The joy of Christmas

I have always been a big fan of Christmas. Until I met my ex husband it was always the time we got together as an extended family either at my family home or with our relatives up near Manchester. It was always such a fun time as far as I can remember!


When I met my ex things got complicated as he came with 3 part time children. Christmas became a bit less relaxed as we had to negotiate where the children would spend Christmas Day and this meant we saw less of my extended family. Having my own children did restore some of the magic as they found it all so exciting.


Since my marriage broke up it seems that Christmas has been a lot more stressful! The first one I had a tricky drive up from the south coast to my parents' new home in Cumbria. En route I decided to quit my job as it was just adding to the stress in my life without providing material benefit. On Christmas Day I woke feeling ill and spent much of the next 2 days lying down - I was diagnosed with mastoiditis and needed double antibiotics to fix it! Due to the snow most of the family was unable to join us so it was a very quiet Christmas.


Last year we got caught out in the snow whilst driving down to visit friends in the south. After some horrendous driving we ended up in a hotel on the A43. This made for an unexpected large expense although the children thought it was a great adventure! This year we are going down by train - more expensive than driving but less stressful for me.


This month the stress of my car issues is not exactly putting me in the right frame of mind to get all excited and festive. My children are a combination of over excited and worn out. With all the school production rehearsals its a very busy time for them. However due to the excitement they have lost the ability to go to sleep at night and in consequence are tired and ratty during the day.


I am hoping that watching their respective productions this week will restore my Christmas excitement! There is lots to look forward to with catching up with family and friends over the next few weeks. Ask me again on December 25th whether Christmas is a joy or a pain!

Last Christmas

Benefit Breakdown

Let me start this post by saying that I am glad I live in a country where there is a safety net for people like me who find themselves temporarily unable to work or earn enough money to feed their family and keep a roof over their heads. For the last 18 months I have been able to concentrate on getting my children through some tough times and relocating 350 miles to be near my family.


However government cost cutting has suddenly descended me into a very stressful nightmare. At the beginning of May I sent off a 13-14 page set of accounts showing the small amounts of money I had earned in previous tax year. Then I relaxed thinking I didn't need to provide any information for 6 months unless my fortunes changed dramatically and I started taking more than £20 a week.


So you can imagine my shock and horror yesterday when a letter popped through my door from the local council informing me that "you are no longer eligible for Income Support"  and so would not be eligible for Housing Benefit! A quick phone call to them revealed that the DWP had informed them of my ineligibility the day before...


Right I thought let's call the DWP and find out why? Is it because one of my children had creeped over the savings threshold? Typically it was strike day so calling the DWP entailed an even longer than normal phone call and the person I spoke to wasn't a normal call centre person. They informed me that as I had failed to send in my business accounts as requested they had written to me on the 24th telling me that my Income Support claim was invalid. So in the nearly 2 months since I sent the documentation they hadn't seen fit to ask me where the documents where and I had no idea they hadn't had them until they cut off my benefit...


So to get it re-instated as a Rapid application I then had to call another DWP department (at least this time a freephone number!). Another long bit on hold due to staff on strike and then the very nice man arranged for me to have a sign on interview on Monday at my local job centre. Only problem was not enough time to send me the right forms but apparently I could pick one up from the job centre today. Oh and did I want to complain about what happened? At this point not wanting to rock the boat I said no and breathed a sigh that maybe things would get sorted (albeit with a 14 day delay).


Last night was a pretty sleepless one as I thought about the consequences of losing free school meals, housing benefit and uniform grant etc. whilst it was sorted. Today I rolled up to the Job Centre feeling like it was a positive step (with 4 year old in tow) and asked for the relevant form. First lady hadn't heard of it so went to consult a colleague. This colleague went to look for said form and the message came back we used to have them but don't any more. So it was on the phone from the job centre to the DWP:

it's because you failed to send in the documents we requested

Aargh - ever feel like people don't listen to you or that they don't record previous conversations on the computer systems that control their very thoughts? Realising I needed to speak to a human being and not an autobot I asked for the number of the other call centre. 

As each attempt on that number either ended with the telephone system cutting me off, sending me to a strange tone or giving me false hope with several minutes on hold before cutting me off; my morale plummeted and with the previous sleepless night tears started flowing.

At this point I have to say how fab the Kendal Job Centre team were. The security guard gave me tissues, the first lady consulted with the senior man, he went off and got me a different form that would give them the basics to sort me out on Monday. This does give me hope that everything will get sorted when real humans are involved.

I know that there are plenty of people out there taking the mick with benefits and who have no intention of working and that is what this abrupt system is supposed to weed out. I am trying to find ways to get myself off benefits and to independence but at the moment I need the Income Support. My self employed businesses need re-building and establishing having relocated to the other end of the country. As an alterative I keep looking in the local papers etc for paid work but up here it nearly all involves evening or weekend work which is useless as a single parent.

So Mr Cameron by all means balance the books by weeding out the benefit cheats and the work shy but treating honest people like I've been treated is not at all humane. It has caused immense stress to me which has knocked on to my children who have had to witness my phone calls etc. Please treat us like human beings and not just numbers that can be axed to balance the books. Maybe if you allowed information to be sent by e-mail to back up claims then it would save money as well as the angst of things getting lost in the post.

I really hope that things get resolved for me on Monday and I've got everything back in place. Luckily for me I actually had some spare money in my account for a change so will not feel the financial bite unless it takes longer than 14 days to fix. I can imagine that for many people having their Income Support removed would lead to real financial hardship as well as the stress.


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Update 20/07/11


Yesterday as it was more than 2 weeks since placing my Rapid reclaim and I had no reply I contacted the DWP. I was told that my claim was lodged with the Decisions Manager on 12th July and it was in a pile of chronologically ordered requests. All I can do is wait.


In the meantime the council want proof of the re-instatement by the 27th so that I don't lose my housing benefit completely! I also have to pay my rent on 1st August so getting nervous and I may be calling the Crisis Loan line if this goes on much longer...

That was the week that was

I've made it through this week alive but it's been a close run thing as it's definitely been the week from hell. I hope to God I never have so many things go wrong in such a short space of time.


It started on Wednesday when a treat for my little boy of lunch at the cheap Chinese ended up as a 3.5 hour trip to casualty for a nasty bump on the head:

Whilst we were waiting our turn at the hospital the school rang to say my daughter was ill. I had to arrange for another mum to pick her up and felt guilty that I couldn't be there for both my children.

We all ended up in my bed as my daughter didn't want to on her own and I had to keep an eye on my son in case he had done serious damage. So I didn't get too much sleep with both my kids in my bed especially as they both snore and wiggle ;-)

First thing in the morning my phone rang and my dad broke the news about my granddad dying. My thoughts on this were blogged here. This obviously was a blow and it made most of that day pass in a haze but with at least one child at home with me all day I did semi-function.

Because my daughter was a combination of under the weather and slightly emotional over the loss of her great granddad I kept her off school again on Friday. This has meant that in the last 6 days I haven't had a child free afternoon at all. 

My son seems to tune in to my stress levels and adds to them in his own inimitable style by increasing the number of ways and places to put poo anywhere but the loo! He and his sister also can't cope with being together at normal weekends let alone a 3 day one.

Nearly forgot to add that my hot water stopped working on Sunday night just as I was running a bath for all us after getting wet on the seafront. When the engineer came round it was working again but he said that if it needs fixing I will first of all have to remove all the things in the way. This means a short run of work surface, the tumble dryer, the saucepan hanging rack, the neat bit of wood panelling which has the controls wired through... Oh joy thank God I'm moving out...

Luckily we had some distractions of the May Day celebrations in Hastings and a trip to Battle Abbey with my son's godfather and his girlfriend. But I also know that I drank far too much wine to get me through a tough few days and I know it doesn't help. Hopefully things are going to get better and I get back to doing what I do best being a mum to two of the best kids in the world:

Not waving but drowning...

This post is inspired by Josie at Sleep is for the Weak's Writing Workshop this week.

After some previously stressy posts such as worrying about my kids and having to deal with vicious comments from other people last week I thought I was turning the corner on this divorce and single motherhood thing...

I was feeling a lot bouncier and positive and getting a decent night's sleep. Things were moving in the right direction. The big downsize mission was moving on nicely with 8 bags of clothes donated to charity and at least 1 bin load of useless stuff had been removed. My friend Suzanne is a life saver and comes round once a week to do a little de-clutter mission. So all starting to look better and I was feeling better...

... then came last weekend. It started going downhill with the table top sale from hell. I had my kids "helping" to set-up. This involved E deciding how everything should be laid out and O deciding that several toys needed rescuing or playing with. Then it transpired that O had a poorly bottom and needed several emergency clothes changes. Things would have been fine if I'd actually sold enough to cover the cost of the table.. I was so stressed by it all I thought I'd have a nice relaxing meal in Sainsbury's to recover.... wrong... my kids misbehaved getting me all those looks from the older generation that signal disapproval - well they were tired and despite the snacks I'd taken they were hungry. Turns out that someone spotted me that only vaguely knows me and she felt sorry for me!

Sunday started off well with nice trip for E to shoot her longbow at Bodiam Castle with the Medieval Siege Society . This was her first competition and with only 3 in her class she was guaranteed a prize. Unfortunately I mistakenly told her they won Easter Eggs. Despite her longbow breaking in round 3 she did really well with a borrowed bow and deserved to win a prize even if only 3rd. By then I'd realised Easter Eggs were raffle prizes not archery prizes so bought tickets. As the prizes were won E got closer and closer to the table until there was only 1 egg left to win.... when another child won she burst into tears and I had to promise to buy her one on the way home. As the kids were tired after full day out I thought a quick pit-stop in the NT cafe would be a good idea - how wrong could I be... There was a major screaming tantrum from E over sharing a cake with little brother (there was only a little choice left in the cafe). They screamed at each other being bloody idiots and how much E hated O. I apologised to the nearest table having once again picked up nasty looks from around the cafe. Turns out they were relieved it wasn't their kids who had had to be removed from the gift shop for tantrums!

Things have been more relaxed since the weekend but the fact that the kids have both taken to getting in my bed in the night again - especially O - means I'm lacking a good night's sleep again. I know that tiredness doesn't help me get through things feeling positive so I hope I can get O to stay in bed. O has also been quite vicious towards his sister and she is losing a lot of hair to his pulling and biting.

The downer of failing to sell the kid's Happyland on eBay hasn't helped either. I did my market research but have had to try again. I just a) want less stuff in the house b) want the kids to have some money saved for when they need things in future and I can't afford it.

Hopefully this is all just a temporary set-back and by next week I'll be in a better frame of mind.