See you Stigmum, a song

She could never say where she came from
Yesterday don't matter now it’s gone
While the sun is bright
Or in the darkest night
No one knows
She comes and goes

See you, lovely Stigmum
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every blog day
I’m really gonna miss you...

Don't question why she needs to be so free
She’ll tell you it's the only way to be
She just can't be chained
To a life where nothing’s gained
And nothing’s lost
At such a cost

See you, lovely Stigmum
I won’t hang a name on you
When you change with every new day
I’m always going to love you...

There's no time to lose, I’ve heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Hold your dreams
She helps to ease my mind.
When life’s unkind

See you, lovely Stigmum
Who could hang a name on you
When you change with every blog day
I’m really going to miss you...

See you, lovely Stigmum
I won’t hang a name on you
When you change with every new day
I’m always going to love you...

(Rolling Stones featuring me though Stiggers is much better at messing up fantastic songs!)

Note to my son

My son my sun my son
I love you
Not because you say I'm beautiful
but because of who you are

Who are you?
You are my sun
I will continue to fight for you
Fight for a secure home for you
Fight for a secure education for you
Fight these things so many take for granted.
I will always fight for you

I've got to fight for me now
I have to fight for me
I have to fight for me to fight for you
Without me you'd be so sad
I can't let you be sad
my beautiful, intelligent, funny
gigglesome, cheeky, kind, AWESOME
child
Thank you for blessing me
Hug you at 3.30
Thank God
BIIIIIIIIIG HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUG

Note to the blogging community

Behind this faceless avatar is a good blog.
Yep, a good blog with some fabulously rubbish posts, some fabulously brilliant ones, some neither nor.

Some of you know this and I thank you a thousand times for following and commenting or both. You know who you are.

I just want to ask, though funny to ask the day I leave, if you've landed here and find a post interesting and it leads you to write your own on the back of it, could you credit Stigmum, or leave a comment with her? It's what I do with bloggers and their posts that resonate with me.

Cyberspace is so huge, so infinite, millions of us, tapping away on our keyboards. It's a way of sharing, connecting, acknowledging, applauding.

I know Communities spin off into smaller communities but I am not part of those, per se. I follow who I follow who don't necessarily follow me and I read what I read. Do it if you're not a blogger, start writing, do it for yourself, I highly recommend.

Also, I still can't access Single Mother's Journal who (on this day) still follows me!

Do we get some kind of cybercred for being blocked? Blocked for inciting kindness?

Oh yeah baby, I rock!

Note to future employer

If you are reading this then I told you that for the past three years and a little bit, I've been writing a blog.

Judge only the woman in the interview (and not badly;))

This is not me, not anymore.

Do not judge;accept.

This is a casestudy. It is a cyber document about how statutorily homeless people feel, through the eyes of one mother, who felt, who feels (who has to move on...)
There are some tips too, hidden in these depths, on how to cope.

A terrific skill you know, empathy.

Enjoy what you read

but judge me not

I could be anybody, even you.

Listen up ConDems, Parenting is the most important job in the world

I was thinking earlier that this God-forsaking coalition claims a hypocritical belief in Christian values, which is why of course, it is attacking the most vulnerable - Children through their parents, disabled men, women and children.

I wanted them to watch this video from Lorna Byrne and stop attacking mothers, beating them with an iron rod, chasing them into non existant jobs, or jobs that don't pay.

Then this morning, while in the coffee shop, I happen to glance the front page of The Times.

The coalition is going to offer tax breaks to mothers!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So afraid of losing the female vote, they're going to throw money our way!!!

Hang on; wealthy mothers. Only wealthy mothers.

Wealthy working mothers can get a tax break for their cleaners, babysitters, gardeners. They already get a tax break for their nannies. I'm told Council Leader in the playground can put his and his wife's childcare on expenses. Neither of them are fighting to keep our "it's not viable" after school club open.

ALL PARENTING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD

HELP NEEDS TO GO TO THE MOST VULNERABLE, NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM IN A "WELFARE REFORM" EXERCISE AND GIVEN TO THOSE WHO HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH.

To just go back to dreamland a minute, I said to He Who Said I Was Hot, that the very job I'd love to outsource would be cleaning. It's a pipedream for a low earner after childcare, school dinners, music lessons, after school clubs. As it is, one of those will have to go...wish it was childcare, I can do that myself.

Help ALL mothers, don't hurt them.

Children feel everything.

The Government is bad for our health

If I have made myself ill it is because the Government has made me ill.
I have tried not to allow it to get to me but it depresses me; makes me angry, gets me pissed off. I can only articulate it on here, it silences me in reality, renders me mute. "I don't like it when you're in your daydream head mummy," says my son. I may go to the Women's Centre and start articulating it there. I told them I'd pop by, when I met them at the lobby.

If I have made myself ill it is because of recurring evictions and a State that can but won't stop this cycle; won't regulate rents or build affordable homes. It's disgusting, disgusting what's going on. Private landlords aren't dropping rents and housing associations are increasing theirs. I know all this because the perk, if you like, of being in a need of housing situation, is that you have access to what social and council properties are available and for how much they are going for.

All this makes me ill.

A government who forces me out to work during a recession, when I have a job already. I'm a childminder, though paid less. Oh, doesn't my child count?

Is motherhood not valued anymore?
Is it a 'non job'?

Is that why lone parents aren't given social housing anymore, because they don't "work"?

This government has put me on ESA, with its damning policies and legislations.

Everytime I get better I get knocked down.

A nation of knocked down people.

I'm no different to a criminal forced to do community service - voluntary work by another name - internships - we won't pay you - and we'll take away the childcare so you have nowhere to outsource your primary occupation - ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa.

I love writing this shit.
I could keep writing it, keep writing it if it makes ONE PERSON THINK

I've got to stop thinking though. That's what's got me into my mess, well, according to Louise Hay, according to me.

Angry, pissed off, hurting, hurting hurting hurting

A nation of angry, pissed off, hurting people.

A generation of children living with angry, pissed off, hurting people, bounced from one home to another, overcrowded, cold, in debt.

I wanted to give you a happy ending. Oh! I can't!

"By the time people wake up, the damage will have been done," the Ed said to me.

Yeah...

Read all about it! Read all about it!!

I have to rest now, think of my son.

My son, my sun, my son

I'm blessed, that's the problem isn't it Prime Minister?

What sexual direction does one go in?

Before my libido flew out my window like a migrating swan (oh come back! Come back!) this thought is what crossed my mind (both genders for blogging purposes):

I can choose to eat different men/women for breakfast
I can choose to eat the same man/woman for breakfast

Which would you choose?

Sexual healing for women

A conversation with a friend the other day who hasn't had a boyfriend for years and years and years and he didn't treat her very well anyway so confidence about getting a boyfriend is at all time low.
"Do you masterbate?" I asked her, quite uncomfortably actually. It wasn't long ago I could ask that question about myself.
Anyway, I suggested to look around a website I found
This is an article I ended up on that I believe could be beneficial to many women:

http://www.the-clitoris.com/n_html/how_to_have_female_orgasms.htm

I've not done the exercises yet, can't imagine doing them as I write this (ie, I've not got my hand down my pants) but it can be isolating being unhappily single, so get to know yourself and start to feel empowered by who you are.

For many women, the answer lies simply in giving yourself permission to be a sexual being, and by taking possession of your sexuality. You need to define your sexuality rather than allowing others to do it for you. For most, it is not a question of creating your sexuality but accepting it in its current form. The problem may not be your body and sexuality, but rather what you have been attempting to do with or to them. Learning to accept and celebrate your sexuality may be as simple as reading through this website to gain a greater understanding of your body and sexuality. (The-Clitoris.com)

OK?

An observation

My nine year old son came back giggling from Kung Fu the other day telling me what he and his friends had been up to in the changing rooms.
Seems one was thrusting his hips out saying "Lick me lick me suck me suck me!"
My son responded similarly: "Bow to me bow to me!" and I couldn't help laughing at his contagious giggle.

"Do you think the girls were doing the same in their changing rooms?" I asked him. "Bow to me, bow to me!"

"Uurgh!" he says. "Who'd want to snog hair?"

It's not the first time I've heard him say this so instead of ignoring him, like I did before I said: "When you're older you'll grow hair too you know but what you have to realise is our bits are inside us where it's not hairy. Your bits are outside, our bits are inside!"

My son looks at me.

"Why did God make us different?"

I give you our conversation because double standards exist in our society. We as individuals may feel liberated but within wider society we are judged very differently to men. Good girls don't have sex ey? A myth propogated by society, by families in many instances.

I also write this because I'm going to put a link to a website I found on a different post - labeled, well, sexual healing I guess!

It's for women like me who have to learn to reconnect to themselves and not be afraid.

Oh, and I do believe God gave me a son because I am such a sexual fuck up there was a danger I'd fuck up my daughter. Honestly, I didn't have the first clue though I'm getting one now. That's just me though, I make no judgement on anyone else.

Bow to me, Bow to me!

Feels rushed, leaving

We're not packing to move house this time
I don't want to leave
Half term though (already!)
a good time to go

I didn't give myself time
after the breakdown
As soon as I felt strong, well
back to blogging!!

This began as a casestudy
It began as dumping ground
A casestudy about a statutorily homeless mother on benefits
A dumping ground for me so I didn't dump on my friends

My sixteen year old self is awake though
Doesn't want me to be writing this stuff
I have to listen to her
Reconnect

This blog is actually a love story
It's one person supporting another
It's what you have to do
I have to make a break

Re-union
Re-pair
Re-member
My-self

Blogging in Two Directions

Instinctively I know that my writing will go in two directions before the end of week when Stiggers and I will take a break.

One is SEX (Oh stigs, love, love baby, let's stay and talk about that, explore that...we've never done that, not really, not positively, hopefully, beautifully, naturally, our confidence only just beginning, so fragile..)
The other is THE USUAL CRAP
I have to mention THE USUAL CRAP because if I am going to blame myself for what I am going through, I believe the cause is not SEX but THE USUAL CRAP.

THE USUAL CRAP is making us all ill and who can change things?
The Government
Who won't change things?
The Government
Who must therefore change things?
US

I will have to go and put Stiggers' words into action. All her words, be they SEX or THE USUAL CRAP, and do something positive with her/my knowledge.

Now I must go away and figure how to post it. Which should I focus on first? Oh dilemmas...they are the making of one's life, no?

Thank you for listening and have a good day.

Bad bacteria on push bikes

Here's what my lower abdomen pain feels like (do tell me if you've ever had the same, it's a horror not knowing as you may know)

Like there are bicycle handlbars down there and hundreds of bad bacteria hanging onto them and when the mood takes them, they pull on the brakes and I go 'aaargh' because I wasn't expecting it.

"You feel a squeeze you mean?" said my sister, and the doctor when I saw her. Oh bless those with command of simple language! Oh bless Stigmum and her creativity!!

The bacteria were braking, nay, squeezing, alot during "Shame" (aargh, there it goes again!)

Michael Fassbender....
Oh MAN!!!
We are a divine species!
I'll say no more....

Jump NHS queues!!

In my inbox the other day - Agreed for SUE DE NIM

Leapfrog the NHS Queues
Choose When, Where & Who Operates
Receive More Comfort & Convenience Drug Treatment

That's Right Private Medical Insurance for £20 a month!!! (My exclamation marks)

Scam of the fucking century isn't it?

I heard, from a reliable source, that with a medical insurance, if you go in for a heart problem,let's say, you can't use your insurance again if you get another heart problem.

Never mind that the average person cannot afford a medical insurance anyway. They're asked to get insurance for everything, dental insurance costs a bomb when you consider your treatment costs too.

It is the beginning of the end of the NHS, started by Labour, an ideological dream to be finished by the Conservatives.

No one should have to pay for care, especially with their lives. There should no queue jumping because you are lucky enough to be a millionaire, money left in trust for you, or perhaps like the Prime Minister, you married into it.

Doc said she'd schedule me for a scan - the pee results aren't back but the pain didn't go away when the antibiotic course finished, just getting worse actually...
Can they call today doc?
I don't want be rushed to A&E screaming in agony, because waiting times are longer for me, because I have no medical insurance, have only debt to pay for one with.


Do people have to wait to die because they cannot afford to live?
(I Don't Know Party Manifeato)

SAVE OUR NHS

(I post my problem under mental health because I don't want to start another label and I dunno, create a story I have no control over.)

FUNDING TO THE NHS NOT PRIVATE HEALTHCARE COMPANIES WHO USE NHS FACILITIES AND STAFF.

Four Haiku's - blogging - start and finish?

Writing blogs can heal
Even if noone comments
Fuck everyone else

Blogs are cathartic
Write your thoughts and let them go
There is Gold in mine

Stigmum has to stop
At least for the time being
I must heal myself

I'll miss you Stiggers
I'll read you all the time though
Comment with your name

Write a few more days
A gentle separation
Tear my heart out bitch!

That's yesterday that is, 'bitch', it's not how we speak, I speak and yeah, you might have counted five, but we don't keep count!

Time to ch ch ch change - Song

I still don't know what I am waiting for
And my time is running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I think I've got it made
It seems the taste is not so sweet
So I turn myself to face me
And I’ve caught a nasty glimpse
Of how the others don’t see a faker
Time to give the blog a rest

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the pain
Ch-ch-Change it
I want to be a richer mum
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the strains
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different mum
Time has changed me
Now I must trace time

I feel the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of cold impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And our children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
We're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face these pains
Ch-ch-Change 'em
Can't tell me to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
I must face this strain
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame (coalition)
You've left us up to my neck in it
Time must change me
We all can change time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and crush the strain
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out we rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Rise and beat the strain
Ch-ch-Change it
Pretty soon we're gonna get a little wiser
Time may change me
And I must trace time
I know that I MUST change me
And I MUST find time

(David Bowie featuring Stigmum, my Pretty Thing; only a little messed up, not much!)

What the Dickens?!

Happy Birthday Charles Dickens!
200 years old today! Same as me!
Not much has changed ey? Social inequality still high and actually being legislated by this government to get worse! When you turn in your grave Charles me lad, WAKE UP these cockeyed clueless political classes.
On the plus side they stopped beating kids in school, ooh, 30 years ago. To my knowledge anyway (Nicolas Nickleby)
Thanks Charlie, for everything.

Are you prepared to change?

"What do you have to live for? You know you are here for a reason, and it's not to buy a new car every few years. What are you willing to do to fulfill yourself? Are you willing to do affirmations, visualisations, treatments? Are you willing to forgive? Are you willing to meditate?
How much mental effort are you willing to exert to change your life and make it the life you want?" (Louise Hay, The Power is Within You. P.105)

You can drag a Dog to water but you cannot make it...

Drink Bitch

I'll give up Al Cohol for Lent then

We are all connected

Was it an accident that me and He Who Said I Was Hot weren't perfect strangers?
No six degrees of separation for us; only one
Jo
She emailed him. Fancy that! He said to her, not to me.

We are all connected. I'm no different to you. You are no different to me.

My point is this though:

If what I've got is serious (they've scheduled me a scan)

Do I let him know?

"Repent! God is Good News!"

The Sunday following my one night stand I woke up feeling positive about life but also very much stuck in mine. So very stuck I consulted my angel cards and was told to "follow the signs".

"Repent!" bellowed the priest an hour later.

I can't believe it. I shake my head inside myself as my childhood God forces me to my knees to beg forgiveness, sinner that I am.

"Repent!" he bellows again. "Repent means change! God is Good News!"

My inner head stops shaking and I listen.

"Doesn't matter if you are good person or a bad person God will not judge you!"

And I think of Hitler and Walsh's Conversations with God and wonder if the priest has read this "blasphemous" text.

"Repent means change! In your heart turn the face of God towards you and make every decision from there!"

Now you reader, may have a problem with the word God. That's fine, I did too once. But imagine for a minute the word means Love.

Turn and face the Love within yourself

It's not easy; it's taken me years

You know, when I say the Hail Mary now, I end it saying "Pray for our souls, now and at the hour of our death." Not, "Pray for us sinners.."

I can do that as a fully paid up member of the School of Doris, God is very much Que Sera Sera. He and She and It does not judge you or me or us.

Facing the Love we have within ourselves will reward us more than facing and making decisions based on fear or anger or envy or resentment.

As promised the One Night label has to end with this post or it could go on and on and I want it to finish with a happy ending.

Love not fear as it began

This is the beginning and how this label ends.

Thanks for reading it, I hope it helps you.

Love

Me xxx

"You are powerful beyond measure" - Mandela

Nelson Mandela's inaugural speech from 1994, given to me by my social worker in 2005, recently taken out of the envelope in which it came and stuck on my wall.

Stick it on yours. Read it everyday. Do not be afraid of your light and accept others may be afraid of yours. Take it from one who knows (that's me, I can't speak for Mandela!)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God - Your playing small
doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us
It is not in just some of us; It is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

The right person empowers you

"The right person will empower you," I told the man who'd come out of a long relationship and never wanted another again.

I am right.

He accepted I am right.

I know I am right.

It is easier to fear than to love
It is better to love than to fear

Song for a one night stand

This is the song for He Who Said I Was Hot.
It couldn't be for a relationship...it's painful for the one who loves.
I've been listening to PP Arnold's version, it's the one I have, it's so raw, so powerful and it's the lyrics I've copied for you. The song was written by a man, Chip Taylor.
I like this video though because it's not clear who the angel is because it could be either the man or the woman, depending on your experience.

This is Juice Newton's version



There'll be no strings to bind your hands
Not if my love can't bind your heart
and there's no need to take a stand
For it was I who chose a start
I see no need to take me home
I'm old enough to face the dawn

Just call me angel of the morning angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me baby
Just call me angel of the morning angel
Then slowly turn away from me

Maybe the sun's light will be dim
And it won't matter anyhow
If morning's echoes say we've sinned
Well it was what I wanted now
And if we're victims of the night
I won't be blinded by the light
Just call me angel of the morning angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me baby
Just call me angel of the morning angel
Then slowly turn away
I won't beg you to stay
with me
Through the tears of the day, of the years
baby baby baby

Just call me angel of the morning angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me baby
Just call me angel of the morning angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me darling
Just call me angel of the morning baby
Just touch my cheek before you leave me darling

I've been playing this song all week while I write this label. Every morning, track 15 on my 'Feeling Good cd'
It has been better to think about sex than, well, most things actually!
It is better to think about love than it is about fear.

I had a really good experience with my one night stand, he had a good one with me and I hope you have a good one with yours.

Thanks PP Arnold.

Stay...stay stay stay....

I wanted him to stay the weekend. I didn't want him to leave. He couldn't come back, how could he come back = 'I'm free again in two weeks!' - my self esteem wouldn't let me say it, my self esteem wouldn't allow it, but he could stay.

Oh stay. I might have said it, but only once. "Go on, I'll make you breakfast!"
"I need to get my keys," he said. It's how he met me, going back for his keys.

I laughed at his frustration trying to find his things amongst my mess, untangling his jeans from me, from all of me.

"You really are going?" I said as he pulled them on.

As he left he paused at the door, looked at me.

I'd've got out of bed, I'd have kissed his cheek

but my head was nailed to the pillow.

So much for sex curing hangovers I thought, as my head split in two.

I slept for the rest of the day.

A first for my one night stand?

"Do you have a child?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't know you were a mother."
"No?" There are pictures of my son all over the wall.
"Do you have a girl?"
"No, a boy."
"How old?"
"Nine."
"Nine, wow, nine, that's a big child! He looks like a girl!"
"Yeah, well," I say, half asleep, "young people can look quite androgenous."
"Does he still have long hair?"
"Fairly," I look at the pictures which are a couple of years old. "He's beautiful."
"Yes he is."
"Have you been with a mother before?"
"No."
"You haven't?!"
"Well, yeah, maybe, I don't think so."
"Is it different?"
"No, only the context."
"...."

Jobs: Seeking value in post coital chit chat

"What do you do?" he asks me, after a bit of erm, my, my oh my!
"I campaign for affordable housing," I answer without thinking.
"I've never met one of those before!" he says.
"No, well, it's hardly the most interesting of campaigns.."
"Why then?" after commenting on what a nice flat I lived in.
"If I'd won my battle, you'd be waking up on some shit estate, not here.."

change the subject change change change

"What do you do?"
"I work in film."
"Cool, doing what?"
"I own my own company."
"Nice! Good for you! Do you employ interns?"

He was soon to realise he was in bed with the self elected Leader of the I Don't Know Party.

"Win for business! No, win win for business!!" I couldn't help but open his eyes, draw his attention...

"This is so depressing," he said at some point
but that might have been while we were talking about the new North Korean president, whatsisname..."Kim Jong-un" "yeah that's him..who knows if he'll zap us all..."

The conversation flies off to Iran, to America, to nuclear war and that familiar feeling of being powerless in the face of impending doom..."The whole thing, our planet, is controlled by a small bunch of egos who'll do what they want to do, we have no control over it," I say. "What you've got to do is rise above it all somehow and look down on all of it with no judgement."

"That's very hard," he said.
"I know..."

We might have kissed then. Flip.
It just kept getting better, getting better all the time.

"Cougars"

For a moment I let him think I was a pensioner, and from the corner of my eye saw him do a double take, as if realising he'd gone home with QuiteSomething and woken up with Stigmum. I got the giggles.
"How old did you think I was?" I laughed.
"My age," he said.
"And how old is that?"

Oh....!

No Jo, the bunting on the bedroom wall is not coming down, not yet.

Fab. I am Fab.

I am.

I am at home in my body
(Louise L Hay You Can Heal Your Life)

(We really don't like that word 'cougars', me and stigs don't, but an 'older women' title didn't sit too well with us either. I mean, who cares?)

Taking a stranger home

Here's how it happened.
This is long by the way, and badly written, given I've used my notebook. Oh well, life mirrors art sometimes..that's my excuse anyway...

Two Friday's ago: Leaving party in the flat downstairs, the hairdresser's going back to Italy:( I am invited:) I turn up with a bottle of Prosecca; Italian's like that. Their friends arrive, beautiful, striking individuals. They invite me to Old Street with them so I finish the rose wine I've moved to and run upstairs for my jacket.

A friend of theirs is a manager of the place we go to; people told to move from the bank of seats, for we are VIPs. I order a beer because I don't want to get drunk (hic) but there's vodka and rum at the table and when they do the Jager Bombs (Jaegermeister mixed with redbull) well, one won't hurt!

The hairdresser's going straight to the airport. My other neighbours leave but I want to stay with the hairdresser's friends. I hit the dancefloor.

I man glides up to me. I ignore him and carry on dancing.
Another glides up (honestly, their movements were really fluid) and I turn from him too.
When another glides up I think 'oh for fuck's sake' and dance over to a group of young guys but realise this isn't the answer, make some comment about how good the music is then go and chat to some of my group.
Soon I'm dancing again and soon the same thing is happening and I become convinced these men are being paid by the club to pull women. I want them to leave me alone so I can enjoy myself but when I turn to the group I am with our area is empty; they've all gone.

I can't stay. I don't want to stay, I feel vulnerability crawl across the floor ready to envelope me and know I must leave now. I grab my jacket and I go outside. The air soothes my face. It's been a great night.

HOME.

I'm not entirely clear what went on next .

I believe I went up to a pretty approachable looking group of guys and asked them if they knew where the 214 bus went from.

How I wound up sitting down, I don't know but I got talking to one of them, and must have felt some kind of relief because I told him, in order, no doubt, to relieve my paranoia, that: "There are men in there paid to come on to women." I think he might have laughed, and I might have said I was serious, before wondering if he was one of them too then telling myself to chill out.

"Do you want to go back with me?" He looks at me and I might have laughed thinking really fast, faster than I've ever thought anything, ever, when I've been quite drunk, why not? He seems alright, and I do really really want to have sex.

"OK."

He asks if I want to go back to his place and I say no, mine (I'm so glad I don't live on that estate anymore) and we get a cab.

I don't recall talking to him in the cab. I do recall thinking, I do recall wondering whether I had to pay him. How do these things work? Do I have to pay him?

"I don't have any money," he says breaking the silence.
"Oh, there's a cashpoint just up here, we'll get the cabbie to stop and you can get out."

What am I doing, I'm thinking while he's out of the cab. I take a deep breath and I let it out again.

Once in my house, again I don't know only that he made the move to kiss me and I said at some point that I had condoms or maybe he asked me if I had any. Either way, we had sex.

In many ways, the first I knew of all this was when I woke up in the morning. I woke up feeling skin on my skin and thought '"huh?". Slowly I turned, oh yeah... when he says:

"You said the guys in the pub were being paid to talk to you last night. You remember? You must have no self esteem."

Later that morning he tells me he can be arrogant. "Well," I say, my head on his chest, "that's just another form of low self esteem isn't it, only wrapped in different packaging."

His kiss. That I remember, his kiss I remember.


Others mirror the love and self approval I have for myself. I rejoice in my sexuality.
(Louise. L. Hay You Can Heal Your Life not under Self Esteem)

Giving freely - a thought

If you give freely with no expectation
you won't be disappointed when you don't get anything back

and happily surprised if you do

Waking up to oneself - a re-union

My one night stand was a catalyst for change, but the catalyst actually began at the school reunion. where I felt something dark flutter inside me when I passed my old bedroom. The dark flutter turned out to be 16 year old me.

Here's what I wrote, a morning after a night where tears came from the bank of nowhere that has no depth that we can reach. The Foca had left me eight years before.

She's woken up and realised the boy she loved is the father of her child and is devastated it hasn't worked out.
So I find myself grieving for my relationship all over again and so powerfully.
I have let him go before
I have to let him go again and I don't want to.
He's married now, I tell myself. It's ok, he's happy and he never really knew how to look after you anyway. He could only ever be your friend. That's how it is sometimes. I know it hurts but better to have loved, even for an instant, than never having loved before
Be happy what you felt was real
and you have a beautiful son
He's lucky I loved him
He's lucky you loved him.

(Taken from Notebook 22nd November 2011)

This might seem a bit crazy but the one night stand I had was the first proper, healthy, sexual experience of me being with myself, connected to myself. Well no, Luke from (can't call it)Shit School was, post sex therapy, but I dumped him for accepting me didn't I.....

I'd told my past life regression therapist when I saw her the second and last session, admitted for the first time, that I didn't know how to do 'love'. I didn't know how to do 'intimacy'. One of my friends can't do love or intimacy either so I know I'm not alone.

That reunion was the catalyst for me to start my life over again, stronger within myself.
He Who Said I Was Hot was sent to tell me, sent to show me, what I either didn't know, or what I had forgotten.

If you give freely with no expectation
you won't be disappointed when you don't get anything back
(22nd November, straight after the above)

I will rest until I'm stronger
hopefully it won't take long
(Still thinking the same thing today...though I know now I'm on a forward path)

Tell yourself you are on a forward path

Connect with yourself. if you are not already connected

You are the very beginning of everything

Don't be scared, simply trust.

(Gee, big one stigs!)

Happy Endings

I said at the start of this One Night label that taking you on my journeys was dangerous. Didn't get the council flat, root canal ended how I didn't want it too. Did give up smoking though, I said.
You know what I forgot?

Reunions!!

I took you on that journey!!

That did end well!!

Shit brick absolutely terrified of returning to such unhappy memories but went ahead anyway.

I was reunited with my sixteen year old self who I'd abandoned there!

So you see, there is such a thing as happy endings and I shouldn't be afraid of taking you on journeys because they won't necessarily turn out badly or negatively.

That's the beauty of blogging, the beauty of labelling posts. It's told me there is such a thing as a happy ending.

I was able to let go of that past, the weight of it released with one act of bravery. I am still tempted to write some of the lessons I learnt from that reunion experience, because I don't know who it might help my sharing them, but I do know it will help me. I think I got interrupted by something else when I was on the subject of the subsequent breakdown. Not all breakdowns are bad for you though they feel it at the time!

This One Night label will have a happy ending because I'm not going to see it through to the end with you, I will end it as positively as stigs and I are able to end it before moving forward.

Have faith in yourself

"Don't stop writing"

My Italian neighbour knows I write a secret blog but has always had the kind grace not to enquire what it is.

I didn't tell him I was on antibiotics and that's what I was writing about, or that I'd had a one night stand that I will be writing about, because I was out with him the night I met He Who Said I Was Hot. Both nights being a catalyst for change within me and has thrown into question, really, just how long can I keep writing a blog as personal as this.

The other week I met a new person in the coffee shop who asked me what I did for a living and I'd said without really thinking "I write streams of consciousness that sometimes makes its way into newspapers!"

Thursday night of spinning fear I told myself that my life definitely had to change and accepted, I accepted that night, that I would have to stop writing this blog.

This morning I showed the guy in the coffee shop my article on the area's nightlife that has made it into a newspaper supplement, after he asked me how my 'writing projects' were going. "Is that your name?" he said. "Is that the name you write your stream stuff?"

"No, I have an alter ego."
"Oh, what's her name?"
"I can't tell you!"
"Oh that's not fair!" he said.
"OK," I said and I told him because I know that though Stigmum appears on google her given name doesn't lead to me. She could be anybody! He laughed.
"I'm going to stop writing though," I said. "As her conduit, she makes me go places I don't wanna go!!!" He laughed at that too.

My Italian neighbour didn't laugh. He's a musician. He busks at Westminster. We spoke about how the Black Dog is really great for creativity. Awful to reach in that far but how it lends power to what you write.

"I cannot die for my art," I said to him giggling. "I've got my son to think about."
"Sure," he said. "But don't stop writing!"

We'll see....

I told Jobs in Mind advisor I wanted to 'create my way out of my situation' and I'm not convinced Stiggers, as much as I love her and she has valid things to say, will help me do that.

(I also told him "I write a little bit" and he told me not to say that at my Atos interview or they'll put me down for admin jobs...He saw, he saw, I have something more to give... ee aw ee aw I'm a donkey! - streams, see.....don't depress me!)

1 in 4 people have a mental health illness

Alistair Campbell, Blair's old spin doctor turned depression campaigner said on the BBC's This Week last night that one in four people in this country have a mental health illness.

Really? That few? Or was that one in four MP's have a mental health illness?

I had an appointment at Jobs in Mind the other day. When I booked it with the guy, I really thought I'd be ready to go by the 1st February! Oh yeah!

I told my "adviser" jobs weren't really on my mind, that I was on antibiotics. He said it was only an assessment anyway, no pressure.

He made me cry you know, with his questions. He didn't mean to, it's just the conversation bought into view That Which Makes Me Want To Kill Myself - the fact that other than love, I cannot give my son the security he needs. His education is not "safe" with me. His home is not "safe" with me. I cannot offer him the kind of foundation that his father can for example. Don't make me talk about it; it makes me cry.

We, I, got talking about depressed people with him, people worse off than me and I know because I've been where those people are. Things are so Black you can't even recognise the comfort of it being a Dog.

Ruby Wax said it was an illness, like a physical illness, a chemical imbalance in the brain, and there is medication.

What I know of depression though, is only you can get yourself out of it, pills or no pills. The support, books, cd's, prayer groups, this that and the other, is all there but if you don't want it, you don't want it. You can drag that Dog to Water but you Cannot make it drink.

It is good depression's getting a media airing because there really are too many of us to help. My advisor admitted as much.

"You are very depressed," he said to me.
"Really? Am I?" I was quite surprised because I'd stopped crying and was talking about people on benefits with him in quite an empathetic 'them not me' kind of way.
"Yes you are."
"Am I really negative? Am I being really negative" (I try to control that in the outside world...)
"Yes, but you've got every cause to be."
"Oh."

I came out of the appointment and it was my son's school assembly. Gift. Thank you World.

I'll say this though, the worse your depression is, the closer you are to God
Seriously, I'm not being funny
It's when I got so low, so so so low, that I realised I could not escape myself. When I get so low I'm reminded of that. This is me.

A breath.

It's been a long trip, my depression, I won't deny that. Some people's depressions can be a long trip. It's not been aided by the recurring evictions, job application rejects, I've got a bloody infection I've never had before that makes me think of nasty diseases I may have bought upon myself. I've kept wanting to escape myself; run away, run away die as you know if you've followed this blog for a long time.

But no.

Recognise that you are in the world. You are in this moment. You are meant to be here.
Take a very gentle step from there
With a deep breath

Men and self help books

This doesn't need to go on the One Night label but it is, just for the flow.

Self help is traditionally a female domain isn't it? Helping yourself is seen as some kind of weakness and men, traditionally, don't want to be perceived as being weak. Hey, with Kindle's now, who's to know?!

Anyway, this post isn't about that.
This post is about how I walked into a charity shop the other week and came out with three books:

The Power Is Within You by Louise Hay
Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul by a bunch of writers
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.

Stiggers and me mention all these books because they all carried an inscription and they were all gifts for men!

To Ross
To Jaybes (John, a flight ticket from Sydney to Adelaide inside..small coincidence, He Who Said I Was Hot was from Adelaide! He wasn't called John though)
from their mums!!
To (another) John and I love this inscription so sorry Eric, sorry John, I'm going to copy it out:

"Dearest John,
This book was a revelation to me + so I'm passing it on to you. May the pages within provoke and inspire you to greater awareness.
I'm awed by your talent + Inspired by your Spirit. Your [sic] Very Special.
I'm Happy our path's were able to cross. All the Best!
And Good Luck wi "Dolly", I'm sure you'll be Great!
Until we meet again - My Cosmic Friend (each word underlined twice!)
Peace - Love - Light
Your Friend, Eric C.."

"When the student is ready, the teacher appears." (The Power is Within You. P.75)

Thanks guys!!!!!

If you are drawn to any of these on the back of this post reader, don't thank me!!
(Though you can thank Stigmum if you like;))

The Power Within You

I'll be honest with you, back when, oh I don't know, I rejected louise Hay.

All those exercises in You Can Heal Your Life, well I couldn't do them, didn't want to do them, oh this isn't working, I'm a failure, go away Louise Hay.

Then a few weeks ago, in a charity shop just up the road, her book "The Power Is Within You" called out from the shelf. "Buy me, buy me!" Rrragh, I have You Can Heal Your Life, I don't need you.

I started reading it in the ad breaks during Celebrity Big Brother.
Oh this is quite good.
This is really good.
Oh Louise, I do love you!

Louise Hay, multimillionaire self healing guru, gives herself to us in this book. Talks about her life. It's all over it, everywhere in the way it isn't in You Can Heal Your Life.

I didn't know she had cancer of the vagina. Did you?
She tells us how she forgave the abusers of her childhood.
She's like, I know how you're feeling.

She made it very easy for me to pick up You Can Heal Your Life on Thursday night.

"I had to acknowledge some nonsense that I didn't want to admit about myself," she writes in the Power Is Within You. "For instance, I was a very resentful person, and I carried a lot of bitterness from the past. I said, "Louise, you have no time to indulge in that anymore. You really must change." Or as Peter Mc Williams says, "You can no longer afford the luxury of a negative thought." (P53 of my copy)

A clear clear, so clear message that came out of Thursday night was that I should give up this blog. Start a new one, build a new one.

I'm reeling from this because there's still so much we want to say. There's still so much that only Stigmum can say. Not because I don't have the courage to say it myself. But because as her conduit, I have to reach for what's negative, to open people's eyes, or allow others to know they are not alone in how they feel.

We ahall see...

Will the council house me if I have cancer?

BANISH THAT THOUGHT

As soon as the thought came to me, I told it to FUCK.RIGHT.OFF.

You'll get extra points

FUCK OFF

Imagine telling your support worker

FUCK OFF

You see reader, I knew a French single mum who still lives in her bedsit up the road with her son my son's age.

She got a brain tumour. Did they house her? No!
She was on death's door. Did they house her? No!

The system doesn't care whether you live or die! Infact, dying will reduce the waiting list! So the council, much to the ConDems pleasure, will say or think, can't be quoted after all, 'hurry up and get on with it!'

So get that thought RIGHT AWAY FROM YOU before you create within you a disease you DO NOT WANT.

I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of myself.
(Louise L Hay You Can Heal Your Life under Cancer)

It's hard Louise it's hard, particularly when your past is in your present and you are forced to think about it because you are forced to bid every week

No-one ever said the healing process was easy
Right now, you are safe
Write another post and let go of this one. (Stigmum)

I lovingly release the past and turn my attention to this new day. All is well.
(Louise under Tumors)

MOVE...into the next moment...MOVE

What are we doing to ourselves?

I wasn't looking to blame myself last Thursday night as I pissed blood into the toilet alerted by clots on the paper.

Sure, my first instinct was sex and I was so angry, angry at myself, I blamed the blog. I don't want to admit to being a sexual cripple, I raged. Is that why this has happened? I'm not a sexual cripple. My one night stand was a positive experience. Don't take that away from me

Here'a a thing..The week before He Who Said I Was Hot, was standing in my room, by my bookcase, but I couldn't see what he was looking at because my eyes were closed.

Later I stood where he'd been standing to see what he might have seen. Photo's, a piece of writing by Nelson Mandella, given to me back in 2005 by a social worker when the church was evicting me and my son, which I only took out of it's envelope about two weeks ago and stuck up on my wall to teach me.

What books would he have noticed? The Story of O, The Sorrow of War, Marx, Angela Carter's Fairy Tales, You Can Heal Your Life, Marukami, Robin the Hoodie, On Photography...a real mix

You Can Heal Your Life? I've probably not opened that since, ooh 2005.

I was in a real vacuum of fear and not knowing on Thursday night. I couldn't phone my mum and frighten her, or my sister. I could've called Jo, I'd only seen her two days before, but she was flying out to Italy. A single mum friend had called earlier, asking if I'd come in with her on a 'plant project' ("plants die on you mummy," my son said later). I couldn't tell her, "My pee hurts, I'm bleeding and I don't know what's wrong," I couldn't, I wanted to, I couldn't.

You Can Heal Your Life. You Can Heal Your Life is in your bookcase. At the back of the book are 61 pages of problems with its possible cause and new thought patterns along side it.

Littered all over this label are the new thought patterns I copied out and read and reread that night. I barely glanced at the possible causes.

Here they are for you now though - in relation to bladder problems, urinary problems, female problems (though listen in boys, we share some). I don't know what's up with me but something is and hopefully it's gone now, my seven day antibiotic course ends today.

Bladder Problems (Cystitis) - Anxiety. Holding on to old ideas. Fear of letting go. Being pissed off

Cancer - Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatreds. "What's the use?"

Urinary Infections (Cystitis, Pyclonephritis) - Pissed off. Usually at the opposite sex or a lover. Blaming others. (Not pissed off at lover I thought at the time, but well pissed off with government, life situation, welfare reforms...)

Uterus - Represents the home of creativity (Stigmum?????)

Vaginitis - See Female Problems, Leukorrhea - Anger at the mate. Sexual guilt. Punishing the self.

Female Problems (See Amenorrhea, Dysmenorrhea, Fibroid Tumors, Leukorrhea, Menstrual Problems, Vaginitis) Denial of the self. Rejecting femininity. Rejection of the feminine principle.

If we go back, if I go right back..

Whatever I have is a WARNING

What was the very last thing I posted that Thursday before the big OW?

Peter Paul and Mary - I hammer out WARNING. I hammer out DANGER.

You see, I feel I have to write down this stuff.

It's up to you if you want to change

but my time has come

I hope I'm listening.

I am Velcro

Self realisation is an epiphany

I am Velcro
I allow things to STICK to me
I allow negative things to STICK to me
So fast they are stuck that I can't peel them off
So old
Men don't rape women
Women rape men
You're a hole between two legs
So new
Cancer cancer
Y Mama Tambien?
We have a duty to ourselves
That's what I wrote
I wrote that
ON HERE
before all this
We can change
We can all change
You Can Heal Your Life
In my bookcase Thursday night
Stick a positive on you
Right Here
Right Now
I am beautiful
I love
I am
LOVE

Antibiotic knock on effects

The antibiotics have given me thrush. Woo hoo! Lucky me!! Really releasing stuff....

Commonly viewed as an STI, I am sensitive to yeast infections...cotton knickers, no bubble bath, you women know. Chemist said it's a common side effect to antibiotics, that itchy fire down there...

So tis not the boy, er, man. Refuse to park the condition there anyway.

The antibiotics aren't a laugh a minute. I have got pains in my sides as though my inner tubes are being given a chinese burn. Again, any woman who has ever had period pain, will know how this feels. I'm sure men can identify with chinese burns. Well, my brothers used to give me them all the time, so no doubt one another too.

Right, Louisa, not something I looked up that One Night but it has its place on this label none the less.

You listening girls and boys?

She says if you have thrush it is probably caused by 'anger over wrong decisions' - I made no wrong decisions, erm, recently...

Under Yeast Infection Louisa says it's probably caused by denying your own needs and not supporting yourself, which is erm, a wrong decision isn't it...

I lovingly accept my decisions, knowing I am free to change. I am safe (under Thrush)
or/and
I now choose to support myself in loving joyous ways (under Yeast Infections)

Drink plenty of water
Top tip from my NHS friend is rehydration solutions, to replace the minerals the antibiotics are sucking up

Release

Peeing in the bath - Urinary Tract Infections

After giving birth naturally, it's a relief to pee in the bath, because it fucking stings.
With a urinary infection, you can't. I tried. It hurts big time.

Peeing with a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) which is not the same as a torn vaginal passage was a new sensation for me, and because I don't know if I've got a UTI, I don't know what I've got, I don't know if what I'm about to tell you is what a UTI feels like. (Comments from other women, or even men who have had UTI's, would be handy here, but hey, if you don't want to, you don't want to, that's fine)

The peeing itself is not bad. It's the end of the peeing experience which is bad. The end when the last drops are dripping. It did make me feel like I did at the end of giving birth when I was pushing my son's head out. It's not a burning sensation exactly (which my son was I think) but flip, lucky we girls sit, I could bang my feet together as the intensity got bigger and bigger and more and painful as though it might explode down there.

You need to go to the loo so often but you'll be scared so drink LOADS of water so at least your passing through something instead of hardly anything. Subconciously it helps and physically water is the best thing for you anyway.

I'm laughing at a memory

He Who Said I Was Hot told me he'd taken the morning after pill before. "Really?" I said, laughing. "Have you? I took the morning after pill with the Foca and bled for two weeks."
"That's too much information," he replied at which I laughed even louder. "You're not squeamish are you?!"

Oh fuck, another memory, not so funny.
I told him one night stand's were easy.
"This is easy isn't it? No-one gets hurt."
Oh yeah? Oh yeah??????
Easy for who?

I comfortably and easily release the old and welcome the new in my life. I am safe.
(Louise.L.Hay You Can Heal Your Life under Cystitis see Bladder Problems)

The bladder cancer tale I told the Cannie Doctor

I phoned for the released appointments early Friday morning, was fortunate to get one, but not my usual doctor. Had a choice though. The female one who said "you will be found fit for work you know" or the male one? Hard to make a canny choice when you don't know.

What follows is in quotation marks but is paraphrased. You know about the I Don't Know Party for example, I don't have to explain it to you. I did speak quickly, barely stopping for breath.

I also think this may be a very long post, because I don't want to break it up, and highlight what the Tories might feed on like vultures.

This is hard for me. Here goes:

"I went from 0 to 60 last night," I told the young man. "I couldn't phone my mum, my sister, family, no-one because when my dad had blood in his urine it was bladder cancer. I couldn't worry them like that. I've just got myself really scared because I was peeing blood, not this morning though.
My dad had urine infections which were fobbed off for months with antibiotics followed by antibiotics. Even when blood started appearing, "it's a urinary infection," until my mum got so fed up she took him to A & E and they discovered he had advanced bladder cancer. He was lucky, he was really lucky. When he gave up smoking, he put the money he was saving into a medical insurance, so when he got his cancer, they operated on him really quickly. He's alive, my dad's alive, he's got dementia now but he's alive.
After that, I went on a date with this guy, I was online dating at the time, and he said 'oh sorry, I'm not feeling good, my friend's just died," and I said "I'm sorry, what of?" "Oh cancer." "Oh shit, do you mind me asking what kind?" "Oh it's really stupid." "Tell me," "Bladder cancer. They diagnosed it but she had to wait three months for the operation." She was 36 and then I read of an ex factor contestant who'd died of bladder cancer too and she was really young aswell and I've got this I don't know party and my key question is Do People have to wait to die because they can't afford to live? Will I have to wait to die because I haven't got a medical insurance? I set up my party during during Labour and now we've got a coalition and are more people going to die?????"

The Cannie doctor listened, comprehension flooding his face at the mention of politics. He asked me what it felt like and after I asked if he'd ever had a urinary infection I tried to explain it was almost like giving birth again, that last bit, when the baby's head is about to explode through. "But really I don't know."

Two things now, medical insurance and bladder cancer. I could write two separate posts but I want to contain it. Contain it.

According to Bladder cancer statistics-UK, more men, older men like my dad get bladder cancer than women, but I don't know about that because all subsequent examples in my life have been young; young, young, women.

In 2008, 10,335 people in the UK were diagnosed with bladder cancer.
5,011 people in the UK died from bladder cancer in 2009.

That is a 50% survival rate.
That's shocking.
My dad with his medical insurance, survived
The two women I mention (half his age) died. There is no need to die with this cancer. My dad has a colostomy bag. OK, it's not sexy, but he is alive. Caught earlier, he might not need a colostomy bag at all and these women definitely would be alive.

Years ago, on another date, telling a man about the I Don't Know Party, he said I should tell my dad story, because it made my NHS question make more sense. I told him I was too scared. The NHS question is also, coincidentally, the example I gave my one night stand, my Tory voting one night stand. Why oh why I now wonder...He changed the conversation pretty fast, as you might imagine, well it's depressing post coital chat really isn't it...?

Last January I chatted to a single mum who had given up her £100 a week smoking habit. I said to her, she should put some of it in a medical insurance, my father had done that. She said she couldn't afford it, which she couldn't, actually, nor could my dad, you may not believe, though little you know often, I know, often.

You have to understand addiction to understand her. People who don't have insurance shouldn't be punished. People who smoke or drink who don't have insurance, shouldn't be punished. Neither my dad, nor this mother could afford their addictions but you don't think about that while you hurt yourself.

"I smoked rollies so I didn't spend that much," I told the Cannie doctor, smiling a surrendered smile, "but I've used the money to pay Kung Fu lessons for my son."

The Cannie doctor smiled back.

Don't lick your lips Tory Government at the though of all those profits. Profits over People. Don't go the American way.

SAVE OUR NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

Like I said, I won't give you the results of my pee test. It's not a journey me or stigmum are prepared to go on and taking you means we have to think about it, think about what we'll write, how we'll write it. NO. You want to read about cancer then I saw a book

You must fight though. You must fight not to be fobbed off.

SAVE OUR NHS

Look after yourself, be you man, be you woman.

I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of myself.
(Louise.L.Hay You Can Heal Your Life under Cancer)

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/bladder/
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/bladder/incidence/

What Betty Smith said, aged 93

You are so young!

"I thought about what you said,."

"I thought about what you said," the American girl who worked in the coffee shop told me last Friday morning as I walked in with my wee problem (you must read that with a Scottish accent by the way, it's how I'm dealing with it anyway, trying to minimise the fear)

"What I said? What did I say?!"

A week or so earlier, she told me she was leaving the UK as the Home Office wouldn't renew her visa and she was really sad about leaving.

Be glad you're sad, I'd said. I'd had a breakdown in Japan and when I rose from it, declared to friends I would leave the country in seven months. Why wait that long, friends had asked, if I was so unhappy, and I said I wanted to give myself a chance of liking the country, so that I might leave with good memories.

"I thought about what you said and you were right," said the American girl. "Why leave with bad memories of a place. I went and made up with that dick I told you about. No point in hating him, we're friends now, not that it matters, but I leave thinking good things, you know?"

Yeah, I know...

I can't tell you how it feels, how it felt, to know that I had transformed someone's way of thinking about themselves and their experience in a positive way. No-one listens to me!!

My blog is here though. If someone has walked away from it taking some knowledge with them, well, that is the greatest compliment you can make me. The American girl paid me a huge compliment saying what she did, but I couldn't tell her.

I will really miss her. So will The Estimator. So will others in the coffee shop. So will her boss actually given what she bought to her job, writing positive quotes about coffee on the chalk board for potential customers walking past. She has an amazing energy. Ha ha, I'm just remembering what she said yesterday, her last day, sad to leave us all, when I told her she wouldn't have stayed in this coffee shop for long. "That's true, I can keep doing these bum jobs but I've got a masters, I may as well use it," Yeah, me too...

It's not her choice to go. She had two jobs but they wouldn't renew her visa because she didn't earn enough (*shakes head*)

I wish her well on her journey
I wish you well on yours
I wish me well on mine
of course
Do you wish yourself well on yours? Ever?

Struggles..the light on the dark side of you...

If I had time, I'd mess up the lyrics, a line that came from this Seal song, yesterday morning.
I have to blog dark feelings. It's not healthy to dwell on dark feelings, I have discovered. And it's certainly not easy writing this label.
I have to hold on to the light side of me
or I might drown in my cauldron of fire

You are the light on the dark side of yourself

Stigmum is my power, my pleasure, my pain
Or me, I am my power, my pleaure, my pain
I can't actually tell us apart
We are Bat Girl
No, we are Bat Mum
No, we are who we are

Enjoy the vid!

Oh, I'd just like to add, at no point did I think of this track in relation to my One Night. It popped into my head when I thought about blogging. I mentioned it To the Estimator yesterday saying I had to write my dark side and mentioned this song. He was not impressed to say the least and I felt myself slip in his estimation, but given that I'm not that high in it, I didn't fall that far ha ha boom boom!

BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our new television!

I wanted to tell you I have a new television but didn't know how as I've written about television before

My new tv is a 19 inch digital widescreen tv/dvd combo with built in freeview, so bye bye iplayer, I can watch channel 5 now!

My brother gave it to me for my birthday last year. It belonged to his son but the DVD bit of it broke so it's been passed on to me. It wouldn't work with any aerial I bought but finally, just before Christmas, an electrician came round and said I needed to tune it. Ta daa! Posh telly!

So when you read articles or watch programmes about people on benefits being able to afford state of art tv's and this that and the other, well, don't make assumptions, that's all I'm saying.

Don't make assumptions about yourself either
That's just as bad

I DO NOT HAVE CANCER
DON'T THINK THAT I DO
DON'T THINK

Thank God for Trash TV (Sorry CBB, you're not trash...) "a passive source of experience when all else fails."
(Mihaly R Csikszentmihalyi, Eugene Halton. Meaning of things. Domestic symbols and the self)

I comfortably and easily release the old and welcome the new into my life. I am safe
(Louise L. Hay, You Can Heal Your Life under Bladder Problems)

Children know when there's something wrong

"This is for you mamma," my son says.

He comes into the kitchen with a ring he's fashioned out of pink card, with a love heart stuck on it.

"Oh baby, thank you, that's so lovely," and I put it on and disappear back into my head.

Later we are watching Earthflight on telly. I've said he can stay up.
I can't stop the tears from falling
"Mummy look at that!" my son says turning to me
and sees that I'm crying
and says nothing
nothing
turns back to the tv
Keeping his hand in mine

Guilt
Streams
Rivers running
Water
Falls
Fear
Like lava
down the bones of my face
While birds take flight

The child says nothing

Who to blame for this wee problem?

Do I have cystitis?
Do I?
Is it because I had sex with a stranger that I have this?
Please God, no.
No, that's not fair.
Is it his fault?
Did he give me this?
I'm not allergic to condoms, am I?
No...No!
We weren't without anything for long
that third time
we weren't..
Stop I said, you're a nice guy but I don't want your baby!
"I'm a slut," he said, watching me from the bathroom door.
I smiled thinking "I wish I was
no I don't
Isn't slut our word?
It's my fault isn't it?
Mine
for fucking myself the day I met him
oh fuck,
oh my God I did didn't I?
The day I met him and today
Today today too
Fucking myself
I didn't wash my hands...
Dirty...Dirty...
No
Sex therapists tell you to do it..
It's how you heal
It's how you heal
Sex is good
Sex is natural
Sex is
Fascinating Aida and I'd shag me if I could oh god I'd be
GOOD

I don't love me enough
That' why.
This is my fault
It's not him. It's not me having sex with me or him.

It's a wake up call
WAKE UP
oh...want that beer in the fridge
WAKE UP

It is time
to ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE

Accept who you are

I release the pattern in my conciousness that created this condition. I AM WILLING TO CHANGE. I love and approve of myself
(Louise L Hay - You Can Heal Your Life under Urinary Infections)

(Taken from notebook 27th January 2012)

Golden moments

It always takes something to make you really see what you saw.
You don't know that life is about to throw you something and challenge the very depths of you.

Last Thursday I blogged. My eyes were hurting, words were swimming, I stopped. I went into the bathroom to wash my face and saw myself in the mirror and thought "You are beautiful...why do you always think you're not..." and slipped my hand down my jeans and my finger into my pants looking at myself the whole time. I felt..I felt. Go with this moment.

I wanted to tidy the living room afterwards but I didn't feel right. I figured I'd lie down for twenty minutes, putting on my Janis Joplin cd and setting my alarm.

Sun was streaming through the window when I opened my eyes and as I got up I thanked the wooden painted crucifix on top of the door, for allowing me to rest. I have never done that before and it felt good.

The sun was out and the rain was spitting when I got outside. There must be a rainbow somewhere, I thought.

I walked to the main road, up towards my son's school, and there it was, massive, beautiful. I tried to alert passers by to it but they looked at me suspiciously apart from one man, who turned and said "Wow, thank you!" before taking a picture of it on his smart phone. "Amazing isn't it?" I beamed. "Rainbows mean hope don't they? Hope in the world!" I went on my way.

I picked up my son and he says: "Mummy, I know all the words to the song now, I'll sing it to you!

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag
and smile smile smile
While you lucify to to light your fag, smile boys that's the style
What's the use in worrying, it never was worthwhile
so pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and
smile smile smile

Corners up, corners up (I asked him to sing louder as I leaned down to listen)
Give the world a grin, a great big cheesy one, oh
Corners up, point them to the sky
Show the world you win, it's really not that bad
So head up high, just keep it in the air just smile
the 'hole' world will smile if you're happy
Corners up, corners up
everyone looks better with a smile so give us a grin!"

"Will you write that down for me," I said, as I felt my stomach lurch and a strong desire to wee.

It hurt when I went, then I needed to go again moments later and each time I went it hurt even more, oh no... what's happening...What' happening? then I saw blood on the paper, then more and then more

and I was really glad my son had a kung fu class, really really glad as I tried to focus on rainbows and beauty and life and on him

I want to live
I want to live

Before I begin.....

Before I begin writing on this label, I'd just like to say I wish I wasn't writing it, I wish I was writing about other things.
I'm an instinctive writer. I'm being told to leave politics and bank bonuses and homeless sunday's spoken about in church and write whatever it is I'm going to be writing. I'm scared and I feel sick but the journey I am taking you on won't last long.

Don't judge me
Judge yourself
then stop judging
and be
just be

Now breathe

One Night

This new label, One Night, refers to last Thursday night when I bought my son home from school and I really needed a wee. I went, barely anything, but pain, then five minutes later, the need to go again and within half an hour, not wanting to go, for fear of that pain and then

fear

of all kinds of things

and anger

at all kinds of things

but most of all

the cruel coincidence

that I'd had sex for the first time in fucking ages (don't forgive the pun) and it couldn't be just the good, clean, positive, fun that it was could it?? No.

It's going to be a big label. I think. I don't know.
I was so scared that Thursday night, I felt I had no-one to talk to, felt I had no-one to call and of course, things just rush rush rush into your head that makes you THANK GOD for TRASH TV (Sorry 'benders, you're not trash)

I thought I had cystitus...maybe I do...never had anything like anything before so no idea. Anyway, this thought made me think of sex and the past of course, LOVES to rear it's head. Pissed off are you Rape label that I won't put anything about me on you again? This post definitely the last, definitely, where rape associates with my experience OK?

See, the search for blame...you look everywhere...and the search got really dark after I saw my water was pink and my paper was clotted and it wasn't my period.

My one night stand was just a night, and a morning too. THIS LABEL IS NOT ABOUT THAT, though I will write about it (Hey, ye Who Said I Was Hot, you could be anyone, just like me, so don't sweat it, I just regret writing that I told you I wrote a blog but you didn't ask for the link so guessed you were alright with me writing about you. I wasn't going to write about you anymore than I did. I wasn't. Now who knows when I'll stop. Your fault for being a positive experience.)

This label is about being alone. Being alone with thoughts you can't share with anyone. It's all retrospective of course now, but not really. As I write this, nothing is clear, so writing some things will be really difficult. It's out there. Are they self fulfilling prophecies? What am I creating? I've got to turn that fear which is beneath everything at the moment, into something positive.

This label is about Thursday night which led to Friday morning, where I went to the doctor, which I have to post about, which I don't want to, but what you resist persists God said in those Conversations.

The label has to end on a good note. I've too much blogging experience now to know that it's dangerous to take people on a journey with you... be it to a council flat or to the dentist, although I did take you on my stop smoking journey and it's a year tomorrow that I stopped - Yippee!! Shall I celebrate with you Nico Teen? Awfully hard writing all this...NO! No I shan't! Al Cohol....?

Can't. I'm on antibiotics for a week, my pee sample's been sent to the lab. I will know the result, but you won't, reader. It's an opportunity for me

An opportunity for me to do what stigs?

Well we don't know, do we, self elected leaders of the party that we are.

We just know that things we wanted to write that aren't part of the label will come under the label and that you will know it's over when I write REPENT.

Sunday after the Friday before...The day I asked the angel cards what I can do and the card I got back was from Angel Gabriel, saying he was with me, and to follow the signs... I did that and was told to REPENT.

You lead Gabes, I'll follow...

(and look out for signs!)

If I had a sledgehammer

This is the song from Peter Paul and Mary that I posted on facebook the night before yesterday's Lobby. I'd told my facebook friends that a long long time ago, I'd been booed off the stage singing Janis Joplin at a Canary Island karaoke night much to the embarrassment of my super yacht colleagues but had got up again and sung this and a woman from the audience got up and sang with me and we got a really big round of applause!

It's been a tough couple of days joining the lobby front but I'm glad I have joined them. A tough couple of days fighting the welfare reform bill against government rhetoric dividing the poorest sections of our society. The working poor against the welfare poor and the working poor are falling for it. Hook, line and sinker.

Who knew multi millionaires could be so clever?

Confessions to the Reverend

At Monday's lobby and again, yesterday's lobby, I met the Reverend who I've met a few times.

Yesterday, of course, he remembered me straight away and came up to say hello.

I told him that on Tuesday I'd done some sums regarding the £26000 cap. How it effects me and how it effects another single mother but who lives in a council flat.

He asked me if I'd send him the figures and I said sure, but please don't say it's me who lives in the private flat. He said he wouldn't.

"Oh Father," I continued. "Working it out was so depressing that I just got really drunk!"

"Oh you mustn't do that," he said.

"I couldn't help it Father. So many people find life so hard at the moment and you need some form of escape..."

"I understand but it's also very expensive,"

"Oh no Father, the supermarket's know how we're feeling and doing some great deals at the moment. You can get a whole pack of beers for £3.50!"

He shook his head, his eyes brimming with sorrow saying "Try, and do send me those figures so I can lobby with them."

"I will Father, today!"

He's replied this morning. "Thankyou very, very, much."

My pleasure Father. Thank YOU.

My absolute pleasure Father given the former Archbishop of Canterbury has sided with the government on welfare handouts, saying bishops "cannot lay claim to the moral highground":

"The sheer scale of our public debt, which hit £1trillion yesterday, is the greatest moral scandal facing Britain today.
If we can’t get the deficit under control and begin paying back this debt, we will be mortgaging the futures of our children and grandchildren.
In order to do this, we desperately need to reform our welfare system." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091330/Lord-Carey-benefits-cap-Fuelling-culture-welfare-dependency-immoral.html)

Reform our welfare system, not our banking system? You too, are with punishing the poor as you side with the rich Lord Carey?

His own father worked and his mother STAYED AT HOME. "Hard-working people." I am not a person?

He says Duncan Smith "has come to realise that we have betrayed the poorest and most vulnerable by merely throwing money at them, be it income support or housing benefit, with no strings attached."

No, we've been betrayed by a lack of affordable housing, low wages which don't rise with inflation and now beating everyone with a stick as companies sack people by the hundreds. The construction industry alone will lose 45,000 jobs this year.(http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/25/construction-industry-lose-45000-jobs-2012) Why no mention of any of this in these articles???

Oh Lord Carey, your fellow bishops aren't wrong. You, like so many others, just can't see the bigger picture. Or don't want to see it.

Yesterday's Evening Standard actually led me to this story. I've tried reading other commentator's in the Daily Mail this morning but it's hurting my eyes too much.

I was blind you see, like them, I admit it, but now I see things in ways I never could before I lost everything at a click of a finger.

That's all it takes

It's that quick

From there you must rise against ever rising obstacles.

The futures of our children and grandchildren indeed.

Preserving hope is easy to say when one is rich hey former Archbishop Lord Carey?

Once again Reverend, thank you very much.

Abuses on the Lobby front line...Cheers Dave

The Prime Minister has done a very good job, hasn't he, of pitting the people of this country against one another.

"Divide and Rule!! Divide and Rule!!

There were about a dozen of us who turned up to lobby against the Governnment's Welfare Reform Bill yesterday. Not many, but the Single Mother's Self Defence group and the Global Women's Strike Group and Winvisible, had big banners, and anyway, we were there, standing up for the rights of millions of people.

A man drives past in a van that says "Thrifty" on it. My first assumption is that he's a worker and probably doesn't earn much, then before I can think anything else, he's given us a one fingered salute.

I was so shocked, I walked forward with my own one fingered salute and shouted "Fuck you too!" That's not like me, to be honest, and this morning my anger became clear.

Yes, we were only 12, but one woman in a wheelchair, one woman with a baby in a pram, one young black girl, one young white girl who was also there on Monday and might be one of the organisers, one married mother with a daughter my son's age, one male pensioner, one priest. A pretty wholesome demographic of people. How dare Mr Thrifty stick his finger up at them when they are standing there for his benefit too.

"7 out of 8 housing benefit claimants are in work" shouts one banner.

Anyway, not long after Mr Thrifty's gone, two wealthy looking gentleman walk by and one, the older, balding one, comes up to me and says, in his cut glass accent with venom in it's delivery:

"You should all get a job!"

"Do you have a job?" I ask politely.

"Yes, I've worked all my life. Many years ago I went to Canada when it was freezing cold..."

"Well I'm glad you haven't been made redundant," I interrupt him.

"Wwwwhat?"

"I said I'm glad you haven't been made redundant and are competiting with hundreds of other people for one job."

Bluster bluster then: "I met an Indian lady with two children living in Hampstead! Hampstead! It's disgraceful, these people living in places...."

"Well if there was more social housing, perhaps it wouldn't be such a big problem now would it?" I feel the anger bubbling beneath my surface.

"Where are the father's? Where are the fathers? I have lots of children and I look after them all, where are they!"

After quoting Michael Gove saying pregnancy is a male problem, "a male problem, a MALE PROBLEM Mr Gove the Tory said," I said:

"And how many times have you been unfaithful to your wife?"

He stepped back and smirked, shocked then gaffawed, and I was about to sneer "hypocrite" when the pensioner intervened, saying money shouldn't be taken from the needy but taken away from fuelling wars such as in Afghanistan... and they were off..shouting, I couldn't kkep up...The Jews, more protestants that catholics leaving Ireland back during the potato famine... I could'n't keep up, I don't know enough.

The row was broken up and the odious blue-eyed baldy smiled at me skulking off to rejoin his friend who, as I eyeballed the Fascist, didn't look quite so odious, had not come up to us and joined in, kept his distance and so well he might, if he too had nothing good to say)

Some members of the group came up to me afterwards and asked me if I was alright, which was really kind, because you don't really expect that, when the level of abuse you've just received, is what you receive all the time if you read right wing papers. So nothing out of the ordinary really; I shouldn't have been so shocked myself.

I know I shouldn't be at the lobby. I know that I am the Great British Problem. I know that I am universally hated by greater numbers of British society today than ever before (Thanks Dave).

I'm a single mother. I'm 'unemployed' I 'live in a flat hardworking people can't afford' and what none of my fellow lobbyists know, am in reciept of a sickness benefit, so 'disabled' (I do not see myself as disabled but depression is a disease and it's no higher payment than income support, where I could hide my 'disease')

Perhaps for all these reasons it's my duty to be there, so I can stand on behalf of all the men, women and children who cannot be there.

Hit me baby ONE MORE TIME?
I will defend myself
I will defend you

Our first duty is to ourselves.
Without ourselves what hope for our children?

Sex in the 21st Century

Last Friday night I had a one night stand.

I'm telling you this because as I accepted the experience for what it was and felt no guilt or shame or anything I thought I might feel, yet nonetheless wondered how should I feel, because, well, I'm two hundred years old and I don't know, there happened to be quite a bit about sex in our mainstream media.

First, Nicola from Big Brother, who used to be a page three girl, told us all, while in the Diary Room with Twins who used to be Playboy Playmates, that she'd only ever slept with three people.
Why are you telling me that? I thought, as the playmates said nothing, which why would they?

Then, in the Daily Mirror, a woman who works on Loose Women, told us how she'd only ever slept with two men and married them both and now was a single mother who was "ashamed" her marriage had failed and had written a book: "Confessions of a Good Girl."

Eh? Good because you've only slept with two people and married them? Good is being a page three girl who has to justify a low number of shags for..what reason?

On Sunday I phone my mum who tells me the priest had given a sermon on sex a couple of sundays back! You have to know my mum to understand why it took her two weeks to tell me that and understand our relationship to understand why I didn't say "Really mum! Do you know I had sex just yesterday morning! With someone I didn't know! What a coincidence!" She couldn't really remember what he'd said however. Darn!

As my mind began to boggle, I fell upon Mariella Fostrups column in the Observer magazine where a 19 year old girl asks her if it's ok to shag the friend she does drama with, if she doesn't want a relationship with him, will he respect her ( 19! Shit, I'm 200 and feel younger than her! shit, I've got to go a lobbying, where's my mag for Mariella's quote??)

"I'm quite concerned this remains a concern for women 50 years after "free love" and the pill radically altered our sexual mores....In a society where sex is regarded as another currency, women should have the same right to squander it as men. If the female of the species still can't enjoy their lives without being judged by such Victorian values, then just what has changed in terms of gender equality?"

Hear Hear Mariella! She then goes on to say what we all know, that sex is much better, more enhanced with someone you love, but it's up to our own "personal predilection" (p52, Observer mag, 22/01)

What I find interesting from ALL of this and what I've been thinking is women are perceived as an anomaly, we are somehow, unknown and therefore dangerous. Is that why we have to say we haven't had sex/only had one partner/two/three don't think bad of me?

Single women are dangerous, single mothers are the most dangerous of all.

Are we really surprised therefore that the government has directed it's fiercest cuts to our children?

The Man Who Said I Was Hot was a Tory
"I bet you vote Labour," he said.
"I don't as it happens," I replied, "I am the leader of my own party. The I Don't Know Party!"
"What?" he laughs. "How can you have policies with I Don't Know?! ha ha ha!"
"I don't know, we don't have policies, just a manifesto, with questions like..."

The Tory party hates me. Hates Stigmums. Well, Lord Freud did say, didn't he, if there weren't children, there wouldn't be the need for cuts...

Fortunately not all Tories are the same, mustn't generalise too much; some are on our side.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/24/welfare-reform-revolt-tory-peers

As for me, I've always said, always

Good?
Don't call me Good

No chance of that now though is there?

"You have no self esteem"

On Friday night I had a one night stand.

I'm telling you this because the man I had the one night stand with told me, in three different ways, that I had no self esteem.

"You told me last night that you thought the men inside the club were being paid to talk to you."

"Yeah..heh heh, not just me, other women too."

"Wow, you must have really low self esteem."

"What? No I don't. Do I?

"You seriously think that club has men on their payroll to go out and sleep with women?"

"Er..."

"Why would they do that? You must have no self esteem."

"Er, well, why wouldn't a club, er..."

"Men have to be paid to talk to you? You're fucked, you have no self esteem."

"You know, I think you might be right (say I, thinking of my life, of battles lost, job applications rejected), but I have something..."

"You're really untidy." he says looking around, as if to get his bearings.

"Well, I wasn't exactly expecting you. However, you see I have nothing to hide..."

You know the most extraordinary thing about this quite extraordinary experience (because it was an extraordinary experience)?

He knew my friend Jo. Finding out where I used to work, he said he worked there too and there we made the connection. "She's a legend!" he said. "Yes, she is!" I replied.

Had lunch with Jo yesterday. Fancy that! He said to her, but not to me.

"You're moving forward," said Jo.

"Yeah I know. I may not have self esteem, but I've got some self worth."

Thank you my one night stand. I shall throw away the fags you left behind (instead of smoking them myself/giving them to someone else) becuase, well, because I wish you well.

And you reader, if I talk about this experience again, I will refer to him simply as The Man Who Said I Was Hot.
He didn't exactly say I was hot, he said I was "the hottest woman in the bar."

Me!

I don't know how to label this, reluctant to file it under Rape (to indicate how far I've come) I wish I'd never set up that label but it has to exist I guess.
This can be the last ever post under it.
I draw a line.
My thoughts on men now will file under relationships or men and women, I don't know.
I just know my thoughts, on anything, aren't over.

(Oh and I told The Man Who Said I Was Hot that I wrote a blog. He said "What's that," and I said "a kind of online diary," and he said "oh" without asking more, so I guess he's cool with me using our experience if I want to)

Dreams of Big Fish

I was at some kind of party, there were lots of people there chatting to one another but I wasn't talking to any of them, I was just, there.

As I walked through them to the back of the room, I aaw a window and through the window, the enormous eye of an enormous orange, shimmering, fish.

It was staring at me, with its big round eye, which I found quite unnerving. So I turned, and opened a door and found myself on the deck of a boat. There were people there. I turned, to make sure the fish had gone, I imagined it, but it had climbed through the window and was in the room, still staring at me, coming towards me, walking tall, so very big, on its tail fins.

I walked down the deck, very quickly, my heart pounding inside me, and could sense the Big Fish, I turned so I could see what I was running away from, and I saw the other people, none of whom were afraid of this Big Fish, and all of whom were at ease, touching it, smiling at it, as the Big Fish continued to stare at me.

Then I woke up, breathing hard and thought

I have no self esteem

Why am I so afraid when there's nothing to be afraid of?

I told my son about my 'wierd' dream.

"Why didn't you let it carry on mummy?"
"Because I woke up!"
"I had that dream two nights ago that you were dead."
I remembered, he'd come to me at around 10pm crying.
"I told you death means life in dreams didn't I? Maybe it means mummy's got a new life coming to her and my dream is telling me not to be afraid."
"Am I there mummy?"
"You are in me. You are always there even if I can't see you."

"Hug mamma, hug."
"..............."

Fisherwoman's Friends

It was too much, too much yesterday, thinking about welfare reforms, my life, where I am. I needed something, something...a drink...Janis Joplin...so I got beer from the fridge and turned the music up really loud then went to get my son at Kung Fu.
Saw The Estimator, who was picking up his son, and told him I'd been having a little party at my house, celebrating my life and he said, laughing, be careful, he could smell it on my breath and offered me a Fisherman's Friend.

Later, I cracked open more beers..the supermarket's got some well cheap deals on at the moment! Oh they know how we're feeling!

Then I went off and got drunk, on Facebook of all places, but as it happened, the best place to be. My friend Jo was there, "swigging" the same as me, so we "clinked" our bottles! Kelly was there, saying she watches Celebrity Big Brother too and lots of my friends, like me, liked Janis
So here you are, as I prepare to go lobbying again this afternoon...

Freedom's just another word...

Rent and Universal Credit capped at £26000

There are Tory spies out there, I know. That whole cabinet is going to say thanks Stigmum, now we know how to hurt you and hurt all those other families! Woo hooooooo!

Remember, before I give these figures, how hard I have fought for a council flat, how often I have bidded for some box on some estate you wouldn't choose if you were rich and been unsuccessful.

Subject: The £26,000 cap
Who: Two single mothers
Rent example: One in Private versus one in Council housing

Me:
Rent £350 per week =18,200 a year
£26000
- 18200
= 7800 a year to live on

My friend
Rent £140 per week = £7280 a year
£26000
-7280
=£18720

I worked out that I currently get £7449, excluding council tax
Doubt my friend gets £18700 with her three kids.

You might think £7749 is a lot
All this Tory shouting it's not fair people live in places you hard working people can't afford! Me and my friend live really close to one another, that's how we're friends.

Shockingly, including my rent and council tax, I get £13 more than the proposed £500 weekly cap. Yearly therefore I looked like I'm better off but weekly I'm worse off by £13. Above the proposed cap with £26689. I shall go back to the draw board with this

What's newly frightened me of course, is if I get a job that pays £35,000 a year which means I go home with £26000 after tax (what I read Dave tell Asda) is I only have £7800 to feed (at school too) and clothe and heat and I don't get to see my child at all because I've had to pay someone else to look after him. Who's going to pay me that anyway?

My friend on the other hand, on the same salary, might be able to afford a holiday, in a tent, in Devon (or somewhere). Then again, maybe not, price of rail travel these days.

WE NEED MORE EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL HOUSING
WE NEED MORE EMPHASIS ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Not on displacing children
Not removing them from good schools
Not watching their parents so stressed and frightened about an unclear future.

It's not 'workless' parents that ruin their future (if you read the Mail or any other right wing commentator), it's a government that fails to understand the meaning of secure affordable housing because they take their own for granted.

Welfare Reform has been proven to save very little money, an article yesterday in the Guardian saying "The £275m savings as a proportion of the £192bn spent on welfare payments in 2010 is tiny." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/23/duncan-smith-benefit-cap-poverty?intcmp=239) but this ideologically driven government does not care.

Do you care Tory spy?

I'm off to be sick.