It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

[Deleted User]

Well OH's JSA still isn't through, they have lost some info this time delaying the application again :mad:. My Social Work bursary still isn't in, uni have not confirmed we are attending despite almost at the end of the second week. Even when they do it will still take 10 working days to go in. We have £50 between us, I have no idea what we are going to do

ceridwen

GreyQueen wrote: »

:eek: I found out yesterday that the market rate for an ex-council house rented out in the private sector (4 bedroom) is currently £10,000 per annum in this city. :eek:

Thanks for cardomom info; it's a wonder I'm still alive how I cook, isn't it?.........:rotfl:

Post and rush as am on break...((hugs)) to all.

Dont worry about it G.Q. re the finding out what "bits and bobs" are and what to do with them....:rotfl:

I can thoroughly sympathise with that - as the diet my mother brought us up on was <ahem> rather "restricted" even by the standards of that era and I've been making up for lost time ever since...:rotfl:. No-one minds if one asks "Whats that? and what do I do with it?". Voice of experience time - I've been constantly asking for decades now - but have still got a ways to go before I feel confident that I could be faced with any food going and "know my way around". I've discovered that people always take it as a compliment if theres someone there saying "I dont know what this is? What do I do with that? Am I going to like it?". I've always had a positive/helpful response to date when I've admitted how ignorant I was about some food or other and asked questions about it..

Believe me - they simply dont come much more ignorant than I was about whats what re food when I "set up home" on my own. I was having to ask about some VERY VERY basic things indeed....WAY WAY more "basic" than your queries:(:o:(:o. These days I'm probably much more "informed" than many about different foods and what to do with them...but I'm well aware theres a heck of a lot of questioning and experimenting still to do....

I've always felt envious of the children concerned when adults say about how they are bringing up their children to try everything/eat everything and they have primary school age children that are incredibly "sophisticated" in their tastes and would instantly know what everything is and what to do with it. My family circumstances are that I could have been one of those "sophisticated/know whats what" little kids - but I wasnt....and I had to find out about even very basic foods (pate anyone? jacket potatoes anyone? curry anyone? - duh....'twas all a mystery to me until I started feeding myself....)

oldtractor

No mortgage thank goodness we own our tiny 2 up and 2 down but we do have expensive vehicle costs. DH travels are fair way to work as we live quite rurally and he is a lorry driver. the problem is also that he starts work at lunch time and finishes very late and is home 11pm at the earliest. He's paid £7.50 an hour plus an extra rate for anti-social hours. but hes had time off [holidays] so he only gets the £7.5o ph. even with overtime and extra rate its £9.50 an hour. he does around 35 hrs a week coz thats all there is. what p****s me off is that everyone else seems to be enjoying a bar BQ and the good weather and we never enjoy a mid week meal together coz its always just a quick bite before he leaves for work. Same with fri nights so much happens socially in the village on fri nights and we always miss it all,even the church harvest festival was on a fri night with a bring and share lunch after. he has to take a days holiday if we want to attend. and it costs so much to run the old banger of a car we have to get him too and from work. sometimes I could scream ,there doesnt seem to be any other work and i know
i shouldnt moan but sometimes i feel i cant go on like this ,until hes 68 [19 years time] the evenings are so lonely. hes worked this shift for 8 years and work wont move him onto another shift. What gets me is other companies appear to pay their drivers far more per hour.
Sorry for the rant , I'm just rather down at the moment,what with winter coming and all the bills going up. We dont even have a pension ,except state basic.
i do a bit of work here and there but its all minimum wage and only a few hours a week,sometimes no hours a week.

mardatha

Not been on a lot lately, been tired at nights and today our power went off at 8 this morning and back on at 6pm, they are putting in new lines.
Still no stove, supposed to be 17th Oct.
Weather been terrific for two whole days, amazing - but to change tomorrow night.
Oh and Red Doe has bronchitis but is getting better.

mardatha

Oldtractor, you have each other - and many wives would give anything for that. Please treasure what you have, watch the sun going down, listen to the birds singing, and enjoy the magic of this world. xxx Love & Light to you pet.

oldtractor

((((((((((HUGS))))))))Red Doe and hope you can keep warm Mardatha

oldtractor

mardatha wrote: »

Oldtractor, you have each other - and many wives would give anything for that. Please treasure what you have, watch the sun going down, listen to the birds singing, and enjoy the magic of this world. xxx Love & Light to you pet.

I know I should be grateful and also for the fact he had a full time job. Sorry I just morbid at the moment.

Rowan9

Roasting hot. Don't like the heat which is just as well living here!
(((hugs))) to rosanna and others with pet sadness.
Also get better quickly to Red Doe - hope you are managing to get out and sit in this sunshine to boost your immune system.
W

ceridwen

My best wishes to Red Doe - I know she had a lot on her plate to cope with anyways....so fingers crossed the bronchitis will soon be gone.

OLDTRACTOR
I can sympathise re the missing out on "social times". 'Twas easier in the past - as, as long as one kept "paid work" to "conventional" times then it was a given that it was always possible to be at whatever social events one decided on. That is - I dont blame you at all for having a rant on this...because I'd go ballistic personally if work was preventing me from having "social times" I'd decided on...

I have noticed in recent times that even in my (not as bad as some are...) area that social events now seem to have moved from evening/weekend to early evening/daytime. I'm now in an older agegroup than I was back then - so obviously things will have changed a bit anyways - but it feels to me like social things have swopped from being "social time" (ie those evenings/weekends) to the "early evening/daytime" slots to some extent precisely because social events cost less at those times. Reason = people arent expecting to "dress up for their social life"/spend money on alcohol/etc at those sorta times.


I DO wonder whether the shift in "social times" is down to the fact that we (ie my social group) tend to be rather older these days (ie a lot of my contemporaries are now retired/early retired) OR down to the fact that "social life" is cheaper in those times. It is difficult to disentangle - ie which came first - ie "the chicken or the egg". My suspicion is that a major factor in this is not the age group I am now in - but "the times have changed" factor.

*******************

Another thing I have recentlly come aware of was that there was a "Long Depression" in the 1870s to 1890s (as far as Britain was concerned) - ie prior to the "Great Depression" that started in the 1920s....and now we all have what (at long last!) is being admitted to as a Depression again (ie not yet another recession). I hadnt picked that fact up from the history books...ie of there having been a "Long Depression" not THAT long before the Great Depression. ....

mardatha

Don't be sorry pet - just wanted to lift you xxx