As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

Butterfly_Brain

born_blonde wrote: »

Mardatha. do they wear tin hats ? ( The chickens - lovely visual place, I'm thinking of "Oh what a lovely war " at the moment - with chickens).

mardatha

Ahnevermind them smiley, their loss pet!
ceridwen, remember your house wasnt always there, whatever ambiance is in there might well come from a previous building maybe many hundreds of years ago. It goes with the ground, not the buildings.

chirpychick

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Oooh my mum used to give us yorkshire puddings and jam to fill us up when times where tight (which was most of the time when we were kids) and she was a Londoner

Yorkshire puddings and jam???? how? just smear it on the bottom and bake in the oven like a giant jam tart? sounds quite yummy! never heard of that before ever! but quite tempted to try it!

Rowan9

smileyt - that's rotten. So sorry you are feeling low about it. Have that cup of tea and ditch the shamed feeling. I'm sure your house is lovely and know that you would have gone out of your way to welcome everyone. Their loss.

JosieJump

chirpychick - my mum used to make extra yorkies to have cold with jam for pudding. I wouldn't eat them as they were a bit 'rubbery' but I was a picky eater as a child.

ChocClare

VJsmum wrote: »

I am planning to open an emergency account without telling the OH. If I do he will factor it into things and it will get spent (the last one i had he transferred some money into so now my "rainy day" account is just "an account" and my little stash - for the benefit of the family rather than just me - has been absorbed). Should i keep it from him?

YES

That is all :rotfl:

Joking apart, my mum ALWAYS did this - and we weren't particularly hard-up or anything. But because she didn't work, she used to make savings on her housekeeping, and would put any money at the end of the month into an account in her name. She liked to have money that was "hers". However, she never spent money on herself as such - the time it came to light was when my dad's long-suffering car shuddered to its final halt - his work was 26 miles away and he worked odd hours - and he said to my mum that he didn't know how he would be able to afford a new car. She presented him with £2000 to buy it. That was in the seventies and my dad still talks about how brilliant my mum was to salt away that money.

On a slightly more worrying note, I did research in the nineties which was how banks needed to target women in their fifties in comfortable middle to upper-middle class homes whose children had left home. These were the ladies who decided the time had come to ditch their husbands, and they had generally salted away quite considerable sums of money to enable them to continue in the style to which they had become accustomed - even without a major divorce settlement

candygirl

Smieyt what a bunch of barstewards.:mad::mad::mad:

Larumbelle

Thanks so much all of you for the hugs (and jugs, and mugs ), you have actually cheered me up a lot.

7WW, yes, I am in a union, thank goodness! We aren't a unionised workplace but I have personal membership. My union rep is great, but the main problem is that work have refused to have him at any of my contact meetings. So I have put in a grievance, which they have to let him attend, but there's nothing to stop them taking their time with it. He said it's as clear-cut as they come and they have a solicitor ready and waiting if needs be. But that's really not the point!

ceridwen wrote: »

:)LARUMBELLE - I agree with the others. Its a real "bummer" that your employer is treating you this way. B***y annoyed on your behalf - as I have some idea of JUST how hard you had to fight to get your life on track back in the first place and think it showed a lot of guts to "move on" from the way things were for you:mad:. Dont know exactly what sort of condition it is that you have that makes sitting down awkward? Would you feel it was possible to give us a few details of this - in case any of us have any ideas on this? I am wondering whether its down to the sort of posture we all have to adopt to sit in conventional chairs - and wondering whether one of those sorta "kneeling" type chairs with no back would "work" for you instead?? Hope this gets resolved for you and I think its very mean-spirited of your employer not to at least think in terms of swopping desks between you and some other employee - so that you could "sit" up by a wall and no question of "blocking anyone's light" - shame on that person for raising such a quibble....

Ceridwen... if only you knew how close you were with 'bummer'!!!!! It's a bit icky, so I'm putting the gory details in white text. If you want to read, you can highlight the text. If not, you don't have to read it!

---> I have a bowel disorder, which is not only painful but gives me permanent 'tummy upsets'. Going to the loo so often takes its toll after a while, and I was bleeding so much it caused further illness, so I had to have some damaged tissue removed from round my bottom. I've had repeated infections and my body produced too much scar tissue, but I still have open wounds. So I have a deformed bottom which it's very, very painful to sit on for long. <---

My doctor and occupational health have both recommended a sero cushion to allow me to sit down longer, I have one at home and it means I can sit around 30 mins as opposed to about 5 without. (This cost all of £25 by the way... I offered to supply my own, along with something to stand the PC on, if it would help!!!) . But they do both say I have to stand in between, especially because there is a bigger infection risk the longer I am sat down. What annoys me most is that their own occupational health agreed with my doctor and told them all of this! On the plus side, if there is one, I think HR are incompetent rather than malicious. Unfortunately I can't say the same of my manager, who I think is being deliberately difficult.

I am quite prone to depression, as some of you know. Situations like this one don't help. All we can do is keep on fighting I guess. I am looking for other jobs, I have applied to a couple of shops and banks where I know the staff stand at the counter. I think I just need to keep coming back here and trying to keep my chin up!

Smileyt, stuff 'em! It's a shame though, I bet most kids would prefer to stay in a cosy comfy home than a show house.

ChocClare

Welcome chirpychick. It is a bit daunting to be losing your job but what help we can give, we will!

As far as yorkshire puddings are concerned, you don't bake the jam in them - you cook them as usual and put jam in any leftover ones. They taste nice cold - rather like pancakes (and let's face it, that's all they are really).

JIL

Larumbelle wrote: »

Hi all

It's been ages since I've posted! I've been in and out of hospital loads, the surgery didn't go well and now I have complications to deal with as well as the actual symptoms. Better still, my employer are behaving as though the disability discrimination act / equality act never happened, and are refusing to allow me to stand at my desk because they don't consider it a reasonable adjustment. Apparently I might block someone else's light or make them feel uncomfortable by standing. It would actually be funny if it weren't such a disaster for me personally. Because they're not allowing me to work, so I'm on SSP, so I'm skint. Not to mention the fact that there's nothing quite so soul destroying as being rejected. Even as my employers tell me that I am missed and a valued member of the team blah blah blah. So, a grievance has been raised but if they don't budge it's a claim for constructive dismissal and disability discrimination. How have I ended up here? It's all very bewildering and I'm very unhappy. I'm trying to job seek but it's difficult. What on earth am I going to say to prospective employers? And it's put a strain on my relationship with OH as well, because he is under a lot of pressure to keep our heads above water financially while all of this goes on.

Sorry I just had to get all this off my chest. I feel utterly isolated.

hi
I fully understanding you wanting to continue at work, I do not know what kind of work you do but we have someone at work with a bad back and her desk actually moves up and down electronically. she stands some days and no one minds. Anyway have you thought about phoning your local Jobcentre, to speak to the disability employment advisor? They can advise you and your employer what help is available and what your employer should legally provide.
this link may help. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/Employmentsupport/SupportWhileInWork/DG_4000382 there is also a part with the grants available to employers for special equipment. I know a couple of the advisers and they are very knowledgeable around the law and grants etc.