According to my records...
On the 24th May I was turned down for DLA.
On the 2nd June (a Saturday) I received the letter telling me this.
On the 4th June, (Monday) my mother on my behalf asked for a reconsideration and for us to be sent copies of the reasons and Evidence used to turn down my application.
On the 6th June, the wrong forms arrived.
On the 7th June, I rang up to query this. I was told to ignore the wrong forms and assured the reasons and Evidence would be with me in 10-14 days.
On the 16th June (a Saturday), I recieved a letter confirming that I was up for reconsideration, but with no mention of the reasons and Evidence. I phoned and was told that my request for this documentation was being processed.
Today is Wednesday the 20th June. Depending on how you look at it, it's been 13-16 days since I requested the documentation relating to my claim. If it isn't here by Friday, then I have to ring them up again and attempt to be assertive. I'm not looking forward to that.
So, I'm waiting. I've done my best to clear the decks of all other claims on my time and energy, I've made sure I have plenty of food (a combination of microwave meals, pre-prepared saladyveg, fruit, juice and smoothies for healthy vits, and junk comfort food) but now I'm just tensed. I know that as soon as the paperwork arrives, I have to get working on it, and I know it's important.
It's exactly like the feeling you get before an exam, which I suppose it effectively is. Except, when I was at school and college, and I had an exam coming up, I knew when exactly it would be. I knew that on this day at this time, I would be required to walk into the exam hall and force my brain as hard as it would go for two or three hours, after which, it would all be over. So my tension was generally reserved for the four or five hours leading up to Exam Time, and maybe an hour afterwards winding back down. Which was fine. But with this, I don't know when the exam starts, and I feel like I'm not prepared for it, and instead of it being over by lunchtime it's going to be several days of sustained effort, plus, you know, ILL, with the headaches and muscle pain and nausea and whatnot.
I keep trying to sleep - I'm shattered even by my standards - but I can't, because I'm all tensed and my mind won't stop working on what they might say is a reason and how I should best argue against it.
To cap it off, today is Little Sister's birthday. I was sunshine this morning and I'm going to go and be sunshine this evening for dinner as well, and even her friends will agree that my sister is an exhausting person to spend time with, but luckily, while I'm in this kind of state, I'm not really registering what people say to me so the torrent of words should hopefully just wash right over my head (Sister Dearest, if you're reading this, you know I don't mean it nastily, but you also know it's true). On the plus side, I will be getting a really nice, home-cooked, fresh-ingredients meal, without any of the prep or clearing up, since my parents simply won't let me. I do feel guilty about it, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a nice treat.
Sorry about the grammar and punctuation in this post (nod to Dr Crippen. I know it's all over the place, but I can't make it fixed any better right now.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Nearly finished
All the knitting is now done for the knitted knitting needle case. My favourite yarn to knit with was the dark green Rowan wool cotton. The pink Rowan cotton glace, on the other hand, was horrible stuff that made my hands feel funny. I'm still undecided on the dark red "kid classic" - it's nice, but it's all too easy to accidentally poke the needle through the actual strand of yarn rather than the stitch. That's probably just a practice thing though.
The cabled pocket was the one that gave me the biggest sense of achievement. The beaded one was fun, once I'd found some appropriate beads. The stripes weren't so enjoyable, although it wouldn't have been as bad if the pocket had been more than nine stitches across - it felt like all I was doing was changing wool. On which note, it should not surprise anyone that I hated the Fair Isle pocket (pink with green dots, in the middle) with a fiery fiery vengeance and hope to get away with doing as little of that as possible in the future.
The cluttered nature of the photo is because my flat is very small. I have a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room with a kitchenette counter. The needle case is 25inches square. Even on the tidiest of days, I do not have 25inches square of floor space in the bedroom or the bathroom, and it was pushing it to make space in the living room.
I was pleased to find that my iron still works - I haven't ironed anything since I got ill. I am very impressed that I did not burn myself or mess up the knitting with it. The inner and outer panels of the needle case fitted together nicely, which reassures me that I did it right - even though in the picture on the pattern it looks more rectangle than square. I've sewn the two panels together neatly and it looks good. Now it's just a matter of sewing on the pockets. I'm humming and hawing about whether I should stitch the pockets on using the colours used for each of them - could get tricky on the stripy pocket mind - or if I should use the remainder of the pale blue yarn.
Next project - little sister wants a hat. Unfortunately I had to put up with a certain amount of rubbish from her earlier today and am feeling less than inclined to put time and effort into such a thing. But, I have to knit something. I already feel strange not working on this...
Oh, and to whomsoever of my readers it may apply, happy father's day.
Edited 21.35 to add tags.
The cabled pocket was the one that gave me the biggest sense of achievement. The beaded one was fun, once I'd found some appropriate beads. The stripes weren't so enjoyable, although it wouldn't have been as bad if the pocket had been more than nine stitches across - it felt like all I was doing was changing wool. On which note, it should not surprise anyone that I hated the Fair Isle pocket (pink with green dots, in the middle) with a fiery fiery vengeance and hope to get away with doing as little of that as possible in the future.
The cluttered nature of the photo is because my flat is very small. I have a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room with a kitchenette counter. The needle case is 25inches square. Even on the tidiest of days, I do not have 25inches square of floor space in the bedroom or the bathroom, and it was pushing it to make space in the living room.
I was pleased to find that my iron still works - I haven't ironed anything since I got ill. I am very impressed that I did not burn myself or mess up the knitting with it. The inner and outer panels of the needle case fitted together nicely, which reassures me that I did it right - even though in the picture on the pattern it looks more rectangle than square. I've sewn the two panels together neatly and it looks good. Now it's just a matter of sewing on the pockets. I'm humming and hawing about whether I should stitch the pockets on using the colours used for each of them - could get tricky on the stripy pocket mind - or if I should use the remainder of the pale blue yarn.
Next project - little sister wants a hat. Unfortunately I had to put up with a certain amount of rubbish from her earlier today and am feeling less than inclined to put time and effort into such a thing. But, I have to knit something. I already feel strange not working on this...
Oh, and to whomsoever of my readers it may apply, happy father's day.
Edited 21.35 to add tags.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Progress
My stress has wound down several more notches, thanks to fantastic support from Steve, and from my family and friends here, and also (I realise this sounds cheesy) because of the blogger support.
A commenter on an earlier post linked me to Benefits And Work, and a quick Paypal of £16.50 later, there was an absolute wealth of useful information at my fingertips.
As well as all this information and support, I believe I've established the difference between a Reconsideration and an Appeal. I'm not doing an Appeal. An Appeal is a scary thing full of solicitors and panels and hearings and tribunals, yeeech. I'm doing a Reconsideration, which as I understand it, just means that a different Decision Maker will look at my case in 28 days time from when I phoned them. I can use those 28 days to submit any additional, supplemental or new evidence that I would like a Decision Maker to look at. Or not. But either way, it doesn't have to involve comprehension of legalese on my part.
I've had a good think about what evidence I would like to include that they don't already have. Here's my list:
- A step-by-step refutation of their reasons for the non-award decision ("you said [this], in fact the case is [this], as backed up by [evidence].") although I can't make a start on this until I get their written list of reasons, which could take another week from now.
- The report from the specialist ME/CFS clinic at the hospital. It's over a year old, but it includes such handy phrases as "Mary has classic chronic fatigue syndrome" as well as information about my pain and activity levels. I already have the patient copy of this document.
- A proper written explanation of the issues with the locum doing the GP's report, including a reminder that I flagged this issue at the time and well before they made the decision to not award DLA, or in other words, that I'm not making up issues because I'm all upset by their decision.
- A written statement from Steve regarding my care and mobility needs from his perspective as someone who sometimes looks after me. Mum already did one (albeit a short one), as part of my original renewal forms. I'd ask Pip too, but he's got a lot on his plate at the moment.
- The forms and GP's Report (by my actual proper GP) for my successful Incapacity Benefit renewal back in February. I have requested to be sent these, although I am warned it may take "a few days" as they have "probably gone to the storage facility already".
I also rang my GP's surgery and asked if I could have a copy of my notes for the last three years. Unfortunately the receptionist said I had to ask my GP, or in real terms, I had to ask the infamous Dr M. It was agreed that Dr M would call me back, which she did, when I was in the middle of my nap and in no position to deal with anything let alone start insisting. She told me that my notes would only be relevant if I went to an Appeal and my solicitor made a formal request for them. I do not have it in me to fight her. So I do not have access to my medical records. However, I'm toying with appropriate wording to explain in my Reconsideration covering letter that I believe there may be additional supporting evidence for my claim in my medical notes, but have been unable to gain access to them. Not sure.
Hopefully, this will be enough.
In better news...
I've finished the cable pocket on the knitted knitting needle case. Only one real hiccup, that was when I started looking at the wrong place on the page and knitted the final few rows that should have been on the Fair Isle pocket onto the end of the cable pocket. But it was easy enough to undo. Oh, and if anyone knows of an insanely simple explanation of Fair Isle online, please do recommend it in the comments.
My houseplant is still thriving. At this rate, it will see me through moving to Steve's (still no date set so don't get excited), which will be the third house-move it's done with me.
For dinner I had salad and a lasagne. Asda own-brand straightforward lasagne (in other words, not Extra Value or Low Fat or any other faff), microwaveable, £1, and it tastes bloody lovely. I would go so far as to say it's the nicest microwave lasagne I've had, and trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I shall have to buy more.
And now I'm off to bed, and I have ALL the bed to myself. Swings and roundabouts...
A commenter on an earlier post linked me to Benefits And Work, and a quick Paypal of £16.50 later, there was an absolute wealth of useful information at my fingertips.
As well as all this information and support, I believe I've established the difference between a Reconsideration and an Appeal. I'm not doing an Appeal. An Appeal is a scary thing full of solicitors and panels and hearings and tribunals, yeeech. I'm doing a Reconsideration, which as I understand it, just means that a different Decision Maker will look at my case in 28 days time from when I phoned them. I can use those 28 days to submit any additional, supplemental or new evidence that I would like a Decision Maker to look at. Or not. But either way, it doesn't have to involve comprehension of legalese on my part.
I've had a good think about what evidence I would like to include that they don't already have. Here's my list:
- A step-by-step refutation of their reasons for the non-award decision ("you said [this], in fact the case is [this], as backed up by [evidence].") although I can't make a start on this until I get their written list of reasons, which could take another week from now.
- The report from the specialist ME/CFS clinic at the hospital. It's over a year old, but it includes such handy phrases as "Mary has classic chronic fatigue syndrome" as well as information about my pain and activity levels. I already have the patient copy of this document.
- A proper written explanation of the issues with the locum doing the GP's report, including a reminder that I flagged this issue at the time and well before they made the decision to not award DLA, or in other words, that I'm not making up issues because I'm all upset by their decision.
- A written statement from Steve regarding my care and mobility needs from his perspective as someone who sometimes looks after me. Mum already did one (albeit a short one), as part of my original renewal forms. I'd ask Pip too, but he's got a lot on his plate at the moment.
- The forms and GP's Report (by my actual proper GP) for my successful Incapacity Benefit renewal back in February. I have requested to be sent these, although I am warned it may take "a few days" as they have "probably gone to the storage facility already".
I also rang my GP's surgery and asked if I could have a copy of my notes for the last three years. Unfortunately the receptionist said I had to ask my GP, or in real terms, I had to ask the infamous Dr M. It was agreed that Dr M would call me back, which she did, when I was in the middle of my nap and in no position to deal with anything let alone start insisting. She told me that my notes would only be relevant if I went to an Appeal and my solicitor made a formal request for them. I do not have it in me to fight her. So I do not have access to my medical records. However, I'm toying with appropriate wording to explain in my Reconsideration covering letter that I believe there may be additional supporting evidence for my claim in my medical notes, but have been unable to gain access to them. Not sure.
Hopefully, this will be enough.
In better news...
I've finished the cable pocket on the knitted knitting needle case. Only one real hiccup, that was when I started looking at the wrong place on the page and knitted the final few rows that should have been on the Fair Isle pocket onto the end of the cable pocket. But it was easy enough to undo. Oh, and if anyone knows of an insanely simple explanation of Fair Isle online, please do recommend it in the comments.
My houseplant is still thriving. At this rate, it will see me through moving to Steve's (still no date set so don't get excited), which will be the third house-move it's done with me.
For dinner I had salad and a lasagne. Asda own-brand straightforward lasagne (in other words, not Extra Value or Low Fat or any other faff), microwaveable, £1, and it tastes bloody lovely. I would go so far as to say it's the nicest microwave lasagne I've had, and trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I shall have to buy more.
And now I'm off to bed, and I have ALL the bed to myself. Swings and roundabouts...
Thursday, June 07, 2007
... and they're off!
Ladies and gentlemen, the screwups have commenced!
The DLA unit have sent me a set of irrelevant forms - the ones for if you are reporting a change in your condition that may affect your DLA entitlement.
They maintain that these forms would not have been sent if they hadn't been very specifically asked for. They did not have an answer to "why would we have asked for the "my condition has changed" forms, when the whole point of calling you was to outline that my condition has not changed at all?" other than to insist the incompetence (or as I tactfully phrased it "a misunderstanding, a bit of crossed wires") cannot possibly have been at their end.
If there is some poor sod out there who, on Monday, requested forms DLA454 to report a change in circumstances, and has instead received something along the lines of "so you'd like us to reconsider our decision..." then I'm really sorry. I don't have it in me to concurrently run an dispute about their decision regarding my DLA award, AND a complaint.
They told me on the phone that I have four weeks in which to put together as much additional information as possible for the reconsideration. However, the Evidence they are sending (all the evidence used to make their decision and the reasons for this decision) will not be with me for another 10-14 days. So if the third of these four weeks is a Bad Week for me, I'm screwed. There is no possibility of an extension.
I've been let down by DIAL as well. Possibly they're very busy, possibly they remember me as being all capable and independent from the work days, maybe they just don't like me - but the manager phoned me back and pretty much brushed me off with "you can deal with that yourself, because it's not a full-on appeal, just a reconsideration". Oh. Sorry to have bothered them. Obviously I phoned them for the fun of it, rather than because I'm at a stage of "please, please, somebody help me, I really cannot deal with this on my own, I have no resources, I don't know what's happening, and I don't know what to do..."
With this in mind I have sent money to the folk at Benefits and Work (with thanks to an anonymous commenter on an earlier post for flagging them) so that I can look at some of their handy online resources including titles like "Appealing against a Disability Living Allowance decision".
I wish there was some way that I could just, I don't know, sell a kidney or something and have someone take over all this Aaargh-ness.
On the happier side:
I've completed the inner panel of the knitting needle case and have started on the pockets.
One of the pockets requires beads, and I've just won the perfect ones from eBay.
I also won a new top from eBay (little bit of shopping therapy a couple of days ago). The top, plus my beads, plus the postage for each, totals about £5. Bargain.
Being back home has meant popping in to see Pip and the Littlun for a cuppa. Littlun gave me kisses and cuddles. Spontaneous ones as well, not the "go give (visitor) cuddles!" kind (which always make me feel uncomfortable - kids don't HAVE to cuddle me, you know?). I also got offered a slice of apple, which was yummy, and about a third of a chocolate biscuit, but it was a bit... slimy, so I turned it down in the politest manner possible. Still, he's learning about sharing.
The DLA unit have sent me a set of irrelevant forms - the ones for if you are reporting a change in your condition that may affect your DLA entitlement.
They maintain that these forms would not have been sent if they hadn't been very specifically asked for. They did not have an answer to "why would we have asked for the "my condition has changed" forms, when the whole point of calling you was to outline that my condition has not changed at all?" other than to insist the incompetence (or as I tactfully phrased it "a misunderstanding, a bit of crossed wires") cannot possibly have been at their end.
If there is some poor sod out there who, on Monday, requested forms DLA454 to report a change in circumstances, and has instead received something along the lines of "so you'd like us to reconsider our decision..." then I'm really sorry. I don't have it in me to concurrently run an dispute about their decision regarding my DLA award, AND a complaint.
They told me on the phone that I have four weeks in which to put together as much additional information as possible for the reconsideration. However, the Evidence they are sending (all the evidence used to make their decision and the reasons for this decision) will not be with me for another 10-14 days. So if the third of these four weeks is a Bad Week for me, I'm screwed. There is no possibility of an extension.
I've been let down by DIAL as well. Possibly they're very busy, possibly they remember me as being all capable and independent from the work days, maybe they just don't like me - but the manager phoned me back and pretty much brushed me off with "you can deal with that yourself, because it's not a full-on appeal, just a reconsideration". Oh. Sorry to have bothered them. Obviously I phoned them for the fun of it, rather than because I'm at a stage of "please, please, somebody help me, I really cannot deal with this on my own, I have no resources, I don't know what's happening, and I don't know what to do..."
With this in mind I have sent money to the folk at Benefits and Work (with thanks to an anonymous commenter on an earlier post for flagging them) so that I can look at some of their handy online resources including titles like "Appealing against a Disability Living Allowance decision".
I wish there was some way that I could just, I don't know, sell a kidney or something and have someone take over all this Aaargh-ness.
On the happier side:
I've completed the inner panel of the knitting needle case and have started on the pockets.
One of the pockets requires beads, and I've just won the perfect ones from eBay.
I also won a new top from eBay (little bit of shopping therapy a couple of days ago). The top, plus my beads, plus the postage for each, totals about £5. Bargain.
Being back home has meant popping in to see Pip and the Littlun for a cuppa. Littlun gave me kisses and cuddles. Spontaneous ones as well, not the "go give (visitor) cuddles!" kind (which always make me feel uncomfortable - kids don't HAVE to cuddle me, you know?). I also got offered a slice of apple, which was yummy, and about a third of a chocolate biscuit, but it was a bit... slimy, so I turned it down in the politest manner possible. Still, he's learning about sharing.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Stop the clock
The 28 days to respond are no longer ticking, and I have some space in which to get myself packed up, back home, and mentally prepared for the clock starting again.
The commenters here have been amazingly helpful and supportive, in both a friendly and a practical sense. Thank you all ever so much. Gawd bless the internets!
Even with all that support, I don't think I have the capacity to organise my own appeal. If I did, let's face it, I would go and get a job. Luckily, the job I used to have means I knew exactly who to call - DIAL. Locally, DIAL is an officeful of volunteers who have done Welfare Rights training and a whole bunch of other stuff. Their remit is to help disabled people apply for various benefits and resources, assist in appeals, and signpost any other relevant organisations. I think there are two paid full-time employees there, one of whom is the manager. I confess that during the course of my employment I met people who seemed to think the most important part of their job was getting enough Lottery funding to extend their salaries for another year or so, and maybe to employ some friends and family as well... however this is an accusation that cannot be levelled at DIAL. They were quite possibly the most dedicated professionals I met.
So, at 9:30 this morning (Monday) I phoned them. Shock number one was that the phone was answered by one of my ex-clients. After a slight tangle of emotion (happy to hear a friendly voice who recognised me, proud he's doing so well in the placement, embarassment at having to admit "no, I'm not back at work, I'm calling as a client", confusion as my whole brain/speech/style/whatever unconsciously slipped back into Job Mode as if I was calling in a work capacity, and a touch of stress about the actual DLA business) I explained the problem.
Within a few minutes I had been told clearly and concisely what the next thing to do was. I was to call the DLA, and ask for a reconsideration. They would probably offer an over-the-phone reconsideration which I must reject, because for DIAL to help me they need everything written down. I must also ask to be sent written reasons for their decision and copies of their evidence used to make that decision. Then I should call back.
There's no landline phone at Steve's and calling any government unit first thing on a Monday morning is asking to hear the ENTIRE loop of hold music several times over - if you don't start with a headache, you'll have one by the time you get through to someone. Not something to be done from a mobile. So I called mum, who knows all my details, has the letter and so on, and offered her flowers and chocolates and Pretty Things if she'd call them for me. She agreed - being the lovely mum that she is - and did.
Less than ten minutes later, she called back. I honestly thought something was wrong. I was expecting her to say "sorry, I can't spend an hour on hold to the DLA unit because my leg's been ripped off and I really must go to hospital". I think I actually answered my mobile with "what's the matter?" But no, by some unknown amazingness she'd got almost straight through.
They did try to get her to agree to an over-the-phone reconsideration, but she explained that we were getting help from an independent organisation and needed stuff in writing. So now, I'm down for a reconsideration and they are going to send all the stuff.
I called DIAL back and they said that what happens now is that my case will be passed to another "decision maker". IF the turn-down was just because of the original decision maker having a grumpy day or trying to hit a rejection target or whatever, then we should be okay, and I should get a letter awarding me DLA at whatever level. However, IF the turn-down was on the basis of that locum's half-assed GP's Report, it could be a bit more of a problem. The clock re-starts at the date of the next decision-containing letter. Upon receiving it, I have to call DIAL immediately and arrange an appointment to start an appeal.
I've decided to try and forget about it and enjoy the next couple of days, go to the Victoria for another cream tea, and go to the knitting group here on Tuesday again, and then on Wednesday get packed and ready to go home. I figure that even with the most unlikely dazzling efficiency, they won't have a whole packet of evidence and a fresh decision ready until Tuesday, and then it will take a day or two to get to the flat, and then there's no way I'll get a same-day appointment at DIAL.
I still keep feeling nauseous though.
The commenters here have been amazingly helpful and supportive, in both a friendly and a practical sense. Thank you all ever so much. Gawd bless the internets!
Even with all that support, I don't think I have the capacity to organise my own appeal. If I did, let's face it, I would go and get a job. Luckily, the job I used to have means I knew exactly who to call - DIAL. Locally, DIAL is an officeful of volunteers who have done Welfare Rights training and a whole bunch of other stuff. Their remit is to help disabled people apply for various benefits and resources, assist in appeals, and signpost any other relevant organisations. I think there are two paid full-time employees there, one of whom is the manager. I confess that during the course of my employment I met people who seemed to think the most important part of their job was getting enough Lottery funding to extend their salaries for another year or so, and maybe to employ some friends and family as well... however this is an accusation that cannot be levelled at DIAL. They were quite possibly the most dedicated professionals I met.
So, at 9:30 this morning (Monday) I phoned them. Shock number one was that the phone was answered by one of my ex-clients. After a slight tangle of emotion (happy to hear a friendly voice who recognised me, proud he's doing so well in the placement, embarassment at having to admit "no, I'm not back at work, I'm calling as a client", confusion as my whole brain/speech/style/whatever unconsciously slipped back into Job Mode as if I was calling in a work capacity, and a touch of stress about the actual DLA business) I explained the problem.
Within a few minutes I had been told clearly and concisely what the next thing to do was. I was to call the DLA, and ask for a reconsideration. They would probably offer an over-the-phone reconsideration which I must reject, because for DIAL to help me they need everything written down. I must also ask to be sent written reasons for their decision and copies of their evidence used to make that decision. Then I should call back.
There's no landline phone at Steve's and calling any government unit first thing on a Monday morning is asking to hear the ENTIRE loop of hold music several times over - if you don't start with a headache, you'll have one by the time you get through to someone. Not something to be done from a mobile. So I called mum, who knows all my details, has the letter and so on, and offered her flowers and chocolates and Pretty Things if she'd call them for me. She agreed - being the lovely mum that she is - and did.
Less than ten minutes later, she called back. I honestly thought something was wrong. I was expecting her to say "sorry, I can't spend an hour on hold to the DLA unit because my leg's been ripped off and I really must go to hospital". I think I actually answered my mobile with "what's the matter?" But no, by some unknown amazingness she'd got almost straight through.
They did try to get her to agree to an over-the-phone reconsideration, but she explained that we were getting help from an independent organisation and needed stuff in writing. So now, I'm down for a reconsideration and they are going to send all the stuff.
I called DIAL back and they said that what happens now is that my case will be passed to another "decision maker". IF the turn-down was just because of the original decision maker having a grumpy day or trying to hit a rejection target or whatever, then we should be okay, and I should get a letter awarding me DLA at whatever level. However, IF the turn-down was on the basis of that locum's half-assed GP's Report, it could be a bit more of a problem. The clock re-starts at the date of the next decision-containing letter. Upon receiving it, I have to call DIAL immediately and arrange an appointment to start an appeal.
I've decided to try and forget about it and enjoy the next couple of days, go to the Victoria for another cream tea, and go to the knitting group here on Tuesday again, and then on Wednesday get packed and ready to go home. I figure that even with the most unlikely dazzling efficiency, they won't have a whole packet of evidence and a fresh decision ready until Tuesday, and then it will take a day or two to get to the flat, and then there's no way I'll get a same-day appointment at DIAL.
I still keep feeling nauseous though.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Cured?
This morning I got a phone call from my mum. In a wonderful piece of timing with me being on holiday (so I don't have my file) AND it being a Saturday (so all helplines etc are closed), a letter has turned up from the Department of Work and Pensions.
I have been turned down for Disability Living Allowance.
Not reduced, but turned down flat.
Option 1: I have magically been cured. I'll go out and get a 40-hour-a-week job now, and start living my social life to the max too. I have to go shopping now, to get some new trainers for the marathons I'll be running this summer.
Option 2: The effects the illness has on my life are the same as ever, but the discrepancies between what I wrote on my forms about my condition and day-to-day life, and what the woman standing in for "my GP" wrote on her forms, has led them to think that one or the other of us is telling porkies. Obviously people with medical degrees don't ever make mistakes or get things wrong, therefore my statements are the ones which are wrong, and I need no help whatsoever with my care or mobility needs.
I have just under a month (28 days starting from the date their letter was written) to try and sort this mess out. Steve was going to be taking me home next week anyway, but now it will be nearer the beginning of the week than the end.
Plan:
1. Draft some letters to the DWP. I may be able to find some templates online to help with this once I've got my head together.
2. Contact the ME/CFS clinic at the hospital who gave me the definite diagnosis of "yes, you have classic ME" and ask if they can reassess me.
3. Contact DIAL and see if they can help me.
3(b). If DIAL can't help, call Pip and arrange for him to help me lay siege to the Citizen's Advice Bureau (unfortunately the local CAB have broken email and don't answer the phone due to terminal understaffing, so you have to go in person and a wait of four hours or more should be prepared for).
4. Go through all my accounts and carefully plan my expenditure for the next year, eg exactly how much will be needed for rent, bills, etc.
5. Learn how to knit socks.
Other thoughts:
At least I've already done this once. When I lost my job, and the lovely income that went with it, I managed to trim things down until my outgoings were essential bills (rent, council tax, electric, water, landline phone line rental) plus £15 a week for everything else - from food to transport to phone calls/internet to toothpaste to Christmas presents. It wasn't much of a lifestyle, granted, and involved a lot of Lidl's pasta, but I definitely survived and I damn well will again.
Plus, I have the long-term incapacity benefit award (as supported by Dr W...) so at least there is a fixed income I can rely on, rather than trying to live out of savings.
Forecast: Sunny spells, but with intermittent tears and mood swings for a while. Warning! Warning! Flooding may occur.
I have been turned down for Disability Living Allowance.
Not reduced, but turned down flat.
Option 1: I have magically been cured. I'll go out and get a 40-hour-a-week job now, and start living my social life to the max too. I have to go shopping now, to get some new trainers for the marathons I'll be running this summer.
Option 2: The effects the illness has on my life are the same as ever, but the discrepancies between what I wrote on my forms about my condition and day-to-day life, and what the woman standing in for "my GP" wrote on her forms, has led them to think that one or the other of us is telling porkies. Obviously people with medical degrees don't ever make mistakes or get things wrong, therefore my statements are the ones which are wrong, and I need no help whatsoever with my care or mobility needs.
I have just under a month (28 days starting from the date their letter was written) to try and sort this mess out. Steve was going to be taking me home next week anyway, but now it will be nearer the beginning of the week than the end.
Plan:
1. Draft some letters to the DWP. I may be able to find some templates online to help with this once I've got my head together.
2. Contact the ME/CFS clinic at the hospital who gave me the definite diagnosis of "yes, you have classic ME" and ask if they can reassess me.
3. Contact DIAL and see if they can help me.
3(b). If DIAL can't help, call Pip and arrange for him to help me lay siege to the Citizen's Advice Bureau (unfortunately the local CAB have broken email and don't answer the phone due to terminal understaffing, so you have to go in person and a wait of four hours or more should be prepared for).
4. Go through all my accounts and carefully plan my expenditure for the next year, eg exactly how much will be needed for rent, bills, etc.
5. Learn how to knit socks.
Other thoughts:
At least I've already done this once. When I lost my job, and the lovely income that went with it, I managed to trim things down until my outgoings were essential bills (rent, council tax, electric, water, landline phone line rental) plus £15 a week for everything else - from food to transport to phone calls/internet to toothpaste to Christmas presents. It wasn't much of a lifestyle, granted, and involved a lot of Lidl's pasta, but I definitely survived and I damn well will again.
Plus, I have the long-term incapacity benefit award (as supported by Dr W...) so at least there is a fixed income I can rely on, rather than trying to live out of savings.
Forecast: Sunny spells, but with intermittent tears and mood swings for a while. Warning! Warning! Flooding may occur.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Yarn!
Yesterday was a nice day. Steve and I went to the Victoria Coffee House on Warwick Street for tea/coffee and scones, which was as lovely as it always is. Proper loose-leaf tea in a pot, proper coffee in a cafetiere, proper fresh warm irregularly-shaped scones with butter and clotted cream and jam... mmm. Also, wireless internets. We arrived just as the lunchtime busy-ness was easing off, which was nice.
A nice, slow afternoon involved playing some Kingdom Of Loathing, in which we're all eagerly anticipating the event of NS13. I would say we're preparing for it, except it's difficult to know how to prepare - a lot of goalposts are being shifted. I play with two characters, one who ascends regularly and tries out different character classes, and one who just gets really really powerful in one class - she's been going for a year but has only just ascended for the first time. I really enjoy exploring the game, and for NS13 I'm putting aside my current gameplay style and trying to get both my characters up to a respectable level so that (hopefully) I will be able to explore all the new content with relative ease.
I apologise that the above paragraph meant nothing to non-KOL-ers.
Anyway, yesterday evening was knitting group in Leamington. It was a nice evening and at first I hoped Steve and I could go on the bike, but then it occurred to me that although I'd be okay on the way there, getting back after sitting and knitting for a couple of hours would be beyond my capabilities. It was a shame because I think Steve has been kind of itching to get on the bike for several days now. Still, he's gone out on it today for a big-long-ride which will probably make him a happy bunny.
I have a really nice time at the knitting group. Everyone's so friendly and welcoming. Carie helped me pick out some colours for the pockets on my knitting needle case, which was really good of her because I think left to my own devices I would have given up and just ordered the exact colours suggested on the example photo on the pattern, even though I don't much like them (too much pink, not to mention a hurts-the-eyes green). Carie is really good at colours and likes choosingyarn study insulation. I've never been overwhelmed by my creative abilities, half the reason I chose knitting was because the instructions are right there, written down by someone else. But to be able to mull it over with the help of a friend was really enjoyable.
Click the picture to see the photo of the yarns we chose on my flickr stream, with notes.
Today I'm pretty shattered, after not just yesterday evening but also a rather energetic night during which I beat Steve up three times. I was dreaming about being chased and, unusually for me, being caught and having to fight off the vampire/grizzly bear/marshmallow blob/killer ants/etc. I've told him to just shove me back. He says he did. Oh well. I'll probably get used to the idea that I don't have the whole bed to myself just as soon as he takes me back home and I have a whole bed to myself again.
edited 14:20 to add tags
A nice, slow afternoon involved playing some Kingdom Of Loathing, in which we're all eagerly anticipating the event of NS13. I would say we're preparing for it, except it's difficult to know how to prepare - a lot of goalposts are being shifted. I play with two characters, one who ascends regularly and tries out different character classes, and one who just gets really really powerful in one class - she's been going for a year but has only just ascended for the first time. I really enjoy exploring the game, and for NS13 I'm putting aside my current gameplay style and trying to get both my characters up to a respectable level so that (hopefully) I will be able to explore all the new content with relative ease.
I apologise that the above paragraph meant nothing to non-KOL-ers.
Anyway, yesterday evening was knitting group in Leamington. It was a nice evening and at first I hoped Steve and I could go on the bike, but then it occurred to me that although I'd be okay on the way there, getting back after sitting and knitting for a couple of hours would be beyond my capabilities. It was a shame because I think Steve has been kind of itching to get on the bike for several days now. Still, he's gone out on it today for a big-long-ride which will probably make him a happy bunny.
I have a really nice time at the knitting group. Everyone's so friendly and welcoming. Carie helped me pick out some colours for the pockets on my knitting needle case, which was really good of her because I think left to my own devices I would have given up and just ordered the exact colours suggested on the example photo on the pattern, even though I don't much like them (too much pink, not to mention a hurts-the-eyes green). Carie is really good at colours and likes choosing
Click the picture to see the photo of the yarns we chose on my flickr stream, with notes.
Today I'm pretty shattered, after not just yesterday evening but also a rather energetic night during which I beat Steve up three times. I was dreaming about being chased and, unusually for me, being caught and having to fight off the vampire/grizzly bear/marshmallow blob/killer ants/etc. I've told him to just shove me back. He says he did. Oh well. I'll probably get used to the idea that I don't have the whole bed to myself just as soon as he takes me back home and I have a whole bed to myself again.
edited 14:20 to add tags
Monday, May 28, 2007
Good Things Come...
At Steve's at the moment. I woke up this morning at about 7:30am in quite a bit of pain, and also rather hungry. I spent half an hour stretching, rolled myself off the bed and wobbled out of the bedroom to the bathroom.
Mistake. It's suddenly got very cold. Our bedroom was warm enough - two warm people sleeping in it all night with the doors and windows closed will do that - but as soon as I opened the bedroom door, the chill hit me and my already sore, inadequately stretched muscles just slammed tense. My plans of morning-routine-ness dissolved, I went to the loo (*waves at people doing dodgy google searches*) and then back into bed as fast as I could.
In bed, and gently stretching to not much avail, I considered the options. I must take painkillers. To take painkillers, I must eat something. To eat something, I must go downstairs (this is the big benefit of the flat). To go downstairs, I will have to deal with the cold again, so I must put some clothes on. To put some clothes on, I need a certain amount of movement, of flexibility. I carried on stretching as best I could for about an hour, by which point things were as good as they were getting. Time to get dressed.
I got dressed carefully, which goes like this: Socks first, done sitting on the floor, and an outsize thick cotton t-shirt (easier than anything tight or anything with buttons), arms first, in front of me rather than in the air, and then gently over my head. Then sit on the edge of the bed, and dangle my pants from one hand while using the other hand to pull my leg up and hook my foot into the appropriate leg-hole. Repeat for the other side. Still sitting, attempt the same manoeuver for my jeans. Fail miserably. Fall off bed. Wrench already-sore back. Yelp. Steve wakes. Reassure Steve, and clamber back onto the bed, pause to get head together, and try again. Succeed. Half-roll along the edge of the bed to a standing position, supporting myself with hands on the bed. Stand properly, pull up pants and jeans. Deep breath. Check for mobile phone (in case of emergency) and painkillers and I'm good to go.
Dressed, the next task was to get down the stairs. There was no way I could safely walk it, so sliding down on my bum it was. Each stair I bumped down jarred my back and I had to stop three times before I reached the bottom. My walking stick and slippers were there waiting and I levered myself up without too much trouble, and on into the kitchen.
The first thing I did was flick on the heating. Then I got myself a glass of Innocent smoothie, my favourite strawberry and banana one. A glassfull contains 19 grapes, 10 strawberries, half a banana, and a squeeze of orange and lemon juice. That's got to be a couple of the five-a-day, and it tastes nice too. Highly recommended. To combat the health, I spread a slice of bread with Nutella, which I also recommend, and sat down to eat. Mostly this went well, until I dropped a piece of chocolate-smeared bread onto my jeans. Sticky side down, obviously. Still, it's easier to put jeans in the wash than to clean a carpet, so no harm done.
Thus fed, I swallowed the painkillers and wondered what came next - this was as far as my planning had got. I couldn't curl up on the sofa because of the chocolate spread on my jeans. I looked at the kettle, but although I really wanted a cuppa, I didn't like my chances for not pouring boiling water all over myself. My books and laptop and so on were all upstairs, so climbing it would have to be. Ouch. That is all. By the time I was halfway up, all ideas of laptops and books were gone from my head. I got to the top and lay on the carpet for a while, waiting for the throbbing to stop. Then I pushed off the jeans and crawled back into bed.
Steve is a wonderful, wonderful man. He was half-asleep still, but he wrapped me up in warmness and put lovely hot hands on the worst bits of pain, my neck and my back. The first stage of the painkillers began to take effect and I honestly felt that I was just going to evaporate away like a cloud of steam from a kettle (I still had that cuppa on my mind). All the cold and hard and struggle started to be slowly but surely replaced by warmth and soft and relaxy goodness. The pain was still extremely present, but it just didn't matter quite so much. Being "looked after" like that doesn't make me any less ill, but it makes it much easier for me to manage.
Of course, it couldn't last, it never does. After a while I simply HAD to start moving and stretching again. I don't want to wake him up, so I've come through here. But, I'm all happy in a haze of codiene and cuddles.
I reserve the right to come back and edit this post when I'm not quite so out of my tree.
Mistake. It's suddenly got very cold. Our bedroom was warm enough - two warm people sleeping in it all night with the doors and windows closed will do that - but as soon as I opened the bedroom door, the chill hit me and my already sore, inadequately stretched muscles just slammed tense. My plans of morning-routine-ness dissolved, I went to the loo (*waves at people doing dodgy google searches*) and then back into bed as fast as I could.
In bed, and gently stretching to not much avail, I considered the options. I must take painkillers. To take painkillers, I must eat something. To eat something, I must go downstairs (this is the big benefit of the flat). To go downstairs, I will have to deal with the cold again, so I must put some clothes on. To put some clothes on, I need a certain amount of movement, of flexibility. I carried on stretching as best I could for about an hour, by which point things were as good as they were getting. Time to get dressed.
I got dressed carefully, which goes like this: Socks first, done sitting on the floor, and an outsize thick cotton t-shirt (easier than anything tight or anything with buttons), arms first, in front of me rather than in the air, and then gently over my head. Then sit on the edge of the bed, and dangle my pants from one hand while using the other hand to pull my leg up and hook my foot into the appropriate leg-hole. Repeat for the other side. Still sitting, attempt the same manoeuver for my jeans. Fail miserably. Fall off bed. Wrench already-sore back. Yelp. Steve wakes. Reassure Steve, and clamber back onto the bed, pause to get head together, and try again. Succeed. Half-roll along the edge of the bed to a standing position, supporting myself with hands on the bed. Stand properly, pull up pants and jeans. Deep breath. Check for mobile phone (in case of emergency) and painkillers and I'm good to go.
Dressed, the next task was to get down the stairs. There was no way I could safely walk it, so sliding down on my bum it was. Each stair I bumped down jarred my back and I had to stop three times before I reached the bottom. My walking stick and slippers were there waiting and I levered myself up without too much trouble, and on into the kitchen.
The first thing I did was flick on the heating. Then I got myself a glass of Innocent smoothie, my favourite strawberry and banana one. A glassfull contains 19 grapes, 10 strawberries, half a banana, and a squeeze of orange and lemon juice. That's got to be a couple of the five-a-day, and it tastes nice too. Highly recommended. To combat the health, I spread a slice of bread with Nutella, which I also recommend, and sat down to eat. Mostly this went well, until I dropped a piece of chocolate-smeared bread onto my jeans. Sticky side down, obviously. Still, it's easier to put jeans in the wash than to clean a carpet, so no harm done.
Thus fed, I swallowed the painkillers and wondered what came next - this was as far as my planning had got. I couldn't curl up on the sofa because of the chocolate spread on my jeans. I looked at the kettle, but although I really wanted a cuppa, I didn't like my chances for not pouring boiling water all over myself. My books and laptop and so on were all upstairs, so climbing it would have to be. Ouch. That is all. By the time I was halfway up, all ideas of laptops and books were gone from my head. I got to the top and lay on the carpet for a while, waiting for the throbbing to stop. Then I pushed off the jeans and crawled back into bed.
Steve is a wonderful, wonderful man. He was half-asleep still, but he wrapped me up in warmness and put lovely hot hands on the worst bits of pain, my neck and my back. The first stage of the painkillers began to take effect and I honestly felt that I was just going to evaporate away like a cloud of steam from a kettle (I still had that cuppa on my mind). All the cold and hard and struggle started to be slowly but surely replaced by warmth and soft and relaxy goodness. The pain was still extremely present, but it just didn't matter quite so much. Being "looked after" like that doesn't make me any less ill, but it makes it much easier for me to manage.
Of course, it couldn't last, it never does. After a while I simply HAD to start moving and stretching again. I don't want to wake him up, so I've come through here. But, I'm all happy in a haze of codiene and cuddles.
I reserve the right to come back and edit this post when I'm not quite so out of my tree.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Internet Addiction?
On May 9th I mentioned a number of half-written posts I had and asked which ones I should make into full posts. The answer seemed to be "all of them, why not?" so here's the first. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's the most complete one of the lot, and I'm not having a great time for concentration at the moment so bah, it'll do.
While aimlessly reading through the BBC Magazine Monitor's "100 things we didn't know last year", I came across this article.
Apparently more than one in eight adults in the (US) study were internet addicts. Signs of addiction include:
- Finding it hard to stay away from the Internet for several days at a time
- Often staying online longer than intended
- Having seen a need "at some point" to cut down on Internet use
- Attempting to conceal Internet use
- Using the Internet to escape problems or "relieve negative mood"
- Relationships suffering from excessive Internet use
Lists like this cover most forms of addiction. Just read the list above substituting "alcohol" or "heroin" or "gambling" or "bingeing on chocolate" for "Internet".
For the record, I freely admit to finding it hard to stay away from the internet for more than a day or two, and I come online to "relieve negative mood" - it's something I enjoy doing, in the same way as I enjoy a nice bath, or a cuppa with a friend. I'm "online" most of the time, most days, but while the computer and msn and so on are "online" I'm quite probably curled up on the sofa snoozing, or filling out a form, or tidying up around the flat. I do my computer-stuff in many short bursts rather than one long stint. I've never tried to conceal my usage, and I'm pretty certain my relationships haven't suffered - quite the opposite! I'm hazy on the idea of "non-essential use". If I order groceries online because it's easier for me than going to a shop, is that essential or not? If Steve plays an online game for half an hour to relax after a crappy day at work, is his relaxation essential? Is reading the news essential? Is contact with long-distance relatives essential?
Even if we get an idea of what is essential use and what is non-essential, but reasonable use, we then still end up on the same old cycle of trying to figure out at which point the use is defined as an addiction. Where's the line that makes it a problem, or possibly even a pathology?
It may partly depend on what the activity is. I know many people who like to read books. They wouldn't want to spend several days without reading a book. They become immersed in a book at bedtime and then realise it's 4am and they've been reading much longer than intended. They have realised they have more books than shelf-space and decided to get rid of a few. They read books to "escape from reality" or because it relaxes them, or cheers them up. But no one would dream of telling them they are addicts, or that they have a problem, or that they must empty their houses of books and from now on they can only read road signs. You just don't do that with Reading Books. Is it reasonable to do it with Using the Internet? Writing diaries is another one. If Samuel Pepys was alive today and writing his memoirs in daily blog form, would he be castigated as an internet addict with "compulsive behaviour issues" as these researchers put it?
It also depends to what extent the activity is taken. For instance, it is normal, even desirable behaviour to keep one's home clean. I also know people who like to take pride in keeping their houses neat and clean. Rather than "oh no, housework, it's got to be done but I wish I didn't have to do it," they actually quite enjoy tidying a room, putting things in the proper places, polishing the surfaces, fluffing the cushions and looking at the results with a sense of deep satisfaction. Then there are those who feel distinctly uncomfortable in an untidy room - people who come to your house for a cup of tea and can't help themselves from lining up your remote controls in order of size on the coffee table, or even say "I'll just rinse my cup out," and then start washing up your breakfast things from that morning. And then there are those who compulsively and constantly deep-clean everything. A friend of mine got burns on her legs at someone's house because she hadn't been warned to wipe the bleach off the toilet seat before sitting down - the householder in question reapplied the bleach several times a day. Few people would argue a statement that this last example shows signs of a problem. But at which point along the spectrum does the "problem" status apply?
I think perhaps the line between a hobby or interest, and an addiction, is when it has a real impact on other people. I'm having trouble imagining someone shoplifting their food and mugging people so that they can pay their line rental or get another couple of gig of bandwidth... but I can, for instance, imagine a child with a full nappy and an empty bottle sticking their fingers in sockets while their parent is at the other end of the house having "just one more f5", so maybe internet addiction isn't such an outlandish concept.
Hopefully someone will prod me before I get too sucked in.
While aimlessly reading through the BBC Magazine Monitor's "100 things we didn't know last year", I came across this article.
Apparently more than one in eight adults in the (US) study were internet addicts. Signs of addiction include:
- Finding it hard to stay away from the Internet for several days at a time
- Often staying online longer than intended
- Having seen a need "at some point" to cut down on Internet use
- Attempting to conceal Internet use
- Using the Internet to escape problems or "relieve negative mood"
- Relationships suffering from excessive Internet use
Lists like this cover most forms of addiction. Just read the list above substituting "alcohol" or "heroin" or "gambling" or "bingeing on chocolate" for "Internet".
For the record, I freely admit to finding it hard to stay away from the internet for more than a day or two, and I come online to "relieve negative mood" - it's something I enjoy doing, in the same way as I enjoy a nice bath, or a cuppa with a friend. I'm "online" most of the time, most days, but while the computer and msn and so on are "online" I'm quite probably curled up on the sofa snoozing, or filling out a form, or tidying up around the flat. I do my computer-stuff in many short bursts rather than one long stint. I've never tried to conceal my usage, and I'm pretty certain my relationships haven't suffered - quite the opposite! I'm hazy on the idea of "non-essential use". If I order groceries online because it's easier for me than going to a shop, is that essential or not? If Steve plays an online game for half an hour to relax after a crappy day at work, is his relaxation essential? Is reading the news essential? Is contact with long-distance relatives essential?
Even if we get an idea of what is essential use and what is non-essential, but reasonable use, we then still end up on the same old cycle of trying to figure out at which point the use is defined as an addiction. Where's the line that makes it a problem, or possibly even a pathology?
It may partly depend on what the activity is. I know many people who like to read books. They wouldn't want to spend several days without reading a book. They become immersed in a book at bedtime and then realise it's 4am and they've been reading much longer than intended. They have realised they have more books than shelf-space and decided to get rid of a few. They read books to "escape from reality" or because it relaxes them, or cheers them up. But no one would dream of telling them they are addicts, or that they have a problem, or that they must empty their houses of books and from now on they can only read road signs. You just don't do that with Reading Books. Is it reasonable to do it with Using the Internet? Writing diaries is another one. If Samuel Pepys was alive today and writing his memoirs in daily blog form, would he be castigated as an internet addict with "compulsive behaviour issues" as these researchers put it?
It also depends to what extent the activity is taken. For instance, it is normal, even desirable behaviour to keep one's home clean. I also know people who like to take pride in keeping their houses neat and clean. Rather than "oh no, housework, it's got to be done but I wish I didn't have to do it," they actually quite enjoy tidying a room, putting things in the proper places, polishing the surfaces, fluffing the cushions and looking at the results with a sense of deep satisfaction. Then there are those who feel distinctly uncomfortable in an untidy room - people who come to your house for a cup of tea and can't help themselves from lining up your remote controls in order of size on the coffee table, or even say "I'll just rinse my cup out," and then start washing up your breakfast things from that morning. And then there are those who compulsively and constantly deep-clean everything. A friend of mine got burns on her legs at someone's house because she hadn't been warned to wipe the bleach off the toilet seat before sitting down - the householder in question reapplied the bleach several times a day. Few people would argue a statement that this last example shows signs of a problem. But at which point along the spectrum does the "problem" status apply?
I think perhaps the line between a hobby or interest, and an addiction, is when it has a real impact on other people. I'm having trouble imagining someone shoplifting their food and mugging people so that they can pay their line rental or get another couple of gig of bandwidth... but I can, for instance, imagine a child with a full nappy and an empty bottle sticking their fingers in sockets while their parent is at the other end of the house having "just one more f5", so maybe internet addiction isn't such an outlandish concept.
Hopefully someone will prod me before I get too sucked in.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
What to write?
First, a knitting update. I haven't stopped, I've just not been doing anything I felt was worth blogging about. I'm working on a needle case (yeah, a knitted knitting needle case, slightly recursive) and although the pockets are all different and use all sorts of different stitches and techniques I haven't played with yet, all I've been doing for the last couple of weeks is the BIG outer panel, which is going to be something like 27inches square. I've done 25inches of it, I'm on my fourth hank of wool. But I have this horrifying feeling that I've misconstrued an instruction right way back by the start, like, four or five rows in, and that "work four more rows even" may have meant knit row, purl row, knit row, purl row, rather than knit row, knit row, knit row, knit row. I don't know. I remember asking the peoples at the knitting group what it meant but I can't remember exactly what whoever helped me said and I know that, especially when I'm tired, I have a tremendous capacity to get things wrong.
Not that it overly matters. All it means is that one of the foldovers will be a bit... ridged. The main part is perfect - all knits, purls, slips, increases and decreases present and correct. Plus, it's a bloody big piece of fabric that I can totally hold up in my hands and say "I made this".
Anyway, tomorrow I'll go see mum and she'll have a look at it for me.
Steve should be coming to see me at the weekend, although we don't yet know which day, or when, or how long for. It is probably very bad that, although most of my excitement is "yay! I'm going to see Steve and have ALL the hugs!" there is a bit of me that is really quite looking forwards to getting my hands on the yarn he picked up for me from Web of Wool.
Knitting-voodoo-based gibbering ends.
So, I have a lot of half-written non-knitting posts as notepad files on my lappie desktop, but I don't know what ones to finish and post. Mostly they're ones that I started while in the maximum grip of my painkillers - there's something about codiene that, for some unknown reason, makes me chatter. Total verbal diahorrea. Anyway, here's some bits, and if any of you think I should expand on any of them, tell me.
1. Internet Addiction. I started writing this one at New Year. There was an article I had read about internet addiction and in this post, I look at their "signs of addiction", think about how they apply to me, and also consider where the line should be drawn between a hobby and an addiction, and how that line varies depending on what exactly the activity is.
2. The Baby Thing. About how the change in my health and personal circumstances has led to a different perspective on my lifelong desire to have a family, and things I'm having to consider which wouldn't have occurred to me before - some of the potential problems, and some of the potential solutions. Disabled or otherwise, I still intend to raise a child.
3. When Naps Go Bad. For anyone who thinks they envy me for being able to lie around all day snoozing. A warts-and-all picture of what quite often happens to me when all I have done is sleep for an hour or so.
4. Where Did My Day Go? About trying to trim down your activity levels to the bare essentials, how to define "essential", and how it compares to a more typical lifestyle of someone who is not yet disabled.
Not that it overly matters. All it means is that one of the foldovers will be a bit... ridged. The main part is perfect - all knits, purls, slips, increases and decreases present and correct. Plus, it's a bloody big piece of fabric that I can totally hold up in my hands and say "I made this".
Anyway, tomorrow I'll go see mum and she'll have a look at it for me.
Steve should be coming to see me at the weekend, although we don't yet know which day, or when, or how long for. It is probably very bad that, although most of my excitement is "yay! I'm going to see Steve and have ALL the hugs!" there is a bit of me that is really quite looking forwards to getting my hands on the yarn he picked up for me from Web of Wool.
Knitting-voodoo-based gibbering ends.
So, I have a lot of half-written non-knitting posts as notepad files on my lappie desktop, but I don't know what ones to finish and post. Mostly they're ones that I started while in the maximum grip of my painkillers - there's something about codiene that, for some unknown reason, makes me chatter. Total verbal diahorrea. Anyway, here's some bits, and if any of you think I should expand on any of them, tell me.
1. Internet Addiction. I started writing this one at New Year. There was an article I had read about internet addiction and in this post, I look at their "signs of addiction", think about how they apply to me, and also consider where the line should be drawn between a hobby and an addiction, and how that line varies depending on what exactly the activity is.
2. The Baby Thing. About how the change in my health and personal circumstances has led to a different perspective on my lifelong desire to have a family, and things I'm having to consider which wouldn't have occurred to me before - some of the potential problems, and some of the potential solutions. Disabled or otherwise, I still intend to raise a child.
3. When Naps Go Bad. For anyone who thinks they envy me for being able to lie around all day snoozing. A warts-and-all picture of what quite often happens to me when all I have done is sleep for an hour or so.
4. Where Did My Day Go? About trying to trim down your activity levels to the bare essentials, how to define "essential", and how it compares to a more typical lifestyle of someone who is not yet disabled.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The weather seems to have given me a bit of a knock so I haven't been about too much. I've been spending far more time than is healthy lying down, wide awake, feverish and full of painkillers, with my mind wandering.
The chain of thought started with Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, which was dramatised on SkyOne last Christmas and which I recently bought on DVD. From there we went to the Coca-Cola Christmas adverts.
I also started thinking about the type of adverts that take a well-known song, and then put their own lyrics on it, like this Weetabix advert.
The next stage was how in school, up until I was about 13, we had to sing hymns in assembly each day, as well as any amount of carol concerts. Lots of songs we sang had "alternative" lyrics. "While sheperds washed their socks by night", and "we three kings of orient are trying to light a rubber cigar", "good king Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen, a snowball hit him on the snout and made it all uneven" and hundreds of others I'm sure you can remember.
And from THERE, final leap, I fell into a sort of half-sleep full of people in a church. A priest at the front burbling a sermon, congregation variously dozing, or fidgeting, or looking disapprovingly at those who were dozing or fidgeting. The bit where the priest says something and the congregation answer in a zombie monotone.
"May the Lord be with you"
"A n d a l s o w i t h y o u"
"Let us lift up our hearts"
"w e l i f t t h e m u p t o t h e L o r d"
(Catholic primary school, this crud is etched on my brain)
The organ plays a chord, people cough and shuffle to their feet. Upon which they launch into This Bloody Frosties Advert. Complete with jumping up and down.
My mind scares me sometimes.
Oh, and as this post has far too many YouTube links in it already, I may as well stick in another one. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Nintendo Opera.
The chain of thought started with Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, which was dramatised on SkyOne last Christmas and which I recently bought on DVD. From there we went to the Coca-Cola Christmas adverts.
I also started thinking about the type of adverts that take a well-known song, and then put their own lyrics on it, like this Weetabix advert.
The next stage was how in school, up until I was about 13, we had to sing hymns in assembly each day, as well as any amount of carol concerts. Lots of songs we sang had "alternative" lyrics. "While sheperds washed their socks by night", and "we three kings of orient are trying to light a rubber cigar", "good king Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen, a snowball hit him on the snout and made it all uneven" and hundreds of others I'm sure you can remember.
And from THERE, final leap, I fell into a sort of half-sleep full of people in a church. A priest at the front burbling a sermon, congregation variously dozing, or fidgeting, or looking disapprovingly at those who were dozing or fidgeting. The bit where the priest says something and the congregation answer in a zombie monotone.
"May the Lord be with you"
"A n d a l s o w i t h y o u"
"Let us lift up our hearts"
"w e l i f t t h e m u p t o t h e L o r d"
(Catholic primary school, this crud is etched on my brain)
The organ plays a chord, people cough and shuffle to their feet. Upon which they launch into This Bloody Frosties Advert. Complete with jumping up and down.
My mind scares me sometimes.
Oh, and as this post has far too many YouTube links in it already, I may as well stick in another one. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Nintendo Opera.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Dagnabit
Two days!! Two blasted days of doing only the bare minimum - convenience food, minimal washing-up efforts, damn near militarised regular breaks and naps, resistance of an overwhelming compulsion to go shopping and the hell with the consequences...
Why? Well, Pip, the Littlun, and myself are all plan-free today, no doctor's appointments or playgroup or family commitments or anything. So earlier in the week, we thought, let's have a day out again, like last summer's trip to Banham Zoo.
Places we're considering include Pettitts Animal Adventure Park, or Fritton Lake, or perhaps Colchester Zoo. Of course, a day out like that requires us all to be well-rested. I have to be prepared to spend several hours solid "up and doing things", but it's poor Pip who really gets it in the shorts - pushing me in the wheelchair while carrying Littlun in the backback/chasing after Littlun on foot, plus all the driving while Littlun and I are likely to be zonked out asleep on the drive back, and possibly the drive there too.
I phoned Pip late yesterday afternoon and we agreed that the most likely plan was Pettitts. But I've just got up, bright and early, and it is GREY out there.
It's only 8am, so I'm hoping that the BBC weather is right and it's going to be mostly sunny with just a bit of (white) cloud, but seriously, Mary's Window Weather Report does not look promising.
On the bright side (well, the drizzly side), we do have Adventure Island nearby, and it's not school holidays so we should be alright there.
Oh, and I had the weirdest dreams last night... I was running around all different types of places (the flat, a stately home, a shop, a restaurant, all indoors though) painting "I am" statements on the wall with my Big Pot Of Paint and an enormous brush. You know, "I am happy" or "I am brunette" or "I am Steve's girlfriend", that sort of thing.
Update 8pm
We ended up with the master plan of going to the East Point Pavillion which houses a Tourist Information Centre, a small restaurant, and a big indoor play area. Pip took the Littlun into the play area while I collected up an assortment of leaflets for family days out - basically everything for the area that wasn't a stately home, museum, or other obviously non-two-year-old-friendly venue.
I couldn't really participate a great deal, unfortunately. The Pavillion has three floors. The ground floor contains the Tourist Information, the restaurant, the kitchens, and the loos, as well as the baby soft-play area and a couple of ball-pools where the big slides finish. Then the entirety of the first AND second floors are more of the main playground. Pip got a good workout - Littlun is at that awkward size where he's definitely too big for the baby area, but too small to manage some of the larger obstacles, and too adventurous to stay within eyesight of the adult seating, but too young for Pip to be able to just leave him to it completely while we sit on the ground floor with a cuppa. Still, the place was practically empty, and the three of us had a wonderful fight in the ball-pool. After about an hour Littlun was quite worn out, so we went and got some Unlucky Fried Chicken for lunch and then back to their house for a nap.
Not quite the day out we had hoped for, but a good day nevertheless. And now I'm shattered.
Why? Well, Pip, the Littlun, and myself are all plan-free today, no doctor's appointments or playgroup or family commitments or anything. So earlier in the week, we thought, let's have a day out again, like last summer's trip to Banham Zoo.
Places we're considering include Pettitts Animal Adventure Park, or Fritton Lake, or perhaps Colchester Zoo. Of course, a day out like that requires us all to be well-rested. I have to be prepared to spend several hours solid "up and doing things", but it's poor Pip who really gets it in the shorts - pushing me in the wheelchair while carrying Littlun in the backback/chasing after Littlun on foot, plus all the driving while Littlun and I are likely to be zonked out asleep on the drive back, and possibly the drive there too.
I phoned Pip late yesterday afternoon and we agreed that the most likely plan was Pettitts. But I've just got up, bright and early, and it is GREY out there.
It's only 8am, so I'm hoping that the BBC weather is right and it's going to be mostly sunny with just a bit of (white) cloud, but seriously, Mary's Window Weather Report does not look promising.
On the bright side (well, the drizzly side), we do have Adventure Island nearby, and it's not school holidays so we should be alright there.
Oh, and I had the weirdest dreams last night... I was running around all different types of places (the flat, a stately home, a shop, a restaurant, all indoors though) painting "I am" statements on the wall with my Big Pot Of Paint and an enormous brush. You know, "I am happy" or "I am brunette" or "I am Steve's girlfriend", that sort of thing.
Update 8pm
We ended up with the master plan of going to the East Point Pavillion which houses a Tourist Information Centre, a small restaurant, and a big indoor play area. Pip took the Littlun into the play area while I collected up an assortment of leaflets for family days out - basically everything for the area that wasn't a stately home, museum, or other obviously non-two-year-old-friendly venue.
I couldn't really participate a great deal, unfortunately. The Pavillion has three floors. The ground floor contains the Tourist Information, the restaurant, the kitchens, and the loos, as well as the baby soft-play area and a couple of ball-pools where the big slides finish. Then the entirety of the first AND second floors are more of the main playground. Pip got a good workout - Littlun is at that awkward size where he's definitely too big for the baby area, but too small to manage some of the larger obstacles, and too adventurous to stay within eyesight of the adult seating, but too young for Pip to be able to just leave him to it completely while we sit on the ground floor with a cuppa. Still, the place was practically empty, and the three of us had a wonderful fight in the ball-pool. After about an hour Littlun was quite worn out, so we went and got some Unlucky Fried Chicken for lunch and then back to their house for a nap.
Not quite the day out we had hoped for, but a good day nevertheless. And now I'm shattered.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
New Doctor - a follow up
A while ago I mentioned my concerns about how I am renewing my Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and they want a report from my GP, but my GP is on maternity leave, so the GP's report will be filled in by a locum.
Unhappily, it seems that my fears were not completely unfounded.
Today was the day that Dr M (the locum) had asked me to come in for a double appointment so that she could fill in her part of the form. I went into her office, exchanged greetings, asked how she was, and sat down, just like always. She scrolled through my notes on the computer for a brief moment - perhaps five seconds by the clock - and then scrawled across the first box, the one asking what my illness is... "Anxiety and depression".
Sure, I sometimes get a bit anxious. I sometimes get a bit depressed. But not clinically so. I was given a low dose of antidepressant in the early stages of my illness. I did feel, and tell my GP I was feeling, both anxious and depressed about the new limitations on my way of life. She told me she was prescribing the antidepressant to cushion the blow of losing my job/hobbies/lifestyle, and because "sometimes it helps with ME. It doesn't hurt to try." In time I came to terms with things, and I've now come off the antidepressants, best part of a year ago, perfectly successfully - an opinion my real GP, Dr W, shares. If she felt I required treatment for anxiety or depression, she would refer me for it and I would attend it. I have absolute confidence in Dr W to do stuff like that.
I try not to swear on this blog, but with all that in mind, where the shuddering FUCK does this new girl get off, casually writing an inaccurate, or at best, incomplete diagnosis across a form that has a big impact on my life?
Dr M then cheerfully moved on to the next part of the form, that asks about any specialists I see. Asking me, but looking at the computer notes, she saw that I went to the specialist ME/CFS clinic at one of the local hospitals, and that there is a report from Dr Terry Mitchell, an expert in the field. Only when she saw that Dr Mitchell himself had seen me, assessed me, and confirmed in writing and in so many words that I *do* have ME/CFS and *don't* have depression, did she go back and add "CFS" to the box on the form asking for my diagnoses. However, it's in small writing, tucked underneath the large central "anxiety and depression", which hasn't been crossed out.
From then on, the consultation felt like some kind of horrible parody. She spoke too quickly, confused the hell out of me, and I couldn't get my words in the right order or quick enough to stop her. She was looking at the form muttering "washing, feeding, [unintelligible], getting dressed, no, you don't have any problems with those..." and I only just managed to say in time "yes I do!" - she looked like she was going to cross through the box. A little later, she stated "I can't imagine you have any trouble being aware of danger," and I told her to tell that to the friends who keep having to pull me back from the road because I'm concentrating so hard on walking that I forget to pay attention to traffic. It was all going too fast, I didn't get a chance to describe any of my symptoms properly or adequately explain any of the problems I have.
I'm fairly sure my mobility is part of that form. It was Dr W who first suggested to me that I should get a wheelchair and a mobility scooter - Dr M, however, doesn't even know I have them or the difference they make to my life, and she certainly didn't ask me anything about what walking is like for me.
I'm fairly sure that equipment I use is part of that form. Dr W has spent time discussing with me all sorts of tips and equipment for remembering medication and managing stuff, but Dr M has assumed I'm automagically fine with it all.
I'm fairly sure that my care needs are part of that form. Dr W knows the extent of care and support I get from my family and friends, because she's my family GP. Dr M was filling out the form murmuring things like "you're pretty much independent then, yes..."
Dr W lets me bloody well finish a sentence. Dr M starts writing my answers in before I've opened my mouth.
After just under ten minutes of this gobsmacking whirlwind of misapprehensions (oh, looks like we didn't need a double appointment after all), Dr M squiggled her signature on the form and clipped it back together. God knows what she's written on it. It should get faxed to the DWP late today or some time tomorrow (so I'll call them in a week or so to make sure it's definitely been recieved, as they're notorious for "losing" documents). Then she made it entirely, bluntly clear that the consultation was over, and even seemed impatient with me struggling to stand - although I may have imagined that, as I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by then.
As I waited outside the surgery for a taxi home, the headmuddle resolved itself first into worry (oh no, her report will be completely different to what I've said on my forms because I didn't explain myself properly) and then into anger (godammit, her report will be completely different from the actual truth because she wouldn't listen to me or read the notes properly).
By the time I got home, I'd got the anger into annoyedness (gah, her report will be significantly different to what Dr W would have written) and worked out a plan. I've called the DWP, explained the situation, and asked what we could do. The call-taker asked if I wanted to request that they ignore the report, but I said no (because I understand that she's attaching Dr Mitchell's report from the CFS clinic, and that IS worth a read to anyone assessing me). But she put a note on my file, and read it back to me to confirm it, to the effect that I have "raised concerns" about my GP's report being from a locum, rather than the GP who manages my illness, and that I do not feel the locum is fully informed or understanding of my condition.
I'm knackered, so sorry that this wasn't my best ever post. I'm also a bit concerned that if my application is turned down on the basis of Dr M's assumptions, I don't know how I'll manage to see through an appeal. I really could have done without this. I don't think I'm the illest person on earth and I have no desire to play the system, but I would like the doctor I see to listen to me, and I want to receive the benefits I am reasonably entitled to.
Unhappily, it seems that my fears were not completely unfounded.
Today was the day that Dr M (the locum) had asked me to come in for a double appointment so that she could fill in her part of the form. I went into her office, exchanged greetings, asked how she was, and sat down, just like always. She scrolled through my notes on the computer for a brief moment - perhaps five seconds by the clock - and then scrawled across the first box, the one asking what my illness is... "Anxiety and depression".
Sure, I sometimes get a bit anxious. I sometimes get a bit depressed. But not clinically so. I was given a low dose of antidepressant in the early stages of my illness. I did feel, and tell my GP I was feeling, both anxious and depressed about the new limitations on my way of life. She told me she was prescribing the antidepressant to cushion the blow of losing my job/hobbies/lifestyle, and because "sometimes it helps with ME. It doesn't hurt to try." In time I came to terms with things, and I've now come off the antidepressants, best part of a year ago, perfectly successfully - an opinion my real GP, Dr W, shares. If she felt I required treatment for anxiety or depression, she would refer me for it and I would attend it. I have absolute confidence in Dr W to do stuff like that.
I try not to swear on this blog, but with all that in mind, where the shuddering FUCK does this new girl get off, casually writing an inaccurate, or at best, incomplete diagnosis across a form that has a big impact on my life?
Dr M then cheerfully moved on to the next part of the form, that asks about any specialists I see. Asking me, but looking at the computer notes, she saw that I went to the specialist ME/CFS clinic at one of the local hospitals, and that there is a report from Dr Terry Mitchell, an expert in the field. Only when she saw that Dr Mitchell himself had seen me, assessed me, and confirmed in writing and in so many words that I *do* have ME/CFS and *don't* have depression, did she go back and add "CFS" to the box on the form asking for my diagnoses. However, it's in small writing, tucked underneath the large central "anxiety and depression", which hasn't been crossed out.
From then on, the consultation felt like some kind of horrible parody. She spoke too quickly, confused the hell out of me, and I couldn't get my words in the right order or quick enough to stop her. She was looking at the form muttering "washing, feeding, [unintelligible], getting dressed, no, you don't have any problems with those..." and I only just managed to say in time "yes I do!" - she looked like she was going to cross through the box. A little later, she stated "I can't imagine you have any trouble being aware of danger," and I told her to tell that to the friends who keep having to pull me back from the road because I'm concentrating so hard on walking that I forget to pay attention to traffic. It was all going too fast, I didn't get a chance to describe any of my symptoms properly or adequately explain any of the problems I have.
I'm fairly sure my mobility is part of that form. It was Dr W who first suggested to me that I should get a wheelchair and a mobility scooter - Dr M, however, doesn't even know I have them or the difference they make to my life, and she certainly didn't ask me anything about what walking is like for me.
I'm fairly sure that equipment I use is part of that form. Dr W has spent time discussing with me all sorts of tips and equipment for remembering medication and managing stuff, but Dr M has assumed I'm automagically fine with it all.
I'm fairly sure that my care needs are part of that form. Dr W knows the extent of care and support I get from my family and friends, because she's my family GP. Dr M was filling out the form murmuring things like "you're pretty much independent then, yes..."
Dr W lets me bloody well finish a sentence. Dr M starts writing my answers in before I've opened my mouth.
After just under ten minutes of this gobsmacking whirlwind of misapprehensions (oh, looks like we didn't need a double appointment after all), Dr M squiggled her signature on the form and clipped it back together. God knows what she's written on it. It should get faxed to the DWP late today or some time tomorrow (so I'll call them in a week or so to make sure it's definitely been recieved, as they're notorious for "losing" documents). Then she made it entirely, bluntly clear that the consultation was over, and even seemed impatient with me struggling to stand - although I may have imagined that, as I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by then.
As I waited outside the surgery for a taxi home, the headmuddle resolved itself first into worry (oh no, her report will be completely different to what I've said on my forms because I didn't explain myself properly) and then into anger (godammit, her report will be completely different from the actual truth because she wouldn't listen to me or read the notes properly).
By the time I got home, I'd got the anger into annoyedness (gah, her report will be significantly different to what Dr W would have written) and worked out a plan. I've called the DWP, explained the situation, and asked what we could do. The call-taker asked if I wanted to request that they ignore the report, but I said no (because I understand that she's attaching Dr Mitchell's report from the CFS clinic, and that IS worth a read to anyone assessing me). But she put a note on my file, and read it back to me to confirm it, to the effect that I have "raised concerns" about my GP's report being from a locum, rather than the GP who manages my illness, and that I do not feel the locum is fully informed or understanding of my condition.
I'm knackered, so sorry that this wasn't my best ever post. I'm also a bit concerned that if my application is turned down on the basis of Dr M's assumptions, I don't know how I'll manage to see through an appeal. I really could have done without this. I don't think I'm the illest person on earth and I have no desire to play the system, but I would like the doctor I see to listen to me, and I want to receive the benefits I am reasonably entitled to.
Blogging Against Disablism Day
Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day. I wanted to write something for it, unfortunately I just haven't been able to. Even when my mind's been clear, I've been seriously lacking in ideas.
But, if you go and have a look, there are posts coming in about all sorts of disability issues.
I also really, really recommend that if you only click one link today it is this one, a post from last year by Lady Bracknell's Editor. It's not very long but explains something very important.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Walking Stick?
There's a restaurant here that I like to go to. It's quiet, they do lovely food, have generally good service, aren't stupidly expensive, and manage to be family-friendly while not being a kiddie restaurant. The layout is of lots of different "rooms", up and down various flights of stairs, but they've made the effort with accessibility - the main entrance and bar (and the toilets) are ground-floor and totally accessible, and a combination of Stannah stairlifts and ramps/level access fire escapes mean that while a wheelchair user can't access every table in the place, they can use most of them. Usually they ask if I can manage the stairs and make an effort to seat us at a table with as few stairs to contend with as possible. Yesterday, Pip had a few hours without the Littlun, so we decided to go there for a spot of lunch.
Mary and Pip enter the restaurant, and approach the reception desk.
PIP: Good afternoon, could we have a table for two, please?
The waitress stands in silence for a few seconds, staring at Mary and Pip in utter shock or possibly disbelief, before turning and running off up the stairs.
PIP: Was it something I said?
MARY: Maybe "table for two" has become a slang term for something unspeakable.
PIP: (peeking up the stairs) I hope she's okay.
Enter the waitress, slowly making her way down the stairs with much trepidation. She stares at Mary and Pip in silence.
PIP: Is everything alright?
The waitress continues to stand silently. Mary and Pip start looking about for another staff member, to alert them that their colleague may be unwell.
WAITRESS: (slowly, pointing) Walking stick!
(pause)
MARY: (baffled) Yes, yes it is.
WAITRESS: (pointing) Out there. Fire door.
MARY: Excuse me?
WAITRESS: Stairs!
PIP: You want us to go in the fire door out there?
The waitress nods and without waiting for a response, runs off up the stairs. Mary and Pip exchange a glance, shrug, and make their way back outside, round to the fire door, which is open, and into the restaurant, where the waitress is beaming proudly by a table with two menus on it.
Strangely - or perhaps not - once we were seated, the waitress had a full and complete grasp of conversational English, albeit with a lifelong Suffolk accent.
Mary and Pip enter the restaurant, and approach the reception desk.
PIP: Good afternoon, could we have a table for two, please?
The waitress stands in silence for a few seconds, staring at Mary and Pip in utter shock or possibly disbelief, before turning and running off up the stairs.
PIP: Was it something I said?
MARY: Maybe "table for two" has become a slang term for something unspeakable.
PIP: (peeking up the stairs) I hope she's okay.
Enter the waitress, slowly making her way down the stairs with much trepidation. She stares at Mary and Pip in silence.
PIP: Is everything alright?
The waitress continues to stand silently. Mary and Pip start looking about for another staff member, to alert them that their colleague may be unwell.
WAITRESS: (slowly, pointing) Walking stick!
(pause)
MARY: (baffled) Yes, yes it is.
WAITRESS: (pointing) Out there. Fire door.
MARY: Excuse me?
WAITRESS: Stairs!
PIP: You want us to go in the fire door out there?
The waitress nods and without waiting for a response, runs off up the stairs. Mary and Pip exchange a glance, shrug, and make their way back outside, round to the fire door, which is open, and into the restaurant, where the waitress is beaming proudly by a table with two menus on it.
Strangely - or perhaps not - once we were seated, the waitress had a full and complete grasp of conversational English, albeit with a lifelong Suffolk accent.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Knitting and the Unholy Experiment
The last few days have been mostly taken up with knitting activity. This has had two main facets - the Group, and the Unholy Experiment.
The Unholy Experiment was Steve's idea (go on, you can all act surprised now). We were having a Lazy Monday, with no plans to go out or to do anything particularly energetic, partly so I could be ready for Active Tuesday (which turned out a lot more active than I'd imagined). He was fidgeting with small screwdrivers while printing off some study notes, and I was curled up knitting.
Him: Would it be possible to knit on screwdrivers?
Me: I don't see why not.
Him: How geeky would that be, knitting on screwdrivers! X, Y and Z would be so jealous!
Me: (taking screwdrivers) It would be tricky, but definitely possible... hmmm... go grab the orange yarn.
Click on the picture to go to my flickr stream and see more process photographs.
I am pleased to confirm that yes, knitting with screwdrivers is perfectly possible.
We used one Phillips-head and one flat-head, but it would be easier with two Phillips-head screwdrivers. The main problem we encountered was that the screwdrivers are not of a uniform diameter - there's the thin black bit which is just shy of 3mm (US size 3), then the smooth silver bit is 4.5mm (US size 7) and the ridged silver bit, as well as being ridged (gaa) is 5mm (US size 8). We could have overcome this by using larger screwdrivers with handles, but I feel that the weight of the handles would have made knitting even trickier and dropping/fumbling one of them and thus losing stitches even more of a possibility. The second difficulty was avoiding tearing the yarn with the sharp bits. The third problem was that while knitting needles are made to slide comfortably against each other, these scrape. It's not as pleasant a knitting sensation as normal needles offer.
They're going to come and take me away soon, so moving swiftly on, Active Tuesday.
Someone on flickr had recommended Web Of Wool as being "the best knitting shop in Leamington" so I decided I had to try and find it and that Tuesday would be a good day to do this.
53 Regent Grove, Holly Walk. I didn't know Regent Grove but Holly Walk is where Social Services and the Jobcentre and all that sort of thing are. I decided Regent Grove must be some sort of house-name (it's that sort of area). I figured a wool shop would be easy enough to spot, and set off.
Alas, Regent Grove is NOT a house, but a street which then morphs into Holly Walk. Alas also, Web Of Wool not only looks very much like a residential house from outside, but is next to a florist, which is bright and colourful and very "there" in the way that florists are, and it's near a corner. Because of the arrangement of dropped kerbs and crossings, I didn't go all the way along that strip of pavement - I looked along registering "hotel, florist, couple of regular houses" and then started scanning the pavement for my next crossing point.
After two and a half laps of Holly Walk I decided the hell with it and wandered into one of the businesses to see if their receptionist could offer a clue. She directed me to what appeared to be a tailor's shop, and thankfully they were able to tell me that Web of Wool was "next to the florist's over there".
About half an hour of poddling about on the scooter, I wasn't disappointed. Web Of Wool turned out to be as nice and relaxing and friendly a shop as you could wish for. The lovely Anna helped me look for a pattern that might be good, helped me pick some yarn for the project I chose to do, and also told me about their knitting group, which is on Tuesday evenings.
So after a rest at home, Steve drove me back into town and I attended my first ever knitting group. It was great! Since leaving work, I've become really unused to sitting in a room with several other people. But everyone was really welcoming, and while I couldn't participate much in discussions, it was nice listening to other people chat rather than reading it off a screen. The knitters were helpful when I ran into trouble with reading my pattern (it still looks like a cat jumped on the keyboard to me) or wanted to check something. It took a lot out of me, which was a foregone conclusion. But I took away several email addresses, and I feel that I'll be welcome to join them again next time I'm in Leamington, and hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of friends over here. Not next week though, as tomorrow I'm going back home.
Steve came to collect me and we went to get something to eat at a nice, quiet place. To be honest, we could have gone to the Ritz or McDonalds and I wouldn't have noticed the difference, I was so shattered. But definitely happy.
The Unholy Experiment was Steve's idea (go on, you can all act surprised now). We were having a Lazy Monday, with no plans to go out or to do anything particularly energetic, partly so I could be ready for Active Tuesday (which turned out a lot more active than I'd imagined). He was fidgeting with small screwdrivers while printing off some study notes, and I was curled up knitting.
Him: Would it be possible to knit on screwdrivers?
Me: I don't see why not.
Him: How geeky would that be, knitting on screwdrivers! X, Y and Z would be so jealous!
Me: (taking screwdrivers) It would be tricky, but definitely possible... hmmm... go grab the orange yarn.
Click on the picture to go to my flickr stream and see more process photographs.
I am pleased to confirm that yes, knitting with screwdrivers is perfectly possible.
We used one Phillips-head and one flat-head, but it would be easier with two Phillips-head screwdrivers. The main problem we encountered was that the screwdrivers are not of a uniform diameter - there's the thin black bit which is just shy of 3mm (US size 3), then the smooth silver bit is 4.5mm (US size 7) and the ridged silver bit, as well as being ridged (gaa) is 5mm (US size 8). We could have overcome this by using larger screwdrivers with handles, but I feel that the weight of the handles would have made knitting even trickier and dropping/fumbling one of them and thus losing stitches even more of a possibility. The second difficulty was avoiding tearing the yarn with the sharp bits. The third problem was that while knitting needles are made to slide comfortably against each other, these scrape. It's not as pleasant a knitting sensation as normal needles offer.
They're going to come and take me away soon, so moving swiftly on, Active Tuesday.
Someone on flickr had recommended Web Of Wool as being "the best knitting shop in Leamington" so I decided I had to try and find it and that Tuesday would be a good day to do this.
53 Regent Grove, Holly Walk. I didn't know Regent Grove but Holly Walk is where Social Services and the Jobcentre and all that sort of thing are. I decided Regent Grove must be some sort of house-name (it's that sort of area). I figured a wool shop would be easy enough to spot, and set off.
Alas, Regent Grove is NOT a house, but a street which then morphs into Holly Walk. Alas also, Web Of Wool not only looks very much like a residential house from outside, but is next to a florist, which is bright and colourful and very "there" in the way that florists are, and it's near a corner. Because of the arrangement of dropped kerbs and crossings, I didn't go all the way along that strip of pavement - I looked along registering "hotel, florist, couple of regular houses" and then started scanning the pavement for my next crossing point.
After two and a half laps of Holly Walk I decided the hell with it and wandered into one of the businesses to see if their receptionist could offer a clue. She directed me to what appeared to be a tailor's shop, and thankfully they were able to tell me that Web of Wool was "next to the florist's over there".
About half an hour of poddling about on the scooter, I wasn't disappointed. Web Of Wool turned out to be as nice and relaxing and friendly a shop as you could wish for. The lovely Anna helped me look for a pattern that might be good, helped me pick some yarn for the project I chose to do, and also told me about their knitting group, which is on Tuesday evenings.
So after a rest at home, Steve drove me back into town and I attended my first ever knitting group. It was great! Since leaving work, I've become really unused to sitting in a room with several other people. But everyone was really welcoming, and while I couldn't participate much in discussions, it was nice listening to other people chat rather than reading it off a screen. The knitters were helpful when I ran into trouble with reading my pattern (it still looks like a cat jumped on the keyboard to me) or wanted to check something. It took a lot out of me, which was a foregone conclusion. But I took away several email addresses, and I feel that I'll be welcome to join them again next time I'm in Leamington, and hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of friends over here. Not next week though, as tomorrow I'm going back home.
Steve came to collect me and we went to get something to eat at a nice, quiet place. To be honest, we could have gone to the Ritz or McDonalds and I wouldn't have noticed the difference, I was so shattered. But definitely happy.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
New Doctor
Firstly, after the bout of knitting woes, things started going better again. I now have a blue swatch of ribbing and am part-way through a blue swatch of seed stitch (aka moss stitch). I think this is my favourite so far to look at and feel, but it does seem to take a bit longer to get to the end of the row.
Secondly, I've had a letter from the Disability Living Allowance people, explaining that they have received my claim renewal, and want to write to my GP for more information. That's pretty normal and nothing to worry about. After all, it'd be a bit pointless if they didn't check with at least one medically qualified person.
When I first applied, just under two years ago, I was quite pleased to hear that they would contact my GP. Dr W has known me and my family since I was a kiddie. She saw my childhood illnesses, my mum's long-term health problems, my marriage and subsequent divorce, my teenage smear-test scare. She's the person who diagnosed me with The Lurgy. She knows me well enough to know I'm not the sort of person who would be trying it on. She knows the sort of lifestyle I had before I got ill, and how it compares to the activity levels I have now. I could not think of a non-family person better placed to give the DWP useful, in-depth and accurate information about my health.
She is also, currently, on maternity leave.
I have seen Dr M, the locum who is covering for her, twice. Both times were follow-ups regarding an ear infection I had a while back. She was very nice, efficient, and gave the impression that she knew what she was talking about. Unfortunately my ear infection had sweet buggerall to do with my Long Term Lurgy, unless you count that I've had as many, if not more, visible "oozy" acute infections (yum) in the last couple of years since I got ill, than I had in the fifteen years before.
So, when I saw her about the ear thing, I mentioned that I was working on a DLA renewal and that they might want Dr W's input, which may fall to her. She smiled and said this had already happened with one of Dr W's patients - what she would like to do is make a long appointment with me once they contact her, and we can go through her part of the form then.
No problem, right?
Uh...
My diagnosis label is "ME/CFS". In non-medical terms that means "we don't know". There are three main schools of thought. One is that people with ME/CFS have a psychiatric problem - that the reason we experience the physical symptoms is because of some past uncovered trauma, or low self-esteem, or stress issues. Sort of like a panic attack, only instead of the physical manifestation of our mental issues being shivering and trouble breathing and pounding pulse, we get the pain and whatnot, and instead of it being for a few minutes at a time, it's more or less constant. Another viewpoint is that people with ME/CFS have a biological problem that medical science doesn't have a conclusive test or cure for yet. Medical research from the biological viewpoint is ongoing but underfunded - after all, ME isn't a spectacular illness with a high death rate. The other widely held opinion is that people with ME/CFS are making it all up, for fun/attention/time off work. Thankfully this is more rife among the general public than the medical profession.
I do not know which of these theories Dr M subscribes to.
Dr W can confidently feel certain I'm not malingering, because she has known me for many years. How to convince Dr M, who I've known for all of fifteen minutes, that I'm not a workshy scumbag?
Similarly, I know that if Dr W thought my problems were psychiatric, she would have immediately referred me for whatever flavour of psychiatric help she deemed most appropriate. As such, on my original DLA forms, the minor mental health trouble I had were listed as a secondary effect of my illness - in other words, that I got bouts of depression and mood swings because I lost my job/was unable to go out like I used to/got frustrated by my physical limitations/was in a large amount of pain. But what if, this time, Dr M puts it all in as "mental health"? Will they consider my illness to have changed, and would I get into trouble for that?
Or even if Dr M accepts that I'm not making it up and am psychiatrically sound, how do I properly describe the effects my illness has on me without sounding like a whinger? When I'm meeting people, particularly if I don't know them well, I try to be positive and upbeat, try to make a good impression. I'm full of painkillers and if the illness comes up I say things like "the hourly pay sucks but the parking's great" or "meh, it's only a bit of pain, it's not actually going to kill me". What the DLA people need to know about are the bits I don't like people to see - about the pain that is so bad it reduces me to tears, the dizziness that makes me vomit, the lack of dexterity that makes me drop my plate of dinner all over myself and the floor. See, you can hear those violins already. So how do I give a clear picture without giving a bad impression?
Secondly, I've had a letter from the Disability Living Allowance people, explaining that they have received my claim renewal, and want to write to my GP for more information. That's pretty normal and nothing to worry about. After all, it'd be a bit pointless if they didn't check with at least one medically qualified person.
When I first applied, just under two years ago, I was quite pleased to hear that they would contact my GP. Dr W has known me and my family since I was a kiddie. She saw my childhood illnesses, my mum's long-term health problems, my marriage and subsequent divorce, my teenage smear-test scare. She's the person who diagnosed me with The Lurgy. She knows me well enough to know I'm not the sort of person who would be trying it on. She knows the sort of lifestyle I had before I got ill, and how it compares to the activity levels I have now. I could not think of a non-family person better placed to give the DWP useful, in-depth and accurate information about my health.
She is also, currently, on maternity leave.
I have seen Dr M, the locum who is covering for her, twice. Both times were follow-ups regarding an ear infection I had a while back. She was very nice, efficient, and gave the impression that she knew what she was talking about. Unfortunately my ear infection had sweet buggerall to do with my Long Term Lurgy, unless you count that I've had as many, if not more, visible "oozy" acute infections (yum) in the last couple of years since I got ill, than I had in the fifteen years before.
So, when I saw her about the ear thing, I mentioned that I was working on a DLA renewal and that they might want Dr W's input, which may fall to her. She smiled and said this had already happened with one of Dr W's patients - what she would like to do is make a long appointment with me once they contact her, and we can go through her part of the form then.
No problem, right?
Uh...
My diagnosis label is "ME/CFS". In non-medical terms that means "we don't know". There are three main schools of thought. One is that people with ME/CFS have a psychiatric problem - that the reason we experience the physical symptoms is because of some past uncovered trauma, or low self-esteem, or stress issues. Sort of like a panic attack, only instead of the physical manifestation of our mental issues being shivering and trouble breathing and pounding pulse, we get the pain and whatnot, and instead of it being for a few minutes at a time, it's more or less constant. Another viewpoint is that people with ME/CFS have a biological problem that medical science doesn't have a conclusive test or cure for yet. Medical research from the biological viewpoint is ongoing but underfunded - after all, ME isn't a spectacular illness with a high death rate. The other widely held opinion is that people with ME/CFS are making it all up, for fun/attention/time off work. Thankfully this is more rife among the general public than the medical profession.
I do not know which of these theories Dr M subscribes to.
Dr W can confidently feel certain I'm not malingering, because she has known me for many years. How to convince Dr M, who I've known for all of fifteen minutes, that I'm not a workshy scumbag?
Similarly, I know that if Dr W thought my problems were psychiatric, she would have immediately referred me for whatever flavour of psychiatric help she deemed most appropriate. As such, on my original DLA forms, the minor mental health trouble I had were listed as a secondary effect of my illness - in other words, that I got bouts of depression and mood swings because I lost my job/was unable to go out like I used to/got frustrated by my physical limitations/was in a large amount of pain. But what if, this time, Dr M puts it all in as "mental health"? Will they consider my illness to have changed, and would I get into trouble for that?
Or even if Dr M accepts that I'm not making it up and am psychiatrically sound, how do I properly describe the effects my illness has on me without sounding like a whinger? When I'm meeting people, particularly if I don't know them well, I try to be positive and upbeat, try to make a good impression. I'm full of painkillers and if the illness comes up I say things like "the hourly pay sucks but the parking's great" or "meh, it's only a bit of pain, it's not actually going to kill me". What the DLA people need to know about are the bits I don't like people to see - about the pain that is so bad it reduces me to tears, the dizziness that makes me vomit, the lack of dexterity that makes me drop my plate of dinner all over myself and the floor. See, you can hear those violins already. So how do I give a clear picture without giving a bad impression?
Friday, April 13, 2007
Look Ma, No Stitches
It's not been a great 24 hours for the knitting efforts.
I've mostly being working on the basic garter stitch scarf Mk II which is coming along slowly but surely.
However, yesterday I got my new knitting book - Stitch 'n Bitch by Debbie Stoller - so I picked up my test piece to have a bit of an experimenty.
As the knitters in the audience will be aware, a piece that is just stocking stitch tends to curl in on itself, so I had the bright idea of doing a few rows of normal basic garter stitch before embarking on anything else. I could probably do garter stitch in my sleep by now.
This confidence may be the reason why the needles leapt from my hands, pulling several stitches off themselves, which promptly undid, due to me tightening my grip on the yarn as the needles dropped. I tried to kind of slide them back on but it just wasn't happening.
A few choice curses later, while I ripped the swatch apart, and I figured, hey, it was only a test piece, no biggie. So I cast on again to start trying to do what I was planning to do - some ribbing. Cast on, did some rows, rested, did some rows, showed it to Steve, who agreed it was coming out right. Marvellous. I thought about getting up to grab the camera and take a picture, but decided that instead I'd go to bed and then in the morning, try to make a square of it and then cast off.
Two rows into the morning, I'd somehow acquired an extra stitch (probably from not putting the wool to the front/to the back correctly) and was getting in one hell of a snarl-up where the yarn was unravelling and I think I must have shoved the needle through the yarn rather than through the stitch. I tried to undo it but with limited success, and just as I thought I'd got it, out plopped the right-hand needle again, taking the yarn with it.
This was the point at which I threw the needles.
I just don't get it. It's wrapping string around a stick, for pity's sake, how hard can it be? Also - how come I never stuffed up like this while doing the first scarf, the first casting on, the first zillion rows of garter stitch?
Anyway, I've cast on again, with the now rather battered blue wool, and I've done about eight rows of ribbing. Again. If it cocks up this time I'm going to cut the yarn and try again with a non-wibbly length. Or get stabby with the knitting needles, either's good.
I've mostly being working on the basic garter stitch scarf Mk II which is coming along slowly but surely.
However, yesterday I got my new knitting book - Stitch 'n Bitch by Debbie Stoller - so I picked up my test piece to have a bit of an experimenty.
As the knitters in the audience will be aware, a piece that is just stocking stitch tends to curl in on itself, so I had the bright idea of doing a few rows of normal basic garter stitch before embarking on anything else. I could probably do garter stitch in my sleep by now.
This confidence may be the reason why the needles leapt from my hands, pulling several stitches off themselves, which promptly undid, due to me tightening my grip on the yarn as the needles dropped. I tried to kind of slide them back on but it just wasn't happening.
A few choice curses later, while I ripped the swatch apart, and I figured, hey, it was only a test piece, no biggie. So I cast on again to start trying to do what I was planning to do - some ribbing. Cast on, did some rows, rested, did some rows, showed it to Steve, who agreed it was coming out right. Marvellous. I thought about getting up to grab the camera and take a picture, but decided that instead I'd go to bed and then in the morning, try to make a square of it and then cast off.
Two rows into the morning, I'd somehow acquired an extra stitch (probably from not putting the wool to the front/to the back correctly) and was getting in one hell of a snarl-up where the yarn was unravelling and I think I must have shoved the needle through the yarn rather than through the stitch. I tried to undo it but with limited success, and just as I thought I'd got it, out plopped the right-hand needle again, taking the yarn with it.
This was the point at which I threw the needles.
I just don't get it. It's wrapping string around a stick, for pity's sake, how hard can it be? Also - how come I never stuffed up like this while doing the first scarf, the first casting on, the first zillion rows of garter stitch?
Anyway, I've cast on again, with the now rather battered blue wool, and I've done about eight rows of ribbing. Again. If it cocks up this time I'm going to cut the yarn and try again with a non-wibbly length. Or get stabby with the knitting needles, either's good.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Lovely Day (and Twitter)
As I'm at Steve's at the moment, and the weather is getting warmer, we've wiped down and charged up the scooter and today I took it out.
I had planned to simply trundle off to Asda, and get some milk and whatnot for the weekend. It's a nice enough little trundle and has the added bonus of being productive.
However, Steve convinced me that it would be a better idea for me to go into town, maybe go to the park, have an ice cream, that kind of thing. I didn't take much convincing - it's just been far too gorgeous a day to waste.
So off I trundled into town. After a bit, Steve got on the motorbike and came to meet me for lunch at the Victoria Coffee House, and then we went for a walk in the park, Jephson Gardens. It's easy to control the scooter with one hand, so we were able to hold hands like any other couple - because it's nice, rather than for support. I think a few people wondered why he was holding a motorbike helmet though.
Regrettably I had to turn down Steve's offer of taking me out for dinner tonight, but nevertheless, he went and got some takeaway and we've had a wonderfully relaxing evening in. Ahhh.
In other news, I've started playing with Twitter. I'm not entirely sure how to find people on it, I think you need to exchange email addresses first so that one of you can send the other an invite? but really I am a long way from certain about that. If you use Twitter and you want to be added to my friends, post a comment containing your email address. I'll then invite you, but won't publish your comment, so your email address won't be shown to the world from here.
(edited to add tags)
I had planned to simply trundle off to Asda, and get some milk and whatnot for the weekend. It's a nice enough little trundle and has the added bonus of being productive.
However, Steve convinced me that it would be a better idea for me to go into town, maybe go to the park, have an ice cream, that kind of thing. I didn't take much convincing - it's just been far too gorgeous a day to waste.
So off I trundled into town. After a bit, Steve got on the motorbike and came to meet me for lunch at the Victoria Coffee House, and then we went for a walk in the park, Jephson Gardens. It's easy to control the scooter with one hand, so we were able to hold hands like any other couple - because it's nice, rather than for support. I think a few people wondered why he was holding a motorbike helmet though.
Regrettably I had to turn down Steve's offer of taking me out for dinner tonight, but nevertheless, he went and got some takeaway and we've had a wonderfully relaxing evening in. Ahhh.
In other news, I've started playing with Twitter. I'm not entirely sure how to find people on it, I think you need to exchange email addresses first so that one of you can send the other an invite? but really I am a long way from certain about that. If you use Twitter and you want to be added to my friends, post a comment containing your email address. I'll then invite you, but won't publish your comment, so your email address won't be shown to the world from here.
(edited to add tags)
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Haute Cuisine
This evening for dinner Steve and I cooked pork chops, mash, and bacon. The idea is that I'm the one who knows how to cook stuff, but he's the one who's able to safely get stuff out of the oven, or turn off the gas and sort things out if I start fitting or if I collapse, that kind of thing. So it's a team effort, but he tends to regard it as me cooking.
So anyway, this meal. There are a number of cooking things I regularly cheat with to save time, energy or washing up - instant gravy, pre-peeled/chopped veg, that sort of thing - and this meal was no exception. The mash was Smash, and the bacon was pre-diced. He mixed the Smash, I fried the bacon, we mixed the two together, huzzah.
The pork chops, however, I did from scratch the way my mum used to, with a certain amount of various seasonings, an eggy-breadcrumby coating, pan-fried and then baked for a while covered over with foil. Obviously mine are never as good as my mum's, but then nothing is as good as your own mother's home cooking. They're perfectly passable though and might well fool the casual observer.
We sat down to eat, and as he often does, Steve started enthusing about the meal. "Mmmm, this is fantastic. Thankyou darling, this is gorgeous. We must never feed my dad this, he wouldn't want to leave," and so on. Of course, I asked what it was in particular he liked, for future reference... of course, he was on about the bacon-y Smash.
So anyway, this meal. There are a number of cooking things I regularly cheat with to save time, energy or washing up - instant gravy, pre-peeled/chopped veg, that sort of thing - and this meal was no exception. The mash was Smash, and the bacon was pre-diced. He mixed the Smash, I fried the bacon, we mixed the two together, huzzah.
The pork chops, however, I did from scratch the way my mum used to, with a certain amount of various seasonings, an eggy-breadcrumby coating, pan-fried and then baked for a while covered over with foil. Obviously mine are never as good as my mum's, but then nothing is as good as your own mother's home cooking. They're perfectly passable though and might well fool the casual observer.
We sat down to eat, and as he often does, Steve started enthusing about the meal. "Mmmm, this is fantastic. Thankyou darling, this is gorgeous. We must never feed my dad this, he wouldn't want to leave," and so on. Of course, I asked what it was in particular he liked, for future reference... of course, he was on about the bacon-y Smash.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Still Here
My levels of energy, pain and ability to concentrate have been all over the place the last few days and I don't know if I'm coming or going half the time. However, I am happy to announce that the knitting continues to go well. Having finished the scarf for Dominocat, I started looking for another project. A look for basic knitting patterns or learner's patterns online revealed that I could (a) make another 6ft of garter-stitch scarf or (b) attempt to decipher a "pattern" which looked like someone had randomly squashed their hand onto their keyboard, and after decipheration, involved such voodoo concepts as "cabling" and "ribbing" which I have no concept of.
This led to a bit of "oh my god, I'll never be able to do this..." but that was over pretty quickly as with the help of the lovely Jiva, I determined my plan of action thusly:
(a) get a book about learning to knit, and follow its handy instructions bit by bit until on top of basic stitches.
and
(b) cast on another scarf with some wool I already had, to give me something to work on and that I would be able to pick up and know I could do it easily, even when frustrated at the learning-bits going difficult-ly.
(forgive my vocabulary today. It's all there somewhere.)
So, I'm working on it, I have nailed garter stitch aka knit stitch, and also purling, and also stocking stitch where you knit stitch a row and then purl stitch a row. Next in my handy book is increasing and decreasing the number of stitches on a row, which should be entertaining. And then that's it for the book.
God knows what happens next.
This led to a bit of "oh my god, I'll never be able to do this..." but that was over pretty quickly as with the help of the lovely Jiva, I determined my plan of action thusly:
(a) get a book about learning to knit, and follow its handy instructions bit by bit until on top of basic stitches.
and
(b) cast on another scarf with some wool I already had, to give me something to work on and that I would be able to pick up and know I could do it easily, even when frustrated at the learning-bits going difficult-ly.
(forgive my vocabulary today. It's all there somewhere.)
So, I'm working on it, I have nailed garter stitch aka knit stitch, and also purling, and also stocking stitch where you knit stitch a row and then purl stitch a row. Next in my handy book is increasing and decreasing the number of stitches on a row, which should be entertaining. And then that's it for the book.
God knows what happens next.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Activity, cost, and Spoon Theory
One of the trickiest things to keep on top of is calculating the costs of each activity I do, prioritising the activity, and figuring out if I can do it or not.
The beginning and end of the spectrum is easy. There is "rest", which is lying down or sitting very comfortably, in a warm, safe and quiet place, with my eyes shut and no distractions. It may or may not involve actually falling asleep, but the important aspect is making the time as uneventful as possible for both my brain and my body. Rest helps me slowly gain some energy.
At the other end is "impossible activity". A few years ago it was perfectly feasible for me to rollerblade along the seafront with an ice-cream in one hand and be chatting on my mobile phone in the other. These days, I simply do not have the capacity to do that, which is something I've come to terms with. It was fun, but hardly a life skill.
The bits between "rest" and "impossible" are tricky though, and they vary for every person with ME/CFS and similar illnesses. For everything I do, I have to think about how much it will cost me, and whether that will prevent me from doing something else that may be more important or more enjoyable.
Let's take reading as an example. I've enjoyed reading from a very early age and it used to be one of my top things to do to relax. Now I can't read any whole book at one sitting any more, fair enough, but there's more to it than that. These days, reading isn't just reading.
Low-cost: Reading a book from my personal collection which I have read many, many times before.
Medium-cost: Reading a book I have not read before, but by an author I am familiar with and whose style of writing flows well for me.
High-cost: Reading a book by an author who is new to me.
Near-impossible: Reading a non-fiction book which requires the reader to keep up with concepts that may be new to them. For instance, I've had The Science Of Discworld for about a year and I am still less than halfway through it.
The same sort of thing applies to everything I do during a day, fun or not, essential or not, productive or not. It applies to getting up and having a bath and getting dressed and washing my dishes and buying a pint of milk, and it also applies to knitting, using the computer, shopping (yes, even online), watching a TV programme, cooking, seeing friends, chatting on the phone or playing a game.
Some people have the idea that anyone who is off work long-term must be sitting around all day doing the sort of thing they would love to do if only they weren't at work. It's not the case. Not only would I need to be having a good day to attempt half the "day off" things I used to, but as soon as we've factored in stuff like housework, forms for several different benefits, and family commitments, it's an almighty mess.
The best explanation I have ever encountered for this is Spoon Theory. I really recomend you click that link, but if you don't want to, here's the summary:
People with illnesses like mine start each day with a limited number of energy credits, represented by a handful of spoons. Some days it's a good day and you have more spoons than usual (although still not as many as a healthy person might) and some days it's a bad day and you've only got half the spoons you're used to having. Doing things costs you spoons. Resting may make you a spoon or two if you're lucky, but it's not guaranteed. If you spend all your spoons by lunchtime then that's just tough if there's something else you want or need to do later in the day.
Physically do this. Get your handful of spoons (or pens, or knitting needles, or whatever - just one handful though!) and go through your day. Waking up and forcing yourself out of bed? Spoon. Having a bath? Spoon. Washing your hair as well? Another spoon. Getting dressed? Spoon.
Of course, this is what happens to healthy people when they get a bad cold or something. They drag themselves into work wearing an unironed shirt and brushed but not styled hair, get frustrated because they can see that they are performing at a level of less than 100% and are making mistakes, go home, and collapse into bed with a cup of lemsip and some takeaway food. And that's okay, because for a week while you have a cold, you can let things slide - the washing up doesn't HAVE to all be done every day, you can catch up on the laundry when you feel a bit better, your friends will understand that you've had to cancel on a planned get-together, you'll absorb the £5 charge for late payment of a bill in order to not have to worry about getting to the bank this week.
Chronic illness is different. You can't simply skip the vacuuming for three years. Your friends will stop inviting and including you if you never join in, and as a human being you need some social contact. The clean clothes in your wardrobe will all be used up after a few weeks. If you don't get yourself into town, go to the bank and pay your bills, you go past Final Demands and bank charges and into the realms of baliffs at the door. You have to stay on top of everything that needs doing.
So you have to get on, and calculate every activity every day. You have to balance and you have to decide if the fact you have no fresh clothes to wear is more or less important than the fact your cups and dishes have almost invented the wheel. You have to decide whether to read a few pages of a new, interesting book, or to read a familiar book and thus be able to chat to someone on the phone for 15 minutes. You have to be able to tell your friends that you don't have the time or energy to see them, because you've got to use all of that day's spoons on eating three basic meals and filling in a couple more pages on a poxy horrible benefits form.
I can deal with the pain, and I can deal with injuring myself when I fall over, and I can deal with the poor sleep and nausea and fits and all these physical things. But I have real trouble keeping positive while dealing with the constant comparing and choosing and juggling and never being able to forget for even a day about being ill.
And THEN some bugger tells you that you'd feel ever so much better if you just went jogging for an hour each morning... I think that's another post though.
The beginning and end of the spectrum is easy. There is "rest", which is lying down or sitting very comfortably, in a warm, safe and quiet place, with my eyes shut and no distractions. It may or may not involve actually falling asleep, but the important aspect is making the time as uneventful as possible for both my brain and my body. Rest helps me slowly gain some energy.
At the other end is "impossible activity". A few years ago it was perfectly feasible for me to rollerblade along the seafront with an ice-cream in one hand and be chatting on my mobile phone in the other. These days, I simply do not have the capacity to do that, which is something I've come to terms with. It was fun, but hardly a life skill.
The bits between "rest" and "impossible" are tricky though, and they vary for every person with ME/CFS and similar illnesses. For everything I do, I have to think about how much it will cost me, and whether that will prevent me from doing something else that may be more important or more enjoyable.
Let's take reading as an example. I've enjoyed reading from a very early age and it used to be one of my top things to do to relax. Now I can't read any whole book at one sitting any more, fair enough, but there's more to it than that. These days, reading isn't just reading.
Low-cost: Reading a book from my personal collection which I have read many, many times before.
Medium-cost: Reading a book I have not read before, but by an author I am familiar with and whose style of writing flows well for me.
High-cost: Reading a book by an author who is new to me.
Near-impossible: Reading a non-fiction book which requires the reader to keep up with concepts that may be new to them. For instance, I've had The Science Of Discworld for about a year and I am still less than halfway through it.
The same sort of thing applies to everything I do during a day, fun or not, essential or not, productive or not. It applies to getting up and having a bath and getting dressed and washing my dishes and buying a pint of milk, and it also applies to knitting, using the computer, shopping (yes, even online), watching a TV programme, cooking, seeing friends, chatting on the phone or playing a game.
Some people have the idea that anyone who is off work long-term must be sitting around all day doing the sort of thing they would love to do if only they weren't at work. It's not the case. Not only would I need to be having a good day to attempt half the "day off" things I used to, but as soon as we've factored in stuff like housework, forms for several different benefits, and family commitments, it's an almighty mess.
The best explanation I have ever encountered for this is Spoon Theory. I really recomend you click that link, but if you don't want to, here's the summary:
People with illnesses like mine start each day with a limited number of energy credits, represented by a handful of spoons. Some days it's a good day and you have more spoons than usual (although still not as many as a healthy person might) and some days it's a bad day and you've only got half the spoons you're used to having. Doing things costs you spoons. Resting may make you a spoon or two if you're lucky, but it's not guaranteed. If you spend all your spoons by lunchtime then that's just tough if there's something else you want or need to do later in the day.
Physically do this. Get your handful of spoons (or pens, or knitting needles, or whatever - just one handful though!) and go through your day. Waking up and forcing yourself out of bed? Spoon. Having a bath? Spoon. Washing your hair as well? Another spoon. Getting dressed? Spoon.
Of course, this is what happens to healthy people when they get a bad cold or something. They drag themselves into work wearing an unironed shirt and brushed but not styled hair, get frustrated because they can see that they are performing at a level of less than 100% and are making mistakes, go home, and collapse into bed with a cup of lemsip and some takeaway food. And that's okay, because for a week while you have a cold, you can let things slide - the washing up doesn't HAVE to all be done every day, you can catch up on the laundry when you feel a bit better, your friends will understand that you've had to cancel on a planned get-together, you'll absorb the £5 charge for late payment of a bill in order to not have to worry about getting to the bank this week.
Chronic illness is different. You can't simply skip the vacuuming for three years. Your friends will stop inviting and including you if you never join in, and as a human being you need some social contact. The clean clothes in your wardrobe will all be used up after a few weeks. If you don't get yourself into town, go to the bank and pay your bills, you go past Final Demands and bank charges and into the realms of baliffs at the door. You have to stay on top of everything that needs doing.
So you have to get on, and calculate every activity every day. You have to balance and you have to decide if the fact you have no fresh clothes to wear is more or less important than the fact your cups and dishes have almost invented the wheel. You have to decide whether to read a few pages of a new, interesting book, or to read a familiar book and thus be able to chat to someone on the phone for 15 minutes. You have to be able to tell your friends that you don't have the time or energy to see them, because you've got to use all of that day's spoons on eating three basic meals and filling in a couple more pages on a poxy horrible benefits form.
I can deal with the pain, and I can deal with injuring myself when I fall over, and I can deal with the poor sleep and nausea and fits and all these physical things. But I have real trouble keeping positive while dealing with the constant comparing and choosing and juggling and never being able to forget for even a day about being ill.
And THEN some bugger tells you that you'd feel ever so much better if you just went jogging for an hour each morning... I think that's another post though.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Comic Relief
I never thought Tony Blair would make me smile, but...
Also, if you like blogs, you'll probably enjoy this book, with all profits going to Comic Relief.
Also, if you like blogs, you'll probably enjoy this book, with all profits going to Comic Relief.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Halfway there
As you can see in the picture, the scarf is coming along nicely - I am now about 10 or 15 rows into the second ball of wool.
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice about changing over from the end of the 1st ball of wool to the beginning of the 2nd. The knot is nowhere near as distressingly huge as I feared, and the advice to just knit a couple of rows with the 2nd ball before securing the knot was good - it's pretty inobtrusive. I do, however, need to find out what the best thing is to do with those end-y-bits, as a scarf "pattern" this simple doesn't really have a Wrong Side where I can hide them. Should I snip them off, or sew them into the edges, or across the width of the scarf, or what?
I'm also open to suggestions about what I should try to knit next...
(edited 6th April to add tags.)
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice about changing over from the end of the 1st ball of wool to the beginning of the 2nd. The knot is nowhere near as distressingly huge as I feared, and the advice to just knit a couple of rows with the 2nd ball before securing the knot was good - it's pretty inobtrusive. I do, however, need to find out what the best thing is to do with those end-y-bits, as a scarf "pattern" this simple doesn't really have a Wrong Side where I can hide them. Should I snip them off, or sew them into the edges, or across the width of the scarf, or what?
I'm also open to suggestions about what I should try to knit next...
(edited 6th April to add tags.)
Monday, March 12, 2007
In which I am an Unethical Cowbag
I've just lied my arse off about the nature of my disability to a couple of salespeople and I feel really very guilty about having done it, so I thought I'd confess to The Internet (iGod isn't as satisfying as it once was).
I was coming up for my next dose of painkillers when there was a tap at the flat door. So I hauled myself up to answer it. Two people, a man and a woman, in suits, were standing there. We got as far as "Hi, you're Mary, yes? I'm Mark and this is..." before my legs gave way and I slid halfway down the wall. And it's impressive that I lasted that long.
There's then a short piece of confusion. The man asked me if I should be sitting down and I agreed and then somehow we were all in my flat. I remember inviting them to sit down because that's what you do when people are in your flat, and then everyone standing in confusion because there were three of us and only one seat available (the others being taken up with my laptop, and the cutlery tray from the kitchen drawer that broke a couple of weeks back - really must get that fixed). They told me to sit down, which I happily did, and as my head got back on track the man knelt on the floor by the sofa and asked if I was okay.
Then they introduced themselves again and that is when I realised they were salespeople. My first thought was "how come there are salespeople inside my flat?" followed by "oh bums. Salespeople aren't going to leave until they've got my signature on something. I can't stand up, so I can't shoo them out, and I don't have the oomph right now to be terribly over-assertive..."
As they opened their spiel I couldn't think of anything apart from how to get them to Go Away. I don't care if I could save up to 10% a month on my electricity bills. A direct debit goes out every month to cover my electricity, and if I'm paying a couple of quid more than I absolutely need to, well, that's the price I pay for not having to muck about and try to understand deals and shift suppliers and adjust payments and so on, and the state my brain is in that's a price worth paying for things to carry on smoothly. I was trying to work out how to explain this to them when it hit me that this might, after all, be a way out.
"Can I cut you off for a moment?" I said. "As you can see, I'm in a bit of a state. I have long-term cognitive difficulties so I'm not going to be able to take in half of what you say." So far so true. Then the lies spilled forth. "I can't sign anything, but if you can leave me, like, a leaflet or something, then I can discuss it next time I see my advocate and take it from there." That's tosh. I don't have an advocate, unless you count my mum. I'm perfectly capable of signing things and I don't have any alternate signatorys on my bank account or anything like that. And even if I did, I very much doubt I would waste an advocate's time trying to change electricity suppliers.
It worked. The young man told me they didn't have any leaflets, but if I could show him my last electricity bill, he could write on it exactly what the difference would be so that I could show "my advocate". As it happened, my latest electricity bill was lying on the table, so I gave it to him and he wrote down his phone number (a regular mobile phone number, which I found odd) and the price comparisons between my current supplier and their company. They said I should tell my advocate that with my current supplier I was getting the worst deal possible and that it was really quite important to sort it out. After a bit more of this, to make sure the message had sunk in, they left, thank god, and I locked the flat door behind them.
I really hate playing the disability card and I'm really bothered about having lied. I phoned Steve, but he was more upset about me having let them into the flat in the first place, which is understandable, but it's not like they'd come to rape, mug and murder me. What bugs me most is that not only did I use my disability as an excuse, but I also painted myself as being less capable than I actually am. I think I had a good reason, and it's not something I intend to make a habit of, but I feel very unhappy to have done it at all.
I was coming up for my next dose of painkillers when there was a tap at the flat door. So I hauled myself up to answer it. Two people, a man and a woman, in suits, were standing there. We got as far as "Hi, you're Mary, yes? I'm Mark and this is..." before my legs gave way and I slid halfway down the wall. And it's impressive that I lasted that long.
There's then a short piece of confusion. The man asked me if I should be sitting down and I agreed and then somehow we were all in my flat. I remember inviting them to sit down because that's what you do when people are in your flat, and then everyone standing in confusion because there were three of us and only one seat available (the others being taken up with my laptop, and the cutlery tray from the kitchen drawer that broke a couple of weeks back - really must get that fixed). They told me to sit down, which I happily did, and as my head got back on track the man knelt on the floor by the sofa and asked if I was okay.
Then they introduced themselves again and that is when I realised they were salespeople. My first thought was "how come there are salespeople inside my flat?" followed by "oh bums. Salespeople aren't going to leave until they've got my signature on something. I can't stand up, so I can't shoo them out, and I don't have the oomph right now to be terribly over-assertive..."
As they opened their spiel I couldn't think of anything apart from how to get them to Go Away. I don't care if I could save up to 10% a month on my electricity bills. A direct debit goes out every month to cover my electricity, and if I'm paying a couple of quid more than I absolutely need to, well, that's the price I pay for not having to muck about and try to understand deals and shift suppliers and adjust payments and so on, and the state my brain is in that's a price worth paying for things to carry on smoothly. I was trying to work out how to explain this to them when it hit me that this might, after all, be a way out.
"Can I cut you off for a moment?" I said. "As you can see, I'm in a bit of a state. I have long-term cognitive difficulties so I'm not going to be able to take in half of what you say." So far so true. Then the lies spilled forth. "I can't sign anything, but if you can leave me, like, a leaflet or something, then I can discuss it next time I see my advocate and take it from there." That's tosh. I don't have an advocate, unless you count my mum. I'm perfectly capable of signing things and I don't have any alternate signatorys on my bank account or anything like that. And even if I did, I very much doubt I would waste an advocate's time trying to change electricity suppliers.
It worked. The young man told me they didn't have any leaflets, but if I could show him my last electricity bill, he could write on it exactly what the difference would be so that I could show "my advocate". As it happened, my latest electricity bill was lying on the table, so I gave it to him and he wrote down his phone number (a regular mobile phone number, which I found odd) and the price comparisons between my current supplier and their company. They said I should tell my advocate that with my current supplier I was getting the worst deal possible and that it was really quite important to sort it out. After a bit more of this, to make sure the message had sunk in, they left, thank god, and I locked the flat door behind them.
I really hate playing the disability card and I'm really bothered about having lied. I phoned Steve, but he was more upset about me having let them into the flat in the first place, which is understandable, but it's not like they'd come to rape, mug and murder me. What bugs me most is that not only did I use my disability as an excuse, but I also painted myself as being less capable than I actually am. I think I had a good reason, and it's not something I intend to make a habit of, but I feel very unhappy to have done it at all.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Knitting seems to work
An eventful and highly enjoyable day yesterday. I had arranged to go over to Norwich and meet a friend to go shopping and generally spend a bit of time together.
At about 9am, the Scarf In A Bag kit mentioned in my previous post arrived. It wasn't precisely what I was expecting - I had an idea in my head of there being a cheap but durable bag, with handles, maybe with a zip, which I could use to carry my knitting around. It turned out to be more "Scarf In A Plastic Packet". Still, the plastic packet did contain everything it was supposed to, so I decided that I would take it with me and learn how to knit while on the train.
So I did, as you can see. There were a couple of false starts while I was trying to cast on, and when I finally got my fingers and wool and needle in the right places and made the first stitch, then I couldn't remember what I'd done, and needed several more attempts at the next stitch. But after that it was really easy, just repeated the same actions until I had the right number of stitches to be getting on with.
The "pattern" for the scarf is not exciting. You just keep going and going and going with the same basic stitch until you run out of wool. Sounds good to me, it makes sense that before I try anything else I should be able to do the basic stitches in my sleep.
Mind you, it's still made a good attempt to confuse.
As a non-knitter it took a while to decipher this:
"Work in garter stitch (every row knit), noting first row is a WS row, until you have sufficient yarn remaining of the 2nd ball to enable you to cast off, ending with RS facing for next row. Cast off knitways."
Knitways? WS? RS facing? Did I neglect to buy the Collins English/Knitterish Dictionary?
There's also absolutely no indication, anywhere, of the correct manner in which to change from the end of the first ball of wool, to the beginning of the second. The obvious solution seems to be to tie the two together, but I don't want to make a big ugly knot in the middle of the scarf, and given that I was never a Girl Scout it is likely that such a knot, tied by me, would lead to an extremely weak point in the scarf, which would eventually undo itself and unravel the entire thing.
That's odd, because the instructions and diagrams for Casting On, Knit Stitch, and Casting Off are really, really clear and simple and easy to understand.
Anyway, I had quite a few respectable rows done (and still the same number of stitches as I started with) by the time the train pulled into Norwich.
Once again, I'd like to praise the wonderful service that is Norwich Shopmobility at Chapefield. Friendly, helpful, efficient, and two minutes and £1.50 later I was impressing my friend with my amazing driving skills. It was nice to be going shopping with a girly friend - Pip is wonderful, but a man in his late 20s fielding an energetic two year old is not an ideal partner for a disabled woman who wants to get clothes.
I wasn't feeling well enough to be able to try on any skirts or trousers, but I tried on and bought a couple of tops which I really liked. After a while I couldn't get on and off the scooter any more to go into shops, so I sat in Castle Mall enjoying a smoothie (banana and strawberry, mmmm!) and looking after the bags while my friend went in and out of shops. Then we went to the train station to have a cuppa and fill time until the next train home. It was marvellous to have a giggle and a chat, and while my exhaustedness meant I was glad to get on the train to head home, I did feel sorry that I couldn't stick around longer, get dinner and stuff.
Getting from my flat to Lowestoft train station is easy. You go straight downhill towards the river, along with the flow of the one-way northbound traffic, cross the bridge, and you're pretty much there. Taxi fare about £4. Getting back, from the train station to my flat, is another matter, particularly since the corresponding one-way road for southbound traffic is currently closed, along with many others. Last time I had to get a taxi home from the north side of the bridge (just over a week ago), what should have been about a £5 fare was more like £9, and it wasn't because the taxi driver was messing about - all the roads we wanted were closed.
But, it's not like I have a lot of choice in the matter. So when the train arrived at Lowestoft, I got in a cab, told the driver where I wanted to go, and when he pulled a face, explained that I knew the roads were snarled up and it would cost over the odds and that it wasn't important, I trusted whatever route he felt was best. At that point he amazed me by saying "Call it a fiver? That's about what it would normally cost, after all." and he turned the meter off. I felt kind of bad about it, but apparently a lot of the cab drivers are getting rather upset about having to effectively overcharge people. So I thanked him, and was happy.
Needless to say, today I am in a total state. Leaving my bed only to go to the loo or get a drink, and that crawling, crying in the half-hour before the Next Dose of painkillers, the lot. It's taken several hours to compose this blog entry. But it was really really worth it, because I had a great day.
Edited a couple of minutes after posting to correct a bit of grammar and add tags.
At about 9am, the Scarf In A Bag kit mentioned in my previous post arrived. It wasn't precisely what I was expecting - I had an idea in my head of there being a cheap but durable bag, with handles, maybe with a zip, which I could use to carry my knitting around. It turned out to be more "Scarf In A Plastic Packet". Still, the plastic packet did contain everything it was supposed to, so I decided that I would take it with me and learn how to knit while on the train.
So I did, as you can see. There were a couple of false starts while I was trying to cast on, and when I finally got my fingers and wool and needle in the right places and made the first stitch, then I couldn't remember what I'd done, and needed several more attempts at the next stitch. But after that it was really easy, just repeated the same actions until I had the right number of stitches to be getting on with.
The "pattern" for the scarf is not exciting. You just keep going and going and going with the same basic stitch until you run out of wool. Sounds good to me, it makes sense that before I try anything else I should be able to do the basic stitches in my sleep.
Mind you, it's still made a good attempt to confuse.
As a non-knitter it took a while to decipher this:
"Work in garter stitch (every row knit), noting first row is a WS row, until you have sufficient yarn remaining of the 2nd ball to enable you to cast off, ending with RS facing for next row. Cast off knitways."
Knitways? WS? RS facing? Did I neglect to buy the Collins English/Knitterish Dictionary?
There's also absolutely no indication, anywhere, of the correct manner in which to change from the end of the first ball of wool, to the beginning of the second. The obvious solution seems to be to tie the two together, but I don't want to make a big ugly knot in the middle of the scarf, and given that I was never a Girl Scout it is likely that such a knot, tied by me, would lead to an extremely weak point in the scarf, which would eventually undo itself and unravel the entire thing.
That's odd, because the instructions and diagrams for Casting On, Knit Stitch, and Casting Off are really, really clear and simple and easy to understand.
Anyway, I had quite a few respectable rows done (and still the same number of stitches as I started with) by the time the train pulled into Norwich.
Once again, I'd like to praise the wonderful service that is Norwich Shopmobility at Chapefield. Friendly, helpful, efficient, and two minutes and £1.50 later I was impressing my friend with my amazing driving skills. It was nice to be going shopping with a girly friend - Pip is wonderful, but a man in his late 20s fielding an energetic two year old is not an ideal partner for a disabled woman who wants to get clothes.
I wasn't feeling well enough to be able to try on any skirts or trousers, but I tried on and bought a couple of tops which I really liked. After a while I couldn't get on and off the scooter any more to go into shops, so I sat in Castle Mall enjoying a smoothie (banana and strawberry, mmmm!) and looking after the bags while my friend went in and out of shops. Then we went to the train station to have a cuppa and fill time until the next train home. It was marvellous to have a giggle and a chat, and while my exhaustedness meant I was glad to get on the train to head home, I did feel sorry that I couldn't stick around longer, get dinner and stuff.
Getting from my flat to Lowestoft train station is easy. You go straight downhill towards the river, along with the flow of the one-way northbound traffic, cross the bridge, and you're pretty much there. Taxi fare about £4. Getting back, from the train station to my flat, is another matter, particularly since the corresponding one-way road for southbound traffic is currently closed, along with many others. Last time I had to get a taxi home from the north side of the bridge (just over a week ago), what should have been about a £5 fare was more like £9, and it wasn't because the taxi driver was messing about - all the roads we wanted were closed.
But, it's not like I have a lot of choice in the matter. So when the train arrived at Lowestoft, I got in a cab, told the driver where I wanted to go, and when he pulled a face, explained that I knew the roads were snarled up and it would cost over the odds and that it wasn't important, I trusted whatever route he felt was best. At that point he amazed me by saying "Call it a fiver? That's about what it would normally cost, after all." and he turned the meter off. I felt kind of bad about it, but apparently a lot of the cab drivers are getting rather upset about having to effectively overcharge people. So I thanked him, and was happy.
Needless to say, today I am in a total state. Leaving my bed only to go to the loo or get a drink, and that crawling, crying in the half-hour before the Next Dose of painkillers, the lot. It's taken several hours to compose this blog entry. But it was really really worth it, because I had a great day.
Edited a couple of minutes after posting to correct a bit of grammar and add tags.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Knitting
Several of my online friends get a lot of enjoyment out of knitting. Most notable of these is probably Dominocat whose projects often leave me in awe. Plus, I am the honoured owner of one of those projects which is amazing.
I've considered doing knitting on many occasions, but have so far always rejected it on the basis that I am simply not creative. In "art" at school, when you were given some paper and some pencils/paints/whatever and told to create a pretty picture, I was the kid who sat there in front of a blank sheet of paper with a dopey expression. Eventually the teacher would suggest an object, and I would do my best to draw it accurately, with varying results. In later years when it was suggested that we might like to paint "interpretations" or "feelings" I was even more at sea. It made no sense to me whatsoever and it was with relief that I entered my GCSE years and was able to do straightforward academic subjects.
However, of late it has occurred to me that while I'm not creative, I am good at following instructions. I started by making a couple of soft toys from kits, like this badger. Then I picked up one of these knitting bees for something to do with my hands when I can't sleep, can't concentrate, and can't move about. I've now created several yards of bee-poo, as Steve insists on calling it, and wanted to try something just a smidgen more challenging, not to mention useful.
So I have ordered a scarf in a bag kit, containing all the necessaries - beginner's instructions, needles, and wool. The order should be processed by the end of the week and then the kit should be here about a week after that. An actual scarf may or may not occur, we shall have to see, but I'm taking the plunge.
Should it all go to plan, I will then be able to start terrifying Steve by knitting baby-clothes... ;)
I've considered doing knitting on many occasions, but have so far always rejected it on the basis that I am simply not creative. In "art" at school, when you were given some paper and some pencils/paints/whatever and told to create a pretty picture, I was the kid who sat there in front of a blank sheet of paper with a dopey expression. Eventually the teacher would suggest an object, and I would do my best to draw it accurately, with varying results. In later years when it was suggested that we might like to paint "interpretations" or "feelings" I was even more at sea. It made no sense to me whatsoever and it was with relief that I entered my GCSE years and was able to do straightforward academic subjects.
However, of late it has occurred to me that while I'm not creative, I am good at following instructions. I started by making a couple of soft toys from kits, like this badger. Then I picked up one of these knitting bees for something to do with my hands when I can't sleep, can't concentrate, and can't move about. I've now created several yards of bee-poo, as Steve insists on calling it, and wanted to try something just a smidgen more challenging, not to mention useful.
So I have ordered a scarf in a bag kit, containing all the necessaries - beginner's instructions, needles, and wool. The order should be processed by the end of the week and then the kit should be here about a week after that. An actual scarf may or may not occur, we shall have to see, but I'm taking the plunge.
Should it all go to plan, I will then be able to start terrifying Steve by knitting baby-clothes... ;)
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Roomba
I've been giving serious consideration to purchasing a Roomba. On the one hand, it's incredibly expensive for a vacuum cleaner - my current vacuum cleaner cost all of about £30 whereas these seem to be over £150 as a minimum. On the other hand, my current vacuum cleaner doesn't actually get used and my carpets could really do with less dirt. I don't have the capacity for pushing a hoover around the place but I can push buttons and use remote controls like a champion! And lo, for there would be another notch less of feeling bad about my housekeeping.
I mentioned these thoughts on the phone to Steve. He was enthusiastic, but his reasons were more along these lines. I began from a viewpoint of "do what you want to it as long as it still cleans the room" but I found myself having to revise that policy when he started talking about fixing scythes to it to make it double as a home security system...
Do any readers have experience of roombas, or similar things?
I mentioned these thoughts on the phone to Steve. He was enthusiastic, but his reasons were more along these lines. I began from a viewpoint of "do what you want to it as long as it still cleans the room" but I found myself having to revise that policy when he started talking about fixing scythes to it to make it double as a home security system...
Do any readers have experience of roombas, or similar things?
Thursday, March 01, 2007
One Of Those Days
I've been a bit flattened by the Birthday Weekend, but yesterday (Wednesday) I had a productive morning. Then mum and Chris had gone out for the day and asked me to let their dog out at lunchtime, so at about 1pm I went to their house (only two blocks away), let the dog out, had a rest, let the dog back in, and went to the shop for some bread on my way home. I had a bit more trouble than usual getting up the stairs to the flat, and once I was in I called Steve to warn him that I was going to be asleep all afternoon and went to bed.
Woken up by the phone ringing, it was mum. Their car had broken down. Their breakdown cover would relay them and the car either home, or to a garage of their choice. Chris's preferred garage is quite a distance from home, so they figured that it would be easier use the cover to get them and the car to the garage and find another way to get them from the garage to home, than to use the cover to get them and the car home and then have to find another way to get the broken down car from home to the garage. My job was to go to their house, dig out their address book, and text them with the number of a friend who lived in that area and might be able to give them a lift home.
Parents stranded in the wilds of East Anglia is one of those situations where "do I have the energy for this?" doesn't really come into it. I was kind of wiped out, and for ten or fifteen miles I'd have told them to call a taxi and I would cover it, but the actual distance according to Google Maps is just over FIFTY miles, which is not taxi territory. So I warned them I might take a while, put on my coat and shoes, and began to shuffle.
Halfway to their house, a group of kids playing in the street with a football came careering towards me. No problem, I just paused and held onto a handy wall... then one of the kids who wasn't in the scrum yelled "MIND THE OLD LADY!"
I looked round.
They meant me.
I was mortified.
Anyway, got to the house, found the number, texted it to mum, let the dog out again, and curled up on the sofa to try and finish my nap. Woke up, took painkillers, planned to head home once they were working. So far so good - until The Sister got home from work. I've mentioned her before. Nice enough girl, although of course being siblings we regularly fight like cat and dog and have phases of Not Speaking to each other, but Oh Dear God does she talk. On and on and on and on, well I can deal with that, but also high-pitched, too fast, repeats herself, and never ever lets anyone else get a word in. Plus, she had had a bad day at work. I nodded and smiled and prayed for deliverance. After half an hour an absolutely shattered mum and Chris wandered in, and I could leave the room. We ordered some takeaway and then I think mum persuaded her to do a bit of work on her job application so she was quiet for a bit, but soon she was talking about what she was writing rather than writing it. Aargh.
We all had dinner and then mum offered to walk me home. Getting up the stairs took the last little bit out of me. I took my coat and shoes off, stood up to get ready for bed, and lurched into the bathroom just in time to throw up. Lovely. No one else is feeling ill so it's not food poisoning and it's unlikely to be a bug. The only theory Steve and I can come up with is that it's my system telling me to bloody well stop punishing it, on the basis that last time I was throwing up for no reason (so that's not counting little teeny bits when I'm extra-dizzy, heat exhaustion, or that bit of food poisoning last year) was when I first got ill and was pushing it by keeping going to work. So today I'm in bed, no ifs, buts, or maybes, and having as many little naps as I can. It's helping.
While I was final-editing this, mum rang. Turns out that as well as their car breaking down and my sister's bad day and me being sick, the people they had gone to meet, on their way home, got stuck in traffic and then something hit and shattered their windscreen. Not a good day for anyone!
Woken up by the phone ringing, it was mum. Their car had broken down. Their breakdown cover would relay them and the car either home, or to a garage of their choice. Chris's preferred garage is quite a distance from home, so they figured that it would be easier use the cover to get them and the car to the garage and find another way to get them from the garage to home, than to use the cover to get them and the car home and then have to find another way to get the broken down car from home to the garage. My job was to go to their house, dig out their address book, and text them with the number of a friend who lived in that area and might be able to give them a lift home.
Parents stranded in the wilds of East Anglia is one of those situations where "do I have the energy for this?" doesn't really come into it. I was kind of wiped out, and for ten or fifteen miles I'd have told them to call a taxi and I would cover it, but the actual distance according to Google Maps is just over FIFTY miles, which is not taxi territory. So I warned them I might take a while, put on my coat and shoes, and began to shuffle.
Halfway to their house, a group of kids playing in the street with a football came careering towards me. No problem, I just paused and held onto a handy wall... then one of the kids who wasn't in the scrum yelled "MIND THE OLD LADY!"
I looked round.
They meant me.
I was mortified.
Anyway, got to the house, found the number, texted it to mum, let the dog out again, and curled up on the sofa to try and finish my nap. Woke up, took painkillers, planned to head home once they were working. So far so good - until The Sister got home from work. I've mentioned her before. Nice enough girl, although of course being siblings we regularly fight like cat and dog and have phases of Not Speaking to each other, but Oh Dear God does she talk. On and on and on and on, well I can deal with that, but also high-pitched, too fast, repeats herself, and never ever lets anyone else get a word in. Plus, she had had a bad day at work. I nodded and smiled and prayed for deliverance. After half an hour an absolutely shattered mum and Chris wandered in, and I could leave the room. We ordered some takeaway and then I think mum persuaded her to do a bit of work on her job application so she was quiet for a bit, but soon she was talking about what she was writing rather than writing it. Aargh.
We all had dinner and then mum offered to walk me home. Getting up the stairs took the last little bit out of me. I took my coat and shoes off, stood up to get ready for bed, and lurched into the bathroom just in time to throw up. Lovely. No one else is feeling ill so it's not food poisoning and it's unlikely to be a bug. The only theory Steve and I can come up with is that it's my system telling me to bloody well stop punishing it, on the basis that last time I was throwing up for no reason (so that's not counting little teeny bits when I'm extra-dizzy, heat exhaustion, or that bit of food poisoning last year) was when I first got ill and was pushing it by keeping going to work. So today I'm in bed, no ifs, buts, or maybes, and having as many little naps as I can. It's helping.
While I was final-editing this, mum rang. Turns out that as well as their car breaking down and my sister's bad day and me being sick, the people they had gone to meet, on their way home, got stuck in traffic and then something hit and shattered their windscreen. Not a good day for anyone!
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