OAP

Wow, March has just flown by. It started with an almost significant birthday as I reached the ripe old age of 65. I only celebrate when the year ends in zero, but I was coerced into a family do, as much because the grandkids like to blow out the candles.

So, we all sat down in The Refreshment Rooms for a Sunday lunch as luckily my birthday fell on a Sunday. We all had a good time, everybody enjoyed themselves and I am a year older. Tim came up for a few days from London sans children so we were able to have a few drinks as well which was good.

I applied for my pension to the DWP as you are asked to, but nothing has arrived, so I had to call them. They told me some applications had gone missing at about the time I applied. Lucky I rang really as they clearly have no check and balance for these sort of eventualities. The pension is paid in arrears, so I should get it as expected in a day or two.

March has also provided a couple of Six Nations rugby games. We travelled to Paris to see England fail to beat France, and we were at Twickenham for the anti-climatic end game against Ireland. In both cases the matches were the low point of the weekend . We stayed at The Farmers Club in Covent Garden as way of a change for the Ireland game and it was good to escape Twickenham after the match and enjoy a few drinks elsewhere.

Unfortunately we had two Chinese meals, which, coupled with the birthday celebration and a trip to Paris has stalled my weight loss campaign...couple of pounds added on this month!!

The beginning of the golf season has also stalled due to the bad weather, so my scramble to get six qualifying cards into the Virgin Atlantic golf competition and win a goodie bad, has been delayed somewhat.
Hopefully I can get it all done by Monday. There is a trip to Vegas as the prize for the best golfers this season so I must use the golf lesson presents I got wisely!!

Easter has now come and gone. It was a quiet one this year, with a bit of gardening and jovial evenings out to crown a pretty good month.

I have embraced Twitter now so you can follow me here if you want to, although at the moment its not too interesting!!
Just click on the Twitter follow button top right and after that I don't know what happens!!

On the dole

The things one gets to do as a result of being made redundant. Today I spent a few hours in the Birkenhead JobCentre+ offices trying to see what benefits I could get for providing the government of the day with national insurance contributions for the best part of 40 years.

The answer I got was that they don't know!

Initially I filled the online form relating to job seekers allowance in incorrectly, but only, they informed me, to the detriment of myself. That was very considerate of them, so I did not feel hugely frustrated to then fill out the equivalent hardcopy, or some of it.

I should have filled it in as a contribution based claim whereas I had filled it in as an income based claim. With SWMBO working, I was never going to pass that. The first six months contribution based benefits I was told are not means tested.

So the claim was assessed by my new mate Samantha who guided me through the process until she saw that I was already drawing a pension. This was the next problem they indicated I would face when the form went to head office ( well the DWP). They may deem my pension sufficient and consequently exclude me from contribution based job seekers allowance. So when they say it's not means tested, actually it is.

Next problem I faced was the fact that I was out of the Country next week on vacation. They can't pay job seekers allowance while I am not available for work, so, wait for it, the claim will need to be shut down on Sunday and I will have to reapply when I return to the UK, via a rapid reclaim process.

So, getting the allowance may or may not happen, and I should know by the end of the month. If it does, then the hoops I have to jump through are quite extensive. I have to visit the gov.uk website every day looking for opportunities, and write to at least one employer a week. I have to be willing to travel 90 minutes each way to work, and search commercial websites for at least 2 hours a day. Every two weeks I have to go back to the job centre to assess my progress, and sign on.

In one sense I hope they say I can't have it!!!

'Tis the season to be jolly.......

The Christmas cards are starting to fall through the letter box, I had a big influx this weekend. From the middle of quite a lot of them fell the mass produced Christmas Round Robin. I have nothing against this an approach for people to update their chums with news, and I guess you could say this blog is a drip feed of the same information.

What I find strange though is that they are all so happy. People go away for numerous holidays in really posh parts of the world, as do their children, all of whom are doing jolly well in their chosen careers. Everyone is in good health, happily married and looking forward to grand kids, and they always end with the obligatory 'do come and visit' invitation.

Well, I'm sorry, but where is all the doom and gloom........

"Hello, welcome to our annual Christmas Round Robin. I hope you all enjoy our annual summary of the year, although we have to say this has been yet another shit one. Rodney was made redundant early on, as part of the downsizing work at the DWP, and being a civil servant you would have thought he would have been buffered from the cock up at the Child Support Agency, but no such luck. Why they are still looking for those missing disks is beyond me, as some Russian IP address based villain has whizz several thousand out of our savings account. Now that money was reserved for our Waynes wedding to Natalie and that has now had to be put on hold, meaning the baby will arrive out of wedlock, so to speak. Darren is fine though, we visited him last week, and he now has a job in the kitchen which should get him extra turkey come Christmas Day. He is expecting to be transferred to a facility nearer to home next year so we are all looking forward to that. The house is still a disaster zone, although the floors and walls have been tiled and plastered. We do have to wait another three months though before we move back in. The stream has been diverted but its all a bit like shutting the door after the horse has bolted. I must admit I will not be sad to see the back of the ruddy caravan. I don't think we will be using it for our holidays again as the memories will be too painful. Still I now have the festivities to plan for, although what with the Christmas Club going tits up and Northern Rock threatening to fore-close on us I am not sure what I will be able to get in. Still its the thought that counts isn't it? So enough from us, you know we would love to see any of you who want to visit us here in Leicester, the inter-racial street warfare seems to have settled down, and we are allowed out after dark once more, so can get to the pub and the Indian takeaway on the corner has introduced a delivery service, turkey madras, sprout marsala and parsnip rice are doing a roaring trade.. Seasons greetings to you and yours. Rodney and Doreen"

Still if the Queen can go public on her Annus Horribilis why not a few more people?