Thoughts of a carer

  If you look me up on Linkedin ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/philbutton/ ) you'll know that I worked in IT for 36 years - that's around half of the time that IT has existed, if you think about it. Computing, as it was in the seventies, wasn't something I ever really enjoyed, but, as with anything to which you commit more than half your life, I have a sometimes-useful mine of experience from those days. What I find frustrating is that lessons have clearly not been fully learned from the mistakes my colleagues and I made maybe 20 or 30 years ago. Invoicing cock-up One story from a role I had many years ago relates to invoicing. At the time I was working on a fulfillment system, which interfaced to invoicing - because, of course, once an order is fulfilled you need to invoice the customer.  The invoicing team told me they would be running some tests at the weekend, which didn't really affect me. I was just not to tinker with any data that they had set up specifically to ...

I've just come off the phone after a regular chat with my mum. She's 88, living in a tiny bungalow in what was once a development of sheltered accomodation in South Cambridgeshire. (I say 'what was once' because, some years after she moved in, the council gave up on the 'sheltered' idea, just giving the residents a phone number to phone if they needed anything, and once-a-week visits from a council officer.) My mum was quite mobile in January 2020, but, as our leaders gradually put the fear of God into people, she stayed indoors in her tiny home from March that year. 'Use it or lose it' is the phrase my osteopath uses with regards to muscle strength, and, by February 2021, my mum was hospitalised due to her legs not working. She then spent maybe ten days in Addenbrookes followed by a couple of weeks in a rehab unit, where they were apparently much in demand due to the numbers of old people who'd stopped walking during the lockdown. By March my mum wa...

We have more space on our drive than most. We have a small courtyard garden in front of our garage (which is used for storage and as a workshop). I don't mean that we have done what some of our neighbours have - turned the drive into a garden, and are using the street or pavement as storage for our car. No.  Eighteen months ago we got rid of the car. And we don't miss it one bit.  When Viv was ill, the car was useful. Indeed, we couldn't have done what we did - go on holidays, go out to shops and hospital appointments - with her in a wheelchair without the car.  But even before that - back in 2016 - we were questioning whether we really needed one. For a whole year - March 2016 to March 2017 - I kept a record of every expense we incurred relating to the car - insurance, tax, maintenance, fuel, cleaning and washing - everything. I also kept scrupulous records of our mileage and purpose of journeys. Financial costs of car usage At the end of that time I was able to look at...

 I had a letter from three luminaries a couple of days ago: I don't know about anyone else but I have quite a number of concerns about these surveys, so I have decided not to pursue the invitation. Instead, I have written to each of the three luminaries explaining why I will not be participating. My letters are as follows. + + +  2 Mitchell Green Biggleswade Bedfordshire SG18 8GS Ms. Kelly Beaver MD, Public Affairs Ipsos Mori  3 Thomas More Square London E1W 1YW 8 May 2021 Re: Invitation to participate in REACT survey Dear Ms. Beaver Thank you for the letter from you, Lord Bethell and Lord Darzi dated 4th May (copy enclosed) inviting me to participate in the REACT survey. Much as I would like to assist the government obtain an honest, unbiased and fair picture of the spread of coronavirus, I am not prepared to participate in your survey, because I do not believe it will achieve this. There are a number of reasons I hold this opinion. I am detailing those...

One of the many things my ex wife criticised me for was that I rarely trusted people. She was right, and indeed I have never been one to do as I was told, without investigating the reasons why, and considering the risks of what I was being asked to do. Family experiences There are a number of reasons why I'm like this: one is probably genetic. My great-grandmother hailed from West Cork, not an area known for people with the most compliant personality. Another is background: as I've mentioned in a previous blog, my childhood did not consist of the calm, protected existence that seems to be expected nowadays - possibly at least in part to the Irish connection in my family, but perhaps also due to my parents being fallible, and living through World War Two in very different environments. Indeed, my mother and father were disparate characters: while her youth involved growing up in a small Northamptonshire town, where her mother played the organ at the local methodist church, his e...