Ranty Friday: There’s Any Place But Home!

I’m not a political person, I don’t understand politics and when I try to follow it I get confuddled. I’m often naive when it comes to the promises of politicians. I believe what they tell you and am gutted when they don’t follow through with their promises. I don’t make promises myself because I believe if you promise something you have to stick to it but sometimes life and circumstance cause you to break them. I will therefore give my word to try my best but I don’t make promises.

I am rubbish in an argument or debate. I will easily get talked down and am unable to articulate myself correctly to get my point across. When I feel strongly about something I find it easier to write things down.

So what brings me to write a blog post about a topic I don’t know anything about? Right now, I really wish I did, I wish I paid attention to the laws, acts and whatever else goes on in parliament because I am so cross. I am so angry & full of rage on behalf of my friend that when I try to speak or write articulately about it, the words just get jumbled in my head so this post could be full of gobbledegook.

My friend and her family had a house they rented. As Landlords do from time to time, their Landlord gave my friend and family notice to move out as they wanted to move back in themselves. For most people this would be inconvenient but they’d find a new property, move and carry on life in their new home. But for my friends, their journey has been very different. They have (or had) a deposit for a new place, they could pay rent and knew what they could afford (aprox £800pcm) which all sounds achievable, they were good tenants and had never missed a payment in previous owned or rented properties, but a few months down the line they find themselves homeless in temporary ‘housing’.

My friend’s husband has severely crippling arthritis, is waiting a hip replacement, in a lot of pain barely able to move many days and is therefore unable to work. My friend is caring for her husband and has 3 children, 2 of which are toddler-preschool age and her eldest has a complex disability called 22q11 Deletion Syndrome. She therefore doesn’t work, having given up her job following her maternity leave for her third child. Due to this, they receive benefits. I don’t know the full details of what but their circumstances require it and having (both of them) worked for most of their adult lives despite having children, despite having a longterm illness, it is with no shame that they should be able to ask for a little help at this time in their lives!

As soon as they were given notice on their rental property, they started the hunt for a new house and they registered with both Christchurch Housing Association and Poole. They tried to find a private rental home, making phonecall after phonecall but without any luck. Why? Finding a place that accepts benefits is hard enough but possible but finding a place that will accept you without a Guarantor? No private rentor will touch them! If they will rent to them the conditions are inadequate for their family and circumstances, although compared to their current circumstances I’m sure they’d jump at the chance. They are on a list for a Housing Association property but they are all full and there are no council properties in their area and unbelievably, when a property becomes available, they are too low down on the priority rating to qualify for the property.

I have seen documentaries on TV about families living in over-crowded accommodation. I was shocked! Their ‘houses’ now seem like a small piece of heaven. I’m not saying that what the people on the documentaries were enduring wasn’t overcrowding and they don’t deserve better conditions but my friend and her family are 5, 1 with arthritis and 1 with special needs, living in one room with poor cooking facilities which are inadequate to cook a meal for a family of 5 and are shared with the rest of the house’s residents, with shared bathroom facilities, in considerably less than clean (not for their want of trying to make it so) conditions. Many of the other residents do not behave in a way you’d wish your young family to be exposed to. Out of respect to my friend, I will spare her the embarrassment of going into full details but she has shared some examples with me and my heart breaks for them all. This is what it means to be homeless and to be placed in temporary ‘Bed & Breakfast’ housing of by the Local Authority.

Is this really acceptable? Is this really the only solution? How can I sit back and do nothing while this is happening? I am sure they are not alone, I know of one other person in another area that has been going through similar for 6 months! (Apparently it is the law that they should not be in temporary housing for more than 6 weeks but it also appears that this is a joke! – one that no one is laughing at!). I don’t know anything about politics, law, housing, I’m rubbish at arguing and debating, I shy away from confrontation but this is making me so angry and upset that I can’t just sit back and watch it happen and not say anything.

I will be writing a letter to the Christchurch MP although, as I don’t live in Christchurch myself (though I do live in Dorset) I’m expecting they will not reply about this specific situation but what else can I do? My friend has written to the Minister of Housing and the case is ‘being looked into’ but this should never have been allowed to happen.

If you are a Secret Millionaire reading this right now, this family needs you!

I feel so useless and I wish there was something more that I can do but for now, I am blogging in the hope that it raises some awareness of their plight and I am asking the angels to watch over them and to shine a light in their direction. They need it right now!

Here is Karen’s blog if you wish to follow her story and offer her some support. You may wish to read the following stories in particular:

Homeless Part 1 – The Current Rant
Homeless Part 2 – My Past Rant
Homeless Part 3 – The Update
Homeless – Life in a B&B

Our House, In the Middle of Our Street

We’re in! We’ve moved.

Sorry for the blog silence of late but it has been for two reasons:

1. because I am pregnant the Pregnancy-Mummy Diary is getting most of the attention; and
2. because we’ve been moving house and, apart from not having the time, we were also without internet for 2 weeks.

But all is well now and we are settling in nicely and making it feel like home…slowly but surely!

One thing I’d thoroughly recommend is getting removal men! Big win!

I’ve been parping on about doing so for a while. I tried to get Stuart to agree when we moved from Godalming to Bournemouth but he wouldn’t do it. I’d showed him lots of positive stories and was bringing him on side but then my parents put him off. This time, I was determined! I am pregnant and the last thing I wanted to be doing was lugging big boxes around the house etc and also, we were struggling to fit in the house as we were, we had no where to store a mountain of boxes again. Stuart finally agreed subject to me getting a good price! We were moving less than 2 miles up the road and from a small 2 bed house with no loft, garage or shed etc so I was hopeful.

I got 2 quotes – both from highly rated companies on check a trade. The first one quoted around £800 (incl of tax). I thought this was far too high and my hopes were dashed. The second company was also recommended by a colleague from Stuart’s (and my but that’s another blog post) work. They quoted less than £500 (incl tax) – bonus! We signed them up quick!

They did exactly what we wanted them to do – they packed, they moved and they got it all done in one day which was a day earlier than planned too. They were called Brown & Brown Removals if anyone local is interested.

Moving on (pardon the pun), we have also ordered our new sofas and I’m very excited. We ordered them from Next and they should be here in about 3-4 more weeks. We’ve also bought some new curtains for the lounge & dining room although they need to be taken up before they are hung, and also curtains for the spare room. We are still a long way from being where we want to be as we need lots of storage and other bits and ends but we are making steps in the right direction. Oh, how could I nearly have forgot…and our HUGE MAHOOOSIVE American style fridge that I was very excited about! I LOVE it!

Callum has adapted well to the move, as I hoped (and thought) he would. He has so much room to run around in, why wouldn’t he?

I also think we have (friendly) company. We obviously left someone behind when we moved as the doorbell went shortly after we were in and when Stuart went to open it, there was no one there. There was no sign of it being kids having fun and its not a very big street so unlikely. I’m pretty sure ‘someone’ just wanted to be let in. Also, I was ill in bed a couple of weeks after we’d moved and I heard running up the stairs and automatically thought it was next door – then remembered we are detached. Shortly after, I heard footsteps as if running on the laminate floor in the dining room – kitchen area. I don’t feel uncomfortable here though and even when I’ve been in the house on my own (with Callum asleep) I’ve not been scared so I’m not worried and I quite like the company as I am sure its friendly.

Oops! Catch up!

So, found myself recently writing blog posts in my head and my laptop time just can't keep up with me!!! Thought it was about time to reconnect with this blog and to start posting again to get what's in my head, taking up valuable organisation and OCD space, out so I can get back to my organising and OCD!

So, the major update that overrules any other....WE HAVE MOVED!

Here we now are living in Bournemouth!

We are currently living in a nice little 2 bed cottage in between Bournemouth and Boscombe. Just renting at the moment but are already on the hunt for our next house to buy. We are 10 minutes from the beach (*does a little dance), about a 15 minute pushchair walk (times by 10 when the 3 year old decides he wants to walk/meander) or 5 minutes by the many frequent buses that drive past our house into Bournemouth centre – to where all the shops are, 25 minutes from my parents and brother & sister-in-law with their offspring, less than 20 minutes from my sister & brother-in-law with their offspring – that’s all on the upside. On the downside, we are further from my in-laws, our friends in The Ming and to get into London without taking out a loan to pay for it, requires months of forward planning (to go there and back in one day is just short of £100 unless you are lucky enough to get well in advance tickets or go up the day before!! but that's another blog post!). 

Anyway, here is a picture of our little house.

Looking back now, the actual move wasn’t too bad. It had its stressful moments and its not so stressful moments. Callum was a dream and was ready to move as soon as we said go – in fact he didn’t want to go back inside the house or especially inside his room on the last day for some fear he was going to be left there or something.

Following the move was a hell of a lot more stress – for me at least, think Stuart is still in awe of his 7 minute walk to work – if you haven’t heard about it, count yourselves as one of the few. Reading back at my previous post I said I generally look forward to change but am often disappointed later when things don’t go as well as I anticipate. Well, yeah, that! I had a hard time adjusting. I’ve gone from being full time employed around friends in an environment I feel comfortable, familiar, to being a full time mum trying to arrange utility bills, change addresses around trying to be a (bad) mum in an unfamiliar place a long way from my friends. It was tougher than I expected and by the time we went on holiday to Portugal a few weeks later, lets just say it was a holiday much needed.

I came back from Portugal a much more chilled person and, more importantly, so was Callum! I found I could get stuff/chores/phonecalls done without too much protest from Callum and could then start to really enjoy being with Callum and all that being a Stay At Home Mum (SAHM) entails.

So, for my other hopes for our life in Bournemouth, what have I achieved and what has already fallen by the weyside? Lets revisit them:

 

Stuart gets a better work-life balance so he gets to spend more quality time with Callum - maybe even do some father-son stuff together. Achieved – Stuart puts Callum to bed most nights and we have more quality time together at weekends, as a family, even if Stuart has to work some of it.

Stuart and I get to spend more couple time together so we can focus on our relationship again - feel like it has been put on the back burner for a couple of years now. Hmmm…next! Seriously, we’ve not got round to it yet. Being the time of year, my parents are being kept busy so I’ve not wanted to take advantage so early on (or later for that matter). We’ve not found any other form of babysitter yet. That said, we have taken advantage on more than a few occasions of our proximity to Bournemouth and the many restaurant’s it has to offer and have gone out for dinner as a family on a Friday/Saturday evening. As for just the two of us…yeah, we need to work on that!

Stuart and I can start going body-boarding properly rather than just an attempt when we go to Devon/Cornwall - I'll worry about fitting back into the wetsuit later... the closest I’ve got is to be sitting on the beach with Callum and an ice-cream while watching jealously as the surfers and bodyboards hit the waves! To be honest, there haven’t been ‘that’ many opportunities with the waves being pretty flat but when they’ve been there, there’s not a lot I can do about it! Not with Callum about! I even tried to find him his first wetsuit in the hope I could kinda take him with me but, not for at least another year. He is still far too skinny!

Callum will get to grow up near the sea and beach Yep! We are definitely taking full advantage of that. It has been lovely to just walk to the beach, even if it isn’t so sunny. However, we have been lucky in that we’ve been having unusually high temperatures in October! Yes, October! We actually spent a day on the beach, and even went in the sea (very very briefly…frrrrr) at the beginning of October! I can’t see us ever getting bored of it – I hope we don’t ever take it for granted!

I can start horseriding  I’ve made enquiries! At the moment, I just don’t have the time. I have Callum most days and when I don’t I am either running around the house like a blue-arsed fly (does anyone other than my mum use that expression?) trying to clean the house or I am studying still trying to complete my CIPD Certificate. The end is in sight for the studying though so hopefully, maybe, if money allows, I can pick this up. I’ve now got a few (hundred) other interests I’ve remembered that I want to get round to….lets try to name them! So there’s horseriding of course; drawing (chalks primarily); Reiki; drama (yes acting is still on the cards); body-boarding (as above); climbing; knitting (yes, I did just say knitting); jewellery making…I am sure there are more! Just when am I going to fit all of that into one lifetime, I don’t quite know???

Going running along the beach Yes! Yes! Yes! I can definitely say I’ve achieved that one! About half a dozen times now or move ranging from 2.3 to 3.8 miles! Its not making much difference to my fitness or the amount I am eating/putting on weight but maybe….yeah…just maybe

So, that will do for the moment! Hopefully this blog post provides an update of where we are today. I hope to keep posting to this now that I’ve got it up to date. Starting straight away with my next post “A Day Trip to London”.