The gas ran out during cooking dinner, I stabbed the chopping board in frustration, when your strapped dramatic gestures like throwing your half cooked rigatoni arrabiatta on the floor are ill advised. I spent the morning reading the TASC report on who really took a hit in the Budget and how stats. mask the reality of poverty and suddenly I swung from being broke to being broke and hungry.
Ive managed very well for the last two weeks on very little, we have stocked up on veg and I have been experimenting with recipes and the spice rack with mixed results, all the while hoping my overdraft was repairing itself with my €250 a week trickling in to sooth its belly. In fact when I dared use it to buy some much needed groceries (€26.34)I was hugely relieved it went through. As the transaction approved message appeared I pictured a huge room full of people, like Nasa's control centre, jumping up and shouting 'Yeah' guys high fiving one another and women with their hair in tight buns wiping little tears of joy from behind spectacles. Somewhere bankers were celebrating, I would always love them, no matter what I said. Ours was an unshakable bond.
So a furious search of all chairs, pockets and copper jars finally yielded €29 to buy a bottle of gas. Dinner was served, at a cost of €5 for three of us, the tears shed in frustration earlier adding to flavour. Curiosity drove me out into the fog with a hound to check my bank balance in secret, confident that it would be repaired to the tune of €400 at least. I walked because there is no diesel in the car, and I was secretly hoping to reward myself with a little Fry's chocolate creme, we've been apart a while.
The overdraft is in exactly the condition it was two weeks ago, my loan and the broadband came out of it. It doesn't matter how often you see that
Available to Withdraw :€ 0.00
It never ceases to make you feel like a failure. No chocolate for you!
I am supposed to go back to college on Monday, I don't know how right now, a distinct lack of diesel may have me siphoning off the neighbours over the weekend. Perhaps a more noble pursuit now would be dropping out and getting a job.
My son came home with a school tour brochure the other day, it takes them to France next October. The price of this 5 day excursion featuring two ferries and a 'local' bus company? €470 euro per head and meals are not included (suggestion of €200 to cover food was made). We have not had a holiday in 5 years, and I guess you don't miss what you cant afford, but that is by all accounts an astronomical amount for a few days arsing around Paris. I have always made sure he has what he needs in life, Ive never let the lack of a second parent prevent him from any pursuit that may benefit or develop him. And given his difficulties in mixing and coping with secondary I don't want him to miss out on a social outing. I'm supposed to have a deposit of €150 by Monday. The killer line was when he came running back into the kitchen where I sat trying to wrack my brain for money making ideas and said
"Mam, do you have any gold?"
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