I come to brighten up your day

Is it really necessary I wonder to tell you that the support worker's visit has lit my fuse and I want to internally combust?

He comes as messenger from 'allocations'.

"She," he says, "is still not budging."

"So she's put the letter from the school in the shredder then?"

"I sent it to her on email."

"In the junk pile then." (for flips sake)

I don't have to be out until December, he tells me today. After which, because of my family composition I will be put in a hostel.

Allocations has apparently said, there are others with family compositions greater than mine that have priority and those going through a lease end, like me, are being put into hostels.

One family, he tells, has been put in England's Lane. The mum has one room, her 16 year old son another and her 18 year old daughter another (or the boy's 18 and the girl's 16, it's all got a bit fizzy on my motherboard)

"That's not too bad," I say. "But no doubt they all crowd into her cell at meal times for that's where she cooks."

We lease end families are not emergencies.

But forget about that for a minute.

Every Child Matters yes? Families with multiple children have greater priority than mine, he's been told. So why is it my child matters less than another with a sibling?

Why is it mine (and other children) matter less than those whose parents are together? For it was two parent families that got the flats here if you remember.

The CNJ have printed a story about a pregnant mother of two who has been evicted from her council flat for rent arrears.

She's paid her debt but they won't let her move back in. All her and her children's stuff is still inside. They've been in a "B&B", for a week and all the children have to wear are their school uniforms. They already "waited six years for that house after living in hostels," is quoted the mamma.

Why was she in rent arrears? Well, according to the paper, it "began when she started working as a part-time retail manager and lost her housing benefit."

I went to present our research findings to Camden's Safeguarding Children's board yesterday. I was going to post about it but got side tracked writing about death.

I wish I had this mother's courage to scream out on the pages of the local newspaper. Or go further, pre-election, to the nationals.

I don't know what I think yet though. Or rather I do know what I think, but I don't know how to articulate it. It's so much, you know, so much...

Ironically, the stereo's working again and it's Phil Oakey's "Together in Electric Dreams" - the title, not the lyrics.

Oh my son my sun my son, I just can't make it up.......