Boy am I glad August is coming to an end!

I've had quite a stressful month!

1. I'm in a battle with fostering, for more support. I've been asking for some nursing help one night a week so I can go out and have a life out side of fostering, but it doesn't get any where. I've asked for some financial assistance to get a 'Motorbility' car ( I have to put a down payment of about £3/4000), because I paid for the VW transporter I have, and I only need it because of Jack, and therefore fostering should be providing it, but that's not getting looked in to either. Every time I ask for something, like the mileage allowance for the 199 miles I drove to take Adam, Stacey and Jack to Ludlow in South Shropshire, I get told no, it's within your fostering allowance! I didn't have to take them to Ludlow, I could've said no, but because Jack's family live there, I said I'd do it and Jack could have a contact visit with his family at the same time as long as I got the mileage and was told yes.
We left home at 10.30 am and after taking Jack to his mum's, then driving Adam and Stacey to the week end carers, then going back to Jack's mum's, having a cup of tea and then taking him to see his gran and grandad in Bridgenorth, having another cup of tea and then driving him to Hope House where he was staying for the week end, I finally got home at 7.30 that night, and hadn't had a single bite to eat the whole day!!!
When I handed the mileage form in, my link worker said that because I had 3 children, the mileage allowance built in to the payments meant I didn't do enough miles and couldn't claim... I was not happy as I'd been told I could claim before I agreed to do it. I took the form off her and tossed it in to the bin and said that from now on I wouldn't be doing any transporting and they'd have to pay for taxi's . She hastily retrieved the form from the bin and said she'd see what she could do!!
I am sick to death of having to fight for every single thing, and sorting every thing else out on my own! You'd think that they'd consider the fact that to put Jack in to residential care would cost over £4000 A WEEK, and they only pay me £177 so they should be supporting me in every way they can, to keep on saving all that money !!!
To top it all ... and the final straw for me ... when I said I wasn't going to have the second lot of two children this week because of the following paragraph, they showed no concern at all for my daughter or my family only anger that I'd let them down at the 'last minute' dispite the fact that I gave them the names of two carers who could step in.

2. My poor daughter Janine has had a terrible time over her horse this month. Niko was loosing weight, swelling up and getting itchy, and getting agitated so she called the vet out. The vet said it was an allergic reaction and gave him an injection and some cream, he seemed to pick up a bit, but was soon showing the same symptoms again. The vet then did some blood tests and said his liver function was down but didn't know why. He went from bad to worse so in the end Janine ended up taking him to a specialist horse vet up in Liverpool for investigation. It turns out he had liver failure and poisonous pneumonia, probably from eating ragwort weeds (the previous owner said he was in a field full of it but didn't bother with it ... well he obviously did as Janine's paddock doesn't have any at all!) He was too far gone and had to be put to sleep this week.
We've had several trips to Liverpool, to take Niko, to go back and say good bye, to collect the ashes etc. As you can imagine, Janine is heartbroken and has been very upset . So now we've got a beautiful wooden inlaid, box with Niko's ashes in, sitting on the fire hearth because Janine is too upset to have him buried just yet.

RIP NIKO XXX


On the stitching front, I've just taken part in a Mail Art exchange on Stitch and Stash. We had to design, stitch and make up an envelope, enclose a card and post it 'naked' through the mailing system. I posted mine off 4 days ago and still haven't heard if it arrived safetly neither have I received one in return, so I do hope that they make it through in one piece! I'll post a pic when and if, it arrives with the recipient!

I had a week end break up in Edinburgh to see the Military Tattoo on the 14th Aug. It was a lovely week end away with my friend Irene and I managed to meet up with Diana and her lovely children too :). We had one or two little bits of excitement ... the lens in my glasses fell out and I only just managed to stop a man from standing on it in the shop! I then had to try and walk along the street with one lens intact, to the nearest optitions. It happend to be Spec Savers but they couldn't fix it because they didn't have a small enough screw! I went in to M&S and the lovely lady gave me some selotape and we did a 'Jack Duckworth' on the glasses until I could get to Boots optitions and they fixed it, tightened up the other screw and cleaned the glasses all for no charge! What service!
That night, after watching the wonderful show we got in to bed about midnight only to be woken again at 01.00 with the fire alarm going off! We spent an hour out in the cold, watching the 3 fire engines and the fire men, running around, only to discover that a silly man had lit up a cigarette in his room and set the alarms off!!
The next day we spent a couple of hours in Carlisle then set off back home. Irene and I have agreed to do another coach trip in the new year, perhaps to York ... any one live over that side of the country??? Fancy a coffee ??? lol

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