Preparedness for when

Frugalsod

Softstuff wrote: »

And the new house has a giant 6ft zombie wall around it. Though I'm loathe to keep that long term as we do actually tend to get along well with neighbours (even ones other people seem not to).

Keep the zombie wall, just put big people flaps in instead then neighbours can come in and out like a giant cat flap, plus easier to block quickly if the zombies appear. :beer:

Butterfly_Brain

Creeps back in I have had so many hospital , clinic, physio and GP visits so far this year, plus being laid up wih a hacking cough for two weeks. I have another one tomorrow, one on Friday and more in February, so I have been AWL for a while.

I too am angry at the way the unemployed including the sick and disabled who have been shoved onto unlimited slavefare have been treated.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/20/benefits-sanctions-overuse-claimant-numbers-reduce

And Maximus a disability denial US company who are taking over from Atos will be using physiotherapists, occupational health staff or nurses, not qualified doctors to do the spurious WCA tests which in my opinion should be scrapped alltogether:mad::mad::mad:

As for IDS he should be in front of the Hague for crimes against humanity. He is using the third reich model of benefits

Butterfly_Brain

This has got me spitting with anger and I am going to lay in some more heritage seeds.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/19/gm-crop-vote-was-just-the-beginning-of-europes-biotech-battle

Softstuff

Frugalsod wrote: »

Keep the zombie wall, just put big people flaps in instead then neighbours can come in and out like a giant cat flap, plus easier to block quickly if the zombies appear. :beer:

I love your thinking.

On another related note though, giant walls that provide privacy also stop well meaning neighbours spotting things amiss in your home (burglars at the front door). Not to mention, the breeze (which over here is a moneysaving thing, given the heat). If we decide to leave it still standing at that height in 12 months time, I'd be very surprised.

I've always found it a good thing to be as neighbourly as possible. Baking foods to take to neighbours, generally being pleasant and helpful, especially with older neighbours and it's often paid dividends. You really do seem to reap what you sow with neighbours.

moneyistooshorttomention

Softstuff wrote: »

The short story - did our usual annual house-hunt because we're sick of paying body corp fees, unexpectedly found one we liked, with a little assistance we're managing to buy it and still have our flat. We're going to do a bit of renovation to the flat and then sell it (these flats don't sell quickly without and I have a builder friend), at which point we pay back hubbys parents, pay back a chunk of mortgage and still have a bit of mortgage left. New house however has more space, solar hot water, the chance of a huge veggie garden and other money saving opportunities (renting out a room, registering the kitchen with council to sell food etc.).


As for the jobcentre, I remember my one and only visit about 15 years ago. I'd just left uni and had come back to my home town looking for work, so went in... since I thought they had jobs they wanted people to fill there. In a quick interview with one of the staff I got nowhere. "I'm not sure we can help you if you're not on benefits", "There's a job you're qualified for but I can't refer you unless you've been out of work 6 months", "We can put you on a course instead". Never had the occasion to go in subsequently and even when unemployed have never signed on.

Good news indeed Softstuff that you are getting a bit of help there. Pleased for you:T That fell into place nicely:D

*********

Re your jobcentre visit, I would find that distinctly puzzling myself. I would always take it that everyone who wanted to apply for a job could do so/would be helped to do so and "May the best man/woman win as to who gets given the job" (be they employed or unemployed). I cant be doing with artificial "barriers" that preclude what may be the best candidates for the position.

Can't be doing with "positive discrimination" re getting jobs either and the best candidates sometimes don't even get a look-in for non-valid reasons ....I have a friend now who doesn't seem to be getting a look-in for jobs they are well-qualified for here in the public sector and I'm wondering why if she isn't....(I'm a good bit more cynical than her...but I've heard tales of just which question on the application form is the one that means people who should be asked in for interviews for these public sector jobs aren't....and its one you cant lie about without being caught out...).

thriftwizard

Charlie's aunt, you are not alone... I even worked for the Department that's causing all the heartache, back in a different incarnation. But in those days it was all about encouraging small business (mostly to be bigger businesses, TBH) "cutting red tape" & "making Government more accessible" - or so we earnestly believed. In my defence, I was very young, idealistic & innocent then; come to think about it, just about all of us were. Hmmmm...

I'm beginning to wonder if the current dominant party-in-power might have a secret & rather alarming agenda; it's almost as if they are trying to get us to believe that these "benefit scroungers" (i.e. anyone who claims anything at all) are less than human, somehow, and not worthy of our sympathy. (I'm currently reading about the eugenics movement & the beginnings of National Socialism and there are some very worrying parallels.) And I'm horrified & terrified by their eagerness to impose GM crops & food on us. But I'm totally at a loss to know how to make my voice heard, apart from signing every petition that's going; can't help thinking that many of those just exist to make us think they're listening, and stop us doing anything that might actually force them to hear us.

[Deleted User]

No snow overnight, but we still have the snow that fell a few days ago, and the cars are frozen.

[Deleted User]

THRIFTWIZARD all you CAN do is to live your life the way YOU feel is most fitting. Lead from the front and when people see you faring well in times of adversity they will most likely want to know how you are doing it. It's a small step to telling their aquaintance who might take the philosophy on board and spread it further and further until there is a sea change. Every blizzard begins with the first snowflake doesn't it? Don't break any rules laid down by society but as of yet, as far as I know, no one can actually tell you what to think or how to actually live your life from day to day and it would be a quiet revoloution which might be much louder than a signed petition or raised and heated voices and hearts!

ivyleaf

charlies-aunt wrote: »

eerrmmm......cough...cough.... I'm an ex-civil servant.....


Hopefully one of the exceptions!

Me too.....

ETA After I'd been on long-term sick with ME for quite a while for the second time, I popped into the local Jobcentre, literally just down the road, and asked one of the staff if he could photocopy my med cert for me so I could send the original in to HR (which was now a couple of hundred miles away.). I usually had it copied at the chemist, but I was too ill to get there.

He glanced nervously round at the Manager, in her glass-walled office just behind his workstation, and said "Come with me."

I assumed he was taking me to the photocopier. No; he led me to a telephone, where I was expected to ring a callcentre somewhere else to make an appointment to come back and have my med cert photocopied in the building I was currently standing in.

I commented that it seemed ridiculous when I was actually a member of staff. He said miserably "Yes, it is ridiculous, but that's how we've been told we have to do things now."

Doveling

Why do I keep thinking about H.G.Wells' Eloi and Morlocks?
Just wrote a long ranty post about the vulnerable in our society and always having to be reactive instead of proactive.
Good job I lost it :rotfl: