The good, the bad, the downright ugly

The Good. No one is under any illusion as to how I feel about dealing with the Department of Works and Pensions who are responsible for managing the benefits system, my frustrations and wrath have been plastered all over this blog on more than one occasion.  We were told that the next stage, after they acknowledge our change of circumstances would be that we would have to account for where our money had gone since we sold our last house and buying this one. In our case that was a period of 7 years!!  I have to admit I have been in a bit of a panic about it, mainly because I had no idea how we were going to do it.

We had a call from the benefits office where our 3rd attempt at registering our change of circumstances has been FINALLY acknowledged to say they had it and would be in assessing the application. No time scale given. We got another call last week and I expected them to say we were moving into the next stage ie accounting for the last 7 years spending, when she said "we've assessed your application, registered your change of circumstances and there's nothing else you need to do". Well it's not often I'm left speechless as most of you will attest to, but I was speechless. I stood there with my mouth open when Mark told me. When I got over the shock, both of the news and being rendered speechless, I just felt huge relief, that's it now, we don't have to fight the system any longer. It takes affect immediately, it's only an extra £5.00 per week but it allows us to apply to help with housing costs which will go towards paying the mortgage, that reduction goes straight to utilities bills so now I know we can keep our heads above water. It is a real load off.

The Bad. The surgeon in Birmingham got the information about the fixture in Marks back last October. We knew it would be a while before it actually happened because of the general waiting lists in the NHS, we weren't prepared for the news we got today though.

The last two weeks Mark has been ringing to find out what's happening and so far we've not been able to get any information. Mr Flints secretary has had problems getting the Theatre Mgr to get back with a date when the tools would be ready along with theatre time and a bed. The call today told us the Theatre Mgr said he can get the tools from two different places - that's it. Not that he's ordered them and allocated Theatre time, just that he can get them. It turns out we're NOT EVEN ON A WAITING LIST!! Mr Flints secretary is going to talk to him about getting us on the operating list which we thought we were already on. Mark is so frustrated, his pain levels continue to slowly get worse and now we find we're no further on.

The downright ugly. The cat had diarrhea last week and chose my bed!!