MOOLOO'S continuing saga Part 4

Savvy_sewing

Just made some last minute plans and I am going away for the weekend myself. Seeing as DGD has gone to her grandad. I am hopping over the channel to France. Back on Sunday night.
Tunnel booking wasnt too expensive and the hotel was only £67 So sod it. Paris here I come. (the petrol will be the dearest part of it all!). I still have enough Euro's from our Portugal trip in August.

Dont need a voice to do that anyway.

Savvy_sewing

Hi all, back safely and soundly. It was an easy enough run, with the help of a sat nav.
The hotel was old, but clean and the staff very helpful. Arrived at breakfast time. Could have had breakfast there, but decided to go out and have one in a cafe.
Alas the weather was Fog. So didnt get to see the top of the Eiffel Tower, but went there again in the evening and saw it lit up. What a sight.
Walked the Champs Elysee. Well that was interesting as the christmas market was down the bottom end on either side. So many food stalls. The smells were very tempting. But all I bought were 4 christmas decorations.
Looking in the windows of the shops and the Prices! Eek.
Liked a cloche hat I saw on the market, but didnt go back. Wish I had. Oh well.
Used my Euro's from Portugal trip, so had the money for the Toll road, and that made the journey faster.
Got back to the Tunnel earlier then planned and managed to get onto the earlier train than the one that was booked.
Loved it though. Real treat.
Now though I am very tired.
Stayed at home today, apart from the school runs and taking Twin1 home. She was here with DGD last night so I could have as long a time as possible. Its the Twins birthday today. They are 24.
I hope that they had a good weekend, sounds like they didnt do too badly. Havent had a chance to talk to twin2 yet today. Will ring her in a bit when dGD is settled.
I used the day to sort out the fabrics, and cut out the flags for an anniversary bunting. Got to sew the lettering on to them, but having a bit of trouble as my sewing machine has decided not to stitch properly. Another thing that I will have to look at this evening if I can. Otherwises I will have to get out another machine and hope that I can do what I want on one of them.
Time to get the machine serviced again I think.
I intend to use the Maps that I brought back, and the train tickets for the Metro etc to make a montage. Just to remind me of the trip.
I want to do something that I can use in my French themed kitchen.
Which is still needing the curtains. Have had the material for nearly 2 years I think. But still no poles up so havent made them.
One of these days I will have a finished kitchen!. Havent got any room finished to how I would really like them. The curtains in the front room have been changed 3 times. I cant decided what I want. Will need to use the things that I have though as I dont want to waste things.
Last set of curtains that were given to me last year by the neighbours who left, were too heavy for my poles and brought the pole down, but they are now in good use at twin1's. As they are longer and lined, they are helping to keep the cold out from her french doors in the main living room.
DGD was good for her grandad, so hopefully he will take her again sooner rather then later. It was lovely to have a child free weekend, but its also great to be back home.
Time to keep a beady eye on the finances so that I dont overspend in the next few weeks, and can cover the Credit Card bill when it comes in. I have put across £30 into the CC already. (early before the bill will be in). I shall put across a bit more next week.
I came back with €40 so they can go in the drawer for the next trip we have abroad.
Now that the twins birthday is over, its time to think properly about Christmas. I am spending the day with Biggest of Mooloo and the DGD's. HOpefully the twins and DS will be joining us as well.
I know that my Dad has given Biggest of Mooloo some extra money so that she can "do a good Christmas" my Dad said to me when I went to see them.
Mum was talking about giving me one of her bowls/flower vases with the grids over the top that used to be my granny's. I said that I wished that they would stop clearing out, it makes it seem as if they are both intending to pop thier clogs soon. Scarey. I know that they are not imortal, but its hard to think of life without them. I have been blessed to have parents who have/are living into a decent old age. Dad at 80 and Mum at 76. (I thought she was older than that, oops!). Oh well I cannot dwell on thinging about loosing them!
Time to get on.

minimoneysaver

Wowsers!!! Sounds like you had an amazing time. Such a fantastic idea.

Savvy_sewing

Couldnt have gone if DGD's grandad hadnt had her, or her Mum was willing to babysit her till I returned last night.
Nor if it had been last year, as I would not have been well enough.
All good.
Now I am tired and off to bed.
Volunteering in the morning, just hope I havent seized up too much. But at least its only for 2 hours that I am definitely needed there.

Savvy_sewing

Just had a phone call from twin2, in absolute floods of tears. She has lost her job in the well known pizza place. As she has been Fired, she is now going to be sanctioned again, and loose her money from the jobcentre.
I have said that I will have to investigate it all tomorrow and not to worry today.
She has already been sanctioned and lost 4 weeks of money for missing a back to work interview thingy, as she was working at the famous Pizzaria.
Now they have let her go (although I am not surprised-), she is distraught. she was so happy to have a job, even though it was only for a few hours.
I asked why they fired her, but she was not easy to understand, she said not enough hours. Which to me is them terminating the contract rather then firing her. So I will probably have to ring them up tomorrow and ask them on what terms was she hired, and fired. Etc, and get them to put it in writing.
I thought that you had to have warnings these days before they can fire you, (unless its gross miss conduct?). But as they only gave her a few hours maybe its not part of the law.
I am also not sure if that means her benefit will be affected or not.?
I wish I had more knowledge of these things. Mum is not the fount of all knowledge alas, (except they think I am!).
I feel so sad for her, she was feeling so much more valued and it had given her a reason to get up and go out etc and to hold her head up and say she had a job.
Will she ever get a good life? Bless her its going to be her sons 5th Birthday and she cannot see him. As far as we know he was not yet adopted. So what is happening I do not know. She struggles as we all know. So this put down now, the day after her birthday is not the best of times. Nnot that getting fired ever is of course.
I feel so useless, as I know that this is going to continue to happen to her most of her life. Her abilities to keep down any job are very limited.
I just wonder if we are about to have a downward spiral for a few days, as the rough often follows in quick succession.
I hope that since all my councilling, I am strong enough to hold their hands and get on.
I am appauled that she still doesnt have a carer assigned to her. I will have that to chase up as well. It was the summer when it was agreed that she needed one.
I feel like trying to employ one myself for her. I would find someone much quicker I think. IF the funding was able to be paid the way mine was it would be easy to sort out.
One thought just trickles into the next of all the things that I am supposed to be doing.
I wish I remembered to get it done during the appropriate hours for the various tasks. But I usually forget until its too late in the day.
So this is a timely reminder for me to find my To Do List book!!!

On the Charity front, the Ladies who havent turned up for the last month actually turned up today. Although the first thing they said was that I looked like Mary Portas. (I do not), and then after we had been "talking" and working I say that loosely, they were doing most of the talking, and I was doing the working. Oh well. Anyway all of a sudden one of them decided to have a go at me for the incident at the offices the other week. I explained that although I know what they are talking about I had absolutely nothing to do with it, and that I only know what was put on Facebook. Several times she continued to go on about it, but I just said that as I said before, I dont know anything about it, but what i was told, and that I didnt have anything to do with it what so ever so I couldnt possibly comment. Followed by a couple more, " I couldnt comment".
She let it go then. But boy was she trying to dig.
I re-arranged all the books today. Which was quite a task, and took me until about 1.30. Then I came home and was just getting ready to go to the hairdressers when my eldest daughter rang to tell me that the hairdresser was trying to contact me, to re-arrange. So I stayed at home and tried to sort out the sewing machine. Without much luck so far anyway. So I am hand sewing the letters onto the bunting for the moment. So much more time consuming, and will mean that I have lost out financially on this particular order. Such is life at the moment.
I am going to the shop first thing, as they are not sure if its going to be open or not. Apparantly it was shut yesterday as they didnt have anyone to do it. But they didnt bother to ring me!
What can I say?

This evening I am going to have a good read of my magazines, and come up with some Christmas ideas, to get my teeth into. As I really have only had a few half hearted attempts at even thinking about it all. Now that the family birthdays are over, then I have to make it my priority.
Heaven knows what gifts I will be getting for everyone this year. The idea of making them was at the start of the year, but it wasnt to be. So lets see if I can at least get a bit more done.

Eager_Elephant

So sorry to hear that Twin 2 has lost her job.

I don't think she will get sanctioned again because this job was only for a few hours and she was topped up with JSA - now she will just get full JSA again.
When she goes to sign on again she needs to tell them that the job has stopped and provide a letter if possible.

Also from looking at the sanction list it is only if you lose a job through misconduct - this does not seem like it.

Is there no one in your town who employs disabled people?
We are lucky as in the big town where I work we have a scheme for disabled, ex-offenders etc who can either work doing packaging of items or in the catering side - they have been going for years and they pay a proper wage (ie they don't disguise it as training and pay a pittance!!!)

minimoneysaver

It all sounds very complicated. I hope you manage to get her benefits reinstated.

Savvy_sewing

I didnt get to do the things I wanted to do today, but was busy anyway. I went into the shop for a couple of hours to open up and to sort out a few things. I am now happy that the shop is organised, tidy and full. So I can concentrate a bit better on Me for the rest of the week, and then have a go at sorting in the sort room at the day centre when I have the time next week.
I went from working to the Hairdressers. Finally got my hair colour done, so now I feel better. From there I went to see Biggest of Mooloo and the baby. We discussed our plans for Christmas. I will be going to her on Christmas eve and DGD can sleep on a matteress on the bedroom floor. Hopefully the twins and DS will be joining us.
My Dad has given her £200 for Christmas, so we were discussing all the food we wanted to have, and looking at the ASDA shopping etc.
She also looked in the cupboard to see what drinks etc were still there from last year, and we dont need to buy anything, unless DS wants some beers.
She has given me her old iphone, so I have a new toy to learn to play with. Which will be a think for me, as technology is not my forte.
Oh well. I will get there.
When I got back, I went to get DGD from Molly's and had a cuppa with her. Lovely to see her, I really havent had much time in one place of late and have missed our cuppas we used to have.
DGD has just gone to bed, hopefully she will behave for the evening.
I have nearly finished the wedding bunting. But while sewing in the dark, I missed cutting off some of the threads on the inside and ofcourse as I have sewn on White, you can see the threads that I didnt cut off!! Oops. So now I have to open each flag and get inside to cut the threads. What an idiot I am. Extra work I didnt need.
At the school gates yesterday, I have been warned that I have some more orders. So thats good.

minimoneysaver

Great to hear that you have more orders coming through! Maybe you need a better light to work on your craft orders through the darker months.

Savvy_sewing

Well I managed to finish the order and deliver it on Friday morning.
The weekend has been a busy one. Well Friday was busy. I went to Ikea at Milton Keynes with a friend. We were there for 4 hours! I cannot believe how long we were in there. Wish I had the funds to buy a bit more though!. Got some ideas for the workspace. Etc. Picked up a wall light for DGD's bedroom (put away for Christmas), some Snowflake fairy lights, battery opperated so they can go in the window, batteries, and a fleece blanket, that I will probably use to cut up for other things. Cheaper then buying fleece fabric. I did look at the fabrics, but apart from the "cath Kidston" Rosalie range, which I have plenty of, there was not really any of the prints that I liked at all. So thats saved me spending on fabric that I really do not need. (My achillies heel if ever there was).
DGD was at a friends for tea, which was just as well, as we only just got back at 5 to 5pm.! I was due to collect DGD at 5! phew.
My Dad rang me, he had seen a Freezer on offer in the Curry's sale, and wanted to know if I wanted one for Christmas. So when I got back, I put the order in, and that meant that the weekend was then devoted to clearing out the cupboard under the stair, (and other areas in the house to accommodate the things that were in there), so that the freezer can go in there. It is going to be delivered today. Between 7am and 7pm. I just hope its not when I do the school run. That would be sods law.
So no intention of going to the shop or the sort room today. I will just hope that on Friday they did some sales. The weather was so awful, I cannot imagine that there would have been much sold, so unless anyone was really messy, then I dont think we need to add stock.
I shall continue to sort out a few cupboards, drawers etc today, and carry on the good work that I did over the weekend.
I was horrified to find that the back of the cupboard is mouldy. Had to move fabrics out of there, and throw away the rugs that were rolled up in there. They had gone white furry mould where they were touching the wall.
I am wondering if the whole of the bottom of this house needs the damp/mould looking at? The stairs back on to the bathroom, and thats a fight always as I have reported about before.
DGD had a birthday party yesterday, so I also made some PE bags, Hello Kitty fabric that I had bought off the market earlier in the school term. There is another birthday tomorrow, so I may have to think about making another one!
Biggest of Mooloo came over on Saturday afternoon with DGD2. It made a lovely change to have the pair of them here. She helped DGD1 make the birthday cards out of the bits and pieces that I have amassed from the various craft magazines that I have every month.
They are over running the side table and the shelves beside my chair, so thats the only messy area in the front room. I really need a dedicated area for the magazines, as I do refer back to them all the time.
I have ordered BT Broadband for Twin2 and DS's house. That will come in 2 weeks time. HOpefully that will help DS with his studies, and the pair of them will then be able to get on line looking for work too.
Twin2 is due to go to the Jobcentre today. I will not be able to go with her, as the Freezer is due to come, but I will keep my fingers crossed that she doesnt get further sanctions. If she does then I will urge her to make another appointment to see someone and we will do our best to fight her corner.
I have had an email back from the MP's secretary etc, asking for all the Details, NI no. Etc of twin2 and they will look into her case. So I will also have that to get on too later today.
For now I better get DGD ready for school.