Life & Death – Page 2

Wading Through Treacle With Concrete Wellies On

Wednesday 29 January 2020 21:40

The pressure I’ve put on myself this month is beginning to get to me. I’m researching, and brainstorming, and writing, from before dawn until late at night; and getting nowhere.

I’m writing it’s true, but I’ve no energy or concentration left to do any drawing, and that’s beginning to feel counterproductive.

The novel that for a few years has been whispering in my ear to be written, seems to have got hold of a megaphone now; but it’s a story that I’m reluctant to write. Where it’s leading is fascinating, but it’s a story that’s based in the future, and I can’t see a way to avoid it being all darkness.

Bizarrely, so much of the research I’m doing with regard to generating income online keeps pointing me into the frightening future we’re hurtling towards, and I’m in need of some sunshine right now.

The isolation is getting to me too, though I know it’s the only way I can do this; but it’s increasingly lonely. The solution is far from simple (although a lottery win might go some way towards it 😀 ). What I need is people who are in the same boat, to pool ideas and resources. No-one can understand how frightening this is…

I type that, and tears well up. Bad day.

One positive thing I did, today, was write to the people with the beautiful space nearby that would be perfect for a ‘real life’ creative circle. It’s a long shot that they’ll be interested, but it would give me a huge lift if that dream could be made a reality. It’s not an income generator so doesn’t count as progress in that sense, but it would be nice to feel I’d got something positive happening creatively.

On Friday evening I’ll do a round up of how the first three weeks have gone – what I’ve really achieved, if anything. Then Saturday starts a fresh week and Month 2. I need it to bring some fresh energy with it, and I need to set some proper goals.

Now it’s only 9.30pm, but I’m pooped. There’s a hot water bottle warming the bed, and Jessie’s curled up on the pillow, so I think I’ll call it quits for today and hope to be greeted by some inspiration and a lighter spirit in the morning.

Sorry. I did promise to be honest and report on the bad days. I’m still hoping they’ll be few.

Results and Musings

Tuesday 28 January 2020 21:30

When I got back from doing my weekly food shop this afternoon, I found three envelopes waiting on the mat for me. The one I opened straight away was a beautiful card from a friend, with some good advice inside and a delightful stamp on the front. The other two I was a little hesitant about.

I suspect most people are a little wary of an envelope with Her Majesty’s very own Revenues and Customs on the front. My first thought was, “I shouldn’t have complained about the system! They’re going to pay me back by investigating every nook and cranny of my non-existent financial affairs for the last decade! Or (more likely) – they simply don’t believe me, and they’re going to investigate every nook and cranny of my non-existent financial affairs for the last decade!” I put the envelope aside unopened.

The third envelope, I could see, was from the energy supplier I’d had the run-in with on the phone last week, after they’d scared me witless with utterly unwarranted threats of court action, bailiffs, and cutting off of my electricity. As I’d already had a written response from them, which was both not the apology I’d requested, and which did nothing to make me think more fondly of them, I was puzzled. Had they unearthed another fictitious energy bill that I hadn’t paid?? Were they looking for a re-match? Had they wiped out all memory of our phone conversation, and were now coming in with the news that there was a cell being readied for me even as I read. I put that one aside too.

It’s funny how two ordinary paper envelopes, unopened, can shout so loudly, and tug at ones sleeve so persistently.

After writing a thank you email to the kind friend for the card and the advice, and having made myself a cuppa, I decided that like the proverbial plaster, it was better to just rip open the envelopes and face the contents.

Well! Waddya know…!

Thinking it was probably going to be the worst of the two, I tackled Her Majesty’s Tax Inspector first, and was so taken aback I had to reread it. No, I didn’t imagine it, it really did say that the 2019 Tax Return will be the last one I’ll ever have to complete. Ever. For the rest of my born days. No more Tax Returns after April! Did they read my blog?! Did I add it to the “Poor Me” category by mistake?! Awww. Thanks Lizzie.

Somehow fortified, I felt quite carefree as I opened the energy supplier’s envelope, and blow me down, that was good news too! Why they’d sent the previous letter a few days ago heaven only knows, but this was, indeed, a positively grovelling apology and – AND – not a M&S voucher, but at least a £20 credit as small recompense for what they put me through (and a promise that my suggestions – they were polite ones and sincere – would be passed on and given serious consideration).

Well. There you go. Sometimes you fear the worst and get all worried, and everything turns out the way it should.

What it does prove though, and in itself this makes me a little cross, or certainly a little sad that it should be so, and that is that you do need to complain when things aren’t “done right”. It makes me cross and sad because not everybody can complain, let alone will, and so it’s assumed that getting it wrong is ok, and so it continues. I surprised myself that I stayed utterly calm and polite throughout the hour long phone call with the energy provider (and indeed in my typed messages to the tax office when the online return system didn’t work), but I was firm, and I was absolutely not going to let them get away with it. For all sorts of reasons, not everybody is confident enough or has the experience to do that. Indeed there have been many times in my life when I haven’t felt able to. I seriously do believe that had someone with a heart condition received the original threatening letter from the energy bods – and god forbid that anyone did – it could have had dire consequences.

So I feel I’ve had a couple of ‘results’ today. And I feel more inclined to believe that maybe, just maybe, in the case of the energy supplier, I’ve saved anyone else from a shock (no pun intended!), or worse.

As an afterthought – I did at first have a different reaction to the Revenues and Customs letting me off ever having to fill out another tax return. They don’t have much faith in me turning things around and making a good living next year do they?

Huh!. I’ll show ’em…

For The Tea Drinker With No Sense of Time

Monday 27 January 2020 17:00

Yet another wiring thing for those with ADHD, is a complete inability to judge the passing of time.

This can result in all sorts of problems, but one which is rarely mentioned is a great many cold cups of tea.

This little silicone lid is capable of keeping the mug of tea that was left to brew “for a minute or two” three quarters of an hour ago, hot.

It is quite possibly my best purchase ever.

It’s Only Money and Other Dilemmas

Thursday 23 January 2020 23:15

One of the options I need to consider to earn some money is making video content for a monetised YouTube channel, and with this in mind I’ve spent today delving a little deeper into some facts and figures about Google (owners of YouTube – or rather their parent company, Alphabet, are), and also Facebook et al. The facts are pretty brutal, and the figures are immense.

Even more since all the scandal over Cambridge Analytica and the manipulation of voters using data garnered without anyone’s explicit permission through Facebook, we all know that Google and Facebook and the rest (Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest…) are advertising companies. They harvest our data and sell it to the highest bidder to do with what they will. We in our innocence post about our likes and dislikes, our buying habits, our marital status, our jobs, our location, our friends, and by doing so we offer ourselves as the products they sell to their customers: the advertisers, and anyone else – political parties, extremists, criminals, anyone – who’ll pay top dollar.

On all these sites, the users are being manipulated. Where YouTube’s concerned, while the users may be the viewers, the content creators are providing the means for that manipulation, wooed with the promise of some monetary recompense. That presents a dilemma for me. Do I feel I can ethically jump on the bandwagon? The more I read today, the louder the questions grew.

Is it really OK to say, “Everybody else is getting rich, so why shouldn’t I?” Am I happy to take some sort of moral high ground in declaring that I’m deeply suspicious of and concerned about the influence that big business has on our world – and then jump in and say, “Ooh, I’ll have some of that, thank you!”? I haven’t yet come to a definitive conclusion on that one. Maybe it depends how hungry I am.

That brings me to something that has been brought to the fore today too. Not so much a realisation – because I haven’t lived and worked for all these years and not known myself well enough to realise already – but more a reminder: that I’m really not bothered about money.

Oh sure, I recognise the necessity of some money, that’s the whole raison d’etre of this blog, the knowledge that I need to find a way to make some money. But it’s that word “some”. I just want, and I realise I’ve always been perfectly happy with, ‘enough’. Enough to live the life I want – which blessedly is a very simple one – and a bit put by for inevitable emergencies. It’s dawned on me today, that being happy with ‘enough’ can actually render it harder to make it.

So it may continue to cause me a problem that I just don’t have that ‘fire in my belly’ to make money. I have a ‘fire in my belly’ to do the things I love (like writing and drawing and making and teaching), and to do them well, but that fire is barely a glowing ember with regard to making money. It certainly handicapped me in running my own business. There were times when I could have grown the business but I wasn’t interested, and when pricing my services that I would say, “Oh no £X is too much, £Y will be fine.”. It could be mistaken for a lack of self worth, but I don’t think it is, I just don’t have that need to have more than, well, than I need, and neither do I have even a glimmer of need to impress anybody. I have a strong belief that a fair wage should be paid for a job, and would stick to my guns on those grounds, but then that also applies to ridiculously high wages being far from fair.

Being happy with ‘enough’ though, is rather frowned upon in our society these days.

Another strand has come from today’s research, an entirely separate strand concerning a story – a fiction – that has been calling to me to be written for a few years. I keep ignoring it, not wanting to get swept up in something that I feel is potentially dark and depressing, or worse. It seems to want me to write it though, and today it’s been tugging ever harder at my sleeve. I don’t know if I’ll get away with ignoring it forever, but I’m going to keep trying for now.

On a lighter note – hmm, perhaps lighter – I was rendered speechless when, venturing into YouTube’s ‘For Kids’ app, I found myself presented with videos by, or perhaps it’s fairer to say about, an eight year old rather precocious boy named Ryan, who has joyfully jumped on the bandwagon and has apparently made a great many MILLIONS of dollars from videos about him, his toy reviews, and his life with his very young parents. “Why would anyone watch this?!” I cried, as I was dished up almost 20 minutes of Ryan and his parents on an aeroplane, from their home (the US? Canada?) to the UK; in Business Class. “Look, we’re stepping into the aeroplane.” “Look, this is Ryan eating.” “Look, this is Ryan sleeping.” W.T.F?… I repeated my question to the air, “Why would anyone watch this?!”, and then it dawned on me: probably for the same reason I was – because they couldn’t believe it. Kerching! Gotcha.

You can read more about Ryan in Wikipedia. I find it all truly frightening.

More Research, a Shock, and Some Really Good Soup

Wednesday 22 January 2020 23:30

It’s been a rather full on day, and my brain is buzzing as it is all the time at the moment.

Early this morning, sitting up in bed with my tea and porridge, I found myself thinking more about the ethics – for me – of joining the monetised YouTube creators, and this led on to all sorts of other thoughts, not all of them good, about the relentless march of technology and the desire for profit.

Checking for any relevant news online – there’s a lot of interesting stuff at the moment about mental health in the workplace – I got sidetracked a little into reports about the cost of time taken off sick, or not taken off but spent working less productively, especially by younger adults. This led to articles about older people having to work longer, and even the probability of the complete demise of the state pension system in not too many years’ time! It was all interesting, and all relevant, and all food for thought.

One item led me to revisit information about the growing movement over here for “Men’s Sheds”, and this led me to finding out about a space in a nearby town where there might very well be a chance of setting up some publicly accessible creative space. It’s in a garden run by a charity and they even have a wooden building that they referred to as their Big Shed! I shall take that as a sign and get in touch with them to float my idea.

Late afternoon I opened an envelope the postman had pushed through my letterbox, and reeled in shock. In it was a letter from my electricity provider, with headings in large bright red type, informing me that they were “preparing debt recovery action”, were about to “obtain a Right of Entry Warrant” and “Start legal proceedings against [me] in the County Court or Sheriff Court as appropriate”! This because I had apparently not paid an energy bill dated a month ago; an energy bill that I knew nothing about.

Almost an hour was wasted on the phone trying to get the energy company to admit their mistake and elicit an apology – at the end of which, although they did admit to a whole list of errors, they didn’t even see fit to offer a token M&S voucher as recompense for threatening me with the debtors prison and scaring the bejeebers out of me! Grrr.

So not a lot of progress with plans today, although before the little debacle with the energy company, quite a bit of food for thought. And talking of food, to save the day, I had some of Michael Nobbs’ “Magic Bowtie Soup” to make for supper. It’s perfect austerity food, cheap to make, full of good things, sustaining and delicious, and will now see me through to the end of the week.

The sort of food that leaves you replete and murmuring, “Come what may, life is good.”. 🙂 (Click on the link below for my version of Michael’s recipe.)

Michael’s Magic Bowtie Soup (slightly tweaked)

Taxing Times

Saturday 18 January 2020 12:35

I’m trying to fill in my Tax Return today. I don’t want to break away from working on the blog etc, but I set today aside back at the beginning of the year, knowing I need to do it on the Big Mac rather than on my iPad where I usually work, and that I’d be turning the big fella on today to record an online event. I was in the right frame of mind, but knew it wouldn’t go smoothly and that I’d be lucky to even get in to the portal where it all sits waiting for me. Two hour after my first attempt, I’m still waiting outside.

Here in the UK we have a system whereby you are allowed (maybe nowadays it’s fair to say “encouraged”) to fill in and file your Tax Return online via the Government’s website. Certainly if you’re inclined to wait until the last minute – officially 31st January following the end of the tax year the previous April – rather than get it all sensibly out of the way by the end of October, you have no choice. If you have been doing this for a few years, when you first registered for the system you would have received, in the good old fashioned snail mail, something called a Government Gateway ID – a mix of about 12 letters and numbers – unique to you, that you enter together with a password each year when you want to submit your Return.

I think two years ago, the Government – for reasons best known to somebody who doubtless had absolutely no idea how it all worked, or indeed whether it all worked smoothly already, because they had someone to file their Tax Return for them – decided to Beta Test a new system, “GOV.UK Verify”. In theory, you had the option of continuing with the old Gateway system and, not being a fan of change, I intended to do just that for as long as possible.

Now, two years ago, despite saying thank you I’d like to carry on as normal, it nevertheless responded by bombarding me with questions so it could sign me up for the new system anyway, presumably something to do with ‘Targets’. At that time I apparently failed to answer these questions correctly – imagine questions along the lines of: “Have you recently taken out a mortgage?” Me: “No.” The Govt Bot: “That was not the correct answer. Let’s try another question.”! (Actually only now does the phrase “identity theft” occur to me. Oh good. Another thing to worry about.) Regardless of this I did eventually persuade it to go and bother somebody else, and it let me in through the old tried and trusted Gateway.

So, for the last two years I’ve carried on as usual. It’s all, eventually, gone pretty smoothly and I’ve been able to inform them via endless forms and tick boxes that I haven’t earned enough to keep a sparrow fed, let alone pay any tax. I’ve saved my copy as instructed, filed it away, heaved a sigh of relief and not given it another thought until, well, round about now.

Knowing I was yet to bite the bullet, a few days ago I had a call from a friend who’d tried getting through the dastardly Government Gateway to file his Return, and been confounded at every step. So today I wasn’t expecting smooth, and was surprised, but luckily not convinced, when it did begin to sail through all the log in steps without incident. I took a screenshot of every step as a record (an OCD thing that has helped me countless times and I would recommend to everybody), expecting the next time I hit “Continue” to be the one where the alarm sirens sounded and the portcullis slammed earthwards, skewering my feet to the ground!

It accepted my Gateway ID and password, told me who I was – it even said “Good morning” – and asked me to confirm my email address (which it told me and then asked me to type in, oh well). The necessary email popped up immediately in my Inbox, I copied and pasted the code it contained, took a screenshot, hit Continue again and cried “Oh heck where’s my phone!” as it got just a bit too competent and immediately told me it was at that very moment ringing me on the number it had stored for me to give me an “Access Code”. Momentary mad dash around the house, found the phone, “Where’s a pen!” – found a pen, couldn’t get the lid off, found a PENCIL, scribbled down the Access Code; pressed 1 to have it repeated twice more just in case, entered the Access Code, took a screenshot, hit Continue… found myself staring back at the very first Log In screen.

Now maybe I am not quite as cynical as I think I am, because I really did think by that time that everything would be fine. I could discern a degree of logic in it requesting I enter my Gateway ID and password again at this point, just a final, final, final confirmation that I’m not someone else who’s sat down in front of the screen while the real me has dashed off to the loo or been dragged away by the men in white coats. So I happily typed it all in again, and hit Submit…

And the screen reloaded looking exactly the same but blank, that is once again without my Gateway ID and password in the little boxes.

Of course I thought it was a real possibility that I was hallucinating by this time, so I typed them in again (again), hit Submit (again), and (again) found myself staring at “Enter your Gateway ID and Password and then click Submit”.

There was nothing I could do! No “If this isn’t working click here.”. There was an option of “Help” (oddly without several exclamation marks after it), so I clicked on that and it gave me a form (good oh, another form) to fill in with a place to comment and explain why I was about to throw my computer out of the window. I typed, deleted most of it judging that using bad language or personal threats to the Government perhaps wasn’t wise, certainly at this stage of my life, and retyped it politely, detailing exactly what had happened (as succinctly as I could, although – you may have already guessed this – I don’t find “succinct” easy; it’s an ADHD thing). I took a screenshot, I clicked on Submit, and was reduced to emitting a stream of very bad language as I read, “Thank you. We will be in touch within 2 days.”. Two days!!!

Now, after getting this all off my chest in here, having drunk a gallon or so of very strong black coffee, and fortified by about half a loaf’s worth of toast and jam, I’m heading back in to see, wisely or otherwise, whether I can sign up for the new “Beta Testing GOV.UK Verify” way of getting in instead.

If it asks me which school my 5-year old child goes to, I shall know I’m wasting my time.

Don’t wait up. I may be gone sometime…

Blowing The Cobwebs Away

Tuesday 14 January 2020 17:30

After three days of sitting indoors hunched over my iPad getting this all set up, I very much needed to get some air this morning.

We’re on the edge of the current UK storm, with very strong winds and lots of rain since late yesterday, but there was a bit of a lull mid morning, so I headed out.

I’m very lucky here to be less than five minutes’ walk from the woods, and just another five minutes through there to the canal. It was raining a little, and quite chilly and windy, so I didn’t want to pause for long, but I did clip my lapel mike inside my jacket just in case there was a chance to do a little video to test it out, and in order to see how well video can be added to the blog. (I thought it worked a treat directly uploaded to the site, but there have been reports of problems, so I’m trying again using Vimeo)

A swan came gliding up to me not long after I joined the towpath, but quickly realised I had no food for it, so paddled off again! It occurred to me this may very well be one of the tiny babies that I saw last summer.

Going for a fairly brisk walk along the canal, and across the adjacent fields, is going to be very important in the coming months. It’s a great way to clear my head and come up with ideas, especially for the story that’s based along its banks. I have several routes ranging from about half an hour to an hour, and I’m well equipped for all weathers. Winter walks are my favourite and as the saying goes: there’s no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothes!

What’s It All About?

Sunday 12 January 2020, 12:30pm

Is it possible to start again at 61?

Is it possible, to start a new career at an age when, in time gone by, you would already have been put out to grass?

Is it possible, at 61, to carve out a living doing something you’ve never done before, on your own, with no support at all and no money of your own to help you get started?

Is it possible to follow a dream you’ve had for most of your 61 years, when you need it to happen quickly enough to avoid plummeting into abject poverty, if not complete destitution?!

Is it possible to put in the work required to follow that dream, at an age when your reserves of energy and optimism have already taken a hammering from Life, and so the task seems at best perhaps a little absurd, and on a bad day, a mountain of completely insurmountable proportions?

Is it possible to hold firm in your resolve to pursue that dream, when everyone around you is urging “Wouldn’t it be easier to just get a little job?” (on the assumption that your creative spirit could ever be happy being crushed under the weight of nine to five mundanity for a minimum wage, that would anyway only allow you to Exist for the rest of your days, but never any more to Live)?

Is it possible to start again, following your life’s dream, with an urgency driven by no money and no plan B, when you already struggle to complete the most mundane tasks every day due to lifelong ADHD, regular migraines and intermittent bouts of anxiety, and depression?!

Is this going to be possible? Starting again? With nothing more than a dream and a need to eat? At 61!

Phew.

I guess if there’s no plan B, I’m just going to have to jump in and find out.

Wanna come with me?

When The Skin You’re In Fights Back

Saturday 11 January 2020, 11:00am

I think I have Shingles.

From the moment November arrived last year, heralding as it did just one year before all my money runs out and I’m in deep doodoo, my skin erupted in little blisters. They tingle, and hurt sometimes, and go red.

I’m 61 and I look like a teenager with acne.

A very wrinkly lined teenager, with acne.

It’s Stress.

Great.

This is not a good start.