Using food clubs: visit #2
Today was my second visit to a food club. This time, I’d swapped to one nearer to me, though still a mile away. That’s fine with my...
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- Jul 17
- 9 min
Accepting charity is hard: using a food club in the UK
I went to a food club recently. A food club is where you pay a small-ish amount of money for food that is about to go out-of-date, or...
- Feb 14
- 10 min
SAS: who dares illness?
I recently started watching the series SAS: Who Dares Wins, right from the first series. I’ve found it quite addictive, possibly in part...
- May 23, 2022
- 10 min
The Least, the Last and the Lost should include the long-term unemployed
I was recently recommended Mez McConnell’s latest book, The Least, The Last and The Lost (I think that’s the right order!). Church Action...
- Jan 17, 2022
- 2 min
Ramblings following loss
It used to be that I was part of a team of people with chronic illness who researched and wrote about the government’s actions on social...
- Apr 26, 2021
- 4 min
Reflections on gardening: sin and relationship
I love gardening. I love sitting on the ground in the sun removing weeds, dead-heading flowers or re-training a clematis. I love pruning...
- May 11, 2020
- 3 min
Your life or my luxury?
It is, when I get down to it, fear. Fear because the people who need to care don’t care. Fear because I can’t get them to care. I can’t...
- Feb 1, 2020
- 2 min
Sometimes science is frighteningly wrong: the history of autoimmune disease
Historically, women suffering from multiple sclerosis were told that it was all in their heads. Then researchers discovered that people...
- Dec 11, 2019
- 4 min
PIP: locking chronically ill people out of disabled benefits
PIP isn’t supposed to be about diagnoses. But even with my diagnoses, I have major difficulties getting benefits assessors from a range...
- Dec 11, 2019
- 5 min
Learning to live with chronic illness without independence
Recently I failed a PIP appeal. I get standard rate mobility - which at one point the Tribunal were minded to take away - but was...
- Dec 11, 2019
- 4 min
PIP: maintaining poverty, removing choice
The point of extra-costs disability benefits is to meet some of the costs experienced by people with disability, in order to raise them...
- Mar 18, 2019
- 5 min
Where does all the money go?
I haven’t blogged in a while, though I’ve been meaning to. I’ve been meaning to write about the unexpected expenditures that make a big...
- Nov 22, 2018
- 2 min
UC budgeting nightmares
I logged in to my UC journal today to see where DWP-UC is up to with paying me the right amount of money. They’ve made one correction –...
- Nov 12, 2018
- 6 min
PIP appeal – overprepared fraud?
I had a PIP appeal today. I’ve been waiting for it for ten months. I don’t think it went well. There are some points in my favour: the...
- Oct 23, 2018
- 3 min
Missed telephone appointment – might I be sanctioned?
Some moments of sick apprehension today. I remembered, some time after the appointment time, that today was the day for my monthly UC...
- Oct 18, 2018
- 2 min
Some good news – I think
I’ve received some good news. My UC journal today had an letter added to it saying that they have decided that I have limited capability...
- Oct 15, 2018
- 3 min
The Tories have messed up my council tax
Naturally, when I’ve just got in from visiting my church’s office to ask for help because I can’t manage without paying someone to do...
- Sep 27, 2018
- 2 min
Money matters
DWP-UC has apparently now told DWP-ESA to stop paying me. I have received, in three separate envelopes that arrived on the same day, a...
- Aug 31, 2018
- 3 min
Why am I the mediator for ESA and UC?
Having phoned ESA a couple of days ago, today I phoned UC to tell them that ESA had told me that they needed to send a form to ESA to say...
- Aug 28, 2018
- 3 min
ESA and UC aren’t talking
Phoning ESA again. It has a long spiel followed by ‘please press 1 to continue’. Why not just carry on without having to press 1? After...
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