently, it seems we had to fight for the same rights, Why?

4) I have asked for compensation for the loss and disruption caused by losing our home.  We believe that the previous tenants were allowed to have this, we have verbally been denied, Why?

We also believe that if the subsidence issue was addressed in 2005, I am sure we can sue the builders for our loss, if the subsidence issue was not addressed here, Why?

If someone on the transfer list was knowingly moving house, they would have the chance to save up, not pour all of their efforts into their home like we have. If someone on the regeneration scheme was about to lose their home, through no fault of their own, they are afforded compensation. 

If a dog in a kennel with adequate flooring was moved to a concrete shell without the means to provide the basics, the RSPCA may have something to say about it.  Yet we are expected to live in a shell, even though we are losing our home, through no fault of our own, why?

Even though we are scared of our home now, we are in need of something that meets our needs and can only compromise so much which we are prepared to do, we still do not want to be forced into a shabby shell with only a few vouchers for some paint. The loss of our home is not our fault, we are reluctant to be forced to live without the basics.

After I had sent that I still needed a tiny bit more, so I sent a copy to housing,  it just had to be done.

I felt a bit better but I still had a bit of angst left so I thought better save that for the meeting this afternoon.  I had really given the full pelt to the investigating officer yesterday and I said this is going all the way.  I had said why cant they answer me?  Why couldnt they sit down with me and listen?  I could have accepted that, I cant turn the clock back, noone can but all this could have been avoided by just talking.  I was asking for reasurance, I was scared, I asked politely, I was ignored. 

She said, Well when things like are brought to our attention we can learn from it.  Our policy is to treat people as individuals and to work with them.

Well youre about as far away as the moon from that, I’ve had enough of being a teaching aid from the last complaint, ignoring people isnt working with them and your web site is….. er  well, crap,  Sorry.  I had more information from other websites, yours is almost impossible to use, there is nothing on decanting, the search thingy always seems to bring you to how to make payments and I couldnt find out anything I needed to know.  Other sites are heads and shoulders above it.

 Well Miss Lily, I think that after all this you would really fit in with the something (cant remember) about tenants team, we could do with someone like you working for us…….

 Ohhh I didnt know what to say to that so I pretended not to hear it.

Well, youre meeting up with Miss first name and rudolph the builder tomorrow, things may not be as bad as they seem now.  We want to try to put thing right now.

I sensed something more in that phrase, I didnt say anything but I thought, hmmm, I wonder?  I wonder, wonder,  wonder? If I am the biggest pain in the neck for them right now.  She kind of looked a bit funny when I said this is going all the way.  Why wouldnt they want it going all the way?  Is that voice in my head that keeps saying this is so wrong, the correct one, I dont know but I cannot turn it off.  This is so wrong.

Its back to today now and I was driving to the house to speak with the builder and Miss first name terms, I am still going over what I wanted to say, I was feeling a bit scared and hoped I would have the bottle to get it out. I know always its always easier to think you will say things when your thinking about it, strange how your heart starts beating like a drum when youre actually parking the car with your kids. I still had angst but I feeling really tired after the not sleeping thing last night.  

Rudolph was walking round with a clipboard outside when we arrived a van had gone past us full of rubbish, they must have shifted that lot before we arrived. After a brief introduction we they showed us round, my youngest saying I am not going in there (the shed).  It was a nice house but I didnt say a word, they did all the talking, “of course we will sort that out”, bare bricks by the back door.  “These floorboards are nice when stained up”.

After we finished I said it wasnt suitable for our needs, I said I wanted to sack it all for a bit, that I had had enough for now.  That my complaint would be with the ombudsman within 6 weeks, that I wouldnt be moving into a shell I couldnt afford to make into a home.  Although we were a bit scared of our present house, for now it was home to us, it is plesasant  and comfortable and had the space we needed.  I told them I couldnt take on the whole authority on my own anymore, that I needed the energy to care for the kids, which they met and could see for themselves.  I told them about the voice in my head and that I wasnt prepared to just walk away and lose everything.  That I wanted those questions I had asked to be answered, that it wasnt really worth me wasting energy trying to communicate with them anymore, as I didnt think they would ever answer.  That their policies and systems didnt seem to work in every case and certianly hadnt been working in ours.  I didnt have any faith in a system that would only respond to dangerous conditons after a complaint was made against them.  That if I was a locked up criminal I wouldnt need a complaint to be in a safe cell.   I wanted to allow the complaint to run its course and have someone more answerable to fight my corner for me. so that the voice in my head could finally be turned off.

I dont think they wanted to hear it but I am so tired and I do need a break and want to think about other things for just a few weeks.  I dont want to think about packing things up, living in limbo or living without carpets and curtains.  I dont want to worry or feel angry.  I want just one normal day, or maybe a few normal ones all strung together.  I want to go on a train and see Nathan, walk with the kids and the dog.  Get easter eggs and have Matt and Leanne here for the holiday, Dive on the sofa and watch crap with Toria, catch up on all her girlie news.  I dont want to see Aaron looking at how houses fall down on the internet and I dont to see Chris saying bad.  I know it all sounds a bit dramatic, perhaps there is an opera there somewhere but it was all kind of going on in my head there.

Rudolph and Miss first name terms were talking at me and I wasnt really listening, lost in my normal day thoughts. I didnt care what they were saying, I think Toria was talking, she is very articulate for her age, she has seen a lot in her young life and thats when I started to listen.  She said, if only I could put you in my body and you could feel what I feel.  My brother needs his own space and I love my room.  We have pictures on our computer of us smiling and painting when we got that house, we took pictures of our progress, we saw each room get better until it was finished, those pictures make me cry now because you have taken everything away from me.  I do not want you to take my brothers room, nor do I want to see my mother crying and fighting.

That kind of shut them up.

The they said look, we really want to help you all, we will find a house for you, I will be on the case but if you leave if for 6 weeks we may miss one.  Rudolph piped up, Miss Lily, I am not going to let you live in a shell.  We will get some quotes and my blokes will come in and paint everywhere for you.  Then we will find some nice flooring and we will get some quotes and fix it for you.  Thats not going to be your money, thats going to be our money, we will carpet a couple of rooms if you want that too.  ~We promise you, youre not losing your home there, you are losing your house.  We will give you a start, move you in, connect everything up and leave you with a home.  I couldnt live with myself if I didnt do that, now that I have met you all.

I was quite gob smacked and I just felt all the angst and the tension going away, it was like a huge weight was lifting, the kids were smiling, I just had to crack the face.

Miss first name terms was cracking hers too, ( it was kind of a beautiful moment but I dont want to go all opera again) “now, I know you need a break miss Lily and I can understand why but when I get a void, I will go out and have a look, give you a call and we can go and see that very same day.  Rudolph will be meeting us there to check for any  signs of damage and for any adaptions necessary for our Chris here and she shot him a smile.

I just had to go to the loo at this point, I was dancing by now, the bladder, not the mood.  So I excused myself and I could hear them all laughing and talking.  We shook hands and I left, positively skipping through the daisies in the direction of my car.  What was that all about?  I am going to wake up in the minute.  So I drove a few streets pulled over, got out of the car and smoked best bloody fag I think I have ever had.  Wow, these obudsman must walk in with axes or something, have whips and green eyes, turn people into stone with their snake faced fugly wives.  Breathe fire from their snout holes and set the hounds of hell upon thee who dares to cause a smite to befall on the innocent.

There was one more beautiful moment from today.  My nieghbour has been in hospital and I have been looking after her post, getting it from the porch and locking it back up.  She came out today so I popped round.  I told her we were leaving and she was gutted, you and your kids are lovely and I am going to miss you so much.  I hope you get what you need and I hope you will be happy. We had a hug together and Aaron went and fetched her some milk.

I prayed for relief and my soul is now peaceful, I am very happily tired.  (sorry, I have opera disease, its a bitch but at least I have havent got it with the dreaded bursting into songitis,  oh for the wings of a dove, ohhh for the wings of a dove… oh shit).

Happy easter everyone.

If I dont vent I might blow a gasket or something, I am really fired up now and pissed off big time.

So where are we?  I am still in a flippin mess with this house thing.  I am having a complete and utter stress now.  I am having almost daily calls from Miss first name terms and although I think she is trying to help, I cant trust a single word I am afraid.  This house I have been offered is in a nice residential area, most people would be happy, I would be happy but it hasnt got the space I need for my disabled son and the best that they can come up with is to use the shed, I dont think so, its attached to the house and for the sake of being settled I did consider it but common sense has got the better of me.

 I wasnt always a council tenant, its only because when I divorced I couldnt keep the mortgage up on my own on our 4 bed house in a very affluent area, even though I had a well paid job at the time, disability kept me from being able to work full time.  It is astonishing how insignificant council tenants in this area are.  I mean if I was a criminal, I would be expected to be locked up in a cell, even though I had done wrong, I would still expect that cell to be safe, well from an environmental point of view anyway.  I might not feel safe with the axe murdering cell mate, but thats as maybe.  I wouldnt expect the cell to be a dance hall either, that would be my reward for commiting a crime, fair enough.  Likewise, if I were a lab rat, I wouldnt expect to be dragged out of my cage, with my lovely straw etc just to be shoved in a cold unkempt cage with no basic comforts.  There is probably a law against that sort of thing.

 However, I am expected to move into this house, which is in a state with nothing and put my disabled son in a shed again with nothing.  How can this be right in 2009?  I have no clue but its happening.

 I am not entitled to compensation because my house is not part of a regeneration scheme, we are just outside the qualifying criteria although if there is a slight failure to meet the criteria for home loss and disruption payments to be made a discretionary payment can be made in certain circumstances when losing ones home.  To me it seems really unjust and unfair and I intend to make that point loud and clear.

I have been put into a situation whereby they know I like the house, its a good sound house and they know that its unlikely that anything like it will come up in the near future, they know I am keen to settle down ~ASAP and I am but common sense is screaming at me not to let them do this and use this house in this way, so they can get away without proper compensation.  So after a long hard think I am not going to accept the house, its kind of killing me and I have been physically sick for the last 3 days but I will have to be strong and so no.   They dont know yet, I am meeting them at the house tomorrow.  Although I know that the condition of my house is only going to get worse, its home, its got flooring, paint on the walls, the space I need for my son and although I am taking a risk, I am not sure I could cope in the place without flooring etc and I just dont have the money to pay for that. I am sure they are at fault here, I know they have lied already about us not being able to move out permanently so I dont trust them as far as I can throw them.

 An complaints investigator came out today to listen to my views and seemed very ‘on my side’.  She seem quite annoyed that they left the staircase in an unsafe state and the fact that they only said we couldnt move when they saw the downstairs bedroom, I think thats discrimination but I dont know that for a fact.  Furthermore they wouldnt get a court order to get us out as they would be serving a court order on themselves as its their house, so whoever said that was just trying to further force me into going sooner rather than later.  I just havent worked out why yet, being evil and uncaring and I have proof of that, there must be a motive in it for them somewhere.

 I am going to fight on, I am going to take my complaint all the way and I am going to use the above analogy tomorrow when I speak with them at the new house.

 I have found a few peices of legislation during my digging around for information, I have also approached a tenant governing body, a guy from parliament that I am so going to write to and something I cant quite understand about housing and building regulations thats in legal speak but seems to say they were acting illegally when they were only prepared to underpin the staircase when a complaint was made. 

 I am still thinking about writing to the prime minister because this just cannot be right, he has a disabled son, maybe he would understand if he doesnt judge me for being a council tenant or a single parent or both.  I have thought about going to the press with it all but I dont really want publicity.  Its something I might think about in future but if I let the complaint go all the way, I might not need to.

 I am going to the CAB tomorrow too, there might be a legal expert in this kind of thing there, who will understand whats going on here as its beyong me.  I didnt want to fight, I really didnt but I cant just let them walk all over my family like this.  I was prepared to compromise on my sons room, I was prepared to let them make the shed into a room for him but they wont do it, so he would have to go outside, enter the shed, be cut off from the main house and its not really suitable or acceptable to me, he is a human being for goodness sake.

So I am going to say, I think I would rather wait for the complaint to go at least to the panel stage, I did say to the investigator that its going all the way this time, so she will probably report that back. My sons were here too, she met them, so they are no longer just names on paper now, they are real, feeling, needing human beings who cant really stand up for whats right themselves but I can and I will.  If there isnt a law against  this sort of thing, there sure as hell should be.

 I actually laughed out loud when she said we at this authority should be treating people as individuals, I said, well you must live on the moon then because youre as far away as you can get from that one. We should have responded to your correspondance within 5 days, I dont think so, I havent had a single written word even though I asked for correspondance in writing. 

We shall see what tomorrow brings.

Thanks for giving me the chance to rant away here. I cannot wait to get some relief from all of this.

Sorry it’s another ramble, I do hope to finish my debt story eventually but what is going on in my everyday life is so stressful that I haven’t got the right mind to go back over my diaries and condense what’s there right now.  This is also going to be the last entry for some time as I know the next few weeks are going to be busy.

I can so understand why people kill themselves,   I have felt suicidal in the past, well when I felt I was in so much debt there was no answer or way back.  Before that I could never understand it.  Why would someone want to leave their family and friends behind?  Why would someone ever want to die?  Now I think differently because I have kind of been there.  If anyone ever posts about suicide on the forum and I see it, I will always go there and post in the hope that they will wait that little bit longer to ‘put the gun down’.  All they need is a reason to put the gun down, they want to see some hope, even a tiny crack of light in their dark and frightening world.

I have felt that way all day; I just need to see some light, even a hint of hope.  I want to try to limit the damage of losing this home to my children and I can’t do that.  We are going to lose our home and I am scared.  I don’t know if I can cope with any of it anymore.  It seems to be such an uphill climb, the last 3 years have been that way for us and I felt for the first time in ages that I want to be out of all of this, I don’t want to start again, I don’t want to come back.  I don’t know what’s ahead and if it’s anything similar to the last 3 years I don’t want to live it.

So what’s brought all this on and what can I do about it?  I am really frustrated with the housing.  I have made a complaint which I have asked to go to stage 2, that means that someone should be in touch with me tomorrow, an independent advisor to look into my complaint.  I really wanted that to happen as I feel I am not being given fair treatment as I have disabilities in my family.

I have seen a house in a nice rural area that would meet our needs, I know have accepted the fact that we are being kicked out.  So knowing our need to move I asked to be considered for this house.  Since I am not on the transfer list the computer said no.  I understand that their needs to be protocol and I fully appreciate that but on the other hand, I am out on my ear in 3 to 5 weeks so why am I not on the transfer list.  The answer is, I don’t know.  I was told last week that I can only have temporary accommodation while they underpin this property but considering they need to strip out everything, dig down 4ft that’s going to take ages.  Plus the walls are crumbling, the upstairs floors are uneven the bathroom floor needs replacing, I could fill the page with this stuff but by now I am sure you have got the picture.  I don’t want to come back, I don’t want to be uprooted twice and I know this would affect my children in a detrimental way.  I suspect this rule about coming back when the work is done only applies in my case because I have children with special needs and I pointed that out to them.

I wrote an email today asking for certain questions to be answered, I got a bull crap phone call back, although they did say, I didn’t have to come back, so that is a huge weight off my mind.  We can go and we can stay where we go.  I still wasn’t satisfied that the other questions were not answered and they don’t seem to want to put my complaint up to a stage 2. I do not understand this, if we are being treated fairly, they wouldn’t be trying to prevent that would they?  I was so stupid last time, I didn’t push it, I accepted everything that was said verbally, I know they lied through their teeth when they were put on the spot, luckily for me I took an advocate and she was with me during the meetings. So what they said on many but not every occasion was witnessed.  I just don’t trust them but I don’t want to fight either, I just want them to do the right thing with the resources they have.  I do not expect them to give me special treatment.  I don’t want to moan or complain I just need the new property to meet the children’s needs.  I am terrified that the surveyor’s recommendation time will run out and we will be forced into ‘lets nick your car’ street, with stab all children neighbours.  I have been reading all of their policies and I found out that they can obtain a court order to remove tenants from a property in order to carry out essential structural repairs, I am scared silly.

I know that what she told me last week about we are not allowed to move out permanently is not true.  So why say it?  I have to trust these people with finding a suitable home in a suitable area, I don’t think I can do that but what can I do?

I decided to write another letter, similar to the email but in more detail, I also rang the council head office and got all the names of the councillors and the MP and sent them a copy.  I wrote that I was doing this and put all of the names at the bottom of the letter. I then drove up to the housing office and asked the suited guy to fax it through and send the hard copy in the internal mail and give me a receipt.  It took ages, I am not saying the chap wasn’t helpful or anything its just that I couldn’t seem to make him understand and I didn’t particularly want him to read the letter.  Conversation went something like this..

I wondered if you could fax this letter for me please?

Oh yes certainly what’s it about?

It’s a  housing matter.

Oh Okay well I will need to look up your transfer number.

I am not on the transfer list.

Oh, right then, you cannot send this if your not on the list.

Why?

No one will be aware of this and I need a case number to put on it.

You could use the complaint number, it’s on there is bold letters.  

Oh, it’s a complaint then which department are you complaining about?

Housing?

Which department in housing?

The ones that deal with the houses that are falling down.

Oh, I see but have you actually had a surveyor out who has confirmed that?

Yes

Are you in a local authority house?

Yes.

Do you have rent arrears? That’s probably why you are not on the list, we do not put people on the list if there is any outstanding rent owing.

No in fact I am in credit, we had a rent free week this week but I paid it anyway.

Are you asking to be put on our list then?

I am not sure there is time for the list thing, my house is in need of major structural repairs, these are due to start in around 3 to 5 weeks time.  Is there any chance you could just fax the letter, the name of the person who is dealing with the case is on there.

I will need to check that out and I will need a number.  (its almost twenty  five to five by now)  If there is no one in that department I will have to do this tomorrow.

No, I want it done now, I also want a receipt, if I had wanted to wait until tomorrow I would have posted it.

I am not sure this may need to go to complaints.

How about you send it to both?

He then went on the phone for ages and I lost the will to live.  I finally came out, dying for a wee and with a receipt for the faxed copy and a promise that the hard copy would be with the named person by Wednesday of next week.  (slow internal mail system isn’t it?)

Just as I was about to enter the ladies the phone rang.  I was assured that everything would be taken into consideration.  There were two properties that had just come up in nice areas, although they needed to be done up, they wouldn’t be suitable for my son. The words pointless conversation were entering into my head at this point, so why tell me? I couldn’t help myself from saying, stud wall? Downstairs loo?  I heard, hmmmm, it’s a possibility.  However the reason I have phoned is, I think I need to come over and speak with you properly. I know you feel that we have fallen short and perhaps we have but my colleague and I would like to speak face to face.  Where are these two houses?  Well I cant give you the addresses but she told me the area, she didn’t say stud wall or downstairs loo but she is going to speak with a higher manager on Friday.

So I don’t know what the think now.  I actually have a CT scan on Friday and I cant cancel it.  I had a call from the hospital making sure I would attend yesterday.  I am also a little bit nervous of face to face, verbal conversations.  I prefer to have a written record or minutes of a meeting so now I am thinking, should I tape the conversation?  I would like to get an advocate in here just as a back up.  I am not sure either if they think that ‘talk’ will be in place of my request for a stage two.  I wish I had another adult to talk this over with.  I am not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.  Are they just trying to halt the complaint or are they really wanting to help?  The only thing I can do is wait and see, copies of the letter have gone out to quite a few people, I know our councillor is very good with disability issues.  

I am really sorry to be moaner of the year but I feel I am right back in the pre debt place, I am gutted that the house has got into this state so quickly, every day something new presents itself, its almost as if the house is saying, hey, you had better get me fixed and quick.  I still cannot believe I got into £32K of debt just to have what I fought so hard for crumble before my eyes.

I have asked for compensation but that question has never been answered, what if they give me a house that’s perfect, I can’t move in?  I have £100 pounds to my name right now.  I just don’t know how to get out of this, although I wouldn’t ever do anything stupid, I would give anything for some relief.  I feel totally in the hands of people I would not  trust as far as I could throw them and still have the burden of making sure they and I meet my children’s needs.

Thank you for letting me have this one last ramble, I will not be coming here now until something has been sorted out.

Hopefully my next entry will be positive and full of the joys of the spring, I do like the spring. My favourite time of the year, perhaps I will even be settled and happy and getting back to my debt story.

One thing that happened today on my way home, I was kind of praying for a sign that everything will be OK, then I saw a removal van in the street I was driving down, the lorry had my name on it, spelled the same and everything.  A few streets later another van with the same name, it did make me feel a bit better.  I wonder if we are related.

Its Sunday 29 th March and I had bad week but as you have to, I have bounced right back with more of an attitude than I had before.

I am feeling better and have decided that I am simply not moving out and then coming back.  I believe the house should have been sorted out before we moved here.  I think its only because my family does not fit inside one of their 3 bedroomed boxes that I am having these problems.  I dont think they can force me to come back.

I heard from the surveyor yesterday,  he has recommended that work be started here on 25th April, that is only 4 weeks away and if I think about that too much I am a bit scared.  I dont know where I am going but I am going.  I think there may be a song there somewhere.  I have emailed a reply to their letter and I have asked that the complaint  be moved to  stage two.  Then an independant investigator will come round and I will talk to him,  he can meet the kids and then go and look at their side of things.  I am not asking for special treatment.  Simply somewhere that has adequate facilities to meet our needs.  Basically two downstairs rooms and a downstairs loo and if they dont have a house like that, then a stud wall will do, how hard can it be? 

I had dreadful treatment from social services and housing  when it became apparent that the kids couldnt share a room anymore. Some 12 year old recently qualified social worker just went to town with the danger of the two boys sharing issue and tried to take one of them off me. It was totally unfounded but social services took it to a child protection conference and boy did I have to fight them?  As it happened, I had all the evidence and experts who know the children on my side and after their child protection conference collapsed, I made a complaint. 

They felt that since one of my boys had epilepsy and violent outbursts just before the seizure, he was a danger to the other one.  He wasnt, he never reacted violently towards anyone but suddenly he would start banging things, at walls,  scream, throw anything that came to hand, this mostly happened at night and only lasted about 2 minutes before a full blown siezure took him.  I wanted to split them up, just in case the other one got in the way of something flying through the air at great speed. Plus the other ones stuff was getting broken and although the other knew he couldnt help it, it was upsetting for him.  So I asked for help and ended up fighting like a dog to keep my boys, it was awful and I think I spent most of the whole time crying and worrying.  It a relief when the case conference was over but I was still living in the environment that was causing the trouble, I was sleeping on the sofa every night,  to separate the boys.   I have to say here that my purple faced boss was a rock, she really stood by me with this.  She knew the kind of person I was and  gave me time off for meetings, reduced clinics to ease the load.  I was really grateful to her for that as I thought I would fall apart at times.  Taking on the authority by myself was like david v the goliath’s  whole family and best friends.  When my complaint got to stage 2, the indepentant investigator was appauled at the treatment we had and  my complaint was upheld.  Still sleeping on the sofa when the complaint went to a stage 3 panel meeting , the big wigs gave both social services and housing hell.  They squirmed like the worms they are.  They were ordered to sort us out with suitable accomodation like right now.  I was so relieved when were we given this house.

 I had no idea they would actually put us in a house, they knew was suffering subsidence.    The previous tenants were moved out permanently in order for the work to start, it was empty for 10 months.  When I signed the tenancy agreement I assumed the house was at a lettable standard, clearly it wasnt but not being a builder I couldnt have known that.  They gave me the house two days before christmas, I moved in January 2006 and borrowed heavily to make it home.  Around nine months later I realised I was in debt way over my head and I was terribly scared.

 If only I had known that all the money, effort and time I spent making this into the home we could finally settle down in, would all be for nothing.  The problems with the floors coming up happened within a few weeks of them being put down,  I just thought it was bad luck, bad flooring or bad putting down.

It would just be nice if  the big wigs would listen this time beacuse I really dont want to fight.  I am sure that if they got caught thinking outside the box they would get the sack.  It seems to me if you a little bit different, having slightly different needs they hate your guts, I dont know if it blows their computers up or what?  derrrr 4 people,  derrrr 3 bedroomed house, deeer no sorry not this time derrrr Kaboom.  It seems the only way to be heard is to make a complaint, one independant investigator is more capable of hearing the facts than the authority as a whole.  

The vile mother of baby p, got rehoused, holidays, fire gaurds etc for abusing her baby.  I get horse shit for caring about mine and trying to prevent or at least limit anything detrimental.  I know that moving them twice would be too much, not only that but in their minds if anything stressful happens with another person or place, they will go out of their way to avoid that person or place.  They are unable to generalise like we can.  I wouldnt trust coming back here myself  to face the same thing again in another 3 years and if it took 10 months to sort the problem out last time, how long is it going to take to underpin the property?  The man told me they have to dig down 4ft  in the foundations to rectify the problem.  I would be hanging on in limbo for months on end, even years.  I just dont do limbo. brings out the beast in me. I know that my kids wouldnt cope either and why should they?

I was trying to speak with my young autistic son last night. He told me in his own way he is scared of losing his space, he finds people and life really stressful and he needs to have space to get away from us, even though we are familiar, close contact is a very scary thing.  He even asked if he could sleep in the car, he is scared of not knowing where our new house is but most of all he is scared of coming back here.  I dont know if anyone knows mackaton sign language, holding your little finger up means bad and he keeps doing that, meaning he feels bad. 

I dont like seeing my kids upset, like all Mums.  I dont expect any of the big wigs who make the decisions to understand my kids disabilities as I do and all I am trying to do is communicate to them my difficulties as a carer in this situation with this particular disability, I had hoped they would listen and respond to that.  They have enough paperwork on the condition of the children to bury themselves in from the last complaint.  If there was a law against causing distress to people affected by disability by simply not listening or looking at the evidence they would all be guilty of breaking it.

I would like to roast the heads of those responsible on a spit like the swines they are.

Well I have kind of thought loud today, I sorry its a bit depressing but this is going all the way this time.  I would swing for the swines before I let them get away with causing any more stress to us.

I will wait to see what develops this week and next weekend I will make a packing plan or something. This reality of leaving here is right in my face and I cant pretend or avoid it. I just hope and pray that they put is in a nice area.  Most of the south of  the area is sound but I am a bit worried that since I made a complaint they might be really nasty and put me in a cruel corner on evil close,  just off stab your eyes out drive.  The big wigs have plenty of ‘how would you like to die slowly in this area’,  they can bang me over the head with.  That scares me.

 I want to say a big fat thank you to MTL for the support and little cazlizzy, thanks hun.  My very good friend Ang, she has been getting my wrath for almost a week, poor thing and she lets me.  Actually forget about wrath its been more like hell and damnation, completely missing out a smite.  A smite is nowhere near enough.  Actually I dont think hell and damnation is either.  Anyone got a gun?

Okay  so where are we? 

Its Tuesday 17^th March st Patrick’s day. 

I am not normally going to blog this out so fast but I am aware that I left on a sad note because of the death of Mother, and I didn’t want to leave it on a sad note as I am not sad anymore.  Her death is another reality I have come to terms with.  Plus, I am going to hospital first thing in the morning and I don’t know if they will let me out and you can’t leave a blog on a sad note when you don’t know when you’re going to be coming back to it, now can you?   

This disease I have is autoimmune, meaning that you own cells turn on your bile duct cells leading to damage which causes a back up in the liver, which in turn causes cirrhosis. As the cirrhosis takes hold the liver will eventually be unable to carry out normal function leaving you on the liver transplant list or laid out on a slab.  However, the process is slow and many patients die of complications of the disease before the cirrhosis gets going.  One of the complications is liver duct cancer, quite a common complication since the autoimmune process causes a change in the bile duct DNA, so they provide regular screening for this.  Another thing that I read was that the mean life expectancy without a liver transplant is 7.5 years after jaundice is first apparent.  The third and last thing that I read before I stained my little panties was stones in the ducts caused by the resulting slow moving bile sludge, which causes biliary colic.  That did me I had read enough.  Blimey there I am trying to lighten up the mood a little bit and I have just given myself such a beautiful future, eh?  I am not upset about it though, I can’t change what’s in the future, I don’t want to be a misery guts. The truth is everyone’s life has to come to an end eventually; I don’t want to spend that life worrying about it.  I cannot say since the diagnosis that I haven’t thought about dying because I have, its not filled me with fear or anything, its just made me feel calmer, like little things do not matter anymore and I just want to leave a smiley face memory and happy times behind for my kids not a misery guts moaning about an illness.  I don’t want to be remembered as a purple face or an ugly spiteful ears. I am sure they can sort out the pain and the problems causing it, I know it cant be that bad because I checked in the mirror this morning I am still pink, not yellow, I do this every morning now, its become a habit and the first thing I do when I wake is grab the mirror and check what colour I am, so far so good.   

I was up mega early this morning, being in
Manchester last week with my baby munchkin, going out all weekend with the family and the children, my house is a shite hole, the ironing pile is so big I have had people offering to climb it for charity.  Plus, my sister rang yesterday asking if I fancied meeting her in my town for lunch.  She is going on a cruise soon and wants to get bits and pieces.  Reasoning that the house will still be here when I get back or even tomorrow I went.  So today I have to get on sort it all out and crack the whip to myself.  It’s funny but when I got home yesterday I made myself a list of things I was going to do before bedtime.  Since I had some pain that was kind of getting right up my nose I thought, I will take some of my pain stuff.  That was around 8 ish and by then I had done the dishwasher tidied up my room, put some washing in for the following morning and got yesterdays washing in and folded.  40 mins later I had to go to bed, the list got sacked.  This stuff does not mess about and puts you right to sleep.  I woke mega early and thought great I can get everything done today then.  I had a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered on Saturday, it was beautiful then but it’s magnificent now that all the lilies have opened out.  It was from my Mum in law, for all the work I did for the funeral. 

Mind you having said all that about the house being still here that’s debateable, it’s falling down; the subsidence that they ‘sorted out’ before we moved in isn’t exactly what I would put in the sorted out box.  That’s another ongoing story I shall talk about another time.  I did email then with my concerns and promised to follow it up with a letter, another job for today.  I got a call yesterday from a girl, who obviously hadn’t read the email and was told to phone up anyway, hadn’t got a clue what the actual content of the email said and started to gable on about crap.  So I told her to go back, read the email properly and then phone back.  She didn’t.  Surprise,  surprise 

Back to my debt story now then, you lovely people you, oh and by the way, thanks to all who left comments.  Especially nice ones. 

So Mother died at the end of the year, we had the funeral and I cancelled my BR appointment on my brother’s instructions.  He said he would meet with me and talk about a way forward at the end of February.   With all the stress he had gone through, the journeys to and from here and
London, plus his high flying job, he needed a break.  He buggered off to the
Caribbean for a month. (alright for some, eh?)  Meanwhile, my sisters and cleared out mums personal stuff.  

I had spoken to the money advisor and she said we might be able to clear the debts with my inheritance money I was getting from the sale of the house etc.   I didn’t want to sell Mums house, that place was a sanctuary to me, my brother in law wanted to buy it and rent it out.   There were lots of talks, here there and everywhere about what was and what was not going to happen.  Mums house had those beam things, it was like a cottage.  They were saying that these beams needed to come out, the dining room needed to be repainted, decking sorted in the garden.  The whole thing seemed to get out of hand without anyone agreeing with anyone.   I didn’t get involved with all of this; I was too busy battling with creditors to care.  Mums’ house was neutral colours, the garden was always kept lovely and I couldn’t see the point of changing it beyond all recognition before putting it on the market.  I kind of knew we had to sell it but this was just another reality that I couldn’t face at this time.  If I am totally honest I was bitterly disappointed that I couldn’t  just go BR and get the debt pressure off my shoulders, which would have happened if my Mum would have just lived another two weeks.  I was quite annoyed with Mum for leaving like that, I know it sounds crazy and selfish but I just couldn’t deal with the creditors after I had written to them all to tell them I was going BR on 4^th Jan and then I flippin didn’t do it.  They came for me once again with an even worse attitude. Like, you’re a pauper, pay us you slime ball and don’t even think you have the right to breathe if you can’t give us money right now. 

At a meeting with my family, just before my brother came back I was asked what my opinion was.  So I told them, I said I think the brother in laws should mind their own. This was our mother, it was her house and that house had been passed to her children not them.   Even the will stated that if any one of Mums children died, the estate should pass between those remaining alive after her death. If the house didn’t sell in its present state then that’s the time to think again, doing months of work was only going to prolong the agony for the rest of us.  I didn’t think it the right thing to do to start ripping her house to shreds and making major changes.  Mum had just had a brand new kitchen and bathroom and radiators fitted.  The dining room was the only room that needed painting to bring the whole thing together.  If we kept on top of the gardens I could see no point in delaying the inevitable.  The house may even become a problem in the summer if we waited months to put it up for sale, there was always the chance of someone breaking in, insects getting in there and obviously the gardens would need weekly maintenance.  Eventually I got my way; we cleared out the house and put it up for sale.  Even though I didn’t want it to go, once the house was emptied of furniture and all traces of her living and her life there had gone, it was just a house.  We didn’t have a board put up though; we just had it in the paper and estate agents.  I loved going to Mums before we cleared it out, I would lie on her bed, smell her there.  The estate agents took pictures before the house was cleared of furniture, I downloaded the photos and enlarged them until they were pixels, just to see if I could see any sign of her in them, I guess I hoped to see her face, some trace of her, I didn’t though.   

When my brother came back he offered to give me some money to pay the debts off, he said to write to the creditors, make offers for a final settlement and he would pay them for me.  The money advisor didn’t think this a good idea; she said that it would be better to go on a DMP until the estate was settled.  I didn’t quite know who to listen to. I agreed to the DMP as a means of getting the creditors off my back, that’s really what I wanted, some relief from the onslaught of creditors.   

I had made some friends on the forum, just after I started posting in September 2006, Skippy joined, the forum didn’t have that many members at that time.  I really liked skippy, she was kind and always there when I was down about things.   Kerri and Aguise joined just after and we used to talk on and off board, I don’t think I would have got through half of what I did if it hadn’t been for their help. 

I went back to the doctors too, I told of my fatigue etc, they said hang on in there, you have been through a lot in your life and it’s not surprising you’re feeling a bit low at this time.  They gave me more anti depressant pills and started to arrange some counselling for me.

Hi folks

I thought I would write a blog instead of clogging up the forum and being in everyone’s face

I don’t really know where to start, I have been here before, and spilled out my diary sometime last year and I asked to have it all removed, why?  Because I am private, why? Because I am really sensitive, why? Because I felt too vulnerable.  So often in the past, well actually all the time I was married, my husband used my vulnerable side against me.   

A former forum member, a little know it all, used to bang on and on about how good he or she was at paying everything back, how fantastic the creditors are.  I think she or he lived a very basic life, like beans of toast, TV, work and nothing else.  We didn’t get on.  She or he read my other blog and I was a little bit sensitive about that so I asked to have it deleted. I know you’re never going to get on with everyone and that’s fine but at that time I felt too vulnerable to leave my life here.  Now I couldn’t give two figs what people think.

I can only tell this story one way, from this point in time but looking back. It is Thursday 12^th Match 2009; I am sitting on a train going to see my baby grandson. I got up at the crack of dawn to do and organise everything so I could go out today but none of that matters anymore as I don’t have to do anything but sit here and I will get to where I am going.   

So who am I?  My childhood was perfect, Mom and Dad doing everything they could to make us happy, we could make a mess, get dirty, we went on holiday a few times each year, nothing special, just camping and caravanning but I can’t remember ever feeling unhappy as a child.  My Dad was a funny, intelligent man who had a great sense of adventure and fun, my Mom was the strong one, keeping everything together and doing for us and herself in the most selfless way she could and she was always smiling.  When I was around 9, I jumped into a swimming pool and really bruised my heel; it was really painful, even after the usual rest advice from the doctor and everyone else.  It just plagued me to the point I dreaded walking from one side of the room to the other for fear of pain.  It was a condition called severs where the growth plate grows unevenly as a result of trauma.  No one seemed to be able to find the cause or a solution so I just had to live with it.  I remember one time at school, I was walking from one building to the other and this pain was so bad, I just sat on the grass verge and wanted to cry.  I kind of made a pledge to be someone who mends hurty feet when I grew up and that’s what I eventually became.

I kind of fell in love at first sight, with a lovely guy I who worked in the same hospital as me. I got pregnant very quickly and we moved in together, my parents were not happy, they didn’t believe in this kind of thing but they were kind of pleased about the baby. I had a serious illness at the age of 16, in which a tampon caused an infection and I was on all kinds of drips, tubes and was told I probably wouldn’t be able to have children, as the infection had probably left me sterile.  My son was born followed quite quickly by another baby boy…  The second pregnancy was twins but the other one didn’t survive so we had another child quite quickly.  I ended up with three boys and a daughter. One by one my boys were diagnosed with Autism, my husband blamed me for this as I had two uncles with special needs.  We did go for genetic counselling and they confirmed that I carried a gene with satellites  and that I had a one in four chance of having a baby with problems, if the baby was a boy it was 50/50,  a girl wouldn’t be affected but may be a carrier.  I learned all I could about Autism, I went to seminars, got books from the library and studied, and I got involved in the society.  Once I kind of knew what made these kids tick I felt happier and more confident.  It was more difficult for my husband in the early years as he wasn’t given the sympathy and understanding that I was.  Not that I would ever want sympathy.  I love my boys, they are who they are and I love them for it.  Mothers take what they are given and get on with it, right?  Not that it was all that easy, the main problem for me was the isolation.  I couldn’t really go to the school with other Moms my age, my kids went to special schools, I couldn’t be spontaneous as they needed sameness and a tight routine.  When my daughter started school I had to get someone else to take her, as I was always waiting on school transport.

My marriage wasn’t happy, my husband was ill or something, he suffered from bouts of rage which he couldn’t control.  When he was 13, the family suffered a fire and his little niece had died, the other niece had serious burns and was lucky to have survived.  They lost everything and had to start all over again, he wasn’t given any counselling or anything and the loss and what can happen in life had affected him very deeply.  He was almost paranoid about losing everything to the point where he had to have complete control of everything, especially me.   I kind of lost all control over my life but it was insidious so I didn’t really realise how bad things were until I couldn’t take it anymore.    I wasn’t allowed to have friends as my husband didn’t like it.  If I did venture out or bring a friend home he would be nasty or embarrass me so it wasn’t really worth it.  His rages became more frequent and more dramatic, I soon realised it was affecting my children and I left him, in the clothes I stood up in and all these children I just ran away.  I didn’t know how I would cope; I just had to do it. 

Being a single mom isn’t fantastic either but much better than what I had escaped from, the first two years were the hardest.  I had endless problems with him phoning, threatening and generally being a pain.  I even had to phone the police and he was cautioned, today, if an ex is being aggressive like that he would be arrested but back then I had to press charges and I wouldn’t for fear of a reprisal.  One of my new neighbours husband threatened him one night and told him to leave us alone, and asked him if he would like to take him on?  To date I have never seen a grown man get into a car so fast and drive away.  That one thing proved he was a coward and I just stopped being scared.  All of his threats were reported and all the abuse and harassment stopped. I went to a solicitor, got a divorce and stood up to him.  I was free.

Once I did this I tried to build a bridge for the sake of the children, my middle son was too scared to see him but one by one, they came round to the idea.  I only wanted this so that they wouldn’t feel like half monsters.  I didn’t want them to feel they had a monster for a Dad.  I knew my ex had a good side, a nice side and deep down there, somewhere, he loved them.  I wanted them to know and to feel that, I wanted my ex husband to get some help. To realise he would always lose out if he tried to rule people with fear and I wanted him to respect his children’s feelings over his own and to grow up.  I also let him know in no uncertain terms that if he ever hurt them that he would never see them again. 

I am aware that all that looks a bit black but it wasn’t always like that, I have good memories of our marriage, sometimes he could be so sweet and nice.  I still have a porcelain doll he brought home once which cost him a small fortune, it’s a one off, she is quite dirty and probably wouldn’t be worth much now but I look at her and remember I was loved, however twisted that love had become in the end.

We had happy family days out, Christmases and birthday parties for the children.  The main problem was that we never knew when the rages would come and how violent they would be.  I tried so hard for so long to make it all work but the rages became more frequent, more violent and the reality was it was never going to work.

I made a life for myself and my children, we were happy.  I worked as many hours as I could while meeting the children’s needs.  We carried on like that until 2004, when it became obvious that I needed to separate my boys.  Them sharing a room was no longer viable.  I asked to be rehoused to allow this but I was stone walled by the local authority.  I approached social services, stating that it was becoming dangerous for the boys to share.  They made the problem a million times worse by focussing on the dangers without actually addressing the problem.  The social worker involved had only just qualified and had decided that it was unsafe to leave the children in the same house let alone the same room.  I had to fight and fight hard, luckily I had all the evidence to back up the fact that the two were not a danger to each other, there had been no injuries etc, it was just the sleeping arrangements that needed adjusting.  Isn’t it strange that these jumped up little newbie’s always assume they know what its like to live with something after one snap shot of information when you have been doing it everyday since forever?  Well anyway, I made a complaint, they lost their argument, it was a non starter and my complaint was upheld.  I was eventually rehoused in 2006.  Well I was told I had to move on 23^rd December 2005 when all the work was finished in the new house, it had subsidence and needed to be slightly readjusted to meet our needs.  Anyway I couldn’t flipping move in that fast could I?  Two days before Christmas, working in the NHS with no chance of any time off for 3 weeks.  They said that I would have to maintain both sets of rent until I gave up the present property.  I got a couple of loans and maxed out my credit cards and we moved in.  Our quality of life was much improved by the move; never the less I was finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet.  In May of 2006 I was offered a huge loan, I didn’t ask for this they rang me, enough to pay off a couple of major credit cards and the previous loan.  I said no at first as I felt it was a lot of money to owe, it kind of scared me.  The third time the bank called with the offer, my freezer, vacuum and fridge had thrown a wobbly.  I agreed to the loan as I was quite desperate at that time.  I took on a few more hours at work and hoped for the best. It never once occurred to me that I was by then insolvent.  I wasn’t even scared.

 It was one night that I decided to look at my finances; I always seemed to have one and a half weeks left after the money had gone.  I kind of knew things were bad, it was a Wednesday.  I was falling asleep on the sofa with my lottery ticket, I needed to win something, anything, I knew that.  Then after the numbers were called I cried.  I had sat down and worked it all out, I was in over my head, the reason for my struggling was that I was in debt to the tune of 32K; there was almost as much going out as coming in, what?  How?  Oh my goodness, this is it, I am so a goner.  I had never felt panic like that, I didn’t sleep a wink.

The next day at work I was useless, I was doing nail surgery. I got a towel retractor stuck on my finger which hurt like hell, when the assistant opened the sterile pack.  I handled it without gloves so another pack had to be opened.  The guy whose toe nail I was taking off felt pain and I had to stop and give more LA, in short, I was a mess.  After the surgery was over, I went to the duck pond and sat on a bench.  I will always remember that, it was quite a cool day but sunny, people were sat with packs of sandwiches and I thought, Oh God, I wish I was one of them, I guess you all know this feeling of utter fear, despair, shame, guilt, the weight of it, how bloody heavy is that feeling and why does it rip your stomach out and stick it back in upside down?  Why can’t I just have a heart attack and die?  I am sooo scared, lost, tired and I cannot tell a living soul about it.  How am I going to get through this weekend?  I don’t know how long I sat there but I must have had time to call myself a stupid idiot a million times, over and over again, stupid, stupid. stupid.   Then I kind of woke up from this very dark place and told my stupid self not to think about it anymore, and think of a way to get through for a bit longer.  I was due at another clinic in the afternoon; I made the decision to stop some direct debits.  That afternoon I went online at work and clicked like mad, click, click, click, that was that. Then I told myself to forget about it all and just get on with the job, I did.

I went home that night and I tried not to think, it was as if everything was out of tune, almost out of time, it was like I was floating and nothing was real.  Realising that all I had done by clicking a few direct debits was temporary.  It didn’t make the problem go away now did it?  How stupid was that, you idiot?  I couldn’t hear the children, they were just not there.  I think I was supposed to give my daughter some trip money on the Monday morning but I knew I couldn’t do it, she was saying that she needed it and the teacher had written a letter to me about it.  Also in my son’s home school book they said that they had a play on and were asking if I could attend it, it would be nice to see me, they said.  There were coffee mornings on Thursdays and I always kind of meant to book a Thursday morning off so I could go to one but it never happened.  I suddenly became angry with it all, why are they moaning at me about not attending coffee mornings and demanding money when I had all this crap on my shoulders?  How much more could I give that I wasn’t actually giving?  I felt like everything was wrong, just everything, you know those feelings when you cannot take another second of a noise or a smell or you’re going to throw up, well that was one of those moments.  I ran upstairs and threw up, it just came on, and it was the most violent thing.  The children were all outside the bathroom asking, are you Ok mum, what do we do?  I felt so crap I started to cry, it didn’t stop for ages, I could hear the children crying outside, I knew something had to be done but I didn’t know what?  I also knew that it was upsetting them and I didn’t know how to stop that either, I cannot stand my children being upset.   I can’t let them down now; I don’t know how to fix everything.  All weekend I threw up, I felt like something so bad was inside it had to come out.  On Sunday night I saw something on the TV about IVA’s I googled it,  something about debt and getting debt written off and paying what you could afford to pay.  May be this is the answer?  I left my number on this thingy. I got a phone call back early the next morning from a very nice and understanding woman.  I was just parking my car at work when the call came; it made me feel a little bit better.

I had a student working with me that day and for the next three weeks, I really didn’t want a student but it was part of the job.  I was a student once so I had to grin and bear it.  There were 3 of them, one was loud and obviously a smart arse, the second was very shy, the third was laid back but chatty.  I hoped for the third one but I got the loud mouth.  I didn’t usually work on Mondays but they asked me to cover someone’s holiday.  I didn’t have a ‘clinic’ of my own so I was spare, this usually means any bad that’s going I will get.  With a smart arse for company and the world on my shoulders, it was going to be a very long day.  This IVA call lady said she would email me with the details and for me not to worry, somehow those words didn’t quite work but at least there she gave me a tiny amount of hope.   I started the day with some emergency doms, then I had a clinic in one of the outskirt sites, with a student in tow they cut the amount of patients and the clinic was reduced. Smarty pants was very enthusiastic, so she was a great help, even though I could have done with some shut your gob pills. The one problem I did have that day was petrol, I was already pretty low, I hadn’t thought about a Dom round; I thought about missing one of them out to save on fuel, doms are quite petrol greedy, stopping and starting, small journeys. I also worked in another city, so we are talking 50 miles just to get to work and back.  We could claim our petrol for any visits we did and travelling between clinics but the home work journeys didn’t count and of course petrol costs were paid in arrears. For anyone wondering what the hell is a Dom?  Its home visits for housebound patients.  

Luckily for me they had reduced the amount of Doms, so I saved petrol and kicked ass with time. I wanted to get back and check my emails.  I had explained everything to the student etc and thought I might get back and give her a lesson in sterilising, so I could get to my emails I was so hoping to find something from the IVA woman I had spoken to but all I got was spam, spam, spam.  I thought about stopping all the direct debits, she had said on the phone not to pay the creditors anymore.  At the end of the clinic, we had to enter patient contact on the computer, my student couldn’t help with this, so I let her go after the clinic was over and the cleaning up was done.  I was free to get on the computer, click off a few more DD’s and find what the lady had sent me, again I found nothing, so I filled in another one of those wizard thingies and got another phone call almost as soon as I had input my number.  This time a happy little chappy spoke to me with all things IVA.  That night I went home a bit happier and slept.

I loathed Tuesdays, I dreaded them with a passion, mornings were ward rounds afternoon was a clinic at headquarters, I hated head quarters, it’s the kind of place that sucks the positively out of you the minute you walk in, it’s a soul drainer.  Our boss was a bit of a misery guts, she used to lose her temper.  To be fair we were pretty much left alone to get on with our jobs, we worked independently most of the time but the big boss lady used to stick her Pinocchio snout in when we worked at HQ. To describe her as a fowl tempered, know it all bully with a split personality would be a little bit of an understatement.  She just used to pick on certain people at certain times and she didn’t miss a thing.  Sometimes she would say morning Lily, other times you got that look, you know?  That look to make you feel guilty for breathing.  She had this nasty habit of putting bitchy little notes in your box.  Your box was a box file with your name on it, it’s where they put everything they wanted doing and you put everything that needed to be done.  Every now and again she would stick something evil in it.  She would turn a strange kind of purple when you did something wrong or forgot about something, had the audacity to be ill or a reason to ask her for anything.  I had asked by a note in her box to get the chair at one of my clinic venues fixed. On a ward round I came upon a patient who needed nail surgery, this young person had an accident and a damaged spine, nevertheless she could feel the hellish pain of an infected ingrown nail.  I put in a referral to have it removed, what I hadn’t noticed was the patient wasn’t registered with the city’s GP and came from just outside our area. I discovered my dreadful mistake by the bitchiest little note from the purple one, that very Tuesday morning, plus I was a little bit late as I had slept so well I hadn’t woken up as early.  Any little thing that occurred, she was there, with the evil pen.  I never understood it, the job was hard enough, and the morale was always low.  I would imagine this woman, just sneering at all the bad in the world, her fat evil green claws, scanning for a reason to ruin someone’s day.  At least that’s how it felt to the rest of us.

My time with smarty pants came to an end and then I got the really shy one, she was about as much use as a chocolate kettle.  I know some people are shy, I can accept that but this one was the most nervous person I had ever met.  She didn’t speak, she shook if you came within a couple of feet and she was programmed for go slow, even when she was working flat out.  So I had to take that along with me and explain to the young spinal woman and her hubby that what I has said last week about an emergency nail surgery appointment was bull shit, red tape and her being from out of town meant that she had to continue to suffer until I wrote to her GP to ask them to refer in their area.  It didn’t go down too well to say the least; I was quite near to tears as the hubby got quite aggressive.  So with the world on my shoulders, my boss poised with the evil pen and little miss jumpy guts  in tow, plus I had to use temporary palliative measures relieve this patients pain after a stark gruelling about how useless I was, from the hubby. I didn’t have a particularly good morning. We had to do a dressing clinic together, that afternoon, these clinics are very full and you don’t get time for a sneeze here. Since I had a student I didn’t get an assistant, little miss nervous, who I think had overdosed on smarty pants’ shut you gob pills was not much help.  I thought that if I put her in another room, explained what she needed to do, we could use the two rooms, her getting the old dressing off and myself going in each room to sort the rest of it out and we might just get finished a couple of hours past late home.  This worked a little bit better as she was managing to string two useful movements together as she wasn’t as nervous when I wasn’t in the room.  That was until I dropped a tray full of instruments and had to scrape her off the ceiling.  My word this is going to be a very long week. It was.

I continued to try to find out as much IVA info as I could, I also spoke to the IVA man a couple of times and he agreed to send out the stuff ASAP to get things moving.  It’s actually very difficult to find out information on IVA’s without filling one of these things in and someone ringing you back.  Late one night I found this forum thingy where people had posted about debt etc.  I read some of it and they seemed quite OK about it, they didn’t seem to be where I was, like scared stupid and constantly trying not to cry.  To me it felt like it was the end of the world and I couldn’t pretend anymore.  I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore and everything just seemed so hopeless.  At the end of that very difficult week with Miss scaredy pants, I began to feel really suicidal, I couldn’t see past it all, it was like that mountain was too high to climb.  I knew something had to be done and quick but was life actually worth living?  I felt that I couldn’t cope with work, the purple one, the abuse from patients, dealing with students, pretending that everything was OK, it flippin wasn’t.  Life was hell and I had enough of it.  I had a couple of phone calls from the bank as I hadn’t paid the credit card, they reminded me that I had £900 in the bank and could afford to make a payment.  I just hung up and thought sod you.  I also received a letter saying that I had illegally cancelled the direct debit for the bank loan, which they wouldn’t allow, so it was well and truly established and I would have to pay that.  I plucked up the courage to post on the forum and I was really scared to press submit.  I did eventually and got a huge response back.  It seemed that many there understood how I was feeling, they had been there.  If I just took one day at a time I would be OK.  It seemed also that I needed another bank account.  I decided to have some time off work, sort it out, not give in without at least trying to get through it.  I booked some holiday there and then.  My boss agreed to the time off so I only had to put up with feeling this bad and trying to hold my job down for two more weeks and then perhaps I could do something to bring some relief.  By the end of the first week I had received the stuff from the second company and I decided I could try it and if I still felt hopeless the suicide option was still on the table.

Sunday 15^th March

Back to the present for a bit, it’s Sunday 15^th 2009 March, blimey already?  This year is getting on with itself isn’t it?  It hasn’t really been a particularly good start to the year actually; with  events  taking over before my head gets anything near round the situation  My father in law died on the 31^st January, my mom in law left virtually alone to deal with everything one just had to step in to help her out, or was it arrange everything.  Yeah, that was it, I did arrange everything.  Most of February was spent sorting out the funeral and getting my poor mom in law through it all.

 I haven’t really been myself this week, I am in pain and quite frankly miserable.  I was given a preliminary diagnosis of PBC a few weeks ago.  After I had half scared the be jeezes out of myself, I mean googled the swine carefully and read about this thing, I was quite encouraged, although there is no cure, it can take eons to get to where you might need a liver transplant.  So that will do me then I guess, well to be honest, it would if it wasn’t for this horrible pain.  I don’t know how many of you have had gallstones, well I had them and had the little bxstard that was causing them taken out more than a year ago now. It wasn’t the end of it because I have the little gallstone pain fairy back and this time she brought all her mates.  This is the most horrible colic and you never quite know when it’s going to get you and get you it does, with a stinking attitude. The hospital doctor said the stones are forming in the bile ducts and to go in if the pain gets too bad. I don’t think so.  I went to my Doctor a couple of weeks ago saying that I am finding the pain really hard to cope with. She gave me some anti colic pills to try, they have helped but since Wednesday I have been feeling unwell and the pain is more constant.   I went to the Doc again on Friday and she suggested it may be pancreatitis and said she was sending me in.  I reasoned that because it was Friday, is it worth it?  I would only be lying there until Monday and I would rather lie at home.  From the very start I said I wanted to be treated as an outpatient as the upheaval suddenly going into hospital would cause a great deal of distress to my kids, particularly my youngest boy, who associates hospitals with death.  All I felt I needed was a couple of kick ass painkillers just to give me some relief, I desperately need some relief from this pain and given that, I am sure I could wait until my out patients hospital appointment next week.  She agreed because I am sensible (her words) to let me go home with some Kick ass painkillers. On the condition that I would go into hospital if any signs of systemic infection or the pain killers were not enough.  I slept all day yesterday, I had to wake as we had a family meal arranged, brother and sisters we coming down and we were booked for  an Indian.  I coped, can’t really say I enjoyed the evening I just wanted to go home but you have to act your part don’t ya?  I did. Today the boys wanted to go to the pub and watch footie.  Aston villa need to win today to finish fourth but are on a bad run, Arsenal are catching up and we keep on throwing away our chances. We have already thrown away
Europe by sending out a B team.  Within four minutes of playing the shite hits the fan and my sons face is seething, no doubt his villa shirt will be in the bin tonight…..again.  I didn’t really want to be there but at least I could beetle off with my daughter for my Sunday dinner, which I did.  The boys took theirs back to the telly box and moaned and groaned some more.

Back to my story.

After Miss Gobby and Miss nervy pants I got the other one, I had booked a week off to sort out my life so how bad can this week be, I asked myself?  This student was excellent, she was neither in my face or, standing on the sidelines and getting in my way and I couldn’t hear her shaking.  I gave her another room so I wasn’t breathing down her neck and I checked her work and did two patients for the price or time as one.  Brilliant.  The only thing that got in my way that week was the purple faced one with the evil pen, only she didn’t use the evil pen, she used the evil tongue, bruising her lips with every word.  I half expected to see a forked tongue any minute, as the venom spilling out wasn’t at all a nice experience..  I had made a visit to a house on a main road; I couldn’t park anywhere near there, so I found a side street and walked.  I waited and waited for an answer, there wasn’t one so I scooted off.  Only to find that the patient had rang the office saying I had left before she could answer the door.  I put some notes in the wrong place, put on paper someone’s maximum safe dose of an LA as higher than it should have been according to their weight, although I hadn’t given that much, far flippin from it.  I also had a couple of calls from my bank come into the office which meant the office girls had to go and look on the board to see where I was in order to put the call through to the correct place or clinic.  (I was out on Doms) which had pissed them off.  I mean cricking their poor little necks to read a list of where I was would have half killed them wouldn’t it?  So I wasn’t the best flavour of the week with the big boss and she loved every second of it.  Needless to say it wasn’t a good week.  My fault all of it and I hold my hands up, which I said to the boss, I held my hands up for punishment but she didn’t dish out any.  She said have a nice holiday Lily and come back refreshed. I do hope the children are Ok and are not causing you any problems.  I finished the Friday afternoon clinic and was going to go home when I thought I would just check on my balance at the bank… Oh gosh, perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.  The swine’s had taken out the loan that they said I couldn’t cancel, not only that but they had taken out two lots..  I was skint, I couldn’t even get through the weekend, it was all I needed right at that time, right at that moment, I started to cry.  One of the other pods working in another clinic came in and asked whats up?  I said I was just fed up and needed a break, she thought it was the boss’s onslaught, but it wasn’t, she hadn’t been there long and didn’t know that was our boss’s way.  That she could be like that one minute and kind and thoughtful the very next.  I started my journey home with tears flooding down my face, I wasn’t even in the right lane on the motorway but I didn’t care, I could hardly see.  If I didn’t make it home it would be the best thing.  I couldn’t go home with this on my shoulders, I found myself getting off the motorway at my mums junction.  I found myself heading for my mothers house, I didn’t know what I was going to say when I got there.  I didn’t even know if I was going there.  I just couldn’t go home; I didn’t want to go home.

I knocked the door of my mum’s house; she came into the porch with her usual smile which soon turned serious when she saw my face.  What ever is the matter?  I don’t know I can’t live, I can’t cope, I don’t have any money.  I have the worst job in the world, I have had enough, it just came flooding out.  She cried with me, she listened and she gave me some money, £100, to get me through that weekend. I didn’t tell her the full extent of the financial mess I was in.  I just said that the bank had withdrawn my overdraft.   After a couple of hours the phone stated to ring, where are you, please call, etc, etc, etc.  I pulled myself together and went home.  I couldn’t hide my upset from the children, so I came clean with them, I cried again and again.  I can’t pretend anymore kids; I just need to do something to sort this out. 

I went through everything on the forms I was sent re the IVA and I started to gather the information together, being off work took a load off my mind.  I was able to start getting a new bank account sorted so my creditor bank wouldn’t be able to take what little money I had in there.  I continued to post on the forum, they sounded positive and I began to feel like something could be done.  My mother rang up a few times to see if I was OK, I still hadn’t the bottle to tell her what I had done, how stupid I had been and how worried I really was.  I still had bouts of sobbing and I still didn’t lose sight of the fact that suicide was on the table if it all got beyond me.  I had quite a few creditor calls that week, some of them really nasty, making me feel that suicide was indeed looking more like the better option to end all this horribleness.  One morning I was staring out of my window watching a funeral.  Our house backs onto the cemetery and I could hear and see this funeral going on.  I wish that person was me, I want to be there, buried and out of all this like they are.  It’s so peaceful there, what was behind me right now seemed impossible to face.  I wasn’t up to it; I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t actually want to live; I wish that person being put into the ground was me.  Lost in this world I hadn’t noticed my son enter the room, Mummy, are you crying again….. I am son, sorry, but we laugh when we are happy don’t we?  Those people on the phone are nasty because I can’t pay them, it makes me feel unhappy and I cry when I am unhappy, just like you do.  Then he said Mummy did my prayer work?  What prayer?  I asked God to make you happy mummy, I asked him to make you smile at me.  At that very moment something kind of turned inside me.  What I am doing?  Wanting to be in that coffin when he is praying for me to be happy?  How can I do this to him?  I cant is the simple answer, perhaps that’s Gods answer to my sons prayer?  Get on with it and stop being a silly cow.  Turn around and face this thing and be very glad for what you have.  I turned round and looked into my sons eyes and was aware of him scanning my face for hope, he needed hope i in his world, also.  I had to give him that and I would.  So then, let’s start kicking some IVA backside, shall we?

I got everything together and started to fill in the forms, I got lots of support and information from the forum too.  I made an agreement with myself to tell mum about everything and not to hide away anymore.  I also picked up some tips from the forum about how to deal with creditors.  I made a budget for myself and my kids and started to feel much more positive about getting through this thing. 

I fessed up to my mum and one of my sisters.  Mum had already said she didn’t want that money back that she gave to me.  She wasn’t terribly happy about what I was telling her mainly because she didn’t understand what an IVA was.  She thought it was some kind of scam where by people make money out of other people’s debt.  She wanted to know more about it all and she thought I needed to know what I was getting myself into before getting into it.  Frankly I didn’t see any other way out and was happy with the information I was given to go ahead.  A few days later Mum phoned up and told me she had told my brother, he said to hold on for a while and let him take a look at possibilities before I went ahead.  I had got a new bank account by then and started to organise my income and the children’s disability money into the new account.  That felt like a new lease of life to me and a huge relief.  My brother is a director for a large high St bank.  He and my Mother had come up with an answer to end this thing once and for all.  I don’t know exactly what they had planned to be honest.  I think it he was going to buy my mums house and give me the money to pay the debt back.  Or they were going to give me the money and I would pay them back.  Several phone calls later, I didn’t like what I was hearing.  I wanted to sort this thing out myself.  Mum was worrying about me too much; I felt that she felt she had to do something for me.  She didn’t, it was my problem and although it freaked me out big time, I didn’t want her thinking she had to help me or else I was going under.  She had her own life, she had always worked hard, my Dad had died young and although she never met another man she had continued to work full time until she retired.  She was enjoying her life, going on exotic holidays with her friends and her sister.  She deserved to live her life to the full without worrying about me and my problems.  She had always been good to me, having the kids at a moments notice when I was at work.  She would take the younger two for weekends to give me a break, they never went without anything.  She was wise, knew what to say, could cope with anything and was everyone’s agony aunt.  I told her that I could do it, I would do it.  I didn’t want her to worry.  It wasn’t the best time in my life mum but we all have these ups and downs.  This down just happened to be the one where I didn’t exactly need a laxative but I would get through it… eventually anyway.  I had found that I wasn’t alone; other people had or were going through the same.  It wasn’t the end it was the beginning, the beginning of putting things right, the end of avoiding another reality.

Our family have a Christmas ball every year, its great, you get to dress up in a gown and swish about, although this year I couldn’t actually see that any swishing was going to happen in my world any time soon.  I couldn’t afford the meals let alone the clothes to go in.  So I politely said we wouldn’t be attending the Christmas ball this year, I didn’t even want to think about Christmas to be honest, who does in this situation but I thought it best now that I was being honest and living honestly. I was honest about it all so I told them straight to leave me out of it.  After a couple of weeks I got a call saying you’re going to the ball, we are paying and you’re going, you can wear last years dress or borrow one of ours.  Mum would pay for the boys suits, although they actually had theirs from last year also, they only needed a shirt and my daughters dress wouldn’t fit her so Mum offered to get her one.

I was back at work in what seemed like the blink of an eye and what felt like a personality transplant.  I had gone from despair to acceptance and I was happy in the fact that I was very much loved by those around me and this was one of those times that people wanted to show it.  I had been feeling like a total failure but they didn’t see it like that.  I was one of them no matter how much money I had or hadn’t as was the case and it didn’t matter that I had spent money I couldn’t pay back.  Well not to them anyway and it kind of felt like a huge weight had been lifted and my lovely sons prayer had been answered.  I could smile, that was until I walked back into that dark place most people called HQ.  They had been inundated by creditor calls and told these calls were very important.  Due to the fact that my kids have disabilities my boss told the office staff that they must put urgent calls through to me even if they spend 10 mins doing it.  So that told them I guess and they wasted absolutely no time in reporting to the boss that I was getting urgent calls when I wasn’t even there and that told her that someone was telling big fat porkies. Why were they contacting me at work when they must have known I was at home?    So without even a good morning, how was your holiday Lily,  I was seeing purple and asked to account for it all, I couldn’t so I lied, who wouldn’t?   I said my landline had developed a fault and that being on holiday I had turned off my mobile, I hadn’t noticed that my landline wasn’t working until the Friday before returning to work while all the time checking my nose wasn’t growing.  Shit, what the hell am I going to do if they continue to call me???  I was sweet and acted innocent in the office that morning but I could tell that they were not best pleased, seething is probably a better word for it.  I could hear seething and anger, I am sure one of the ladies had blue smoke coming out of her fat ugly little ears, even though she did manage a good morning stranger… hmmm.  I got my little notes rather quickly and almost as quickly scooted off to do a clinic in a GP surgery, the one with the broken chair which I had hoped would have been fixed by now.  Also for the umpteenth time the clerks at that surgery had book double appointments leaving me in an impossible situation.  I had spoken to them and the line manager and I wasn’t having any of it anymore.  I did agree to seeing all the patients they had booked in if they didn’t mind waiting past their time and I phoned up the ugly eared one to inform her that I wouldn’t have time for all of the planned Dom visits that afternoon and why.  She wasn’t best pleased and reported to purple face.  After the clinic purple face was waiting for me and I was in no mood either.  Why hadn’t the chair been fixed and why hadn’t the action been taken to prevent them from double booking.  Purple face just blew a gasket saying she had taken the appropriate action re the fixing of the chair, she also said that she had spoken to the GP manager and said if they double book again they would be made to cancel the overbooked appointments on the day.   Since my crystal ball wasn’t working too well, I had treated them all, it wasn’t their fault. I did stand up to her, I was sick of her going off on one all the time, it wasn’t professional nor helpful, so I just said I am not prepared to work like this, and I went off home.  Later on she phoned to apologise that it wasn’t fair and we would talk tomorrow.  She knew I had spoken to the union rep about it, another Pod that had been there a couple of years and had too seen purple on many occasions. The following day, I had calmed down and so had she, she said they were still getting calls from people she knew wasn’t from the children’s schools.  The office staff, ugly ears, probably, had made a complaint.  Working in another city has its good and bad points, the office staff like to deal with their own, a lot of us Pods come from outside and we just don’t get the same treatment, it’s like being an alien.  The city’s Pods know the place, do Doms much faster, know the local lingo, know each others families etc. On the other hand it’s nice to drive out of the city at the end of the week, knowing you’re not going to be confronted by patients’ ongoing problems when you’re getting your weekly shop, or moaned at as there are no appointments this week and did you get my test results back? Etc.  So here I am thinking all of this when being faced by the mighty purple faced one, who actually knows what’s going on here and has the upper hand.  It didn’t take me long to realise that I have got to be honest here.  I don’t think it’s worth another lie, I don’t think I care what she actually thinks anymore.  So here I am telling the old battleaxe I am in debt, I have people phoning for money I can’t pay but I am doing something about it.  I will try and get the calls stopped but if I can’t do that they will just have to say I am unable to come to the phone, unless of course they are phoning from the schools.   Mega mouth listened for a moment and then she said come on, I am taking you out for a cup of tea and a sticky bun, she did, hey, maybe she is human after all?  I told her the whole story, she knew about the social services thingy, even offered to give me a character reference, I always had the feeling with her that if you’re honest and do your job she would move heaven and earth to help you. She was just bad tempered and went purple, often without listening to the actual problem in the first place.  She had a soft side a kind side, it would have been so much easier if she was always nasty but she wasn’t and that made it all so difficult.  She could be kind, she had a very high pressured job and I don’t think she could cope with that pressure without exploding at the little things that happened.  That was what was on the other side of the purple face with the evil pen and venomous tongue.  The purple face always came with an out of this world voice too, you know like she could turn into some hideous genetic experiment with a mans voice.  Anyway I poured it all out and she listened to it all, she seemed to understand and offered me more hours.  She said she was more than happy with my work and my people skills, my attitude and my ability to think laterally.  She said she didn’t want owing a few quid and creditor pressure to take that away from me and if I let it, it would.  So not a bad week, all in all.   Things were looking up and perhaps I wasn’t the failure I thought I was, eh?

After all that coming clean, I know it’s a very hard thing to do, it certainly was for me, I felt positively happy.  I can’t remember feeling so light, even before that night when I sat down and wrote my incomings and outgoings and hit rock bottom, I knew it was bad, I knew I couldn’t afford to live but I just couldn’t face it all.  Now I had faced it, I had trusted and had been accepted by my family and my boss, this was another ‘reality’ I could take on.  The first was the diagnosis of my children; I didn’t think I would ever get over that.  The second was the marriage, blimey, I should have gotten an award for the amount of time I had avoided that one.  Now, finally I was here at this point, the lowest ever point in my life but feeling quite high about it all.  Yeah, I can do this, no problem.  I have the will, I want to do it, I have the tool, extra hours and a very well paid job, Mum said she would help out with the extra hours and the kids.  Christmas would be small scale, fun and most importantly HONEST.  I had told the children that they wouldn’t be getting much this year, we don’t mind they said, we would rather you be happy, we can play games and have fun and we don’t really need anything anyway.  The Christmas ball may be a little embarrassing, I hope not everyone there actually knows that I am skinty poos but they want me there enough to pay for me to be there.   

Life was Ok just then, although there was some talk at work about redundancies, I was a locum for the NHS trust and therefore if any redundancies were coming, they would be coming my way first.  This didn’t exactly fill me with joy but it had happened before and I was always given another contract with the trust.  It wasn’t to be this time though, within days of my signing all of my IVA forms, I was given the big heave ho and I lost my job and my income and once again I hit rock bottom.  I was really, really sick with something.  Although I was really stressed out about things.  I had been on the forum again and Bankrupty was suggested as another way forward for me.  It was a bit scary, daunting and again I didn’t exactly need a laxative at that time.  Nevertheless I was feeling pretty unwell, constantly suffering headaches and fatigue, sickness and weakness.  I made a visit to my doctor who diagnosed stress and gave me some anti depressant pills and advised another appointment in a couple of weeks time.   I had booked an appointment with a money expert to discuss face to face this impending BR thing.  I found it all uplifting actually as I had imagined snotty nosed people coming in to my house and taking everything away, including the sofa etc.  It doesn’t happen though, it’s still daunting but not as bad as I had imagined.  I spoke with my Mum about it after I had seen the nice lady; she said she would come with me if that’s what I wanted to do.  She also again offered the money, saying that I had lost a lot of weight with the worry etc.  Although I wanted to get it over and done with ASAP she said, just have Christmas first, don’t worry about getting another job just now, get yourself over this illness get the BR sorted and then look for a job.  Sometimes you can overwork yourself and that’s what you have done.  There is no sense in killing yourself for a better life Lily.  To the world you’re just another single mum working all hours to pay your way through 5 tough years and at this rate you’re going to put yourself in hospital.  To us and especially your children you are the world, they need you to be well and coping and better a BR mum than no mum at all. So the plan kind of changed, the IVA was sacked, I was going BR after crimbo and I booked a date for early January.

I told my Mum that I was a little bit embarrassed to go to the ball and she said accept it with grace Lily. That was the end of that conversation so I went.  I had the best time too, at first I stayed back a little bit, then after a while with everyone coming over with big smiles and kind words of don’t worry, we have kind of been there, I felt great.  My brother took me to one side and gave me £200 worth of vouchers for Christmas food.  I will always remember my Mum at that do, she looked lovely. My sister and I had been out with her to get her outfit.  We went everywhere to find shoes to fit that went with the dress.  I had made her some special insoles to correct an abnormality, this meant she needed extra wide fitting and we couldn’t get any that didn’t look fugly (I will leave you all to work out what fugly means).  As soon as I walked in she ran over to show me her shoes, look at my shoes Lily, they were lovely and she obviously loved them, they were  dainty but wide fitting although they did cost a small fortune, she had managed to find a specialist shop, bless.  We were two weeks away form Christmas and I can honestly say I had never felt happier in my life.  Life was good and was worth living and my sons little prayer had been answered to the full.  This was going to be a very good, honest Christmas and I was going to declare BR as soon as it was over. I was on my way to a worry free life, or so I thought.

The last couple of weeks before Christmas were quite busy; I was able to go to the coffee mornings at my son’s school and get to know the other mothers better.  I bought little things for them to open on Christmas day and silly games for us to all play on the day.  I still wasn’t feeling very well physically but like the doctor had said, these pills take around 4 to 6 weeks to kick in so I would have a bit more energy soon and things had been really tough for the last two years with fighting with social services, the debt and the loss of my job etc.  On the last day of the school term we decided to go out for a Christmas pub lunch, my sister my mum and myself.  First we went to put flowers on my Dads grave, and pay our respects to him, we were meeting at mum’s house and I was the first to arrive there.  Mum was telling me that she had dyed her hair on Saturday but it went brown, my mum is very fair and has white hair, although he dye was blonde, it had gone too dark and she looked like a ghost, her words.  The day before she had gone to boots to get some peroxide to make it fairer, each hour she had cut some off and placed it on a plate to determine when to wash it off.  Look how dark it was Lily?  All these locks of hair varying from brown to light blonde were lying on this plate so she could show us what she had done.  I had taken a little present that I had bought for her and put it under the tree.  You haven’t bought me anything have you?  I told you not to.  Its only little mum, I know you will like it and I wanted to, you’re my mum.  We didn’t have the best day to be honest, the pubs were packed and we drove to about 6 before we could get a seat. It was freezing and foggy, the worst fog I have seen.  My sister drove and we got lost, eventually finding a way out pub in the middle of nowhere, we stuffed our faces and headed for mums warm house and thought about a cup of tea.  We had a nice cuppa and sat talking for a while.  My sister had ordered a fridge freezer for mum as she had just had her new kitchen and radiators fitted and really wanted one.  It was being delivered the following day.  Mum didn’t know what it was and kept joking; Father Christmas is coming to me tomorrow, ha ha.  What time should I get up?  I said around seven mum they could deliver as early as seven thirty.  When I left she handed me two huge bags of presents, as we were walking to our cars my sister slipped, did a little dance and managed to stay on her feet.  I said errrr, no dancing please and mum just doubled up laughing.  My sister left and I went back in as I often waited until 6 to avoid sitting in traffic.  We talked a bit more about the BR and mum said don’t worry about it will you by this time next month it will all be over, you will be feeling better and we will go on holiday together.   I decided to leave a little earlier as the fog was so bad, I just wanted to get home and I worried about the boys transport coming earlier with the same idea.  I kissed my mum, thanked her for the gifts took the mince pies she always made for me and said I would see her on Christmas eve at my sister house.  She waved me off saying do text me when you get home, so I know you’re OK and don’t forget, will you? 

I got home I sent her a text and I had the wonderful feeling of not having to get up the following day for school, my kids were off and life was good.

That day started with the sun shining, I put some washing out, early, although I didn’t have to be up I was up but there was no rushing and I like that feeling.  I needed to go to my sons to borrow his freezer as we didn’t have enough room in ours for all the bread and stuff like that.  The children had helped me to clean out the cupboards ready for the Christmas food and soon I was on my way to my son’s house when this strange call came though.  The men couldn’t deliver mums fridge freezer they couldn’t gain access, hmmm, strange….  I went over to mums as quickly as possible and low and behold two men outside, my brother in law and nephew trying to gain entry. There was my mother sitting on the chair, she was still, she was white, she was dead.  The whole world and everything in it seemed to stop at that moment, was I looking at my mother, was she really dead?    I am crying now just writing this that feeling was unbelievable, my mother was dead.  The ambulance men confirmed it with that flat line thingy.  Please God don’t let this be true, I will do anything, please let there be a flicker on that thing, how, why, what?  I was suddenly aware that my son was standing there beside me, I quickly turned away and took him out of the house, she is dead son, she is dead.  I was going to take my other children to their other nans but he refused to leave me, my sister came flying round the corner in her daughters’ car, without shoes she flew at me, don’t let them take her Lily, don’t let them take her. She is gone Jen, she is gone.  The ambulance man was actually crying as he looked around the room, Christmas lights flashing, little Santa’s everywhere a huge tree, presents and a fridge freezer in the biggest box ever right inside the doorway.  I remember saying, is she going to be OK?  He said no sweetheart she is dead.  The ambulance men were contacting someone while we started phoning relatives, they didn’t take her away.  They left her with us; they said the coroner would come.  We soon realised she had died the night before, she hadn’t been to bed, her phone was inches from her, she could have called us.  My message from the previous day hadn’t been opened.  She had died within minutes of me leaving, why did I leave?  Why the hell did I leave her?  My brother in law made some tea, they waited outside one by one the relatives came in my sister, other grandchildren.  Mums two sisters were devastated.  We couldn’t contact my brother.  I held mums hand, she looked quite peaceful, her telly book by the side of her, opened yesterday, her TV remotes all ready but the TV wasn’t on.  Her hand was so cold, her fingers really stiff.  Her tufts of hair still on that plate, a cold cup of tea on the table.  ~She couldn’t have known anything about it.  I knew she was dead but I still thought she would wake up.  After a little while I was aware that my son was still outside, I told him to sit in the car or go with the others to his nans house, he said no, I am OK here with the lads and I don’t want to come in.  The coroner came and asked me some questions like her date of birth and was she ill etc.  I couldn’t think of the answers and I started to cry.  I sobbed that she was coming with me to go BR next week and she shouldn’t have died at all.  I didn’t actually know what I was saying, I said I was the last person to see her alive, I didn’t think that they would think that because I was in debt I would ever do anything to my mother.  They kind of said that they needed to check everything out that it was routine.  I really, really cried then as I thought what if everyone thinks I did this to her?  I didn’t want her to die.  I remembered her smiling on the porch yesterday; I remembered giving her a mother’s day card when I was nine that said to the best mum in the world.  I remembered putting that little present under the tree.  How could things have changed so much?  Where was my happy life going now? How on earth would I smile at my son?

We eventually managed to contact my brother, he came straight up from London, we agreed to meet at my sisters later that night, when they took my mother away, we locked the house up and I went back home.  My children were in bits when I told them, we all sat in the dark, crying.  My ex offered to take me to my sisters, look after the others and pay for a taxi back home.  My daughter wanted to come with, my middle son had had enough that day and wanted to stay home, my older son came with too.  I held my sons and my daughters hand all night, I actually got hammered on vodka, I didn’t care, trying sucks, screw reality, this is one reality I cannot bear without being hammered on vodka.,  We all cried, we were all in shock, no one could quite believe it.   Two weeks ago she was on the dance floor swishing; now she has gone forever.  We didn’t even know why.

Christmas was a black as ever, I phoned the money lady as I had an appointment with her, I couldn’t go.  I lay awake all night crying.  I tried to pull myself together but in the shower another bout of sobbing just wouldn’t subside.  I needed to sort things out, get shopping, get the freezer but I just couldn’t cope with it.  Eventually we all came down for breakfast and I hadn’t any more tears to cry by then so we set about who would do what and made some sort of plan to get the stuff we needed for Christmas.  The doctor had offered me some sleeping pills to get me through, so I needed to get them also.

My children always go to their other nans on Christmas Eve so my sister invited me over to go and see a film, I had dinner with them and we talked a little bit about what could have happened, we all had our theories and I was pleased to learn that no one blamed me.  Although I did blame myself, by Boxing Day we had agreed to meet up, I somehow felt better with my sisters than I did alone with the children.  I spoke with my kids saying that I was going to be sad for a while as they were.  However, we would be able to smile again; given time as I had been through the death of my father, and so I knew that time does eventually heal this kind of thing.  We started to make plans for her funeral, we wanted to speak, we wanted to make it very personal and we wanted to thank her for being the mother that she was.  We arranged to have some order of service pamphlets made with her smiling face on the front.  We also wanted a tribute of her showing her life and our lives with her.  We borrowed one of those screen jobbies with a projector that plugs into a laptop.  We made a 4 minute tribute to you raised me up to show at the wake.  Although I blubbed through my words at the funeral we did it, the tribute was beautiful.  Our mother couldn’t have asked for a better send off.  My dad used to sing unforgettable to mum, in his tone deaf voice and it used to make her and us laugh.  We had that played at the exit.  Later on when we were sorting the house out, we found a Dictaphone (mum was writing a book) my sister pressed play and mum was singing unforgettable on this tape.  It was like she was right there saying thank you, I had the best send off.  The reason that she died was a heart arrhythmia, she didn’t know she had it and neither did we.  She wouldn’t have known anything about it so even though we didn’t want her to go; she went peacefully, in her own home without any fuss.  Just what she always said she wanted.  I know she is here, I know that she listens when I talk to her but most of all I am so glad that she was my mother and I hope that I make her proud as I am proud to have been born to and was loved by such a wonderful person.  I am and was blessed and whatever happens, I will always be grateful for that

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