annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buses and benefits I slept all afternoon, after acupuncture, and it's left me all out of step with the rest of the world. Though they can fuck off. Oh, they have, there's only me awake for miles around. This place is so dark and silent after midnight. Very creepy, considering how many people there are. I liked it much more being a couple of hundred yards from a row of 24 hour shops and take-aways. I am getting better at managing life spread over the two places. I drive over, park for free near my old flat then walk/bus around the city. My parking permit runs till next March - I should have handed it in, but I'm not a good enough person to do that and the woman who now lives in my old flat turns out to be a close friend of a close friend of YD, and I know she doesn't have a car so I'm not depriving her. I'll have to have a rethink in March, but that seems a lifetime away so I'll not bother about it yet. The buses are good, frequent enough to not need a timetable - one will be along soon enough to any part of the city, but a bit expensive. I don't like it when someone sits next to me, but I do calming myself shit. Today I found myself close to a big, wild, roaring woman, which started off scary but then the bus turned left unexpectedly and we both assumed we'd got on the wrong bus and bonded over that. We hadn't, it was just roadworks, a quick detour and all good. I often play peek-a-boo with babies, or sticking my tongue out at toddlers. Today I walked back down the hill from the acupuncture clinic, to the jobcentre to pick up a Child Benefit form for YD to claim for GS. I phoned in early July and they said they'd send one, and again a couple of weeks ago, and still nothing, but we have one now. The DWP are such fuckers though, aren't they? Why didn't they send it out? And the instructions with this state quite categorically that a) there is no need to send a birth certificate and that b) a birth certificate must be included for each child claimed for, the original, not a photocopy. If they'd sent the forms out I wouldn't feel reluctant to include his birth certificate, but they don't inspire confidence, do they? It feels like a black hole. It got me thinking about Child Benefit, which used to be called Family Allowance, and is always paid into the mother's bank account (unless there isn't a mother, then it goes to the dad or carer). Its origins, and I'd ask the I'm Not A Feminist brigade to consider this, go back to when men could (and enough did), get away with having their income tax reduced to take into account the extra expense of children and not pass that on to their wives, who did the shopping for food and clothes. Men with disposable income, women and kids in rags. Not all, obviously, not even most, but enough that they changed the law. Post-war, jobs for the men, not women, men legally 'head of household' blah blah. The good old days. I'm grateful for: a zizz, always good; my health; cassetteboy, for making this rebuttal so quickly; sleeping cat; outside toilet to smoke in on rainy nights Sweet dreams xx 1:57 a.m. - 16.09.15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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