Self-Service Slip-Up

I had to go shopping today. It's not particularly bright and sunny today, rather wet and overcast. I had intended going to get my hair cut, but the thought of waiting in the hairdressers and the fact that it was decidedly chilly, once I'd parked the car and got out, I made up my mind not to get my hair cut. It can wait for another day, when it will be a little warmer.
Carol and I went into Milton Keynes shopping centre on Wednesday and went into Waterstone's. There is currently a series on BBC2 called "Faulks On Fiction", presented by the author Sebastian Faulks, in which he goes through genres of fiction, from "The Lover," "The Villain", "The Hero" and "The Snob" (not necessarily in that order.) and mentions quite a wide selection of novels. Also, at 6.30 each evening, on the same channel, there is a show called "My Life In Books" where Anne Robinson (she of "Weakest Link" fame.) talks with various well-known people about their favourite books. Where this is leading is that Waterstone's bookshop has most of these books on offer and many are in their  current 'Buy two, get one free" selection. We chose our books but I went back to buy them this morning. They are: "On Day" by David Nicholls, "Minding Frankie" by Maeve Binchy and ""Right Ho, Jeeves!" by P.G. Wodehouse (the one I choseas I'm a fan of Wodehouse and love the Jeeves stories.) We had gone into "The Works" the discount bookshop, which just happens to be next door to Waterstone's in the shopping centre and I saw a fantastic book in there on The Mona Lisa, reduced in price from around £35 to £4.99. It's really detailed on this iconic painting by one of my heroes, Leonardo DaVinci, everything about it you can possibly imagine, so I had to get it. That shop has some amazing bargains, and if you don't snap them up immediately then they're gone for good, which is why I got this book. There is one problem, though. It's such a large book I'm not sure where I'm going to keep it as it won't fit in any of our book shelves, unless I rearrange things considerably.

I then went to Lidl to do some shopping. I found that I needed a £1 coin to be able to use one of the shopping trolleys, and, as I didn't have any change on me, I decided to go to Tesco's and get £10 out of the cashpoint. I went into Tesco and bought today's Guardian newspaper. Instead of going to a human cashier to pay I made the mistake of using one of the self-service machines. When it came to pay, the machine tells you to choose your method of payment and I pressed 'cash' and then was supposed to put my £10 note into the machine, but for some reason best known to myself I managed to put the note into the slot meant for coupons. Which is why nothing further happened, so I stood and waited for the thing to respond, which it didn't. I then pressed the screen to ask for assistance and then someone appeared. It would appear that I'm not the first customer who's put cash in the slot meant for coupons. Well, it would be more sense if the machine had a flashing arrow to show where to put the money. I just felt a bit foolish making such a simple mistake. It then meant I eventually got my change, after the staff member opened the machine and retrieved my £10 note and I put it in the correct slot!

Rain Stopped Play

Carol has been on Half Term all this week.  We took Daniel to Stanstead Airport last Saturday, going down to St Albans to collect him at around 1 o'clock and then delivering him at Stanstead at around 4 p.m. He went off to Amsterdam. The journey wasn't too bad, and we came back up the M11 towards Cambridge and then back to Bedford and eventually back home to Milton Keynes, using the new road between Bedford and the M1 at Brogborough which has only recently been opened and certainly speeded up our journey. You can get from the Black Cat roundabout on the A1 and onto the relatively-new Bedford By-Pass and then onto the new road near Kempston and home.

I have suffered with a really awful cough for the past couple of weeks, then Carol got it. We would have gone out, but she's been really ill and spent two days in bed. On top of that the weather's been really awful, raining more or less continuously. So it's been a rather dull sort of week. We don't, as a rule, spend our time in doors when we have a chance to get out and about, and, what with the really awful weather over Christmas, due to snow and more snow and frost and cold and really awful conditions, the past week hasn't exactly helped. Let's hope the next school holiday the weather and our health allows us to get out and about.

Today is the first anniversary of our moving to this house, which is to be celebrated, most definitely, considering what we had to endure at the last house (read earlier posts.)

Well, for you cricket fans, I don't wish to disappoint you (with reference to the title I gave this post.) I personally detest cricket, but the name seemed appropriate. Being forced to watch the wretched game as a child at school, and then having to play it was enough to put me off permanently for life. If someone had had some sense and had explained to be the basic rules of the game I might, possibly, have taken more interest in what was going on.  But they didn't so there you go. Football has about the same sort of effect on me. It bores me ridgid. I'm not a great fan of rugby either, but at least it's a bit more EXCITING. Running around a muddy playing field in the middle of winter in a howling gale and rain pouring down wasn't exactly going to make me want to like it. I really have better things to do with my time.

ANOTHER doctor's surgery letter!!!

Oh dear! This is getting really stupid. I told you that I'd had a couple of letters from my doctor's surgery informing me that I ought to make an appointment to go to their heart clinic (which I have done.) Now they're writing to me to say I need to have yet another blood test in a month's time. I'll be in the surgery at 9 a.m. on Monday. Couldn't the doctor have told me then to make such an appointment? Do I need my hand holding and told what to do? The nanny state gone nuts if you ask me. What a waste of resources- the cost of the paper, envelope and the stamp on the envelope and the fact that I live so close to the surgery. Well, let's just say it's keeping someone busy in an office somewhere!

Mindless Youths

It's a really mild and sunny day today. Considering it's early February, it makes a change to have the sun out and have almost Spring-like weather.

I have been sitting here on the iMac, viewing emails this morning and suddenly there was the sound of an engine outside. I opened the curtains and looked out across the garden and I could see a youth riding what appeared to be a mechanised go-cart along the Redway. I remember as a youth myself, building similar contraptions, but without any sort of motor on them, just a very flimsy construction held together with little more than a few nuts and bolts and then pushing them down hills near where I used to live. But this  was mechanical. It was moving at quite a speed. It went past in one direction, and then came back in the opposite direction. When I first looked there was one youth, but later two further youths were either riding it or standing around watching. It could have been a sort of motorised lawn mower that had been converted to go at speed. Whatever it was it shouldn't have been driven along the Redway as these paths are intended for walkers and cyclists and certainly not motorised vehicles. My concern was that someone was likely to get injured if this machine was driven at such speed. An elderly person might have walked out into the Redway and then been hit by the youths jaunting up and down the Redway.

I had heard and seen this going on a few weeks ago and thought then that it was an accident waiting to happen. I thought it might be an idea to inform the local Police and let them deal with it. I already had the Police station's telephone number so I managed to telephone them and gave details.

I went out in the car briefly to do some shopping and when I returned there were two female Police officers standing on our doorstep. I was quite surprised how quickly the call had been taken and responded to. They asked me one or two further questions, and I could not hear the youths riding the go-cart contraption along the Redway. They said that they would pass on the information to the local Community Police Officer for this area and thanked me for my help. It is, of course, obvious that the youths saw the Police arrive and made sure that they were out of the way, as they would have known that they were likely to get into trouble because of their actions. I'll keep an eye out for their further appearance and let the Police know as soon as the youths re-appear.

Gave Blood

I've had no less than three letters from my doctor's surgery telling me that I must make an appointment with their heart clinic. They seem to get more and more annoyed with me for not making this appointment. What I want to know is this: what is it that the doctor there knows about heart conditions that the cardiologist at Milton Keynes hospital doesn't know? Anyway, I have eventually relented and made the appointment to have a blood test, which would be used once the results come back, and will be used to assess my state of health at the doctors appointment. The blood test was yesterday morning at 9.45. There was no problem (as you will know from earlier posts- my inability to give blood as required has not always been helpful.) but the nurse managed to find a vein in my arm and the sample of blood was produced.

The point I'm making here is that, having worked as a carer, I do have quite a lot of knowledge about medications, and how, if you give one type of medication, it might interact in certain ways if given with another. I do have training in meds administration and know where to look for information on such things (one being the standard text as used by the N.H.S. and will be found in all doctors surgeries. Its called the British National Formulary. It's available in print-form but there is a website. Its bnf.org. You may need to register if you want to get the full benefit from it.) I do know where to go if I have a problem with my health, particularly my heart. We live very close to the hospital and the doctor's surgery is a short walk or drive from here. Being bombarded with mail from the surgery is annoying and a waste of time and resources. 

I'm not exactly in the best of health at the moment. We have had problems with our washing machine, and it fused before it had finished its wash cycle. Consequently the clothes weren't rinsed properly, and I have developed a rather unpleasant rash which I think has come from contact with the residue of the washing-powder in my clothes. I am itching uncontrollably, and have used a antihistimine cream to try and relieve the irritation. This hasn't really helped, so the other morning I rang the health helpline, N.H.S. Direct and was told that I should use an aqueous cream on the rash. This we got in Boots on Saturday, and after applying it, I have found that it is relieving the itching considerably.

On top of the rash, I have also developed a rather unpleasant cough, and got some cough syrup to relieve that which we got from Superdrug on Sunday. I'm spending time at home today and in bed to try and get all these ailments to clear up.

Milton Keynes Citizen Article

In this weeks edition of our local paper "The Milton Keynes Citizen", the following article appeared:

'LANDLORD FINED AFTER FAILING TO CHECK ON WASTE DISPOSAL'

'A company has been ordered to pay more than £1000 after a serious case of fly tipping.'

'Representatives from Copper Homes House Holdings pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching the duty of care to dispose of waste when he appeared at Milton Keynes Magistrates Court on Wednesday January 26th.'

'They were fined £350 for each breach of their duty of care in contravention of Section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 as well as £350 towards the council's legal costs.'

'Magistrates heard how enforcement officers were called to a car park off Simpson Road in Fenny Stratford in March 2010 because of large-scale fly tipping. The company had hired a man to clear a property in Crownhill, but failed to check he was a registered waste carrier. They also failed to check there was an audit trail tracking the waste to its final destination.'

Hospital Complaints

You may or may not recall my earlier post about my last time I was in Milton Keynes Hospital. What I didn't discuss in that post was the complaints I had made, via email to the hospital, about one or two things I had encountered. Let me explain.

The first was when I was in the Accident and Emergency department and laying on the bed, having been examined by the doctor. I saw a cupboard door with the words "Bereavement Cupboard" emblazoned on it. I do remember this from a previous hospital visit, but at the time I hadn't mentioned it, but it did seem somewhat insensitive to patients and their relations to have this displayed so clearly. It would surely have been a little more sensitive to have this somewhere that wasn't seen by visitors and patients. I appreciate that they do need to have material handy for when patients do die, but it seemed really insensitive to allow it to be seen like that.

The next complaint was when I was moved to the final ward for my last overnight stay in the hospital. It must have been for, how should I put it, more geriatric patients, as those already there did seem elderly and not very responsive. As I was wheeled in on a trolley by the porter, a nurse said to me 'welcome to the madhouse!' Not very encouraging or exactly sensitive. Lastly, whilst I was laying on the bed, being thoroughly bored as I had nothing to read, no way of paying for the television  or radio service in the ward, or any other sort of activity to pass the time, I could hear some of the nurses in deep discussion about a patient who had recently died on the ward. One of them was on the telephone making arrangements for the removal of the dead body, to the morgue etc. This should surely have been done where patients on the ward couldn't hear the conversation. 

When I got home I emailed the hospital about my concerns about the above, and I eventually received a response about my complaints. That is the last I heard and have had no response as to what action was being taken to remedy these complaints. If anything, I do not think the fact that I could over-hear the arrangements being made about the deceased patient and the remark about the "madhouse" were very professional. Having worked in the N.H.S. as a carer for people with learning disabilities, I would imagine that I would have been severely disciplined if I'd behaved in that way, and would, I imagine, have been given a verbal warning.

Now It Can Be Told- Part 5

I've never been a witness in a trial before, so the whole business was somewhat stressful. I have been a supporting artiste in a television drama set in a courtroom, but have never had to be a witness. We were due to go to court last Wednesday and Thursday and got to the Magistrates court well before the 10.00 a.m. time we were given. We went into Milton Keynes centre by bus as we weren't sure where we'd be able to park and on top of everything else it was going to be stressful if we had to worry about parking charges and one thing and another.

As it turned out, the case in the court before us was over-running, so we had to go away and waste time in the shopping centre and then went back at 2 p.m. to then be told that the trial wasn't going to start until the following day at 10 a.m. This only added to the stress. I just wanted the thing to start so I could do what was required of me and then go home. I think Carol was getting more stressed than me, particularly when Brown appeared and made an issue (or so it seemed) of being there. We obviously couldn't communicate, but his body language seemed to say it all.
Then we learned that he had already been in Court and had been fined £1000 for his part in the flytipping (part of this being for Court costs.) for breaching 'Duty of Care' regulations and not providing the relevant documentation, but the actual trial I was to give evidence to wasn't against him, it was the gentleman who had done the actual flytipping.
There was a break in the proceedings and one of the court ushers allowed me to go inside the empty courtroom to get an idea of what the lay-out was like, where I was to sit (ie- in the dock) and this was a good thing as it calmed my nerves and I found that it wasn't as large as I was expecting. I think television can give a false perspective on things, make a courtroom seem a good deal bigger than it really is. The trial began and it was some time before I was called to give my evidence. Neil Brown sat in the public seated area and Carol had to sit a few seats along from him. The gentleman who was being tried sat in a glassed-in area.
As the prosecutor started to ask me questions, my nerves began to settle down. I was shown some of the photographs Wayne Turner had shown me the week before, when I had to identity our belongings in the pile of stuff that had been flytipped. There were one or two items which were really difficult to identify on the photographs, because they weren't particularly clear images, so I was shown better-quality photographs. Then I was shown photographs taken by Brown of the state of the interior of the house in Crownhill. I was supposed to identify items that were in the pile of the flytipped items, and it seemed somewhat unfair as I hadn't seen these images before.
After the prosecutor cross-examined me, it was the turn of the defence, a lady. I have to say that, as things progressed, my nerves began to subside, and I really quite enjoyed the experience. In all it was something of a learning curve, as I have never been involved in a real trial.
There was a break for 'comfort' as they say, an excuse to go to the loo, and have a breather and then it was back into the courtroom.
Eventually I was allowed to leave the courtroom, and I was told by the Judge that I wasn't to talk to anyone about anything and not discuss evidence.
We were free to go home. Wayne Turner, who had also sat in on the trial (and who had also given evidence. It was him who had discovered the dumped items in the first place.) told me that he would ring when there was a verdict.
It was a relief when we eventually left the courtroom and walked back towards the city centre and caught the bus home. It was about 2 p.m. when we got back to the house. Sometime later Wayne Turner rang to give us the verdict. The Judge could not find any evidence to suggest that John Fleminghad been responsible for the flytipping.  I reckon Brown slipped him a backhander to clear the house and wasn't bothered what happened to the stuff. It was made to look as if we'd dumped the stuff, when it was clear from the evidence that we couldn't have done this, as we wouldn't dump stuff which it was very clear we would need. At one point I was asked to identify the milk carton which contained petrol and had a rag stuffed in the neck. I said that it couldn't have been ours, as the  'best before/sell by date' which was clearly shown in the photograph was well past the date we had left the house.
So that is the end of that episode in our lives. Thankfully we can move on and leave it behind us.

Now It Can Be Told- Part 4

I am nearing the end of writing about this 'episode.' Please just bear with me as I complete it. I have written it in installments as it was going to take quite a while to write and it was easier to read it in these installments. I think maybe one more installment will complete it, so a little more patience is required of my readers. I just hope it might be of use to others who may come up against similar situations.

Once we had the rental agreement sorted for the new house, and we knew for certain that we were moving, we organised friends of Carol's from the Academy to help in moving. We also had someone from church who helped with transporting our sofa, as our car wasn't big enough. We had to dismantle most of our furniture, which is from IKEA, such as our bed, bookshelves and wardrobes. We managed to ferry quite a lot of stuff over about the period of one  week or so (maybe more) as the new house was vacant. Then, over one weekend we managed to move the remainder or the most essential items, but there was still a lot of stuff in the garage which we were never going to be able to sort out and then transport. As Carol and I had only married in 2007, we had a lot of my things from my flat in Bedford in storage in the garage, such as a fridge-freezer, bits of furniture, a computer  and books, as well as Carol's boys mountain bikes. We never considered when we were going to sort this lot out. At the time of our initial moving we just wanted to get our basic items out of the old house and into the new, such as beds, the sofa and things to eat off, as well as our clothes. 

Once moved in, with the wardrobes reassembled, along with our bed, pots and pans, books and so on, we drew a sigh of relief. We then had to go to the bank and cancel the Direct Debit for the rent for Copper Homes. Throughout all this they had not the slightest idea that we were moving.

Then, one morning, around about the beginning of March (I think it was a Friday) I got a surprise phone call on my mobile from this woman from Copper Homes. She wanted to know why our rent hadn't been paid. I should have said something like 'oh dear, I don't know what's happened. Perhaps there's a problem with the bank or something. I'll go and deal with it!' Instead, I said that we'd moved.  I said I wasn't prepared to tell them where we'd moved to, and said this was due to their inability to help us with the repairs, the rats and so on. With that I put the phone down. Well, they would never have known that we hadn't moved unless we'd told them. If we had we'd be expected to pay another month's rent. They were only interested in the rent, not the state of the house and most certainly not bothered about our welfare.
Later that morning my stepson, Daniel, and I, made another trip to the house in Crownhill to collect some more things, particularly his black leather reclining armchair. We got to the house and had to dismantle this chair before we could put it in the back of the car. There were bags and boxes of clothes, books, kitchen equipment and other items left in the house ready to simply load into the car and take away. We managed to put a load of things in the car, including the chair, when I came out of the house to find the front path blocked by Neil Brown, a woman and two decidedly dodgy characters, who emerged from what looked like a Luton furniture van. I had 'words' with Mr Brown (I'm afraid I let him have a tirade which was really me being angry regarding what he had done (or not done) for us, the state of the house, the rats and the repairs which should have been done, but weren't. They looked decidedly menacing, so me and Daniel left. I'm not certain what they intended doing, but I wasn't hanging around to find out.
Carol and I decided that, since the things left in the house and the garage weren't of any great significance, we'd forget about them and leave them. We had, of course, intended on collecting all of these things, but as we now had a decent new home to live in, with working central heating, and a landlord who at least bothered about the condition of the home and our welfare, it didn't seem worth the effort to go back and collect this stuff, if it also meant threats and misery from Brown and his henchmen.
We didn't think any more of anything that was left in the house at Crownhill until several weeks later. Carol got a visit at the Academy from a Mr Wayne Turner (Environmental Officer at Milton Keynes Council) and a Policeman. I think she was somewhat upset by this at first, but when they told her that they had found some of our belongings, or what appeared to be our belongings, flytipped in a carpark in Simpson. They had found some documents with our name on, and could we tell them why these items might be there? They came to our house and we had to give statements. I said that I was quite prepared to stand up in court and give evidence, and that I believed that Copper Homes and in particular, Neil Brown, was responsible for the flytipping. They had made it seem as if we had been responsible as there was a milk carton full of petrol and with rags stuffed in the spout which made it look as if we were going to set fire to the tipped items so as to cover things up. There was also a lot of bundles of old papers there which were certainly not ours which were also there to make it look as if we'd dumped the things there.
Two weeks ago Carol got a message on her mobile asking her to ring Wayne Turner. He came to see us and we had to go through the statement again and also, with the use of digital photographs taken at the scene of the flytipping, identify where possible our belongings and he made an inventory. All this evidence was used against the man who was alledged to have dumped our belongings, one John Fleming. They had been to Court the weeks before Christmas for a court hearing, but the actual trial was last Wednesday and Thursday.

Now It Can Be Told- Part 3

We knew that by the February of the next year (2010) our tenancy agreement would expire, so we would have expected Copper Homes to do a yearly inspection of the property and that the gas certificate would also expire, which would need redoing. But we heard nothing as regards either. Any inspection by them would have shown up the problems with the kitchen ceiling and the condition of the ceiling, the sink and the infestation of the rats. We did attempt to solve the problem of the rats by putting down poison, but we were concerned that our dogs would get it and weren't prepared to risk them as a result. Meanwhile, the condition of the kitchen was getting worse and you'd come down in the morning to find bits of plaster and mess all over the floor and the work surfaces.

We then had to contend with one of the coldest winters for something like 30 years (2009-10) without any decent heating. We knew that it would be difficult to leave the property because we would need a month's rent in advance for a new rental property if we were to move elsewhere, so we were in something of a difficult situation.
Whatever the cause of the rift between Mr Brown and the other director who 'defected' (or at least, left the country) to Australia, it was presumably resolved, or else Brown took over control of the company and the matter of the ownership of our house was resolved, because the business regarding whom we were supposed to pay the rent to came to an end and we got a visit from Brown, who attempted to reassure us that things had been sorted out and that we could sign a new tenancy agreement with the confidence that Copper would repair what needed repairing. Looking back, how wrong could we be? 

One morning there was a really dreadful noise downstairs. We could hear the sound of rats scuttling around. The dogs raced downstairs to the kitchen, barking and making an awful noise. We followed them downstairs and found that Alfie had cornered the most enormous rat in the lounge. It squealed horribly, but he manage to get hold of it by the back of it's neck. He shook it vigorously until the squealing stopped and the rat was dead. It was quite amazing to think that such a little dog as Alfie could manage to corner and kill such a large rat! For a Yorkshire Terrier this is their natural behaviour.
By Christmas 2009, we were considering what our options were regarding our tenancy at the house in Crownhill. We were stuck with not being able to afford the deposit on another property, and we knew that our tenancy agreement with Copper Homes was due for renewal in February 2010. We still hadn't got anything from Copper, as regards them coming to do an inspection, and absolutely nothing from them regarding the repairs or even dealing with the rat infestation.
We managed to get through Christmas and then, by the time Carol had Half Term, we decided that we'd try and look for another property, but we didn't know where we stood as regards our rights and legality of leaving the house. So, the Monday of the week Carol had off for Half Term we went to The Citizens' Advice Bureau in Milton Keynes. There was a very long queue forming when we got there, just before 9 a.m. We had to wait several hours before we were seen. As it turned out, the waiting was well worth it.
C.A.B. couldn't deal with the problem we had, but told us to visit Shelter, the housing charity. We went there the next day, and the lady there was extremely helpful. She told us that we had two options available, they could more or less force Copper to do the repairs, as the condition of the house was actually uninhabitable and Environmental Health would condemn the place, and if that happened Copper would, in effect be in breach of 'Duty of Care' as landlords of the property. She gave us a list of reputable renting agents. She also told us, as we couldn't afford a deposit for a new home, we could go to Milton Keynes Council and apply for a bond, which would act as a deposit. It took some while, but this is exactly what we did. By the end of that week we had approached a rental agency in Wolverton and been to see a house, and within only a couple of weeks we had got the Bond sorted out with the council and we could then start the process of moving house.