Oh Joy!

This morning John set off for work at about 6.40am, bearing the fruits of my (and his!) labour. Yes, we finally finished the dreaded DLA form! Was up till 1.25 am trying to get it as well written up as I could, and staggered up to bed leaving John transcribing my illegible scribbles to the actual form. I don't know when he got to bed, but at 6am the alarm went off as he had to be in work for 7am today. All I had to do then was sign and date Section 2 and it's off to be photocopied and then sent Special Delivery. My prior claim ends on Monday and I want to be able to track it and know that it's arrived safely.

Despite being horribly tired I feel quite euphoric! Suddenly I have time again! The form took me 16 hours over 10 days to fill in, and that's just the time I remembered to log. This website is a mine of useful information, though I'm afraid I didn't have the time and energy to take it all up.

I found the last Disability Living Allowance Medical Report that I had done back in 2000. I disagree with quite a lot that the doctor said, but he did state that "According to her statement and I have no reason to disagree 3 or 4 times a week she does not get dressed and walks only a few paces to toilet". But best of all (from the point of view of having my claim allowed, hardly something to be happy about to be this disabled!) for the question "To what extent is the person's disability, as desribed throughout this report, due to physical factors?":

"She is suffering from a post viral fatigue syndrome since 92. The condition is variable but even when she is 'well' she cannot walk for more than 20 metres.

There is no evidence in her case that it is not 100% physical"

So now I'm expecting to get another medical, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm looking forward to having more time to draw and declutter. And maybe do some reading and catch up on the backlog of books and magazines that's built up while trying to work on the form. Yay, freedom!

Not everything has been doom and gloom though. My Dad gave John his telescope (strictly speaking an Adlerscope) and tripod. My camera fits on the tripod, so on Tuesday I took some time lapse photos of my Amaryllis while one of the buds began to open. I haven't worked out yet quite how to convert it into a short "movie", but hopefully I'll be able to. Here's a picture taken the following day when the bud had opened fully.



This morning I stepped out into the yard briefly to see how things are growing. It looks as if something has been nibbling the primroses and primula flowers. I wonder if the wren is visiting the yard again. My iris flowers are showing a hint of blue. I am so happy they are flowering again this year, last year they didn't. Once the flowers are over split and re-pot the plant, the current plastic pot is disintegrating!