Today is a new day!

InaPickle

PaF, get off you steamroller now...you risk rolling your thread visitors over, too! :rotfl:

I look forward to hearing their concrete answers...it seems that they will have a lot of squirming to do when the time comes! x

Verbatim

Wee
ll done PAF.

POSITIVE_AND_FOCUSED

Thanks for all your supportive comments. The reason Im seeing it through is that dd loves being at the school. There are 3 more years of her schooling there and I want the Head to know I mean business via the correct channels. I do not intend me and dd to go through such a stressful and worrying ordeal ever again when my only crime is to have a disability which they are aware of already and have detailed how that effects dd and I as a family. I also firmly believe that disabilities should be a big part of the community and just because we dont fit into a box "they" can tick does not mean we are incapable and have to be shut away, very medievel if you ask me!, I personally try to live my life as normal as possible, its just on occasions I need a bit of understanding that I might be late, or I need to re-arrange or something similar. Family, friends and customers are all capable of understanding I have bad moments, tiredness that overwhelms me, that I can trip, fall, need to take longer to rest in between, that sort of thing.. Its not always possible to pretend Im like everyone else! Mornings aremy worst. In my earlier life it was then that I was epileptic, the drugs im on for that ongoingly cause tiredness, my leg can be difficult but I do not think the answer in our situation is to say get someone else to take dd to school when Im capable of it and I want to. I should not have to be ashamed of who I am. We are talking late before reg has closed on average once a week. My dd's wellbeing in all this is paramount, and she wants me to take her to school. Thats the most important part of all this. And where I "fail", I "excel" in other areas where other parents who have taken their kids out for long weekends, hols etc have not, not that is an issue with me, its just the different way the school deals with those situations. Thats tolerated, Im not, we have to be refered to Social services under the pretence that dd is crying, to presumably get the guilt trip going and bully me in to submission that I am doing a bad job and should consider going to another school which the Welfare Officer suggested to me before. Why they think that is the answer I do not know unless disabled parents and their children are simply not wanted at the school! It's interesting, asking around, it seems to me its the families with special needs children or with parents like me with disabilities who are having a struggle with the school since the new Head is there. It will be interesting to see what they say about the Young Carers policy and if indeed they have one! Doing away with the disabled parking space says it all to me, cutting off the one external area to access the playground for wheelchair access is another concern. One dear mum can not collect her dd from the playground anymore without having to go through the various corridors in the school with a member of staff to come out to the back of the school. She hates it, its actually breaching the Disability Discrimination Act. Why can't they just fit a ramp for gods sake! Its just so wrong. Anyway, Im standing my ground and we will see what comes of it all...

Am really working hard to get the dosh in to cover bills while we are away next week with the dear charity taking us for a 4 day break up the road near Brighton and ensuring everything covered for when we come back. Being the end of the month its all the big ones, mortgage etc, and I want to keep on top of it all. Also have my accountant to pay. Still we are hanging in there and for that I am eternally grateful to on high! My top order of the week so far from 1 customer is £86! Well chuffed with that. And then Im doing this buffet this weekend for 13! Its all go here!

Verbatim

I have every confidence that you'll succeed in getting the money together as you always do PAF. hope you have a lovely holiday.

POSITIVE_AND_FOCUSED

We are back! Had an absolutely lovely time, met some other lovely people, beautiful place where we stayed. Dd and I would go off together in the eve and just sit in the grounds watching the rabbits and just being, just enjoying the moment together. Weds was the most embarrassing day. It was a day where all the mums were having a day out shopping and the lady who organised the break was going to take us out for a pub lunch. Well, there were 5 mums, the other 4 all spent loads of money on their children and themselves. Me, I just bought a bday present for one of my dd friends, and a hot chocolate, spent much of the day people watching. I had v little money. My mortgage went out that day leaving me £2.40 avail!! So, when I was asked why I hadn't spent the money I would normally spend on food etc for the week on my self I explained that I was not earning money either. Not the end of the world. It would have worn me out tramoing around the shops. Im one of those people who when I do go out, I know what I want and where from, and I just get it. Then I go to a tea shop and have a cuppa!!!! One of the things Im now worried about is we have been asked away on another 4 day trip to Newcastle with the National Victims Assoc for which I am v grateful, this is where we meet other families who have been subjected to murder in the family. My dd is so looking forward to going, why I thought I could manage two 4 day breaks within a few weeks of each other I do not know! I have my accountant to pay too!What possessed me! Deep down I need to go, my dd definately needs to go. She wants to see the little friends who have had mums or dads murdered that she made last year when we went for the first time and I am concerned how upset she sometimes gets crying for her daddy. And indeed myself. God I miss him, it hits me in the pit of my stomach at times.. And I am aware she is spending much of her next couple of wks at the holiday club, and working with me. So, I need to make it happen for both of us. Anyway, am going to see if I can just pay interest only this month on my mortgage, they had offered me a two month repayment hols earlier in the year and I only took 1. Maybe there is some flexibility so we can still go to Newcastle without worrying about the money.

Other news quickly, MBNA have not provided me with the correspondence I require to move my complaint on with them via Banking Ombudsman. They have asked me to request it again. Basically, MBNA will have 8 weeks in which to respond and it is only after that when the Ombudsman can take it on for me again without the copies of letters. So, thats in the process of.

Busy day today, dd at hol club, and I have lots of books to collect and a customer who wants to join my team, so I need to catch up with her to make an appointment to get her started. So, all v positive!

InaPickle

Glad you had a nice time away, and don't worry about not having spent lots on shopping: being a 'I only buy what I need' shopper is no bad thing.

As for MBNA, why should you requet the paperwork a second time? Is seems that they are stalling for time. At the end of the time they are allowed to get the paperwork to you, could you not just go to the Ombudsman anyway, as it would look better for you? Not sure how that kind of thing works...

Pickle

POSITIVE_AND_FOCUSED

Want to update. Been busy busy busy here.Dd and I went away with the National Victims assoc last week, Mon to thurs. Absolutely wonderful time, its lovely to see dd happy and meeting others in her situation, ie a parent murdered although it clearly isn't lovely that it has happened at all. Didn't want to come back, however we are and have got stuck into work and my past time of keeping up with the dear bills! Before we went away I calculated I would be able to cover the mtge payt, since coming home I just don't know how I calculated that to be so. I will be speaking to Halifax tom to sort out something. The thing Im concentrating on is my overall debt owing is the lowest it has ever been in recent years. Debt is reducing, the discipline and spending diaries are working.

2 developments. MBNA have written to me aftr I had to write to them for the last lot of correspondence which the Banking Ombudsman needed to proceed with the complaint. They have said they will get back to me within 28 days. So that is at least some progress.

Welfare Office have sent me a copy of the referral to Social Services which is supposed to answer my questions regarding the alleged "emotional upset" that dd apparently experiences regularly as a result of us being late. Well, of course it doesn't provide the evidence to substantiate those claims and that is what I had asked for. What they have taken 40 days to send me is a photocopy of a two page document which has really upset my mum, so much so she is writing to them too. It is full of discrepancies, perhaps lies is too strong a word, but that is what they essentially are. For example, we were successfully on time 89% of the time , yet we are described as late "most mornings", and "continuously". Just one of many exaggerations or completely made up statements in the referral. Another is Ive apparently met with the school to discuss strategies. I haven't at all. The first I knew there was an issue was when the Social Services letter arrived on my mat. Anyway, Ive drafted another letter and we will see where that gets us, polite and all that but insisting my rights to the source of the claims made in the referral in line with the Data Protection Act. In meantime, Ive also prepared a letter to the school simply requesting details of the Young Carers policy and will see if I get it. Im yet to have any letter to the school replied to! So time will tell!....

InaPickle

Cor PaF, I was starting to think you had been sucked up by a tornado and deposited in Oz, and then you go and ruin it all by telling me that you've been on holiday!

In all seriousness, I'm glad you and DD had a good time away and that the spending diaries are evidently doing their job.

It's also nice to hear that you've heard something from MBNA, however little, and that things are moving there with them, too.

As for SS, it's nice you have something in writing that you can show to be untrue from your part in writing,

I get the feeling that PaF is going to be doing a lot of butt-kicking in the near future. Make sure you've got your extra-pointy steel toe capped boots on while doing it!

POSITIVE_AND_FOCUSED

Well. since my last entry, am not sure how I would describe myself at mo. Arranged a payt hol on the mtge to get through this month, and so once again I can sit here and say we are up to date with everyone. The debt is slowly getting less, just wonder how much longer I can keep it up! Heard my dd tell a friend that she wasn't able to have the same new school shoes as her as we were poor. Quite heart wrenching. On the other hand, my dear friend has given us yet more clothes her dd has grown out of and so my dd is not left wanting. Shoes are shoes at the end of the day whether they cost £35 or £10!!!

So, the school. It turns out a Young Carers policy is not essential, just considered "good practice" to have. So, I have still requested details of it in writing, and have asked for an appt with the school withmy mum aswell as we hope a lady from Care for Carers. Then with the Welfare dept who wrote the referral to Social services, i have asked once again for their evidence to back their claims that dd is "regularly emotionally upset due to the constant lateness". We were incidentally on time 89% of the time, so "constant"isa bit of an exaggeration in my book. There were 11 points I highlighted as incorrect or misleading in their referral, including comments such as I have "extreme difficulty caring for dd". Anyway, we shall see... I just know it really hurts reading things like that and it makes me feel Im up against the world when I would rather not be. Why did they even write that, no one has spoken to me....

Otherwise, Im sitting here planning to reviewmy goals and where I want to be in 10 years. Its start of Xmas in Kleeneze land! Have sold £1200 this last week, and thats the sort of rtail I want to be doing week in week out for the coming months, just pray snow will not figure this winter, well hopefully not for three months like last year anyway. Debt is getting less and we are upstraight, thats what I cling on to.

beanielou

Good to see you & that you are plodding on