We feel like we have been having a great deal of bad luck in the last couple of years. It started with me becoming ill, of course and, it's probably true that is just bad luck. There are things that one might point to like carrying on in an over-stressful environment when all the rest of the project managers were resigning and being overweight and sitting at the pc for 14 hours a day working and then trying to catch up your email and stuff but... I think it was just unlucky. It happens. I faced up to it, carried right on and tried to find the bright things in life.
But recently, I have come to an opinion that when you are down, you are always liable to get the shit end of the stick. That translates as feeling like you have all the bad luck. As someone who always used to have good luck and escape things unexpectedly because of the turm of events, I guess I had the feeling I was lucky. I suppose that has to even up over life's course, too.
It doesn't help that the welfare state does not look after those who have worked and paid their dues. It's actually better to be a penniless skiver who takes and never does a thing, saves nothing, has no private pension, spends what they have even if they have more than people realise. Do you know how little in savings you have to have to be considered too well provisioned to get any income support even if you are currently earning £0? How can that be? Surely those of us who have put in 30+ years are entitled to earn something approaching a minimum wage in benefits after all the NI and tax we have paid in. No? No... of course not.
I was lucky, I guess in knowing people that made it possible for me to get some part-time work. But last year was a bit thin and then when we got a client that turned up a decent bounty payment. They haven't paid what they owe...and now 6 months have passed and we are still chasing them. Industry can thumb its nose at the small guys. Thats one reason so many small businesses don't survive. Does the government have anything in place to protect us and make getting our money easy. No, of course not.
So I guess I might not be surprised that servicing the car I can't afford to replace has cost me another £200 odd and the airbag light keeps coming on so now Renault and the Autocentre are so busy having an arguement about whether the disgnostic is right. I am told Renault don't believe there is a airbag on the pillars of the sports tourer even though there is a sign with the words airbag written there. I think that the pair of them have forgotten this is not an esoteric techie who's the boss thing, there is a client involved with no car, here and one who doesn't want to pay out £400 more if it's a faulty alert, either. I have even tried to get a Renault dealer with service experience to talk to them both but after being apparently helpful, do you think they have called back? No, of course Not.
So - the situation is that I have to go to the hospital across the county border as that is the only place I can get the tablets I am on to stay alive. And we, mum and dad-in-law always go shopping once a week and I always take them all as I have the big car. My father-in-law says "don't worry, we'll use mine and I can take you to hospital too."
We get about 400 yards from picking up mum and his clutch burns out with a shower of smoke. Along with a flywheel that went, £1000 worth and he had to wait in a lay by for 4 hours. We came and went with soup and sausage rolls in that time to keep him warm and fed.
Eventually, we took my wife's small and classic old car out and went in that, worried all the way that it might overheat or worse. It only ever makes runs under a couple of miles a few times a week. She works part time. We got there. What do you think? Did luck balance out? No, the hospital pharmacy had failed to get the tablets in. All the patients who needed them were sent packing. I have a few days supply. I just hope others do, too. It's not a nice thought to wonder what might happen if you came off the course that had been keeping you stable and then went back on. What if you became immune or the break let the cancer get back on the attack. Mine is agressive. I don't want to start dying again because someone made an admin error.
That was all last week.
Bad luck? Well, let's see what else happens this year.
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