Option A
Have a job, a mortgage and live your life watching TV, reading books and have a long, stressful life.
Option B
Sell your house for the proceeds, buy a pushbike and a tent, and go travelling until the money runs out at which point you find yourself at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Having lived a life of adventure, doing something fulfilling, you throw yourself off the edge.
What do you choose?
Well, I decided to go for it this morning and wish I hadn't.
I've lost all functionality and can't even post a feed where I want it. Hate it. I am royally angry.
The story so far:- 'Kate's boyfriend 'Ben', has moved his formerly autistic but now with ADHD (possibly some confusion on my part, or theirs) son, in. 'Kate' is not happy.
Over the past few days, 'Kate' has moved in, out and back in and no doubt if stress reaches acceptable levels, which is magnitudes higher than she can cope with - She's got epilepsy! Oh my God! She might have another fit like she did.....six months ago! Dear God...then she'll probably be out once more. 'Ben' is desperate for help. 'Psycho' wouldn't be too strong a word for Jordan. He's uncontrollable and runs around the house with knives in hand, kicking, screaming and throwing abuse at whoever is on the same planet. They literally pin him down. 'Kate' feels 'unsafe' - wuss. Does she not like excitement??
Plymouth Social Services, Snail like Sloths that they are, are dragging their feet in providing day care or 'school' as it's known. 'Ben' would like to put Jordan into care but Plymouth won't do it because Jordan comes from Wales and Wales won't do it because he's not being abused. Just doing the abusing himself, which is fine.
This is like a soap opera on my doorstep. Never did I imagine the entertainment value of my sister-in-law. I feel better as a person just watching her flap selfishly. Only last night she and her mother were deriding 'Ben' for not coping better. 'Ben' was almost begging Jenny for some support and she refused. A more loving woman you're very likely to meet.
Seemingly the fashionable thing of the moment to blog about is the death of The Greatest Showman Formerly Alive Steve 'Mad as a Croc' Irwin.
I'm sure you all know by now that he got stung in the heart by a Sting Ray, just as you all surely know this was only beaten in the likely stakes by the one-legged man playing chicken.
Steve, we loved ya for your bravery and courage but mostly your stupidity. You'll be missed.
Having been made redundant we've become aware of the need to save as much money as possible. This becomes a tad difficult when your cupboards are bare though, as we've been ruinning them down in time for our Big Move. Mis-timed it as it happens.
So off we toddled to the shops with the intention of doing a 'small shop'. Experience should have told me this would never happen, especially if I'm going with the wife. After a new cardigan and various pots, pans, kitchen accessories were put in the basket we then did the shop proper and it came to £127.93. A small shop indeed.
I don't know who to aim this at. It could be Plymouth City Council who will ultimately pay (not in a vengeance type way but that'd be nice), Social Workers in general for being too slow, or the Government for making an overly complex system.
One of those three is responsible for me not being able to care for my wife via the system of Direct Payments (If you live with the person you care for, they won't pay you the quoted £8.44 per hour. Instead, they'll draft in someone under-qualified who my wife doesn't know or trust for...£15 per hour. Sense? Not in local government.) which is about giving control to the person that needs the money - instead of giving you products and services they'll give you the money instead. Easier said than done. Five months down the line with my wife's health ever deteriorating, they're still dragging their feet and going to yet another meeting (their fourth) before coming back to us for a meeting (our fifth) with more hollow promises that it'll 'be soon'. And monkeys might flight out of my butt.
It's only this week, since I was made semi-redundant, leaving me to scrabble for other temporary locum work at the Hospital, that I've appreciated the low level 'scum' jobs that people do.
My life currently involves a combination of a sick wife I care for, moving house, two cats and no proper job, all of which combines to mean I don't have the time to work somewhere that pays a decent wedge, I don't have the time to work somewhere that wants a commitment to staying on the promises for more than three hours at a time, or indeed turn up at all. My former temporary boss (temporary meaning there for eighteen months in this case) didn't care, when or if I turned up. It was a job that could be done at midnight and if I didn't turn up, it meant he didn't have to pay me out of his budget.
Now, I'm taking whatever work I can get in the Hospital, which generally means 'Dogs Body'. This week I've been mostly working in Physiotherapy as Receptionist. Me, 30 year old, semi-intelligent male as a receptionist...I'll take you through my day. I arrive. I sit at my computer/window and say the following: "Hi. Name? What time's your appointment? OK, that's fine. Take a seat in the waiting room down the hall to the right. If you're still waiting ten minutes after your appointment time, let us know. Thank you". A hundred times a day. I did this for 6 hours which, although coma inducing is all the time I can get. Next week, I'm working at the Notes store, doing something with notes presumably but I've got no idea what. And this is for £6.40 an hour!! Admittedly it's better than minimum wage but if someone wanted to make use of my talents while I worked from home I could earn much more but no one does, so I'm stuffed.
