Begging on the telephone

Today has not been a good day for me - I feel grumpy - I have felt grumpy most of the day. Not really sure why - maybe because I have to go to work tonight - it is my last night though so that is something to look forward to (no more sleepness night walking miles up and down corridors, cleaning and caring). Maybe I am already a bit tired although I actually feel ok, my throat is still a bit iffy but otherwise I feel at last the grotty cold is starting to subside.

Then my day got worse. I ended up begging some snotty little boy on the phone to please deliver us some gas when all he did was basically read No off the screen. Now we do still owe the gas company a little (from monday £100) not a huge amount and all winter we have hugely economised with gas, often being cold, taking showers rather than baths and trying to make it last. It is now into the red (or black on my tank) and we really need a delivering. (Please bear in mind that we have paid them £50 per month, every month and it has been a bloody cold winter).

He would not move, he would not compromise, he would not even listen, he would not let me speak to his boss, he didn't empathise in anyway, in fact it was obvious he didn't give a crap. I was so angry and so upset I cried. I got off the phone and wept. How have I been reduced to this by an uncaring company and a little 'twat' on the phone.

So we turned off the heating, made plans to not have any baths in the near future and hope that the gas will keep going a little while longer. Gas heats our hot water and we cook on it. What else can we do?

By the way, according to little 'twat' Calor Gas has no system for helping people who are having difficulty paying large heating bills, according to 'little twat' they just have a debt recovery department. Well big thanks!!!

After calming down and feeling a bit silly for crying - I had a think.

You have to fight, in this country at this time, in our situation, you have to fight for everything. We are poor (that is ok most of the time - I don't need to buy stuff all the time and consumerism has its major faults) but it doesn't mean I can't be proud, I can't be intelligent, I can't try.

So we rang back and got the managing directors address - will it help? Who knows but if it doesn't I really am prepared to take it further - the press, the TV - well yeah - because we are not the only ones, we are not bad people, we are just in a bad situation. So here goes - a nice but firm letter to the MD asking for flexibility and compromise - a little help yeah.

I would rather hold my head up and try to fight than just be a bloody victim all the time. Will he care or help - watch this space.

Broken New Years Resolutions

I

I always make New Years Resolutions (NYR's) - normally the same old stuff, do more; lose weight; be more; write more; write everyday; get a better job etc, etc, etc.

This year I didn't do all those things - well I did in my mind but mainly I concentrated on two NYR's - one was to be more positive, more optimistic about life. I have tried really hard to do this and apart from when I have been feeling crappy and ill, have tried to keep to it. I feel better for although I still have to regularly remind myself, I like it, I life living life to the positive - it helps - it make life better, it makes life easier.

The other NYR's was to stop buying books. This was really about saving money. As anyone will know who regularly reads my blog, money is tight and in the main I have stop being a consumer - I have had to. But somehow I have kept buying books, normally cheaply new or second hand but was still regularly buying books. In fact I have a massive pile to read and keep thinking one day I will have the time and the energy to just sit and plough through them.

I have failed miserably. It is not yet the end of February and I bet I have purchased the best part of twenty books - some second hand (I am still indulging my passion for second hand poetry books), some cheaply new (the pound shop has some pretty amazing hard backs and I picked one up the other day that was actually signed by the author), some in the Supermarket where £4 can buy a good current novel and today I went to Waterstones and 'bloo' £25 quid on new full price and reduced books.

And you know what I don't feel guilty, I really don't. I love books, I love reading them, I love owning them, I love looking at them and touching them, I love talking about them - I LOVE BOOKS.

So I will continue to buy books (luckily my local town does not have a decent book shop so the opportunity for new books is not so often), I will continue to trade and sell my read books, I will continue to love them. I will continue to find new books, to find other people with the same passion to talk about them. I will continue to buy books.

For what is life without a good book?

Dix

Am I the only one?

Is it just me or is anyone else bloody angry about what is happening in this country at the moment. The final straw (and I know there will be many more final straws) that banks have not been paying full tax on their profits. Of course, us, the normal working person who struggles to make ends meets and is trying to cut, cut, cut and take on board the mess the country is in - we have to pay full taxes to the very last penny.

The banks and bankers made this mess but everyone else is just sitting by letting them get away with it. People are just saying it is alright for students to start life with £45,000 debt and no guarantee of a job, it is alright to stop benefits for those who just might need them, keep on paying benefits for people who have paid little or nothing into the system and don't have a right to the services, to pay £6+ a litre for petrol, to not being able to put the heating on because it is too expensive. to buy valueline, poor quality food because that is all they can afford, to watch support being taken away from those who need it most, the old, the disadvantaged young, those with disabilities.

Is this really OK?

I watch the citizens of other countries stand up and say - we don't want you anymore, we want a new government, we want a new life and I think they are brave, they are optimistic, they still have some optimistism, they are not afraid.

In this country I feel we feel like we have no say, we have only pessimism that all politicians are the same and nothing will change, only get worse if anything, that we are afraid, we have been made afraid by 7/7 and other threats. Maybe we need to get a backbone and be like Tunisia, Egypt and others.

I don't know if I am brave enough but I sure know I would love someone to help me try.

Dix

Blogging and Poetry

I feel bad. I really want to keep up my blogging this year and yet it has been over 2 weeks since I last blogged. My excuse - I have been unwell - full of cold and tiredness. At the moment I feel like a 'sicknote' like I am always unwell, always tired and wanting to sleep huge amounts and full of aches and pains. Hopefully this is about to pass and I can look forward to spring time full of energy and renewed optimism.

I haven't been doing much creative, not even reading much but I have managed to un earth a good poet. I have an addiction, and yes it is an addiction, for buy books but especially little poetry books - self published and pamphlets, anything really. Some are good; some are absolutely brilliant; others no so - but all worth exploring and enjoying.

I purchased a little book of poetry by Keith Chandler called A different kind of smoke. It was in my local Oxfam shop and it is signed by the author (another thing I like to collect). So I took it home and have been doing some exploring inside its pages. I like it, I like it very much, some of the poetry has amazing imagery, some really makes me feel (all things I love about poetry). I know nothing about the author - he may be local, he may have written much more. I just checked the book was published in 2001 in Yorkshire (that is probably a big clue). Anyway I just want to show you two of his works here:

The "chicken girl"

they called you, those who tutted, clucked

but wouldn't "interfere" or help

the mother who, moustached retard.

couldn't cope, left you at home all day,

all night, with feathered foster aunts.

Among the dust, the dried sick smell

of chicken mash, the one square yard

of sky, fluff, yuk, hexagonal eyes

of wire, square yard of sluttish sand .........

Aged 10, tiny skull, hands bent back

at the wrist, "unable to communicate

except through head-jerking shrieks"

and, rarely, that self-crooning, sound

hat dustbath, or contentment makes .........

Perched on the social worker's lap

I see your, bright disc-membraned eye

(the other side blurred over, scarred

from unhealed fights) staring back

at the camera as at a bottle cap.

Bottom of the pecking order, you stab

and stab at the dry crust of my heart.

Keith Chandler

How amazing is this, it reminds me of Timothy Winters (Peter Porter) a kind of sad humour of child abuse.

Our Father

a shy stiff serious man. I think

of you as somehow on the brink

of being about to say more

than "good night", one hand on the door -

those warm soft things I try to say

to my son as, finally

tousling hair of kissing cheek,

I tuck him in against the dark.

When (packed off to boarding school)

your letters came, they were full

of news, money sometimes. No fuss

about how we felt. Or missing us.

We must talk more openly... What

made you uncomfortable like that?

Was it your father, hand on door,

dressed in the camouflage of war

not knowing what, or how, to say?

What are you afraid of? Why

can I never thing of you as "Dad"

but just "our Father"? It makes me sad

to stand here, to see you curled

drip-fed, cot-sided like a child,

to leave you in this nursery

of fear, as if with nothing to say.

Keith Chandler

This second piece has such a feel of my own father - who loved me but couldn't show it - as an adult I understood as a child it felt cold and unloved. That was the man he was. Not the same ending (my father died suddenly at 73) but the feeling is there.

Dix

A visit to the dentist

Today I visited the Dentist - it was a last minute appointment as I had to change my scheduled appointment because I have a job interview (yay - but another blog I think). Luckily it didn't give me too much time to think about it - I just got up, took the dog for a walk and toddled off to the dentist.

I have to say that this dentist is much nicer than the one I used to visit. He is South African (but aren't all dentist's now) but he is pleasant and very understanding of people's financial situation. It was only a check up but I knew I had broken one of my teeth just before Christmas so that was going to cause a conversation, if nothing else.

I sat in the chair and he began prodding and poking (in a dentist sort of way) and I felt myself literally trying to curling back into myself. Now I don't really like the dentist but have decided that if I want to at least keep a few teeth in my mouth that I need to 'put up with it'. I could taste that metal sweet sort of taste of blood and really wanted to close my mouth (that is unusual for me) and leave - not make a fuss but with confidence. Of course, I didn't - I then tried to take myself off to a happy place - that didn't really work either - I couldn't seem to think of a happy place just a stark white dentist place. Oh Dear.

He looked at my broken tooth and we had a conversation (he had his hands out of my mouth by now), he can fill it but it probably wont do any good as there is not much left to fill, he could take it out but I am really unkeen to loose another tooth as my mouth is starting to getting those funny vertical lines running about a centimetre from my lips (in the places where other teeth have departed my mouth for ever), - note here I don't look totally toothless or anything but I have have six teeth removed, four being my wisdom teeth (say no more) and I do think about it sometimes before smiling at people I don't know. This of course means I smile in a kinda crooked wonky way that is more frightening than smiling and makes people look away quickly with that 'who is this mad woman and why is she growling at me' way.

Or I can have my tooth capped which will cost £199 - a huge amount of money but something I would like to have done. So I explained the above (about keeping whats left of my rotting stones) and that I would have to save up but would like a crown done. He was really nice about, (my old dentist would have made me feel bad for not doing as I was told) and said come back when I had the money, that what was left of the tooth should be OK for now and otherwise just keep looking after them.

So it is over you say - unfortunately not, he went back into my mouth, prodding and poking again and shouting out strange letters and numbers to his assistant. Then he got out that cleaning/drilling sounding thing and cleaning the back of my front teeth, (apparently I need to work harder there to stop the plaque building up). By this time my feet were literally curling, so much so my toes were nearly touching my shins (well slight exaggeration there but you know what I mean). I looked up at his masked face and thought this is like paying for torture and that has never been my thing - I would much rather pay for luxury and pampering.

Then as soon as it began - it was finished. He removed his mask and I rinsed and thanked him (why did I thank him for that torture) and left. After paying the bill £16+ and having some inane conversation with the receptionist (they must have thought - what a strange lady- I left).

I was pleased that I might be able to have a crown (if I can save up), pleased it was over, but mainly pleased that at least we had a conversation and he did treat me like another human being even when he was inflicting pain.

Oh well, don't have to do this again until August (or before if I can save up).

Dix

On My Own

Yesterday evening I did something I have wanted to do for ages but have been well, too afraid to do. I went to the cinema on my own. I have missed so many films that other because I didn't know anyone else who wanted to go or I couldn't sort out a time when we could both go. I love going to see a good film at the pictures - it really is a wonderful thing to do. And even though I local cinema is old fashioned, has low and slightly uncomfortable seats and can be well frankly, a bit cool there is no experience like seeing a good film on the big screen.

Going to the pictures on my own was fine, nobody really even looked at me and there was another woman on her own. I just sat at the end and settled myself in and enjoyed the wonderful film - I didn't feel odd, or a Billy No Mates - just a person going to see a film I wanted to see. I didn't feel uncomfortable during the film and frankly just forgot I was on my own I was so engrossed in the film. It is definitely something I will do again - I really want to see the Black Swan film so might do that next weekend although I am told that is a bit scary and not sure I can do scary on might on - but hey, might give it a try.

I went to see The King's Speech and it was every bit as good as a thought it would be. I like Colin Firth but have found him to be a bit stiff in the past but this was perfect for the type of stiff upper class characterisation needed for this part.

I have always been interested in the time in history as it must have been hard for someone who wasn't meant to be King, who hadn't been prepared to be King to end up having to be King at probably one of the hardest times in history - during the Second World War. I never realised that the epileptic prince Johnny was his brother, somehow I thought that was a generation back and in the film his brother came across as a really nasty piece of work (and a committed Nazi which is I think the real reason he was pushed to leave).

The film is everything that is good about British film (apart from having an Australian as Edward - huh why couldn't that have been a British actor but I think the Australian was played by a British actor so I guess that makes sense.

I really recommend it to every one, it is subtle; it is clever; it shows a time in history that many will still remember or like me be very aware of; it deserves all the prizes and accolades that it gets and I hope that is many.

Long may they continue to make wonderful and intelligent films like this one?

Dix

Ps I tried to post this yesterday but for some reason my blog was 'having a moment'.

Feeling ill

Wednesday night it started. I just felt grotty. Nothing I could really put my finger on just felt bit sick and tummy was definitely churning. I feel asleep on the settee and woke up a couple of hours later and felt like I had been battered.

You don't really need to know this (but I will tell you anyway) after a couple of very urgent trips to the toilet and needing to expel from both ends I then felt really rough. I fell back asleep on the settee as our bedroom is a long way away from the bathroom. I eventually went to bed but couldn't fall asleep mainly because I feel like someone has put a belt around my chest and is pulling it tightly. Both my arms feel a bit numb and heavy and food holds no joy for me.

Yesterday I managed to drink a little and wasn't very interested in much else. (Those who know me will realise that it doesn't matter if I go a few days without food - I can afford to!). I just wanted to sleep all the time but when I slept it just made me feel grotty.

Today I still have the pain but definitely feel better - my chest is tight but I think I have just pulled muscles.

Trouble is yesterday was my big pay day - I was due to do 2 shifts and earn quite a bit. So now the end of the month will be just as crap and I have probably pissed off work.

Ah well - just got to keep going. I have another job application to fill in today and hand it today so I shouldn't really be doing this but wanted a quick break and blogging is always a good distraction.

Dix