UNDER THE WILLOW

augustus 25.

This morning I saw the first morningmist.
It added a kind of romantic touch to these weeks full of rain and laundry that takes days to dry.
I even had the heating on, just to get the damp out of the house.

We got a mail from the lady who handles the housecall-issue.
No housecall, unless one of the cases gets a negative advice.
In that case we're offered the choice between no money or a housecall during which we can give additional information to try and make the decidion change.
I expect that Nyo's case is rewarded, but that they won't decide posivive on Thami's case.
Well, we'll see by then.
Now it's a huge relief.
It also means I can paint the wall at a time I want.

Also got a mail from the infocenter about livingarrangements for young people wit special needs.
Stef wants to try and live on his won, and they have special houses for people like he. (ADD and Asperger syndrome).
Right after getting the mail I mailed to the organisation that she mentioned to ask them to send the applicationforms.
This is also a procedure which involves a housecall. LOL!
It might become a sport to skip them all...LOL!

This procedure takes a quick start and a long time of waiting. But one can ask for special guidance through the process and I'm thinking about asking for it.
Maybe it does speed things up.

I felt like working on my site, but I just can't get the right feel.
It's not high summer anymore, but certainly not autumn.
I expect at least a few nice days.

So I went through the pages I still have from the old sites (that were hacked and deleted), but it makes me miss the pages that are lost even more.
I had such a beautiful autumndoor... gone.

Well, I uploaded a Mrs. Fig and Figletpage.

Between rainshowers I picked berries from the eldertree.
Have to think what I'm going to make with it.
Maybe a sirup that can be used for different purposes.

During my universty-years we made brandy with it.
Or poured rum on them and have that stay in the dark for a couple of weeks.
Yum..that was a great little drink before going to bed.

Now I hardly drink alcohol, so I won't make it.

In case you want to make something special for the cold winterevenings.
Put grapes in a pot of rum and let them stay in it for a couple of weeks, or even untill christmas.
The grapes have to stay under the surface of the liquid.
In time the fluid in the grapes will be like a fruity rum.

augustus 23.

yesterday the neighbour woman brought two plastic bags.
One with 3 large packages with desert. We never use it, because it's too expensive.... but it's oh so tastful! Heaven for the tastbuds.
The other bag was filled with a few packages with cookies and little cakes.
The luxurious leftovers from the cancelled four days marches. The people who stayed with her left days early, and our neighbour lives alone and has a very bussy life. So she won't eat it.

Well, we do!

I kept it away for the children so it won't be eaten in one day, but savoured on a couple of days.

The whole lot is starting school.
Today Jim was at home, but I managed to write some letters.
A complaint about a piece of equipment to pix the dryer we bought a while ago in the sales on the washing machine.
The said they both fitted on each other without help.
At delivery it was told that the extra protection wasn't right, and we needed a fixation thing. We ordered it.
It didn't show up in months!
We called many times, went there.
Last month I asked if maybe they had been telling a white lie and that it wasn't ordered.
"Oh, no!", he said.
Well, Jim called two weeks later and said he had forgotten when it was ordered and maybe it could be looked up, and the guy had told me a straight lie!!
He's the manager of the shop and ordered the thing at our first call...he said.
So I wrote a long complaint with all the mails in it, to annoy them. (I couldn't help...I'm human...).
And I said them I wanted the thing within 10 days (Indesit told me that was possible), and otherwise they could get the unnused dryer, on their account, and aslo pay back the delivery costs.
Would the thing be present within 10 days I want a new guarantee, signed of on the day of delivery of the fixing item, as they were the cause we couldn't use the dryer.

Then I wrote to the organisation that has to decide if we get some extra money for Thami and Nyo because of their handicaps.
They wanted to pay a housecall on top of all the paperwork we had to fill in.
As I knew from others they didn't get a housecall, I decided to make a list of all thiings the boys need extra assistance and guidance for. (The basic after the grant).
It was quite a job, as its quite confronting.
I also wrote a letter to request to skip the housecall.
I have enough to do these days with informing teachers, getting insight in the plans they have for the next year, getting Stef start again at school. On top of it all, the girls go on schoolcamp in seperate weeks, and Djenne is coming back on the morning the housecall was planned.
Etc etc etc.
I send it in and was quite nervous. It's fighting the decision of a huge organisation.
The woman called in the afternoon. She was OK with it, but she had to persuade her teammanager. We would get either the message that they still wanted the housecall or no message.....
Please, keep your fingers crossed.

We really need a new floor in the livingroom. That might sound silly, but the grant is on a working-back basis, so we have already payed everything it covers. (I guess that's why we're always short of money. LOL!)

I also had a problem with the pharmacy again.
They're sloppy in delivering, make mistakes in bills and such.
When I had a talk with the big boss some years ago, he asked me always to inform him.
We got the bill with the meds... instead of that it was send straight to the insurance.
In those years I found quite some mistakes, and always for the benefit of the pharmacy.

Well, yesterday they wanted us to stop that system, so the bill would go straightforward to the insurance again.
Reporting problems wouldn't be necessary either.
That was quite strange, as the government wants people to know how much money is spend for their meds, but even more: Jim had a talk last week with the womanboss and she wanted the reporting to go on.

So that was settled.
Ofcourse i didn't get an appology for the mistake they made by sending me one item of Flixotide, instead of 6. Nor for the fact that one bottle of tablets wasn't sealed of properly and all the tablets were through the bag.

Maybe next time I'll try the brandnew pharmacy in the shopping centre.

Add to this helping Nyo with homework and all the other schoolfuzz, and the day was filled.
I wanted to see the last part of a pole expedition on the BBC, and missed it.
Well, there's more to life...