#yes this is about that mp thinking disabled people should have to job search to qualify for disability benefits

[fairyspheres]

this might be a radical opinion, but as a disabled person in chronic pain i feel like i shouldn't have to justify my existence by how useful i am to society. especially when said society can't even fix the things that debilitate me in the first place

[gaiatheorist]

Careful what you wish for.

Earlier in the year, I was unreasonably excited that more than one hedgehog was visiting my garden to noisily snuffle and snaffle up the food scraps that I’m still throwing out. “If there’s ‘one of each’, I might have BABY hedgehogs!”

Maybe I should have ‘wished for’ the winning lottery numbers, and bought a ticket instead? There’s currently a small hedgehog in my house, I think I last heard it mooching and snuffling down the side of my desk. I’m not ‘allowed’ to keep it, I jokingly messaged my son to ask if I could, and he responded “Mum, I’m not your Mum, don’t ask me that!”, we’re as bad as each other.

I’d used up all of my fully-functional hours of screen-time typing up my ‘impact statement’ for my PIP tribunal. (The advocate said he would do it ‘for’ me, but I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him, I have reported his conduct to my MP’s secretary, if he’s reneging on actions promised to me, he’s probably doing it to more-vulnerable people as well. I have food in my cupboards, and, through a bit of wrangling with one of my utility providers, I’m able to leave the electric heater on a low setting, some people won’t have had the luxury of being able to pre-plan their poverty-response.) It was a bit difficult to suppress my irritation with him, I was part-way through composing the email to the MP’s team when he emailed me the form he should have sent in September, the one I’ve been chasing in earnest for a week now. I responded that I was in the middle of something, but would print and post the form as soon as I’d completed the task I was on. *Ping* Not two minutes after he’d sent the email I’d already replied to, a text-message “Check your email, please.” *Suppressed scream, check YOUR email, I’ve already replied.* 

I’d done my mandatory work-search on the horrible ‘Universal JobMatch’ website, because I’m paranoid that if the computer systems check, and I haven’t logged on there, I’ll be sanctioned. There were a couple of semi-suitable jobs, but I didn’t apply for them, because they were both expired. One of them expired in May, and I had a very tinfoil-hat moment about that being a test, to see if I was actually looking at the adverts, so I noted in my ‘activity history’ that I’d viewed the vacancies, and that they were expired. I’d missed a call from the lettings agents while I was in the bath, and called them back. “The landlord wants to send someone to fix your heating Friday or Saturday, can you be in?” 

“I have an appointment at 10am on Friday, I can be back here for 11? Saturday’s better, I’m free all day.” (She’d said Friday OR Saturday, but the first plumber said it was a two-day job...)   

“Oh, I’ll have to speak to he landlord, then, I’ll phone you back when I have.” She didn’t phone back, and there’s every chance I’m going to end up having to cancel my counselling appointment on Friday morning, because I NEED the heating working.

Between emailing my MP’s office, NOT snapping at the dodgy advocate, and typing up the long and laborious table of everything that’s wrong with me, I’d gone out to the back doorstep for a cigarette. (Yes, I know, Mums, no more tobacco once I’ve finished this pouch.) There it was, about half-past-noon, a little hedgehog ran past my doorstep, and then stopped, trembling and hyper-ventilating on my back lawn. Hedgehogs are nocturnal, and I knew I’d seen something online about what to do with daylight-hedgehogs. I couldn’t remember if there was some illness or something making them behave abnormally, so the FIRST thing my brain decided was that it was almost certainly a zombie-hedgehog. (Which reminds me, I still haven’t watched yesterday’s The Walking Dead.) That’s what my brain does, it thinks up the most ludicrous and least likely scenario first, and then works backwards, not always logically, how I manage to get my trousers on the right way around in the morning is a minor miracle. 

I messaged Creepy Carpet Tile Man “Oi, Terry Nutkins, there’s a hedgehog in my garden in daylight, do I move it, or leave it?” The original ‘move it’ idea had been to shift it under the bushes where the other hedgehogs bugger off to at dawn, and hope it found its way ‘home’. (Mad image of hedgehog-Mum shouting at Kevin the teenager-hedgehog for staying out all day...) My cognition was already slipping at that point, I’d had a run of really poor sleep, with the additional stress of the PIP-thing, and the unreliable advocate. What I should have done is Google-searched (other search engines are available) for the daylight-hedgehog article. Instead, I’d messaged a wildlife buff, and now I’m worrying I might have upset him, because he’s missing the ends of some of his fingers, and the ‘Nutkins’ reference might have made him think I was mocking his infirmity. Welcome to my head. 

Creepy Carpet Tile Man didn’t respond until early evening, and I didn’t fancy the conscience-grief of just leaving the hedgehog there, and finding it toes-up, or disembowelled by a cat the next day. I put a towel down inside a box, and chucked some pate in. (I might have brain damage, but I’m not daft enough to give a hedgehog bread and milk.) I picked the hedgehog up, brought it into the house, and put it in the box. It didn’t ball-up, or try to escape, the un-hedgehog behaviour was concerning, I fully expected to be putting a cold hedgehog in my general waste bin, but I couldn’t not-try.  (Yes, it probably does have fleas, and yes, it does have ticks, I can see them.) Back to the laptop, to continue with the impact statement, because the advocate has absolutely no idea what he’s dealing with, and keeps telling me I have a ‘really strong case’, when he knows diddly-squat about me. Thinking on, I’d better read back through the whole thing, I clearly wasn’t firing on all cylinders, because I was messing about with a hedgehog.

The hedgehog warmed up a bit, and ate some of the pate, then it warmed up a bit more, and started exploring the box. I didn’t get my hopes up too high, and I’ve given myself a stonking upset stomach by eating the crust from a chicken pasty, to give the hoglet the meat. (No lactose, I checked.) I also gave it some kebab meat I’d found in the back of the freezer, and a saucer of chicken stew, with a banana, it went mad for the kebab meat and chicken, but doesn’t seem interested in the banana. 

I messaged my son a series of photos of the hoglet, unfortunately, he was in lectures, so couldn’t immediately respond to his probably-insane mother to ask her what on earth she thought she was going to do with a hedgehog. (He did say it’s not up to him whether I keep it... I’m not keeping it, it’s a wild animal, it’s not a pet.) Creepy Carpet Tile Man replied that I should give the hedgehog dog-food, and not let it out until it weighed 500g. I pointed out that, not having a dog, I had no dog-food, but that the little beast was very active, and chowing down on the ‘clean’ (ish) meat I’d been able to find. 

I spent a few hours yesterday evening watching the adorable little creature scamper around my living room. At one point it climbed into a shelving unit that I’ve now blocked off, so it doesn’t try to eat my Yankee Candles. It’s obviously quite a young one, because it was biting my toes. Bear with me, I’m not suggesting that adult hedgehogs would be repelled by my hooves, it was the soft-mouthed ‘play’ bite that young animals do to attract the attention of their parents or litter-mates, the grab-and-tug. Hedgehog, I’ve brought you indoors, and given you food, shelter, and warmth, but if you think I’m going to hand-feed you, because you’re impossibly cute, you’re wrong, there’s food over there, you can smell it, go and forage.  

I woke up at 4am, reasonably optimistic that the hedgehog would still be alive, and it was. I could hear it scuttling about behind the sofa before it poked its cute snout out, and snaffled some more kebab-meat. It really is adorable, but I’m not getting attached to it. I’m limiting my ‘interaction’ with it, I’m not talking to it, or handling it any more than I absolutely have to, because it needs to know that humans aren’t all trustworthy. It mustn’t ‘get used to’ my voice, or to being handled, and there were a couple of ‘Aw!’ moments this morning, when I saw it ‘behaving like a hedgehog.’ (Yes, it was a tad frustrating trying catch a prickly thing with claws and teeth before it ran off under a cupboard, but running and hiding is how hedgehogs survive.) I put it to ‘bed’ a couple of hours ago, after noticing it had curled up in a ball in front of the heater, tired-toddler style. I’ll buy some cat-food today, and probably phone a rescue centre tomorrow, I have lots of horrible paperwork I need to do while my eyes are still functional, it’s OK in a box covered in a towel for now.

So, I sort-of wished for a baby hedgehog, and now there’s one in a box in my living room. What I’m concentrating on now is ‘wishing’ that I can articulate my disabilities, and the impacts they have on me well enough to show the PIP tribunal panel that I really am struggling, and need help. That’s a pricklier issue than the one asleep in that box over there.