COMING HOME - AND WHY I NEED HELP

         Happier days. A few years after Paul's accident.

 I’D like to explain why I need help for anyone who may think I have been living on the Costa del Sol or something similar. I haven’t. I have been working (in a town just outside of Murcia city) and living in what can only be described as awful circumstances for a few years now.

The first year here I had a contract so things were okay. But then I had to find alternative work - I teach ESL - and the only work going was with an academy where I couldn’t get a contract, so am just paid by the hour and as I’m classed as self-employed I pay my own Social Security which, after the first year when you pay about 80€ a month no matter what you earn, has gone up to 316€ a month which is almost half my wages.

I get 8€ an hour and do not get sick pay or holiday pay even when the academy (as all academies here do) closes down in summer. It wasn’t too bad when I had some extra work and was doing 52 hours a week, but that has been cut and cut and now I’m down to little more than 20 hours per week which is barely paying my rent and SS, not to mention utilities. But I don’t use electricity much anyway, except to heat water for my hot water bottle. (Yes, it gets bloody cold here.)

For those who may be wondering how an almost 66-year-old woman is in this predicament here’s a link to a previous blog about how things sort of got to how they are now with the shock of coming to terms with my partner's accident, which left him a paraplegic, and losing everything we had. I should have received  my pension in May but am still fighting with the DWP over it as they are saying the years I spent caring for my partner don’t count. Even though I know NI contributions were taken out. But what does one expect from the DWP? Compassion? They think because I'm here they can get away with it; wait until I'm home!

I also had to find cheap accommodation, which I did, but with paint peeling from the walls, so many things which just do not work etc, it's not very nice at all. In fact when I return from work I just go to bed because there's nowhere nice to sit. Nowhere. I do have a sofa, but it's in a room so small that I can almost touch both walls, and is surrounded by boxes because I've never had shelves to put the stuff on. I'm aware it's better than sleeping on the streets, but it is incredibly depressing to come home from work to a place you hate and which is not in the least bit welcoming.

Anyway. I'm now looking at places to rent in north east England as they're cheaper there and have advertised for more online students so I can hopefully make a living. I can’t afford to pay to get my furniture over so I’m giving most of that to a couple of families I know who could do with a bit extra, and will just be coming with clothes, bedlinen, kitchen stuff etc. And my bed! 

I have been able to hire a van, self-drive one-way to carry me, my stuff and my dog as that is cheaper than us all going seperately, and now have a co-driver: a very kind person is flying over on the day I have to be out of the house and will share the driving with me, because it's a helluva long way to drive.

You may think it odd me wanting to come back to the UK when so many want to leave. Well, it’s my home, and although I have residence in Spain and can stay as long as I want, I AM still living in poverty. But at least in the UK I can be active, participate in protests etc as I used to. I have of course participated in the #BigPowerOff campaign, but that’s more a show of solidarity than anything. I want, I NEED, to be pro-active.

As many of you know I write for Critical Mass, but none of us get paid, we do it for the love of it and because we believe in what we're doing, i.e. countering the MSM narrative. I hope to be able to continue teaching - just by video rather than in person, but I already do that with a couple of students - and if I ever do get a pension it certainly won't be enough to retire on. But I wouldn't want that. Can't imagine it. Up until a few months ago when she had a leg injury, my 91-year-old mother in New Zealand was volunteering four days a week at a hospice, walking the dog every day and even swimming. So I think I have a good few years left in me! 

I don’t know what else to say really. Any questions will of course be answered. And any help gratefully (you truly have no idea how gratefully) received.