Nuts and seeds, knitting your own yogurt.... etc

This post is long. Sorry.

 TL:DR home education is awesome, legal and won't mess my child up.

I have found I dont get a lot of time for blogging any more. Actually I don't get much time for a lot outside of educating the child and making sure there's a sanitary bathroom and a kitchen worthy of making food in.

But here goes with trying to fit in blogging too.

The reason I am back is because Squidge is Home Educated. When most people hear about home education they assume a few of many things.
Here's some of the most common:

• The child is a genius and ahead of her age in everything and school couldn't keep up or the complete antithesis of this;
•The child is not up to parr and couldn't keep up with school.
•  More worryingly,that child was kicked out of school.
• That we are transient, extreme vegan hippies who live on lentils, don't own a TV and don't vaccinate.
• That as such, Squidge is being left to find her own way, be completely autonomous and that we believe she will absorb learning rather than needing to be taught stuff.
• That we are Tiger Parents.
• It's easy, we're lazy.
• That we are snobs.
• That we are religious zealots
• She will never learn how to fit in with schedules
• The child has no social interaction with other children and finally
• That what we are doing is unregulated, unsanctioned and/or illegal.

NOPE. Well, mostly.

The child has her own pace. Her writing has been a big block since she was withdrawn from school. Did you have a teacher at school that you felt picked on you, no matter what you did? Squidge did. Her literacy teacher.
   The kid didn't get a break time for the whole of her time in year one because she was slow to finish and the teacher had high expectations of both accuracy levels, neatness and productivity expected for 5 and 6 year olds. I would have complained at the time, but this didn't come out until she had been out of school a year and had only just started taking about that part of her experiences.
   She still has nightmares involving this man shouting at her and screwing up her half page of work for a spelling mistake.

Here's the thing... SHE'S DYSLEXIC. In a school aparently prized food is SEN provision, glaring signs were ignored. My concerns were brushed off and ultimately Squidge was failed, pushed to far and stressed out of her gourd. The week after we withdrew her from school, we paid for the test the school had refused time and again; lo and behold!

She was also mercilessly bullied by other kids. One particular child made it her life's work to make squidge's life hell. She also had such power that other kids, fearing reproachand the same treatment, home in ganging up on squidge. "Kids will be kids", yeah but they will also not change into decent adults if they're not taught the correct way to act.

  School was informed of the issues over and over and did ZIP. Meanwhile my kid became a broken shell.

She didn't eat. She didn't sleep. She was in her own world a lot of the time, and when she wasn't, she was volatile. She talked of self harm and causing her own death. This isn't some emo, hormonal teen we're taking about. This was a SIX YEAR OLD.

We had planned to leave her 'til summer and see how it went; the same as we had when the problems began arising in her reception year. By easter, something had to be done because I was certain my child would not be alive by July.

This is even before you factor in the lack of care for a medical complaint she had requiring medication at set times; and the time when (in her second week of reception) an LSA gave her a snack. Squidge handed it back, saying she couldn't eat it. She understood about her lactose intolerance. Something which I had informed the school of. The LSA ignored her, gave it back to get, told her it would make her big and strong and that she had to eat it. So she did. She was then in so much pain that she couldn't manage lunch and when I picked her up I was told she had spent the afternoon in "time out corner" for not sitting and doing her work. She had told the teacher her tummy hurt, but the teacher had thought she was making it up to get out of working before playtime.

This happened another four times, I complained each time but was told the head wasn't available for a meeting. It was only when I sent a letter, explaining that if it happened again I would be contacting the LEA about it that she was finally added to the school-wide list of children with allergies and intolerances.

My kid is not stupid. She is sharp as a tack, has an incredibly grown up sense of humour and can grasp new concepts quite easily now she's recovering. Ok so her handwriting is terrible. Her spelling atrocious, but she's working on English grammar concepts meant for a nine year old. She's at around age 10 level in scientific understanding, while her reading age is spot on for her chronological age and her maths is age appropriate too (now! After much work on her part!).

Ok.  Are we all hippies? I can't speak for others,  but my family are what I would refer to as partially hippy. Not transient, we live in a rather nice 1950s rented mid-terrace.
Not vegan but we do enjoy the odd lentil from time to time and I gave been known to knit my own yogurt.
We do own a telly, sophie is quite partial to a bit of Dick and Dom. I am not.
Squidge is vaccinated to the eyeballs because I believe wholeheartedly in vaccination. Others do not, and that is their choice, same as this is ours.

Autonomy is one of the hardest concepts for non home educating people to grasp, and is often misunderstood. Squidge is not autonomous, but her education IS mostly child-led.
I have seen completely autonomous children go on and do really well for themselves, but I know squidge's brain doesn't work like that. She needs structure. Not as much as some, more than others.
 
Autonomy is the idea of leaving a child to do their own thing in their own time, but providing support and resources if they're wanted or needed.

We're using an approach that is often muddled up with autonomy. Child led education is where a child chooses their own education stew for want of a better analogy, but an adult is very much in the picture giving that stew the extra veg it needs to be satisfying. Ok so that analogy maybe isn't great...
The approach varies from family to family, so I will focus on ours alone. I have no right to judge others because what works for us might not work for them, and vice versa.

Squidge does "projects". Generally amounting to 1-2 pages of A4 paper. She choose the subject (sometimes from a list given by me) and we work on it. 

The only long teem project we're doing is about our giant African land snail, Fluffy. She has charted his growth from when we got him (12 weeks old) to now (26 weeks; they become mature at 40-50 weeks).
This project wasn't just about her pet. There is literacy in the form of writing a short paragraph about Fluffy. Numeracy in the measuring and charting on a graph. Accuracy, hand eye coordination, art, biology. We even fitted in a little Latin when identifying his breed (Fulica), geography of the main locations Fulica choose to breed in. ICT in using search engines to find information... One snail, many uses.

Squidge also does a bit of English and maths every day. Well nearly. Well, at least a few times a week. On average. And she is a voracious reader.

I do not force the issue. This panics some people I know because they are certain she will never catch up. I think I need to lend them a book which has really helped me; Ruby Flew Too. It's a young children's book about a duckling who is a little behind the rest of her clutch, but who ends up excelling. The main repeating theme is "She will do it in her own time". That duckling could honestly be a metaphor for my child. When I get wobbles about our approach, I just re read it.

Neither me nor my hubby are snobs about home ed. It works for our family. It works for our lives. It may not work for everyone and it is not the easy route. The is a lot of soul searching that goes on, stress, fear.. but ultimately when you find your approach and are confidant and comfortable with it, it becomes a lot less scary and stressful.

Many times I have feared that or approach won't work, that she's not doing enough, that we are doing her a disservice.... it all turns out to be tripe in the end.

Squidge is being raised by a pagan and an atheist. In a wide family and friendship group that contains Protestants, Jews, Catholics, Jehova's Witness,  Quakers,  Muslims, Agnostics and even one or two  Pastafarians (r'amen). I don't think she's ever actually noticed. To her, they're all just kids to play with. Even home ed parents are largely very inclusive and friendly, which is something I never found with the school gate cliques.

Socialisation is a word that REALLY gets my hackles up. It's a misnomer, a lie, a fallacy. "But what about socialisation? They only learn that in school". I CALL BULL POOP ON THAT. Forced association is NOT socialisation. Squidge attends quite a few groups, sees friends regularly and spends a lot of time of and about. Does she hide behind my patched,grass stained jeans? No. She gets out the and talks. The reaction of the first few kids she told that she's home educated made her refuse to tell anyone, but she's got a thicker skin now, and great pride i her lifestyle.

For the groups she attends, we need to know how to balance our time. We have to stick to a schedule. She knows that her week kind of revolves around the things, Brownies on a Monday, Gymnastics on a Wednesday and a semi structure group on Fridays.

What we do is perfectly legal. We chose to have LEA involvement because Squidge loves our education lady, and because I need the support of a yearly check to see that we really are ok. But, we don't legally have to have this. If she been home ed from birth, we'd never even have had to contact the LEA. Even now, we would have the right to request that we only send in a letter once a year. However, Squidge loves out visitor.

Although I know some families with home ed from birth kids who chose to be in contact with the LEA, most choose not to because of the "ultra vires" methods used by some councils.

So that's us.

My blog will still be largely craft based, but as my life revolves around Squidge's education, I guess this will too lol.

 

 (yes. that says bum. repeatedly. she's writing ok?!) 

New Jacket for The Squiglet

Serendipity has smiled upon us in the past couple of months, Squidge's growth spurt and need for a spring jacket has coincided with a sewing competition run by Hillarys. Seeing the Calluna Amethyst fabric, I had to apply. Funnily enough, Squidge was next to me and pointed to the exact same fabric, so great minds think alike.

To promote their new Country Crafts range of fabrics, Hillarys generously sent 100cm x 100cm of fabric to me, and asked that I make something. Anything. The only prerequisites were that the item made must be original, and involve their fabric.

http://www.hillarys.co.uk/inspiration/the-hub/2014/country-craft-competition/

I've also taken to reading the Hillarys blog page too; (Psst! It's where information about upcoming competitions will be!).

http://www.hillarys.co.uk/inspiration/2014/03/sweet-shop-inspired-style/

Squidge had full artistic control over this one. She chose, and so I used the Silver Lake pattern from Sewing Clothes Kids Love by Nancy J.S. Langdon and Sabine Pollehn, but I made some quite major changes to the original design and pattern.

For one thing, that jacket design is quite boxy and once I had made it following the instructions, it just didn't look right on Squidge. She's too girly, to twirly for a boxy coat so it got unpicked and tailored a bit.

For another thing, Squidge doesn't have an ipod or anything that would require the sleeve pocket from the pattern.

Finally, Squidge prefers slightly fuller sleeves. It's a "sensitive armpit thing" apparently. Personally, I think it's more of a "having her own style thing" or a "just likes pouffy sleeves thing".

Obviously, the fabric provided wasn't enough for a spring jacket for a quickly growing eight year old child, so I added two unpicked velvet cushion covers and a reused separating zip to the mix.

Well, I have spent two weeks finding extra time in amongst housework and home educating Squidge... ok, so I ignored the housework except for essentials, and Squidge is pretty easy to be honest. I have her a workbook, make sure she's occasionally fed and watered and all's good. My dining table is still heaped with a mixture of sewing items and home ed stuff (mostly sewing to be honest), and the floor still has velvet fluff EVERYWHERE, but I am happy.

Fabrics

 

 cutting the first piece, I am always terrified of cutting into a beautiful fabric.

 Pinning the sewn up side inserts, and checking everything aligns well before setting them aside to do the inserts on the back piece. I topstitched the inserts with a satin stitch too because Squidge said she wanted the joins to stand out more. The great thing is, the topstitching also served to stop any interior shedding or fraying. As this jacket is unlined, I figured I better do something so that she can take it off and not look like a beaniebaby. Also, I made that bias binding for the pocket tops. Jus' sayin'.

Using my ironing board as there's no space left on the dining table and the floor's too low....

 

This is a view of the velvet yoke, piping, fullish sleeve top and overstitching to make the yoke lie properly. All Squidge's idea.

Well, once it was properly put together, both seamed and overlocked to make it hard wearing for a child, the collar was attached on the reverse by machine but I hand stitched the top bit down so that it was the right shape. My sewing machine is a bit like a newly tamed horse, you never know when it's going to go full pelt so I prefer to hand-stitch some bits. I hand stitched the blind hem too so that the velvet didn't bruise and the hem doesn't show, and then I defluffed it from all of the threads and velvet cuttings. I think it's a hit. She likes the pockets, and the collar, the cuffs, the fabrics... she's all round happy. I think she also enjoyed being consulted at every stage, she's got exactly the jacket she ordered.

I love it, it's got just the right amount of quirk.

And look! It doesn't just work for flower smelling and looking pretty, it works for playing aeroplanes too:

For doing park things: 

And finally (most importantly) it looks stylish, even while being cheeky:

She wants a mini backpack made from the offcuts, but as it's got to be patchwork now due to the size of my offcuts, it wont be done before the competition closing date. It'll be online in a couple of weeks though lol.

Having seen my friend's entry, I was terrified and almost thought of giving up..... but then I decided, if I don't enter, I have no chance at all.

I collect odd books

Any book with an interesting or strange or non PC title, I love them. I gather them. I preserve them. Here's a selection from my collection.

I think we'll begin with Gaytime Stories. Frankly, completely un-PC now, but very of its time. Personally, I find the table of contents incredibly amusing when taken in modern context with the title.

here's some more oddities before I get to the juicy stuff......

OK, this one's not mine. it belongs to the Manflesh I'm married to :D

This next one is very interesting when you think of its age, it's early 1930s. It's in a completely plain, blue leather cover so nobody can see what you're reading. naughty naughty!!!

And this one I rescued from certain destruction. I know a lot of people don't see why, and cry out "omg! burn it!" but IF books like this are destroyed, then the memory of the atrocities associated with such words may be forgotten, and how can we learn from history's mistakes and not make them again? The human race is essentially incredibly stupid and doesn't learn quickly. Persecution of non white peoples, hatred of homosexuals, religious warfare, all are mistakes for us to learn and move on from and should never, never be forgotten. So, save old, un PC books. Show them to your children and explain why they're not acceptable any more. Explain how to love their fellow man and maybe we'll grow a more tolerant race as a byproduct of education. (oh, and as a modern thinking personage, I think Joseph Conrad should probably have stayed with his original title of "Children of the Sea".... but at the time, this was a better selling title.)
 

Ubiquitous Snow Post

a quite surprising photo taken on my phone. yeah. snow. woo.

Too "White Trash" for gloves. and that hat was borrowed too.

It snowed here in lovely Essex. Don't get me started on how stupid it is that our country grinds to a halt when it snows. Yesterday, I cleared the driveway twice and gritted it, and the steps. then next door's little boy cleared the foot path for me because he's awesome.

My garden in full, white glory.

Today there's been no fresh fall, but it's cold enough so the snow is sticking around. i decided we'd go for a snow picnic, the Child was not so sure but went along with another of Mummy's harebrained schemes.

Cue home made soup, me digging out all of our flasks, hot cocoa and sausages. You see the joy of a snow picnic is cold weather, but hot food.

First off, sort out your flasks. Make sure they are good and hot before doing anything else. boiling water poured in and the lid put on and then left for at least 5mins means your food stays hotter for longer. I use stainless steel flasks because the amount of times I dropped and broke glass ones (losing my lunch and my flask in the process) was hideous.

Yes. You can transport hot sausages in a flask so long as 1. you're not going too far so they're not going to be kept hot for too long, 2. the flask is both very clean and very very hot and 3. you remember to take a skewer to extract the sausages at your destination. I didn't, which made for some amusing times. prepare your flask as above, then dump the water out and attempt to dry it at least a little bit. if you can't face slightly damp sausages, put them in a freezer baggie or some foil, and THEN into the flask.

So, you've heated your flasks and sorted your sausages. good. Not sort your soup. make sure it's hot, bubbling simmer at least. dump the water from your flask and immediately fill it with soup. the same follows for your hot chocolate.

Now, go out. find a nice patch of snow. lay out some blankets (I cut  large bin bag in half so the blankets wouldn't get wet) and enjoy.

Alright. she wasn't keen. She appears to be far more like her daddy than me when it comes to snow.

Now we're home, I would now put our picnic blanket in the wash, but the pipes to the washer froze a few days ago so we don't have a washing machine for the forseeable. Thankfully we have a lovely next door neighbour and a launderette nearby so we're not too hard done by. and the dryer still works thank goodness.  By this time next year I will have a tank in my shed above the washing machine to feed the washing machine. auto filling for most of the year, but able to be manually filled when the cold snaps hit. we never get too cold for too long in the UK thankfully. Yay! Gulf Stream! Woo! Anyway, this tank will also take the grey water from the condenser dryer too, the ultimate recycling. It's thinking like this that keeps our water bills down.

Anyway, my little home schooled darling has written some letters to be posted later, and done 3 whole pages from her maths book. mostly with the help of a bag of skittles to count out.... time for me to scoot. let's see if I can try and fix the sewing machine again.......?!

Come on down!!!

uuuurgh!!! Caffeine comedown is a biiiiitch.

I am trying to get off caffeine and reduce my intake of refined sugars etc, basically trying to go low GI as much as possible, with the exception of the occasional trip out I think. Apparently this will help me lose weight because my thyroid is futzed and despite thyroid meds, I am still fat and tired with crap hair, nails and skin.

I also realised just after Christmas that I was going through a litre to a litre and a half of Pepsi Max per day. her, at least it was sugar free!!! I've been trying to get myself down, and today is my first day with nothing.

I'm following advice from a thyroid diet book, and it's soooo hard.

my head is painful, i feel tired and i am craving fat, refined carbs and sugar. If someone could give me a jam doughnut where the jam is actually that concentrated syrup you get for coke machines, I would probably be in hog's heaven.

Speaking of hogs, I managed to get a massive roast dinner for the three of us out of a pork hock yesterday, and still have enough left over fr another dinner too. My portion was trimmed of all fat and tiny, served with a mound of veg, some slightly softened apple chunks and a couple of slices of potato.

I am unsure whether or not this is the comedown from refined carbs, sugar in general, caffeine or aspartame but I.... urgh.

Oh well, at least my kitchen is clean. I scrubbed and scrubbed today to get my mind of everything else.

My embroidery machine is kaput I think. I thought I'd fixed it, but no. the computer screen still wont recognise clicks in the bottom third, and the stitches are still misaligned. humpf. Can't afford to get it fixed anywhere I've had quotes from either :(

Well, that's all from my depressing mind today. hopefully  I'll be less depressing next time.

Oh God. Meme Bandwagon!!!

Who Am I Really?

“You sort of starting feeling like a more serious blogger that proud day when a brilliant, inspiring blogger tags you into a meme.” Yep, this is exactly how I felt when the lovely Jac at http://reflectionsinraindrops.wordpress.com tagged me in hers!

And who am I to ignore a lovely little bandwaggon?!

So, back to the meme. The rules are really simple:

- Post five random facts about yourself.

- Choose five deserving blogs with less than 200 followers to nominate and link into your post.

- Tell your nominees that they have been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog.

- Answer the five questions the tagger (in my case, Jac) has asked.

- Ask five questions of your chosen nominees.

- No tag-backs.

So, here goes:

Five Random Facts About Me

1. I was once heckled by a comedian. I know, audience members aren't normally heckled by the comedian they're watching, but Norman Lovett took a liking to my boobs for some reason.

2. I have an utter confusion with tomatoes and oranges. I KNOW which to eat in pasta and which to eat in fruit salad, but for some reason if I was told to pick up a tomato, I would go for an orange. And I think the husband has finally got used to bringing me tomatoes if I ask for oranges from the fridge...the thing is, I can't even blame it on oxygen deprivation brain damage sustained at the age of 23 as this is a problem I've had a lot longer than the damage!

3. I hate omelettes  Can't stand them. Eurgh. I can also only eat scrambled egg if I've made it, because otherwise it tastes of omelettes  Weirder still, I am willing to cook omelettes for my family and have been told I make a damned fine one.

4. I survived AFE. http://afesupport.org/afe-faqs/ 

5. once I get cold, I can't warm myself again. I often end up needing a sleep to reset my brain. The GP doesn't believe me. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm a hypochondriac.

 Jac's five questions

1. What, if anything, have you done that you have later regretted?
   Met someone on a dating website and invited them back to my place for a weekend of debauchery. 1. get a photo first. 2. this is an incredibly stupid thing to do you dumb dumb 18 year old stupid dumb cow. 

2. What do you consider to be your worst habit?
   Ignoring housework in favour of anything else. Crafting, shopping, going for a walk etc.

3. What is your favourite thing to do to relax?
   Hmmmmm...... probably knitting.

4. If you could travel back in time and spend a year living in another time, what era would you choose and why?
   I'm not sure, a year is a long time and without things like modern medicine and high speed broadband, I'm not sure how I'd get on.... but IF I could have modern medicine if needed and be able to use the net from my own time, then possibly a late 18^th century farm. I've recently read The Garden Cottage Diaries by Fiona J. Houston, a woman who decided to try living as a 1790s crofter. Even she ended up dropping her “live in the time” principles when she go an infection. Penicillin FTW.

5. Post up one picture that you feel defines your 2012
   
   
   
   This is a photo of an incredibly unassuming, south essex terraced house. Why this? Well it's MY home and I am incredibly happy here... My review of 2012 should give you an idea :D

My five nominees

I'm not too sure if this one counts as he's got a massive facebook following, but there's less than 100 blog followers so.. yeah. http://whatsforschoollunch.blogspot.co.uk/ awesome, awesome blog about school lunches. perhaps I should start sending in photos of sophie's lunches. do home schooled kids count?! nah. probably not.

http://bobbler-headingoverthehill.blogspot.co.uk/ I have known Bob for a great many years now, and she never fails to raise a giggle from me. a truly inspiring woman who is a true and loyal friend :D and she's hillarious. seriously, fricking hillarious.

http://fabric8online.blogspot.co.uk/ this is the blog for my all time, favorite fabric shop. a lovely place, friendly knowledgable staff and an amazing stock collection. if you're ever in Colchester, check it out. 

http://melaniepritchard.wordpress.com/tag/amniotic-fluid-embolism Melanie is a fellow survivor, and that itself deserves respect lol.

http://stuffmummymakes.blogspot.co.uk I also know Lisa in real life too, my goodness! two bloggers I actually know in the real world?! I'm almost a people person!!! Lisa is an amazing crafting mummy with a gorgeous little boy called Monkeybum. her crafts are amazing!! 

My Five Questions

1. What is your absolute favourite thing to do?

2. If you ruled the world, what would be the first thing you'd outlaw?

3. do you have any strange collections?

4. If you have facebook, what approximate proportion of your friends do you know in real life?!

5. Post up one picture that you feel defines your 2012

2012 Review and Appologies

sorry I've not been on much this year, it's been a hell of a time..... we've withdrawn Minime from school, moved house and I had to leave some of my beautiful plants behind. If anyone fancies sending me some Ramsons bulbs, I'd appreciate it lol. I had a lovely patch going at the old house.... anyway, here's an update from Casa De Flibble:

Early on in the year we'd been getting offers from the council, but all of the flats we were offered were postage stamp sized. We did apply for a few though just to try and get out of the mould infested rat hole we lived in.
then came march, and we'd not been informed we had to reapply for the council and would be knocked back down the list and spend another year climbing back up again. not necessarily what we wanted to do, but we'd not got enough money for another rental deposit, and knew getting our old one back would involve a fight as the landlord was a dodgy... person. more words could be used, but this is public and I can't afford a slander case.

anyways, we sat tight whilst trying to work out what to do.

in april we withdrew Child from school and began home educating her. within days we were seeing the extent of her problems and having a hard time working out how to fix them. getting a proper dyslexia/dyspraxia diagnosis has helped though because now we can tailor education to her, but we're still trying to get her over the idea that if she does something wrong she'll lose her break times, or that she needs to sit still for as long as it takes her to complete work, or that we will be angry if she doesn't understand something. patience and love will help lol.

through a local home ed group I met a wonderful woman, Cookie who has sort of become our guardian angel lol. We became friends as we're very similar people, and Child really gets on with Cookie's two children.

one lunchtime, Minime and I were at her house. Minime was playing with the little Cookies, and Cookie and I were chatting and knitting, full of the pasta lunch she had provided (bliss)... I told her about the place we lived in. I told her all of the problems. I cried. nothing more was thought on my part about it until a few days later she mentioned her neighbour was doing up his property to rent out. he'd just had some particularly nasty tenants move out and was fixing everything they'd destroyed. she had asked him for his phone number and wanted to pass it on to us!

So James rang Mr M and had a good long chat with him. he seemed... well, a breath of fresh air compared to Mr C and his agent that we'd been renting from for the last 4 years. We came to view the house. Mid century mid terrace, good central location, excellent bus routes, driveway, two sheds, big garden (overgrown at the time but I could see the potential!), two bedrooms, nice bathroom, new kitchen, new carpet in one bedroom, carte blanche to decorate if we wished........ We'd brought with us a folder of bank statements going back 5 years as we knew the ex landlord would not give us a reference (how dare we hold him to his legal obligations!!)...these showed rent paid every single month. We offered Mr M full paroosal of this folder and he declined, and offered to rent the house to us directly rather than via an agent. he cut £75 per month off the rent as he'd not be paying agent fees, and gave us £200 off the first month in return for us decorating the livingroom!!! he let us have the keys 3 weeks early too to complete the works and have a phone line installed!!!! did I mention he's an all-round good egg?! I think it helped him to trust us that on our second viewing (when we knew we were getting the place) I asked if I could head into the garden and start clearing some for him. it was in a terrible state and I couldn't stand by and watch him have to do all that himself as well as do up the house. I'd brought tools in our car boot just in case.... I was excited!!!

So anyway, notice was given on the mould hole as soon as we'd signed forms with Mr M and the move began. we heard nothing from the agent. nothing at all. so we did everything by the book so to speak, all legal and above board. all traceable just in case. keeping to legal time limits and so forth.

we moved in to the new house, which is situated between Cookie's house and Mr M's parent's house :D (they're lovely too, I can see where Mr M gets it from).
The new house is smaller, but better laid out and mould free. incidentally, this is the first winter minime's not needed an asthma inhaler for night times. every other winter since age 2 she's become wheezy in november and needed the ventalin until about march. this year? nothing. coincidence? I think  not. she's still getting the odd fevers, but that's also being looked at seriously now... back to the house....

We ended up posting the keys back to the agent as still no contact was given at all.

We waited for contact from the agent. a week after we moved out, jim got an email from someone we'd never heard of, telling us she'd taken over our agent's properties and could jim please meet her at the house to hand over the keys. well, no answered he. he couldn't.  he'd posted them back due to no contact. he then got a call from someome at the original agent's asking for the keys....... all weird. he gave them the parcel tracking number and told them very politely to sod off. we've since heard a lot of things about the agent and done some digging ourselves. I'll get to that....

after a while we applied for the return of our full deposit (£975) from the deposit protection service and were then informed the landlord had done the same thing, so it would be put to arbitration. we were sent a copy of the landlord's statement. 3 a4 pages in size 10 type of lies upon lies upon lies. we'd expected no less, but although it falls to the landlord to provide burden of proof, we still wanted to answer his claims in order to give ourselves a fighting chance of getting our money back. so we spent 2 solid weeks gathering together our evidence. I don't think Mr C realised that as soon as he and his agent started acting dodgy back in 2007, we became avid record keepers and were able to send 1.5lbs of evidential paperwork and photographs to prove the lie to almost every single one of his claims. It was well worth the courier fee.

21 days it took the arbitrary commission. probably a lot of that was trying to word his report so it didn't come across as sarcastic because it reads like he took a look at the landlord's claims, then at our counter evidence and saw what a dodgy effer the landlord really was.....
did we get it back? most of it. We're getting £825 of the £975. he's getting £85 for a door (we couldn't work out which one his report was talking about so couldn't counter it with anything), £55 for half a mirror (again couldn't work out what mirror, the report says it's giving half because they can't guarantee it's not in the house still) and a tenner for polyfiller which I nearly wee'd myself laughing at.

We were worried not only that the landlord would be found in the right (I know, seems silly looking back) or that he'd be able to take us to the civil courts and claim more lies, but he can't. as a government agency, the DPS has the final say. As he agreed to arbitration, he has no further legal recourse. apparently if he intended to take us to court and lie some more, he'd have had to inform the DPS and they wouldn't have allowed arbitration. we were worried that if he was granted the full deposit, or near the full deposit he'd still have recourse but nope. arbitration is final. it's over!!!!

guess when we found out? christmas day! it was the best christmas present either of us has ever had. I cried. I hyperventillated, as I was the recipient of the email informing us of the decision. I couldn't tell James why I was in a state, Childwas scared and all I could do is hand jim the laptop and run upstairs before I pee'd myself.

once I'd calmed (thank you Harvey's Bristol Cream!) I rang my mum, cried more then popped to Cookie's  house to give her the good news!!! I was pleased to see Cookie spends christmas the same way I like to, in her jammies.

so this is us ending the year on a high note. the money will be in our bank on thurs/fri this week. we're starting 2013 nearly debt free. We're having Mr and Mrs M and possibly their two teenage kids over for coffees in the new year!! this was their first family home, I want to show them that we're taking good care of it. Mrs M refused to even visit Mr M's parents next door while the ex tenants were here because it upset her to see them ignore the garden and not take care of the house.

now, to the agent from the mould hole....... hmmm where to start? in 2011 they tried to claim we were behind on rent, which is how we ended up with a folder of bank statements to show Mr M. their first comment was we'd made a msitake. their second was "I'm sure it happened when you changed jobs" to James. he's worked at the same place, on the same pay system, and we've had an account with the same bank since 2004. We tried telling the landlord what a dodgy person his agent was back in 2009 but were told in a sharp tone "I've worked with this man for 15 years!".... ok. so how do you explain that he's now done a runner with over a year's worth of rent from each of your properties, disappeared and you've had to hire a private investigator to find him then Mr C? ah! so you see, you're not the only one with lifelines into the local parish gossip train!!!

We don't have the money for a PI, but we do have a lot of very trustworthy but slightly dodgy friends with more friends in high places. On of my friends has managed to find out for me that the agent goes by at least 3 names, and I myself have found out he's been the director of no less than 12 companies which have either gone under, or disappeared and stopped trading. all property based. all over the place. all running from mail forwarding centres and "virtual offices". places you can hire by the day, week or months to make it look like you have an office somewhere, but are actually a glorified PO box. I'm now doing this investigative stuff for fun, but think I might give up. I have enough vindication in the form of the huge sum of cash being plopped into our account this week.

in other news, I made the craftster hit list a few times this year with various hand made items. I still knit, though not as much since the diagnosis of arthritis in my hands (ffs!!!). I'm undergoing tests as the dr isn't sure if I have rheumatoid arthritis in my large joints as well as hands, or if I am the sufferer of the fabled fibromyalgia. you never know, perhaps now the major stress from my life is gone things might start to look up. I'm looking forward to the change in road law which means I may be able to find a vehicle ad get places under my own steam next year.... (as long as it's less than 350kg in unladen weight, has a top speed of 28mph and I display L plates.)

I made James a festive jumper and due to the landlord crap, the move, arthritis and forgetfulness (I left it and my needles at my mum's house for a week) I didn't get it finished for Yule, but he got it at 11am on christmas day. I think the neckline needs work though...

2012 is ending on a much higher note than it started. and I am more than happy to see the back of it.

oh and some of the best news? I got a greenhouse for my 30th birthday!!! :D Jim's built me a little staging from the bits of wood Mr M had in the shed too, left over from the improvements! he said we could do what we like with the bits and bobs in there, or he'd remove them for us. we picked through, kept things we can make stuff out of and he disposed of the rest :D GOOD EGG.

I'd sort of like to frame the arbitration report. I keep reading it and smiling.

Much love! hope your 2013 starts as well as mine!!!

Dave, our first living Yule tree.

The cake I originally designed to give to my mum... I had a change of heart, but gave this one to my brothers an sister instead!!

Mum's cutsey cake. penguins. awwww!!!

"ERMAHGERD! TERBLERT!"

(Child liked her Yule gift of a tablet computer)

The Man. In The Jumper. With a christmas kebab in one hand and Advocaat in the other.

Twoo. available for sale if you want him.