Breaking news

5 minutes before my deadline, Laura from S & B rang to say her manager had got a part, and they would be here between 8 & 6 on Monday to fit it. Kudos, but if they can do it when someone makes a fuss, why not first time.

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Last Sunday the pilot light in my central heating boiler would not light, so on Monday I called Smith and Byford who are contracted by my landlord, the London Borough of Sutton. They couldn't come round on Monday but could come on Tuesday afternoon. I made arrangements and took the day off and a very nice man came and diagnosed a broken fan. He didn't have one on his van, but was very careful to make a note of the correct part number, because he didn't want them to send the wrong one. He left me with 2 fan heaters . On Wednesday I rang S & B again and they rang back once the part had arrived, and then said that they couldn't put it in before Monday. I informed them that I had had arthritis and that I wasn't happy about spending the weekend in a cold house. She came back immediately and said they could do this afternoon.

The man has just been, they sent the wrong part, he couldn't fit it. Not his fault but how bloody incompetent is that.

I sometimes think that companies which work for the council seem to think that people who live in social housing do not work, and so it doesn't matter how much they are messed around, Well I'd like to pout it on record here.Smith and Byford clearly do not know what they are doing, It is a great inconvenience to me to take more time off. My boss has leave because it's half term and my colleague is in hospital. It is not always possible to drop everything for the whim of these people.

I lost my cool with the girl, told her I wanted it sorted first call on Monday. I doubt that will happen either. I feel a letters to my councilor, and to the Sutton Housing Partnership coming on.

UPDATE

They were supposed to call me back once the engineer had reordered the part, but of course they didn't. I rang them and was told that the earliest it would be in was Wednesday and they couldn't fit it before Thursday. This is not good enough Smith and Byford. I have demanded to speak to a supervisor before 6, and have said that if I don't get that call I will ring a manager/director at home. The domestic gas services manager is called Alan Dring; the directors are Carl Burrows, Brian Grove, Will Smith and Brian Dorey, and the MD is called Bill Smith, presumably father of Will. At the moment my opinion of this lot is that they are useless, Hopefully they will be able to change my mind.

I have a garden, and I have arthritis, as a result of these 2 facts I have a gardener whose name is Bob. Not Kate, but Bob.


I am employed by a local agency of HM government

Imagine therefore my chagrin and distress when, this morning I went back to work after swine flu, and my line manager told me that the Treasury would not be able to pay the £13 a week that is Bob's financial recompense for his labours amongst the crabgrass. I was horrified, I was quivering with rage and distress. I could not believe how ungrateful the nation is. Oh Yeah and I also think I'm underpaid ........Just like this lot then

The leaders of
Liberal youth apear to have just joined twitter. I was informed this morning that 2 of them were following me, and as we share political views I followed them too. LIke minded people, following like minded people.

Was it therefore silly of me to feel miffed when I realised that they had followed me in order to get me to follow them so that one of them could win with the greatest number of followers.

communications may be wot wun it for Obama, but joining twitter and gathering followers to beat your friends.........well it isn't going to win it for the libdems

Tossers

Can you imagine it

Being in a space capsule.

A small enclosed space

For 12 days

With a


CLOWN

When I was little we didn't have a phone, even though my dad was an agent for The Co-operative Society Insurance Ltd (I know that cos there was a sign outside our house). In my Hall of Residence there were 2 phones for all the 18 year olds who needed to use them, but generally we didn't. There was the mail - and here I don't mean e mail, I mean letters that were written with pens generally on Basildon Bond writing paper purchased from Woolworths. and every so often my mother sent me a CARE package from home. Even when my dad died in the April of my first year there was no phone, just more letters. I didn't really live anywhere with a phone until I came to London. I wasn't entranced by the phone. The phone told me my mother had died, and the phone was kept in the office of the Library in which I worked, and neither were phones for chatting on. In fact I wasn't comfortable chatting on the phone, I never knew what to say.

My husband on the other hand loved the phone. I was not surprosed to find that when he was born his umbilical cord had heen around his arm so that his hand was next to his ear. It seemed appropriate somehow. He was deeply jealous when my neice's then husband got a mobile phone; It was the size of a large book, but how my husband coveted that phone.

I eventually got a mobile phone that my daughter and I shared, the she got one of her own and never looked back, I still didn't feel the need to be honest, but Philip got one, and I caved in.

Today I feel as if my arm has been lopped off. My phone is at home, I forgot it. I am lost, I am bereft. Is it because I can't have long chats? No it's because I cannot text. I cannot indulge myself in passing on those idle moments of amusement that texting is made for. I still don't feel comfortable having long chatty phone calls, but I love to text - and twitter.

I think I need a tranquiliser, I'm having withdrawal symptoms

Aeons ago I didn't understand why my son was different, many suggestions had been made , and one afternoon a teacher called Paula Pears, my son's class teacher came rushing out and shouting Mrs Overal, Mrs Overal I know what's wrong. We saw a film at our training day and I recognised what was wrong with Philip - he's dyslexic. The head of special needs denied it , the head teacher denied it, but, thanks to mt lovely in laws Phil went to see an educational psychologist, and lo and behold, he was dyslexic.

He went on the High School, The Beacon School in Banstead, where he was intellectually nourished, and scraped through his GCSEs then he scraped his A levels and into a philosophy course at the University of Greenwich, and I am here to tell you that he has now scraped a degree. A 3rd class honours. You can tell by the fact that he only just found out that he took it to the wire, but he did it.

He once said to me "mum, I have dyslexia, Dyslexia doesn't have me" and when he got that letter on Saturday the last threads were cut. His fight to beat it was over. And I am so proud of him.

And yesterday I thought I know what I'll do I'll try and find Mrs Pears e mail address, and tell her what had happened.

Sadly I was too late, she died 18 months ago, deeply involved with art, preparing an exhibition.

I regret not telling her before how much her teaching meant to me.

so for all those other teachers.

Mr G Wood former head of Alexander Street CP School
Mr Craven, who threw chalk and made us line up and answer spellings and multiplications
and from the Grammar School

Mr Stones who tried to teach me maths
Mrs Mac who tried to teach me how to sew
Miss Holland who taught me how to scrub a table
Miss Bell who scared me
Festus Ferriman - who can't possibly have been as old as he looked
and Bill Petch who ignited a lifelong love of history.

and the rest

It was 40 years this year since I left school, and I continue to be grateful for what you all did for me, and for what teachers since have done for my children.

People (young people) wonder why older adults become *grumpy old men/women well I can tell you It's things like this.

People will often say oh such and such is no age, well clearly it is to *Officials* Presumably as many over 50's now care for their grandchildren so that parents can work, they can all look forward to *officials* with clipboards risk assessing their homes.

Last year I had a radiator replaced in my sitting room, the young man who came to do it declared he had brought the wrong one, couldn't put it in, and would have to return the following week with a new one. I asked why. informed him that it didn't matter if it was a little smaller, however, he then informed me that he would ask * the office* if it was ok to install it. It turned out that the valve was at the bottom and he had been instructed not to put radiators like that in the homes of the elderly.

I was 57

cool eh?

It would seem that climate change has wrought serious changes to the fauna in my street, and the birds have become sick as parrots.

Seriously though, Isn't it lovely to see something so lovely and so humerous. It made my day!