Diary Thursday 14th And Friday 15th July 2016

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Diary Thursday 14th July 2016 I spent much of the morning contacting Welfare to restart my claim for benefits after losing my job yesterday. This mostly involved being kept on hold while listening to the same fragment of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons over and over on a loop – they had time to play the whole composition at me. I got an appointment to see my advisor tomorrow. As my mum had gone to bed before I arrived home last night, I had to tell her this morning that I’d lost the job. She realized as soon as she got up to find me still in the house as I would have left for work well before she got up. I told her quickly fully expecting a blaze of anger and bitterness which started immediately with “Huh! That didn’t last long did it? Before she could turn this into her usual spiralling litany of contempt for all my failings and disappointments to her in life I told her that my housing search has improved with my chance to move to Preston now back on the table. The job would not have made moving to another city possibly. She looked crestfallen that I might not be living locally but it stopped her belittling me over unemployment and her obsessive conviction that I’m not house hunting at all. Before she could rant any more on it all at me, leaving me no right of reply, I told her I was going out and left. I feel bad about such cut and run tactics but telling my mum anything, good or bad, often gets highly confrontational. This way I took the wind right out of her sails before she could get started. I headed to Leigh to get more pub sign photos, and I got to travel back on the bus with a lovely friend I met by sheer chance before joining other friends for a fortnightly science fiction group gathering, after which I was lucky enough to get a lift home. My mum and my vitriolic sister had mercifully gone to bed when I got in. Diary Friday 15th July 2016 A demanding and rather frustrating day. I had to report to welfare to discuss why I was fired which could affect my payments of welfare. Worse, I found the employers have not paid my wages for the first week I was working as they should have done. My finances are now critically low. From the welfare office I had to rush to catch the last half hour of a jobs fair they insisted on me attending. It was a waste of time. I hoped to see a Citizen’s Advice group but they were just closing as I got there, though it was only 2.30pm. I visited the library to use the computers and send an e-mail to my ex-employers asking about my wages, quite politely – no reply so far. A random drunk sat near me was getting abusive, which I reported to the library security team. I was shocked that their first question to me was whether the man was black, as if that mattered – and no he wasn’t. They cautioned him and I moved to another computer. Back home I arranged with friends about visiting my potential new flat in Preston on Monday. Arthur Chappell