18/52

This week's photo is of Jamie having a good post-reading chew on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.



The reason it's been chosen as this week's photo is because this week, Jamie started to get that bit more mobile. He not only rolls confidently, but this picture is after the first time he managed to, well, not quite crawl, but wriggle and drag himself around.



And this was his goal. He started with his body entirely on the play mat - it might only be a few inches that he managed to move, but he managed it! I am incredibly proud that the first time he exercised his ability to move independently, he was going for a book.

Jumping Through The Hoops

Although I still have many hoops to jump through for the Jobcentre, it's all on hold until such time as my medical notes arrive from Lowestoft and I see my new GP.

I swear Waveney District Council must have heard that I was getting a week or so grace from performing for government departments, because they have kindly provided me with more Big Brother tasks.

I was liable for part of the Council Tax on the flat, because while the Jobcentre Incapacity Benefit letters all said "this is the amount the government says you need to live on", the Waveney District Council letters all said "(you must give us money and pay part of your rent yourself because)...your income is more than the amount you need to live on". Which seemed like a bit of a local/national kind of discrepancy to me, but, whatever, I had not got the time, energy, inclination or resources to fight with them over a tenner a week or whatever it was.

Anyway, I made a lump-sum payment to cover the whole year just so that they would leave me alone, which worked beautifully. Unfortunately it meant that, as I moved out before the end of the financial year, they ended up owing me money.

Currently we're on letter number 3. Number 1 said "we will stop your payment." Number 2, the other day, said "we have stopped your payment". Number 3, which arrived in the same post as Number 2, was the one which made me do a double-take. It amounts to "we owe you about £65. We're not sure if you actually want that money. So if you do want it, you can write to us and ask nicely for it."

I am trying, I swear, I am trying to write a concise, polite letter to the effect of "actually yes, I would rather like you to pay me the money you owe me, if you could be so kind" but so far I haven't come up with anything sendable. I fear that a request for payment that is too snarky or sarcastic or critical, may well end up in my file being 'lost' or something. They're that kind of organisation. So I'm blogging my frustration instead.

Your suggestions, sensible or snarky, are more than welcome.

(In other news, there are now only 728 people ahead of me in the queue to get on Ravelry. I'm getting quite excited.)

Yet more moving faff

...but first, a knitting update. I have embarked on my first adult-sized jumper. The yarn (Colinette "Cadenza" 100% merino wool in "slate") is gorgeous, the colours are beautiful. It's mostly blue tones, but with patches of rainbows. Meanwhile, Left Mitt v1.0 has been tried on, the only adjustment needed is for the fingers-bit to be a little longer. So I've done that, and have nearly completed the matching Right Mitt too. After that, will be another identical pair for when this pair are in the wash (or lost), and a similar but smaller pair for my mum. Basically I'm reckoning that at any given time for the rest of the year I will have one project on regular needles (the jumper) and one on DPNs (the mitts).

Now. Today being the first working day after my Official Move Date, a certain number of things had to be done. I had to go to my bank and my building society to update my details (understandably enough, these institutions won't let you do that over the phone), and I wanted to go to the Jobcentre in order to check that everything was as it should be with my benefit (I still get the same amount of Incapacity Benefit but it has to come from a different regional pot) and find out about help available for disabled jobseekers in the area.

The mission started off quite well, really. Steve drove us into town, and then, fortified with tea/coffee and scones, we went to my Building Society, which I would be naming here to praise their good customer service to all and sundry, except I'm not sure how sensible it would be to put any of my financial details on the internet, so let's just call them my Building Society and I promise to email them direct.

Stepped up to the reception desk, queued for about a minute while the person ahead of us was dealt with, then was greeted by a friendly, smiling member of staff, the conversation went thus:

HER: Can I help you?
ME: Yes, I've just moved house and I'd like to update my address details for my account.
HER: (fishing sheet of paper on a clipboard out of a drawer) No problem, have you filled in one of these change of address forms yet?
ME: Um, no.
HER: Is the account a joint one, or just yours?
ME: Just me.
HER: Then you only need this one form. Would you like to fill it in now, or take it away and come back another time?
ME: (taking form and noting it is a single side of A4) Um, now is fine, we're not in a rush.
HER: Okay, here's a pen, there's seats round here, oh, or there's a desk over there if you'd like to use it, just bring me the form once you're done, and I'll be here if you need anything.
ME: Marvellous, thank you.

Sat at the desk, filled out the not-too-complicated form, queued again for a minute or so, gave form and pen back to smiling lady who thanked me, assured me it would get sorted out today, and we left.

At that point I felt wonderfully positive. So I kissed Steve and sent him off to the local park to take photos of ducks while I attended to my Bank and dropped in at the Jobcentre.

Ha.

At my Bank, I was waiting for what seemed like ages (by the clock, probably not much over five minutes, but when standing is agony, your sense of time gets skewed) while a woman about my age grumpily dealt with the two or three customers ahead of me in the queue for reception, including going and having a rather unprofessional argument with one of the tellers behind the cashier windows. Eventually it was my turn, and she glanced up at me and opened proceedings with an abrupt "Yes?"

ME: Um, hi, yes, I've just moved house and I need to update my address details.
HER: Have you got ID?
ME: Yes, (opens foolscap folder) I wasn't sure what you'd need so I've brought all the ID I've got.
HER: Driver's licence or passport.
ME: I don't have either of those. (leafing through folder) I've got a full birth certificate, and my marriage and divorce certificates, several recent utility bills in my name, a bank statement, National Insurance card, P60...
HER: We only take driver's licence or passport.
ME: I can't drive and I haven't travelled abroad in years. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these things preclude me from having a bank account, or an address.

At this point she made a noise I'm more accustomed to hearing from Sister Dearest when she's in a moodypants. However, she finally deigned to poke my assorted paperwork and put my details into her computer.

Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly sweetness and light 24/7, but then, I don't work in customer service.

Onwards to the Jobcentre, where no less than three advisors were standing about by reception - fair enough as there was no queue. I started with "I've just moved to the area and I want to double-check my incapacity benefit has moved with me," but before I'd finished, one of the advisors had moved to a phone kiosk on the wall, picked up the phone, and was impatiently holding it out to me. Confused, I took it. It was the all too familiar sound of the standard Jobcentre helpline, inviting me to press 1 for income support, or 2 for Jobseekers Allowance... I pressed 3 for Incapacity Benefit and a couple of minutes later, a friendly voice at the end of the phone was making sure that the "push", as they term it, was happening. I checked and re-checked that this meant there is nothing else I need to do and the friendly voice confirmed that yes, everything is fine, there is nothing else I need to do. Grand. I thanked her and hung up.

Back to the Three Stooges Advisors, interrupting their chat to ask about local provision for helping disabled people to access work, training, services, etc. The person who wordlessly shoved the phone at me before, stomped to the wall of leaflets and wordlessly shoved the generic national leaflet for Access To Work at me. By now I was quite cheesed off, so I flipped open the leaflet and said "you see here where it suggests that I contact my nearest Jobcentre? That is what I am doing. I have come here, to my nearest Jobcentre, to ask about what specific help there is available in this specific town, yes? I've already read this leaflet, it's in every other Jobcentre in the country and online too."

I immediately felt bad about being so snappy, but Wordless Guy didn't seem to give a monkeys and one of his colleagues had decided to join us. As Wordless Guy wandered off, Colleague asked if I'd like to speak to the Incapacity Benefit advisor, C, who might know more about the sort of services I was after. He ushered me to a seat and said he'd find out if C was available now or if I needed an appointment. A moment later he was back to tell me that C would be with me shortly, but that's another blogpost.

Home

This is a long post. Waffle about home, waffle about nice people, and a waffle about knitting. Feel free to skip to whatever bit you want.

Home

I'm definitely much more settled in now than I was last time I posted. Steve and a friend went to Lowestoft to pile the rest of my stuff into a van, so now it's all here. Mum and Sister Dearest have done the finishing up at the flat - disposing of the last bits of rubbish, giving the empty flat a final once-over with the vacuum cleaner, that sort of thing - so now all that remains to be done, is for Mum to call the leccy people with the final meter reading, and then hand the keys back to the landlord's agents.

A three-bedroom house containing my boyfriend is obviously going to be a very different home to a small one-bedroom flat that was just mine. Nevertheless, a home it is. It's amazing how much difference small things can make. For instance, the bedroom here, now contains the small bin and a few framed photographs that were in my bedroom back there. My poor abused houseplant is in the lounge. My trusty kettle is in the kitchen. And because of this, it doesn't seem to matter so much that 90% of my books are still inaccessible due to being boxed up, because there's a significant amount of familiar things that are definitely mine, but have their place here. It's very reassuring. Yes, I realise this makes me horribly materialistic. I don't care.

Nice People

More proof has been asserted for my "People Are Basically Nice" theory. This time, it was in the form of our next-door neighbours and an end to the Saga Of The Sink which I think several real-life people have heard about but I don't seem to have blogged.

Precis: There was a drip under Steve's kitchen sink (it started several months ago before I lived here, so definitely HIS sink). While it was creating half a small bucketful of water every fortnight or so, it was a bit of a non-issue. When I moved in here and discovered that it had deteriorated to a point where the brimful bucket needed emptying three times a day, I started being a pain in the arse at him to either fix it or call a plumber to fix it. I also dug out a Bigger Bucket. On Saturday morning, we found that the Bigger Bucket had filled to the top during the few hours while we slept, and Steve said I could call a plumber if I wanted.

Finding a plumber in Lowestoft would have been easy. Verily we could sayeth unto Pip, or other person involved in the building trade, "what plumbers do you know who could come and fix this for me?" and yea, he declareth "Bob's a decent plumber and a nice bloke, good mate, he won't overcharge you" and lo, for Bob the Plumber doth cease the flow of water and only charge for parts, and all is good with the world.

Here, however, I have yet to develop a personal and prioritised hotline to the world of tradesmen. Nor do I have the other common plan of having used a particular firm's services once, and on the basis that they didn't steal or break anything, hanging onto the number to call them next time there's an issue. So, I decided the sensible thing to do would be to pop next door to have a word with the lovely couple who have lived there many many years, and see if they had either of these resources.

All I asked for was a phone number of a plumber they could recommend. Of course, they asked what the matter was. In an effort to reassure them that they wouldn't be affected, I told them. "But why do you need a plumber for that?" they asked. "Because we don't know how to fix it ourselves," I answered. Next thing I knew, our friendly neighbour was coming round to have a look at it. He told Steve where to find the thingy to turn the water off, and undid the bit that was broken, and sent Steve off in the car to get a new one. Steve returned with the new bit, our friendly neighbour fitted it, and ever since, no drip.

I have no idea how we can thank the man. All I'm sure of is that giving him money would mortally offend him.

(At this point I also need to say that, on his plumbing expedition, Steve got new taps, the lever type ones, which are SO much easier for me (well, for anyone really) to use. Well done Steve.)

Knitting

I finished the jumper for Littlun, just on time for Steve to take it with him to Lowestoft when he went to pick up my stuff. I finished it perfectly, but then, I panicked. I had somehow convinced myself that there was no way the bound-off edge of the collar would be big enough to go over Littlun's head. Steve tried to persuade me it would be fine, but he didn't want to be too insistent because he was more concerned about making me calm down.

So rather than taking photos of the perfect finished item, I frantically unpicked the collar seam and knitted up a triangle shape to shove in, effectively increasing the neck by one inch. It didn't exactly look right but, he's three, he's not going to be wearing it perfectly straight at the best of times, and no other knitters are likely to inspect it. I didn't have time to re-do the bodge, but at least now I knew he would be able to at least put the jumper ON.

Steve took lots of pictures for me, but here is just one of the Littlun in his new jumper.

Since then, I have been working on my adapted version of these mitts for my stepdad. Today I finished Left Mitt v1.0 which I am sending to my parents for approval. If they tell me it fits, I can get on with knitting an identical Right Mitt. If it doesn't fit, I shall make a start on v2.0, with whatever adjustments they tell me are required.

Of course the big problem with this is the postal system or more to the point, the postal strikes. If I post v1.0 tomorrow (Monday), it may well not reach them until the following week or longer. I would also guess there's a higher chance than usual of it going missing altogether.

This means I have no current projects on the needles. Which feels weird. And I don't want to start the right mitt with the v1.0 pattern only to find it won't fit. And I don't have a clue what to knit next. Ideas?

Settling In

So, I've been here at Steve's house for about a week now. Technically it is also my home too now, but I'm still having trouble getting my head around that. My clothes are all hung and folded in my designated wardrobe, my makeup and toiletries are on the dressing table, a couple of my family photos are stuck to the fridge, my shoes are lined up by the door, I've even had one or two bits of post arrive addressed to me here. But it still feels very much like Steve's House. If all of my stuff was removed from it, the difference would not be noticeable.

Next week, Steve and his friend should be going in a van to get the rest of my stuff from the flat, like my bed, my sofa, my boxes of books and so on. I'm hoping that having my things here might make Steve's House feel more like My Home too, but at the moment there's nowhere to put any of it. Hopefully by next week we'll have cleared enough space at one end of the lounge so that we can stack up my stuff indoors where at least it won't get rained on... but to me there doesn't seem much difference between having my bits and pieces packed up in a load of boxes at one end of one room in the same house I sleep in, and having my bits and pieces packed up in a load of boxes a couple of hundred miles away. I want books on shelves and ornaments on windowsills, you know?

Sorry this post sounds so negative. I am happy, I am glad I've moved, and I am sure everything will get sorted out. I'm just also intensely tired and sore, which in turn is making me irritable. I'm at that point that most readers will probably identify with from their own long or short-term spells of illness: the bit where there's SO much that needs to be done, but you have to push and push and push yourself just to cover the minimum activities, and pushing yourself becomes an exhausting activity in itself. But there's so much that's important so you keep pushing just as long as you can stand on two legs and when you fall, you rest on the floor, as you are, trying to figure out what things you can usefully do while crawling... On top of which, the "minimum" here and now is very different to the minimum, say, a month ago at the flat. There are a number of things that have to be sorted out ASAP, some mountainous things which need to be chipped away at steadily if any sort of dent is to be made, and other things which aren't that urgent or daunting but are accumulating at an alarming rate.

Happily, one of the things which I have classified as "important" is an attempt at a social life. I went to see my friend Carie on Sunday, and I went to the knitting group at Web of Wool on Tuesday. I had a great time on both these occasions. I have finally finished giving myself blue fingers with Littlun's Jumper (just waiting for that to dry so that I can finish sewing it together) and I've made a start on my next project, which is this lovely pair of mitts, slightly modified for my stepdad. Everyone was very helpful as usual - especially Carie, for suggesting and discussing how to modify the particular pattern, and the ever-patient Anna (who owns Web of Wool) who rescued me when I had a brain-blank and gazed at my cast-on stitches for the mitt for several minutes before saying in a small voice "I've forgotten how to knit in the round." Not a laugh, not a snigger, just a gentle reminder and then my brain clicked in again and everything was fine.

Okay. Not a dazzling social calendar there. But it's still Getting Out and Seeing People and Doing Things, and in my own right rather than as Steve's hanger-on.

Also on the plus side, I am enjoying Cuddles On Tap, as well as copious provision of tea and chocolate. It's also really nice having all of my clothes in one place, rather than opening the wardrobe and realising that the top I want to wear is in a different county.

I'm sure things will get a lot more normal soon enough.

That explains a lot

I had a doctor's appointment the other day, and happily, it was Dr W, my GP of many years, just back from her maternity leave. The whole DLA, GP on leave, locum doctor who wouldn't listen to me thing has finally become much, much more clear.

(Brief recap for any new readers: earlier this year I got turned down for half my disability benefit largely on the basis of a report by Dr M, a locum who was covering the maternity leave of Dr W. This baffled and upset me as Dr W has always supported my benefit claim - it was her who insisted I stop work. Dr M reported that I suffer from depression, and that I have no difficulty doing many everyday tasks. This is inaccurate.)

It boils down to: Dr W is an extremely good GP. However, she would be a rubbish data entry clerk.

If you were to read the actual notes that Dr W has written about me over the last couple of years, they are covered in terms like "ME", "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome", "Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome" and so on. They describe problems I have and how I overcome them, medications that have been tried and the effects they had, how I got on at the specialist ME/CFS clinic, everything you could want to know. You would see copies of the sicknotes with "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" written large and clear, right up to the date when the DWP decided I didn't need to submit sicknotes any more.

If, however, you were only to glance at the front page of my computerised medical notes, you would have seen:

"Current ongoing conditions: none"

You would also see a note from the late 1990s suggesting I should be monitored for symptoms of depression and anxiety. The significantly more recent psychiatrist's letter giving me a mental health all-clear, is jumbled up with the reports from every other investigation into the possible causes of my illness that I underwent at that time - psychiatrist, neurologist, physiotherapist, and probably the butcher, baker and candlestick maker for good measure. You wouldn't see it unless you hunted for it.

Add to this, that I am not one of "those" patients, who marches off to the doctor every couple of weeks clutching an article about some revolutionary new cure or treatment or research. Since the Incapacity Benefit people decided I didn't have to provide sicknotes any more, I haven't actually been to see my GP about the whole ME thing, I've just turned up when I start oozing. Okay, so my tendency to get the sort of tonsillitis or ear infection that makes a practised GP recoil in horror and begin writing the scrip for antibiotics before they've even sat back down is because of the ME, but that's beside the point. If you look at the summaries of my recent visits on the notes, they're nothing to do with the ME.

So, let's look at my encounters with Dr M from a more sympathetic point of view.

A patient wobbles slowly into the consulting room, leaning on a walking stick and pulling faces. She gasps as she sits down, and explains she has come to see you about an ear infection. You look in her ear and sure enough, it's gunky. You look at her throat and that doesn't look too healthy either. You ask about other symptoms and she says that although she's having a bit more difficulty with certain things, it's just like an extra helping of her normal symptoms.

You quickly look at the notes on the screen. No ongoing conditions, the last thing she was here for was a throat infection, what's going on? What "normal symptoms"? What's with the stick? You ask what she means and she looks at you a bit funny before saying "the ME, or CFS, or whatever you want to call it." You spot a flag telling you to monitor her for mental health problems. Gently you ask a couple more questions. The patient says she's been like this for a couple of years, and no longer has a job. You can't quite make up your mind whether she's actually ill, or if she's a benefit scrounger, or if she's under some kind of delusion that she suffers a physical illness - she seems quite certain that it should be on her notes somewhere - but right now it's not terribly important. She has come here with an ear infection, she very obviously HAS an ear infection, so let's treat that and leave the rest for another day. Then, when you think you're home free, she tells you her benefit is being reviewed and that you may get a letter through asking for a GP's report. Great.


This also explains why Dr M was kind of obstructive when I asked to see my medical records. It could be psychologically damaging for a delusional person to read that their family GP thinks that they are delusional...

Dr W has of course apologised and corrected the front page. She's also made sure to put in plenty of information in the notes for our recent consultation a couple of days ago that might be important for whatever new doctor I get in Leamington - basically making sure the relevant details are at the top for a new GP. Yes, I realise there is a possibility that I am delusional and she is humouring me, or that I hallucinated the whole thing. But that just gets too metaphysical. I shall stick with the logic that, if the psychiatrists don't want to try and treat me, or even put me on a waiting list, and I'm not on psychiatric medication, and I'm not crying all the time, then I'm okay in that respect.


In other news... Stage One of the move has gone well. I will write more about it another time. For now, suffice to say that I am in one piece, partially unpacked, and very happy.

Almost done

So, today is my last full day here on my little lonesome. I have one more night with a bed all to myself, and then I become a respectably living-in-sin woman. According to The Plan, Steve should turn up here tomorrow, on Wednesday take me to the doctor and help me pack more stuff, and on Thursday (possibly Friday), whisk me away for good.

Thursday (possibly Friday) isn't actually the Official Move Date. But with the best will in the world, I am not going to be a great deal of help with shifting boxes and furniture out of a first-floor flat. So we're moving me first, with a suitcase containing the stuff I need or that is highly important to me, and then at a slightly later date, Steve is going to come here on his own with a van which my friends and family will help him load up with boxes of books, furniture, remaining clothes and stuff. My mum and stepdad will be in and out disposing of the bits and bobs that I won't be taking with me, and then at a slightly later still date (which is so late mostly because of the "one month's notice" thing) they'll return the keys to my landlord on my behalf and hopefully get my deposit back too.

It feels REALLY weird. All of it. Like, I don't exactly have hundreds of friends who I see every week here, but I have a small handful of people I would define as Real Friends. And I am going to miss each and every one of them. They're all happy for me, they're all glad things are working out and going my way, but it still felt odd to hug someone and say goodbye like I have done a hundred times before but then instead of saying "don't forget to send me a text about next weekend" or similar, saying "don't forget to email me, and good luck with [long term life plans]."

The worst one is going to be Pip. And the Littlun of course, but let's be honest, I haven't known the Littlun as long and he's not a fab conversationalist. Admittedly neither is Pip but we have best-friend telepathy. But I'm not sure how well said telepathy will work across this kind of distance.

I miss him already and I've not even gone yet.

Processing

Today, I've been doing a lot of the admin side of moving. This has involved listening to far too much hold-music, negotiating with automated systems, speaking to people with assorted flavours of so-broad-it's-barely-understandable accents from around the globe, and silent swearing when my mobile started to ring *just* as the people at the JobCentre said "Good afternoon, can I take your national insurance number?"

I started my day by sorting out some letters with the date that Steve and I have defined as the Official Moving Date. There's a letter to the landlord, and two to Waveney District Council - one for the Council Tax department and one for the Housing and Council Tax Benefit department (Waveney District Council rarely if ever answer their phones). I emailed the document to myself and went to mum's to print it out. Well, that was the plan. In real life, we discovered mum's printer had run out of ink (magenta ink to be precise, are there any b3tans with a confession to make?). I couldn't easily find a way to convince it that being out of magenta ink did not preclude printing a black and white text-only document, so I let her have the fun of reordering the cartridges while I went to the internet cafe a couple of doors down to print my stuff off there.

Home, a bit of lunch, a bit of a rest, and then I got on the phone, and in the case of TV licensing, the internet, because their automated voice-recognition system is beyond crap. Now it's half past four, and I've decided I'm finished for the phone for the day. My arms and shoulders ache from holding the handset up to my head, and my speech has gone completely, I simply don't make sense any more.

But I'm still not finished for sorting out this move. Let's recap.

DONE:
Notice to Landlord
Council Tax notification
Housing and Council Tax Benefit notification
TV license
Water (supply)
Water (sewerage) (these have to be separate here)
Phone (calls)
Phone (line rental)
Internet
Incapacity Benefit (except, I have to call them again once I've arranged a new GP at the other end)

CAN'T BE DONE YET:
Electricity (need a final meter reading five days before Official Move Date)

TO DO TOMORROW:
Bank
Building Society
Credit Card
Insurance
South Warwickshire PCT (for GP, dentist, etc. Still not entirely sure how this will work)


Can anyone think of anything I've missed? Gas isn't on the list because this is an electric-only flat, and I don't have a car or pet or gun license... ideas welcome.

This afternoon has reassured me that I still have a certain level of job skills, but reminded me that I mustn't get ahead of myself and apply for jobs where I'll have to concentrate for more than an hour or so at a time.

An Announcement

I am rather excited right now.

Steve and I decided we were going to move in together quite some time ago, but there's always been something that's a reason not to. I've had a big hospital appointment coming up. He's been overworked. I've been messing about with a benefit renewal and don't want to move in the middle of it. He wants to get his exams done first. There's a holiday/birthday/other miscellaneous event going on. Whatever.

This month, though, we decided we were just going to go ahead and do it (this is why I have been cleaning under my bed). And today, we put a definite if slightly imprecise schedule on it. Due to the sizeable distance between us, the issues of merging two fully equipped and furnished households into one, and the challenges imposed by my limited capabilities, it's going to be a bit trickier than it might otherwise have been. However, we've developed a plan for moving me and my stuff over a period of a couple of weeks which seems like it'll work. A few minor details need sorting out - friends need to be enlisted at each end to help shift stuff, a van needs to be hired, that sort of thing - but we aim to start the move about two weeks from now, and have it completed within about two weeks of that.

I am so excited I can't even describe it.