I have bitten the very nasty-tasting bullet and applied for Universal Credit.
This is a reward given by the Government for people who do not go to work.
No matter how I try and view our circumstances, there is no way in which I can consider myself to be occupied in any kind of gainful employment at the moment, as evidenced by the lack of financial result.
I have come to the unpleasant realisation that I am currently unemployed.
I can not think of any other description for our present activities, and it is not nice at all.
We can hardly call ourselves self-employed any more. We are doing nothing, at least, if you don’t count building new bits on to the house and sawing up firewood. At any rate we are earning nothing.
I looked at our bank account this morning and knew in the murky recesses of my soul that there was no other choice.
It was a long and irritating form, which insisted on texting me and sending me emails whilst I was doing it, to make sure that I was who I said I was, and then afterwards it texted Mark to make sure that he was filling it in as well. Obviously he wasn’t, because of being outside cutting up firewood. It was an unkind fate that saddled somebody as dyslexic as he is with the impossible middle name of Geoffrey, and we had an uncomfortable moment some time ago when somebody asked him what our address was.
It took ages. I promised that we had no money, and no employment, and were not sick, probably. It asked if we were going to be self-employed in the next month, and I ticked ‘yes’, defiantly: and then reason prevailed and I deleted it and ticked ‘no’ instead.
I filled it all in and then felt uncomfortably unhappy.
I wanted to leave a little note on the bottom of the form, explaining that I wasn’t really unemployed, that actually I was perfectly capable of supporting myself. It was only due to a misfortunate rearrangement of circumstances and a total apocalypse that had put me in the unfortunate position of not having any money.
There wasn’t a space for this.
In the end it turned out not to be worth it anyway, because after I had spent an hour carefully ticking the boxes, a little message came up saying that we had jolly well better be telling the truth or horrible things would happen, and that they would consider our claim at the end of May.
It was too late by then to tell the form where it could stick itself. I felt soiled and somehow diminished, and thought that I would very much like to go for a shower. It was very unpleasant indeed.
It did not end there. After that I had to apply for a reduction in Council Tax. It had not occurred to me to do this, despite a kind letter from Number Two Daughter’s friend who works for the council, But the Universal Credit form said that I should, and so I did.
Actually I didn’t. The council tax form wanted to know all sorts of things that I didn’t know, like how much Universal Credit we would receive. I made one or two things up to start off with, but then it just got too difficult, so I ticked the box that said Save And Come Back Later, and thought I would have another go at the end of May when the Government have considered our claim.
I came away from the computer feeling profoundly miserable.
It has been the least satisfactory moment of self-awareness I have ever confronted, and some of them have been pretty devastating. I do not want to be unemployed. I have not thought of us as being unemployed so far, we are under-occupied taxi drivers, but today the horrible inevitable truth lurched into my path like a hungry tyrannosaurus, and I stopped trying to pretend that everything was all right.
I have reassured myself with the recollection that we can’t possibly be unemployed for ever, we have got two perfectly functional taxis outside.
Well, one perfectly functional taxi, and one that is currently full of bags of manure and firewood.
All the same, sooner or later we will jolly well use them again.
Just watch this space.
Have another picture of the boring front garden.
