I have not updated my blog for sometime for various reasons. One reason is MLA is getting on so well with home schooling I have not felt the need to blog and I have also being going through a somewhat traumatic time of things myself in my personal life. This has now settled to an unsatisfactory conclusion, but it does mean that I can get on with my life without the need to look over my shoulder.

MLA has had a very busy year with his dog training and shows, far too busy. Next year we are not going to do quite so much and pick and choose which shows we want to attend.

Life of the past few months has changed for me. Money is now incredibly tight but my social life has improved for the better, and I am working on improving that even further, so watch this space as they say. 

MLA is socialising far better than he has ever done, all with no real input from me.  Just shows what removing the pressure to socialise does.  However it is still on his terms, which is fine by me.

Recently we had a huge amount of snow fall in a short period of time which meant that for nearly a week I was snowed in.  Whilst we had plenty of food in the store cupboard I didn’t know how long it would last so have to be creative about our rations.  MLA said it was like being in the war, he has been doing World War II.  It dismayed me to hear the complaints about how children couldn’t get to school and they were driving their parents to distraction.  I am a single parent and we had a wonderful week of just us 3 enjoying each others company. I can’t understand the ‘no school nightmare scenario!’

Christmas is almost upon us and my diary is starting to fill up for the various group outings.  This year we will be on our own so it will a Christmas we love  no pomp, no ceremony, no vast array of gifts.  It will just a few well chosen gifts, a modest meal and plenty of family time. Just as Christmas or winter festival should be. I am happy and have given out my token gifts to non family I care about and I hope they bring a smile to their faces.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

I have been outside to dig up some spud after digging up 2 plants we decided we were going to need a considerably bigger bowl!

I still have a dozen more pants to go for this variety and then there are the ones in the tyres, looks like a good year.

I am also still picking raspberries, although they were at first far too water-logged and only fit for jam

Election 2010: Chaos at polling stations as hundreds are prevented from voting
May 7 2010 By Iain Pope Daily Record

THE leaders of all the main parties united to condemn chaotic scenes at polling stations that left hundreds of people unable to vote before the ballot boxes closed.

The Electoral Commission pledged a “thorough review” into problems around the country, including London, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown was among a raft of politicians who expressed concern at the reports from some areas of queues up to two hours long and people being turned away from voting at 10pm in the face of high turnouts and low staff numbers at polling stations.

A spokesman for Gordon Brown said the Prime Minister was “very concerned by the reports and would support a thorough investigation into them”.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he had visited some of the busiest polling stations in his constituency yesterday afternoon and seen hundreds of voters, particularly younger people, queuing for an hour and a half to vote.

“It is not right that hundreds later found themselves unable to exercise their vote when the polls closed. That should never, ever happen again in our democracy,” he said.

Making his victory speech in Witney, Oxfordshire, Mr Cameron thanked local officials in his constituency for a well-run General Election day, but said that had not been the case in some parts of the country.

“An early task for a new government is to get to the bottom of what has happened and make sure that it never happens again,” he said.

The Electoral Commission said it was a cause for “serious concern” that many people who wanted to vote were prevented from doing so, and that there should have been sufficient resources allocated to make sure everyone was able to vote.

There were angry scenes at polling stations in Hackney, east London, where would-be voters staged a sit-in after they were told they could not vote, and in Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s constituency of Sheffield Hallam, where students tried to prevent ballot boxes being taken to the count after they were turned away.

In some places, including two polling stations in Newcastle, voters were ushered into the building before 10pm when the doors had to be shut, while at one site in Lewisham, ballot papers were handed out to the queue before the deadline.

But there were reports in the Manchester Withington constituency of people queuing for more than two hours before being turned away because the polls had closed.

Jenny Watson, chairwoman of the commission, said the current system was “at breaking point” and the law might need to be changed as a result of the scenes witnessed last night.

Additional resources should have been deployed when it became clear that turnout was higher than anticipated. And she said that if there were constituencies which had not followed the rules, they could be subject to challenges.

She said returning officers would have to “answer to us and answer to local voters”. Ms Watson said: “The law is extremely clear. They have the guidance. They should have done what the law says. “If they haven’t done that … they may well be subject to election petitions.”

Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman said it would be “quite right” if some results were challenged because voters were turned away without being able to cast their ballot.

Branding the situation as “outrageous”, Ms Harman said: “If there is any close outcome that is going to be produced by that, there should be a legal challenge – and quite right too. “

It is fundamental that people get their right to vote.”

Arriving for the count of her Camberwell & Peckham constituency in south east London, she said: “Everyone is entitled to get their vote.

“It is outrageous that people who were there long before 10pm at some polling stations have not been allowed to vote.

“They should have been issued with their ballot papers and been allowed to cast their ballot after 10pm.”

Tory party chairman Eric Pickles commented: “It’s ridiculous. Of course people should be able to vote.

“Surely to goodness the returning officers could have just put the people in the polling station and continued.”

Already, the two Labour parliamentary candidates in Hackney, where residents were voting for their MP, local councillors and borough mayor, have launched an official complaint over their supporters’ inability to vote.

A Hackney Labour spokesman said: “Hackney’s two Labour candidates to become MP, Diane Abbott and Meg Hillier, launched an official complaint to the borough’s returning officer tonight after Labour candidates relayed protests from life-long Labour supporters that their votes had been ignored.”

And in Sheffield, the returning officer John Mothersole apologised to voters for getting it “wrong”.

He said: “We were faced with a difficult situation with the numbers of people, and a large amount of students turning up to vote without polling cards.

“This made the administration process of ensuring the correct person was given a ballot paper much longer. “The only remedy, which we could not take, was to extend the voting times,” he said.

Students in the constituency complained they had been treated differently from local residents by being put in separate, “slower” queues as polling station staff attempted to process crowds of voters.

Thought I would start a post with MLA strange behaviours as the happen, latest one will be in bold

Has one red toy box that must only contain red items, the other 8 box can contain anything.

Intense fear of bluebottle, flies.

Dislikes crowded places

Doesn’t like too much change in his routine but will accept moderate change

Takes language literally

Dislikes being shouted out, it frightens him

Gets upset if he loses an item

Truly believes he will win in competitions.

Fidgets, and is compelled to touch things

Can ‘forget’ what he supposed to be doing, ie going for a shower he can forget from going from the lounge to the bathroom.

Dresses himself with clothes inside out or in the wrong order, although this has improved except for when he is stressed.

Puts shoes on the wrong feet, when he can find them, but this has improved except for when he is stressed.

Obsessively washes his hands when stressed

Started walking diagonally across the kitchen to avoid walking over the floor tiles in a straight line.

Hums and make other strange musical noises whilst concentrating

Doesn’t like being surrounded by a lot of photographs of faces

Grinding his teeth because it feels good

Huffing and puffing then swilling saliva round his mouth

Rearranging the cups on the cup hooks so they are altogether (not spaced out with gaps) and smallest to the largest order

Baseball cap has to be peak to the front

If he meets someone in a shop he will will speak to them, but if they are outside of their ‘normal’ places it confuses him

I have just had a terrible weekend, one that rekindled my own doubts in my own self worth that for 20 years instilled in me slowly by my ex spouse, i.e I am nothing, I am unless, I am not worthy.

The weekend started off with my new neighbours suddenly being ‘off hand’ with me. I had guessed that my neighbours from hell (NFH) had said something but didn’t know what. I found out on Saturday that my new neighbours believe I made a call to an authority putting in a complaint about their activities. I went and saw them and told it was untrue and I hadn’t done this. I don’t know if they believed me or not, but time will tell. I then on the Sunday get accosted by those of the bat crime family and more recently gun crime, under aged child unsupervised with a gun shooting.  She said some horrible, horrible things to me. It’s pretty obvious that they too had heard slanderous remarks and that indeed they may have been prosecuted under the gun licencing laws. Her passing was not a coincidence and in fact probably to see what I am doing and to see if they can ‘get me’ on something. Unfortunately she had her dogs with her who are supposed to be highly trained but have in the past attacked my dogs when mine have been quiet and on lead. As usual her dogs were not on lead and as mine were in my garden and hers charged at my gate. One of my dogs does a have bit of a problem with some dogs, and it’s something I am working on. This woman is aware that the dogs hate each other so knew what would happen. Anyway my dog went potty and whilst I was trying to control her this woman was doing very little about her dogs and wouldn’t go away. No instead she had to make remarks. Once she had gone I called our dog trainer who fortunately came out and we did a bit of training which my dog has so far responded to dramatically, today postie comes so we will have to put into action and hope it works.

Anyway I captured the incident on my CCTV (I hate this but is now necessary) so if any repercussions happen I have proof of what happened and the fact I WAS trying to control my dogs but SHE, the woman, was not helping by keep coming back and allowing her dogs to keeping running at the gate.

The unfortunate thing is this all happened in front of MLA who had a melt down that afternoon and wouldn’t go to bed until very late as he was anxious about the whole day.

I was speaking to my mother who said something which I entirely agree with.  Britain, and especially Scotland,  has lost its community spirit.  There is no tolerance, no common sense.  Neighbours will not help each other because they are more interested in themselves and getting ‘one up’.  I was bought up to live your life in peace without interference from others, so what if you were slightly eccentric or wacky.  Your life style didn’t matter provided it didn’t impact on others or was  illegal.  Your neighbour needs hand, offer it with NO CONDITIONS,  that’s all gone now.  Now if you don’t follow the crowd you are an outcast and something to be taunted, and yes I do mean something.  Helping others?  Well what’s in it for me?  Is the attitude now.  Well I can tell you what’s in it for me, the joy of helping someone! No now it’s ‘what are you after?’  Because no one does something for nothing. Why the hell not? You do something the neighbours don’t like, they ring an authority instead of saying ‘look pal/mate that’s really not on’.  You haven’t done anything wrong but you got something new, they make up something and complain.  We now have a community of blame and counter blame and surveillance.  We are told to watch our neighbours activities and report everything….if you have seen some of the borderline activity I have seen here it would make your hair curl!

Gone has the blitz spirit.  If there was a war now the armed forces would spend most of their time hunting down our OWN people who were informing the ‘enemy’.  You have a bomb shelter, you would have to lock before your neighbour takes it over and prevents you from using instead of you being able to share it.  The second world war was a terrible thing BUT the community spirit is something Britain was proud of. Now we have the report and blame culture, something Stalin would have been proud off!

Oh give me a deserted island!

Oh and just to put things perspective the recent volcanic eruption and the air flight travel chaos there are even some complaining that the Government are not doing enough to clear the ash!

Whilst watching the BBC breakfast show this morning a story came up about a 6 year old girl, plus one other child, was being sexually assaulted and bullied on a daily basis whilst at school. The parents of the child made a complaint but were, as per usual, given the ‘brush off’ and nothing was to be or going to be done about it. This immediately brought back memories of MLA also being sexually assaulted by a couple of under 10 year children at one of his schools. Luckily for him the Head Teacher was off that day because she would have done nothing about it. The Depute Head, who was known to be in total opposition to the Head Teacher, was in charge that day and stamped on it immediately with calling in the parents and dishing out a 2 day effective immediately suspension. Unfortunately the parents were fully aware that the Head Teacher would cave in so phoned  the school the next morning and made complaint about the suspension and the boys were in school that afternoon. But I believe the Depute had preempted this, or made a complaint later, and put in a serious complaint to the Council as when I mentioned this as one of the reasons to Home Education there was no shock regarding and the air of ‘we know’ was blatantly obvious. That Head also ‘retired’ within days of me withdrawing MLA.  Coincidence? Probably not as there was  previous case of an extremely serious sexual assault, nearly rape, being reported by the parent to the Council as the Head Teacher once again dismissed it in fact the perpetrator was given special favours whilst the victim was given totally the opposite treatment by this Head Teacher.

Now if this kind of behaviour was happening  in the home and the teachers had gained knowledge of it a Child Protection Meeting would have immediately been called and the authorities on that parents doorstep within hours. So why is this different?  Why did the school fail in it’s duty of care and why did they not call the Child Protection Team in?  I will leave that to you answer but needless to say it can’t be swept under the carpet now!

Any way here’s the story.  But don’t be under illusion that this is an isolated incident because it’s not, there is a reason BB and her friends wear shorts under their skirts and it’s not fashion.  Yes there has always been a bit of skirt pulling but not on the degrading scale it is now.  These days it’s more than skirt pulling it’s stripping and lewd acts particularly on very young children.

 

 

The serious case review process in Wales is to be reassessed after the “failure” of an inquiry into the abuse of a six-year-old girl by classmates.

The girl was routinely assaulted both physically and sexually by 23 pupils of her own age within school grounds.

But the school and local council said the children’s young ages and lack of evidence meant little could be done.

Children’s Commissioner for Wales Keith Towler told the BBC the inquiry into the case had been a “shocking failure”.

A serious case review published two years after allegations of abuse first emerged accepted that sexually harmful behaviour had taken place.

But said that with more than 20 children under the age of 10 involved it had been difficult to establish exactly what happened.

The school and the local education authority, neither of which can be named, said the fact that the children had all been under the age of criminal responsibility meant little action could be taken.

None of the children involved in the abuse were removed from school.

Legal action

The girl’s mother was horrified to discover her daughter had endured months of bullying and abuse in school after, she said, she had been warned about what was happening by another mother whose daughter was also being abused.

The bottom line is the family will never know what happened to their child Keith Towler Children’s Commissioner for Wales

The woman said she would never forget the fear on her daughter’s face as she recounted what had been happening.

She said: “She was telling me things that I think every mother dreads to hear from their daughter. It was horrendous what she’d gone through.

“Every day she was being stripped. She was being physically and sexually abused every day. And every day she cried out for help and nobody every came.”

The mother moved her daughter to a school in another area but it was not until she took legal action that the local authority carried out a serious case review.

The child’s family say she was failed by the school and by the system which took so long for something to be done.

‘Shocking failure’

Mr Towler said teachers needed on-going training to better recognise such incidents and the serious case review system in Wales would be changed to help prevent similar failures in the future.

The incidents of assault and the subsequent investigation were initially brought to his attention by BBC Breakfast.

“This is a shocking failure and the bottom line is the family will never know what happened to their child,” Mr Towler told the programme.

“We are going to review the serious case review process in Wales to make sure they are much more timely published, within a year of incidents happening, so that we get really clear for everybody involved, what happened, why it happened and what we need to do to put things right.”

The local authority concerned told the BBC that it was confident the case review had been a robust one and said the school had received excellent inspections before and after the case.

But Perdeep Gill, a child protection consultant, told BBC Breakfast the executive summary of the review “lacked clarity” and was “full of holes”.

A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said: “We cannot comment on individual cases however the Welsh assembly government takes its roles and responsibilities around the safeguarding of children very seriously.”

I have been training MLA ‘s dog Coco to play ‘hide n seek’ with him for several months now with the ultimate goal that f MLA should go missing she will search and find him. Well she did just that the other day!

We were on one of regular meet ups with home ed families and all the children were playing, running around and laughing. Suddenly MLA and two of the children decided to run off and hide, but he didn’t tell me or any one else. So I was totally unaware he was not ahead of me and in the bushes. Coco was becoming a real pest by jumping on me and stopping me walking. After the 5th time she did this I cottoned on to what she was doing. She was telling me MLA was hiding (missing). She took me immediately to where he was and would not let me go back until I said

‘is that MLA (using his real name)?’

On saying this she went into play and she got her reward.

So she did what she had been trained to do WITHOUT me giving the command to ‘find him’. She recognised MLA had ‘hidden’ (gone missing) and was insistent on making me investigate.

She did exactly what she had been trained for and her insistence shows she is intelligent to realise I NEED TO KNOW.

 

This will shock some. This will astound some. Some will disbelieve it with words like ‘there is no smoke without fire’ BUT it is happening and to far more than you think AND it’s all done with the Family Courts and Government’s backing and at the expensive of those children who DO need intervention from Social Services, SS..now there’s irony for you!

I don’t speak from experience as my SS is sensible but it could have happened to me very easily if I had not put in place MLA ‘s team of professionals BEFORE he changed schools and BEFORE my ‘lovely’ neighbour made false allegations and BEFORE the police were given false information and a false allegation made by one of  MLA’s teachers! 

My crime?  Iam the parent of an autistic child!

Human rights?  IGNORED

Legal justice? UNAVAILABLE

Where’s the evidence? NOT REQUIRED, HERE-SAY AND SPECULATION IS ENOUGH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i17dWD9npg&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkjD7Bj3oU0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf5XR7w9H-Y&feature=autofb

http://www.forced-adoption.com/introduction.asp

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me -
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller

Now it’s our turn to speak out, let the world know of Britain’s secret shame!

Your child is at risk particularly if they are a perfect specimen!

Energy Assistance Package, that’s a joke for a start!

So I did what I am supposed rang the EAP people to book a survey to have my loft insulated.  The ‘surveyor’, yep another joke, duly turned and poked his head through the loft hatched and declared

‘You loft is fully insulated and your not eligible!’

At which point I pointed out the error of his survey and that only half the loft insulated and the rest, through the hole wall, is totally uninsulated.  Suddenly I become eligible!  Well I knew that, that’s why I called them…doh!

So last week the insulators turned up, or should I call them insulters?  They poke their heads up in the loft have a quick root around and declare with their professional wisdom

‘Your loft timbers are heavily infested with active wood worm and we can’t do anything until that’s treated!’

At which pointed out to them that the timbers were treated and I shall have implement my guarantee, which I duly do.  I could not at this point argue the point with them until I was in possession of the full facts.  As luck would have the surveyor, you know one that has qualifications and degrees, had a slot free the very next day and made a complete survey of the loft and the timbers and his findings were in total contrast to the ‘professional’ ramblings of the insulators.  I make another call to the Energy Care lot and tell them in no uncertain terms that there is no active wood worm and the timbers are safe, another appointment was booked for today, first thing…8am.  So the van turns up here, miraculously knowing exactly were I live, which is not easy to do or find or were they told by the previous lot???  Anyway they are reluctant to get out of the van, reluctant to come into the house and even more reluctant to go into the loft.  The first thing they find is, what for it, active wood worm.  Yeah right!  However knowing that they could not get away with that they proceed into the second loft were they declare that

‘under health and safety we can’t insulate your loft as we can’t get through the hole in the wall and there is wood worm’

At this I point out with my letter from the surveyor the error of their ways to which they reply

‘we don’t care what your surveyor says, it’s not safe’.  They phone their boss, under my insistence, but they wouldn’t phone in the house so I followed them out and insist that I speak to their ‘boss’ who gives me further words of wisdom like

‘your surveyor is not a loft insulator surveyor and therefore is not qualified’

My reply ‘ no he is just a qualified specialist in old houses, timber, wood worm and all things to do with houses’

He also informs he will come and do survey tomorrow and ask him when as I have life and things to do.  He refuses to tell me just says

‘I will call you tomorrow’

I ask again when because I won’t be in, he won’t tell me.  Just says he will call me tomorrow.  I keep asking and get no answer.

The up shot is he threatens to take them off the job and I reply ‘good’ and tell the insulters to ‘get out of my house NOW!’

No why  have I called them the insulters? Because on tell them to get out of my house one of these guys decided to take the piss out of me by laughing at me.  He gets out of the house and I shut and lock the door on them where by this guy bangs on my door in anger….hence the insulters!

I immediately get on the phone and try to get past the Manager of the Depot which proves to be impossible.  I phone my MSP, who is supposed to be getting back to me, I phone the Energy Trust head office who too is supposed to be getting back to me I also find another telephone number and guess where that goes to?  Yep the same people.  So basically the Energy Care Group has the monopoly and there is no where you can go to complain or get satisfaction.

You may say perhaps I should have been less angry and they would do the work.  Well here’s the thing they wouldn’t do the work under the guise of ‘health and safety’ they effectively put a ban on the job BEFORE I got angry.  I also think I had a perfect right to get angry as they have done this twice to me know , and that’s twice too often.

I have phoned another company regarding the insulation under the grant scheme and they are coming out in about a months time.  I checked they have nothing to do with ENERGY CARE GROUP or SCOTTISH AND SOUTHERN ELECTRICITY and they are also a company I have used before with proper complaints and answerable procedures.

One thing I can tell you about Scottish and Southern Electricity is that I would bet my bottom dollar that if I was paying top whack for my loft to be insulated there would be no issues even if my house is old and gnarled and the loft access small!

Energy Assistance Package should actually be renamed as How we can con the Government out of money without actually doing any work!

MLA went to his dog training session today as normal.  After the lesson as per usual the dogs were allowed to just play with each other, which sometimes can become extremely noisy and boisterous so MLA’s dog usually watches from the outside.  Not today however, no today she promptly did a very nice play bow to one of the more boisterous puppies and promptly started a great came to legging it round in a circle.  Unfortunately the puppies owner failed to see the game and mistook it for growing aggression on behalf of her puppy and stopped the game.  Still MLA’s dog was not giving up there and promptly found some more dogs to play with.

This is a major break though as MLA dog is very timid and this shows that her confidence has grown enormously!