Alt.Mustardland

I've been and gone and had my hair cut. It will be a while now before I can put it up, but it wasn't looking good. After that, I went into Minehead to buy a replacement for my temperamental bedside light which would have lasted longer if it had used the proper bulbs. I had only been able to get a pair, one of which did a major sulk without the right bulbs and refused to switch off. So after a brisk exchange of emails with the supplier, they are both going back.

My holiday ground to a halt but I may have a day in Bath instead then go on to stay with my sister for a day or two. Then try again at the end of September.

Sorry, I've been busy with the magazine. But before that we had an orchestral gig at the church. That went well.

I worked for the Council for a time. Birmingham ran its own employment agency - a leave reserve but contributing to the Council pension scheme. The boss in the section where I had my desk was a horrible bully, but I was actually working for the Head of the South Western Social services so she couldn't bully me. She knew where the biscuit tin was, and I kept it fully stocked. When she came for biscuits I used to say "Help yourself" thinking that they and their calories would go on her hips not ours. Several of the people I worked for only came into the office occasionally. They were powerhouses of local politics. In one location I had hardly anything to do, and made great progress on writing my memoirs. It helped me to look busy. Official work took priority of course when there was any. My colleagues must have been in a similar position because once when I did have a lot of work to do in a short time putting training material together, I came in on the morning of the course thinking I had a lot of work to do to be ready in time, I found two of them had taken the stuff waiting on my desk and put 30 folders of assorted stuff for me.

One of the things we did that I was pleased with was building rehab units for elderly patients. I already knew the NHS had a lot of bed blockers some of whom were discharged home in the small hours in nightclothes, but then, because relatives were afraid they wouldn't be able to cope, they had multidisciplinary teams helping them to get about and learn to cope with aids in home settings. There was a day centre too for people who hadn't been in hospital, but needed physios, and Occupational therapy and Speech therapy. I had seen resentfully, the building go up in a local park on morning walks, but the site had been a residential home before demolition. It was NHS and social services working together instead of bickering over boundaries, so when I found out at work that this was the purpose of the building I was very enthusiastic. Not something frequently seen in Council offices. Another task I was given was to get social workers working from home. It was a trial run with about 20 people, and I got their desks, intranet connections and laptops coordinated by different departments. I had to get the IT department to stop working in penny numbers and work from a list.

I made some solid friends during that time. The kind you'd trust with your life. Some seemed to be a waste of space, but there were some really excellent people. One or two were friends of my husband when he was working for the Council.

No, not the Pension Ladies fault - remember that I worked for this outfit - the Managements task is to invent all sorts of pointless tasks to keep people doing - but if someone takes a day off, they will employ a second person to duplicate the work: but you can't have two bods of equal rank, so a Third person has to be employed to supervise them and get an inhanced payrate; thus the boss's boss has to have a pay increase to maintain his rank but no extra work is done...

One man had extended his retirement to complete a job that was totally unnecessary. He had attended every park in the council to measure how much land (Forested, not involving any green-keeping). When He retired the boss was told to see what would be saved by having computers. This included several file cabinets of his work,,, "Chuck away all that stuff" the boss declared, "in future it can all go into the computer". That Paperwork Never read, (and cabinets) now form part of the Landfill for RAF Fairlop to become part of the sports ground.....

I hesitate to tell you the damn stupid work I was doing when I threw the Towel in. Then one damn fine morning I was in my next job doing an overnight report on how the Shiny New Ambulance Emergency Helicopter jobs (London Hospital) the previous daylight. (necessary. expensive, needed improving dependant on my response, and still going) On that morning I stopped a bus/train change to get a breakfast before going home - and bumped into my Ol' buss 2nd in command telling me how He had taken up my previous pointless task "Nearly as well as I was" .... The mind boggles.

No Not the record keepers fault. I have met her before .... on an actually useful job. I had received a wages payment for an "Extra task" claim from an Ambulace driver (i.e., A minibus driver taking disabled kids into a special shool in Epping)- a pay claim to an unexplained Cost code (She was in the Wages Office. ... A child, a girl, was somewhat "anxious" in a Council Child-care about the Proximity of her asailant - and a High ranking Manager (had sworn in court that the Council would keep the child safe) was being followed by a press photographer to get photo's of the child - so had avoided meeting her. High ranking Manager had invented a cost code, got a Child carer to get the kid safe and comfortable via a new staff member He had never met? New Staff Member arranged for the childs care in another (OK, Another County) albeit paid by local council - The driver was given a bundle of Banknote to Hire an out-of-area minibus, pick up Child carer and child, take her to a child carer in East Anglia and found a Happy home for an "animal mad" girl (a horse breeder and her fostered kids) - Hence the excess wages claim. The only useful job that I can ever remember from that place.

Fuses are there to protect the person from danger of a malfunction, and the system from scrambling. You could have one of those solar lights that comes on if anyone goes near it. It is usually weatherproof, but finding someone to fix it might be a problem. You need a Handyperson to be able to fix things for you. The Council as Landlord may be more effective than other departments so tell them their tenant is violating your boundary, but you can still call the police to deal with the neighbour if he threatens your safety. Just open your door, photograph him and call the police.

One of my small pensions is paid by the LPFA although it is a National Charity, our Head office was based in London and they piggy backed their pension scheme on to it. When I stopped being eligible for my top up grant because my husband was now employed by the council and was no longer unemployed, the girl responsible for stopping it sat back to back with him, but I couldn't get him to tell her. Some trivial rule that he wouldn't break because he felt sorry for his boss. I sympathise for your problem with this woman. Some people seem to relish giving one the runaround. Ofgem are doing it to me. My RHI payment due tomorrow would have been delayed by another week because of the change in their procedures. Now I have had another request for a bank statement, which I sent a couple of weeks ago so I sent it again. I just want to drive up to Glasgow and act inappropriately in their office to the manager of that function.

I shall now relax and watch a couple of violent shows, NCIS and Hidden.

Hi..
I encountered the light problem... It was the Garden Light that blew the fuse, but the Makers of Consmer Units seen to have changed the sizes of fuses. Looks like the idea is to stop people to fit bigger fuses to overcome overloading - took me two days to find a place that had the different sized fuse cartridges - but now have to find the Reflector bulb for the garden light.

Bit out of touch at the moment... One of my Pensions (I have worked in several different places?) has stopped paying me - I only realised this when CAB was aking my income details ... and there were absences in my bank statements!! The bod dealing with pensions is (gulp) actually IN MY OLD DESK. Unfortunateely The closing of several "covid" offices it took over a week for my Written details got there - but She was working from home because of another Covid matters... and then their reception desk has locked all the mail in one Storey.. Then she arranged for all the "backdates" was on this months Bank sweep. I am reluctant to use other incomes until I actually have my slippery hitle paws on it. My income had became very confused as various "Helpers (age Concern, CAB etc) had found all sorts of monies from DWP, so I lost thread until those backdates seems to have climaxed... The absent one (from my time in Local Gov) has not paid since pre-fiscal year (first working day after 4th April shows the annual indrease), so I'm not actually certain its value. OK, that is a simplificatuion - when that Nice Mrs Thatcher got rid of the original GLC so some of the former pension payers were combined with London Boroughs and divided again - e,g, Teachers and Education, Wage earners, Salary earners and... and... some even sensible ideas that didn't involve me - (Ok then ... The M25 and the M11 and Dartford tunnel needed some boundary changes for "Geography" rather than politics to draw staff crossing any of the blocked to fill urgencies on the blocked side of the road - e.g., Essex and Surry Firemen were manning London Fire stations when they had that big Tower of Flats was using London staff)

2nd Problem is Local Gov (Where I live - not the London Borough responsible for paying my pension .... ) They "can't find" my Council Tax records (probably due to their love of changing house - numbers) that One of the afore-mentioned "Helper" outfits had got Council tax paid because of my "stroke", (DWP) so I'm now chasing up someone to confirm.
(an aside: Non-receipt of Pension was also caused by address changes - thus I never got the letter to ask me confirmm that I was still alive).

Then I had problems with Neighbour - I found him in my garden Hacking shrubbery down so that He could "Build a new fence" to give him a few feet of my garden. He had built so many Junk Buildings in his gardens that He was already getting for his kids to use My gardens to Kick their fotballs into my garden - and He threatened me if I didn't go and get his kids stuff as their ball-boy.... Fortunately another neighbour overheard this and will add what she heard to the police. This is not a happy home at present. (The council own his house, and I was instructed (by police) to report to His House Owner) - you can imagine how useful they are.

Then it has rained - Again going back to the "Helpers" when I had my stroke, The Helper (I can't pronounce Eastern European, so don't ask me her name), reprted the paving outside my house was dangerous - and a Council Surveyou explained that the Paving failure was caused by the Surface Water drain beid usurped by a Tree in the paving - It was the same reason that the Downpipe from the gutter was gausing the flooding over my front door and would eventually puor into my roofspace and internally, so He would have the drain repaired ASAP.... It has not yet been done - and I have now slipped on my we staircaise - amoung the catch buckets. CAB want me to alert the (new) Council Leader.

Think I'll have a "Lie-down" ...
Nope, I cant - I have a "possible" phone appointment to get get some hospital stuff done.

My cleaners come tomorrow and I've done most of the tidying. Just the washing to bring in before I go to bed, because it is really going to rain in the morning.

I got tired of hoping my bedside light would work and I could turn it on and off from my bed. I changed the bulb but it still doesn't work so I've bought a couple of new ones. 1 for the bedroom, and 1 for the office.

This is the month when it's assumed that everyone is on holiday so there's no point in trying to do anything. Even the birds are knackered from raising as many families as possible. The grass is yellow and sere. Otherwise all the traps set by Government are ready to catch the unwary, so it's time to read the small print. Just the month to bury bad news.

I just feel like going back to bed and reading. My default state interrupted only by minor chores. Switching on the dishwasher, hanging out the washing and sending a month's worth of birthday cards.