Patrick has been up to meet with the housing officer this morning to review our application to go on the priority rehousing list.

They have told him that "the incidents are neither numerous or severe enough in nature to warrant being a priority."

Presumably this means that unless one of us is actually killed, they will do nothing and we have to accept living in fear of being attacked in our own home or having our home vandalised and damaged at any time. And that it's okay for Simon to be beaten and abused at school by the get of these fucking chavs and pikey scum.

What is the fucking point? Why bother even reporting these incidents to the police? Why don't we just buy a fucking shotgun and escalate things back, just take the law into our own hands since the law doesn't make even a pretence of protecting us. Or why don't we just kill ourselves now and save time later.

The woman told Pat that our best bet is "just keep bidding on properties, it may take two weeks, it may take two months but you'll get something eventually." Yeah fucking right, and why should I believe anything you actually say when the last woman to deal with our case just told us any old bullshit to fob us off?

Have to go now otherwise I will start crying at work and further ruin my Top Bitch image.

A mega-quick update, because I'm going down to the PC shop in a bit to pick up a new hard drive - 120gb. (It's my lieu day, I'm working Saturday this week.) This will mean reinstalling Windows and all my apps, but on the plus side, may solve the problems I've been having recently with the PC restarting without warning and the screen freezing.

I'm also a bit concerned about the operating temp of the PC - when it restarts it's coming up at 66 celsius, but I can't find anything online about max temp for an Athlon XP chip. Well I did, but I think it's in farenheight, but I'm not entirely sure. I shall ask the techie person at the PC store, maybe I need a new heatsink/fan as well.

In addition to this, after one forced restart last night, my display is now stuck at 800x600 with 4 colours. Tried reinstalling the video card and monitor drivers, but no luck. I really get pissed off with computers sometimes...

Work is going well - I went to a meeting on behalf of the boss yesterday, as she was at head office. Very interesting, all about resource analysis. Sounds like they are definitely going to put in a permanent call commander role (which will be known as "Network traffic analysis") but it will be run out of Ops Support and not on the floor. Which will be a bit of a bummer, as I won't see my pals, but OTOH I get on really well with the guys in Ops Support. Fingers crossed!

Got home from work last night and Pat went out to the DIY shop to buy manly things. While he was gone, Simon came running in with Nolly, the little boy from a couple of doors down, saying they'd been beaten up by some girls. I went out and soon enough, 4 lasses on bikes come bruising up to Simon and Nolly (while I was hiding out of sight.) I tried to talk some sense into them and restore some peace, but it's just impossible. The language! "fucking" this and "shit" that, these are 11 year olds for chrissake! If Simon was talking like that he'd get such a ding along the ear. However I'm not best pleased with him, because although he's not throwing punches, he's escalating these situations with his big mouth and attitude. One of the girls then kicked Simon right in front of me, so I gave her a shove, at which she wailed, "I'm gonna get me dad!" so I said, "Go on then, I'd like a word with him." She then started riding her bike off and took a fall which would have put to shame David Ginola seeking a free kick.

The only parent to come marching up the road was Tenisha's mum. Now Tenisha is in Simon's year (the only one that young in the "gang", I might add) and is about 3 foot tall, but with a mouth the size of the Blackwall Tunnel. Pat came home at this point, and had told Tenisha, "Get lost, mouth on legs". Tenisha's mum apparently works in a "massage parlour", so Pat told her "Fuck off, splitarse" which is charming Sheffield slang for a prostitute which I hadn't heard before. The woman went nuclear, it was hilarious to watch. Fuck this, cunt that, bastard the other...

Anyway we set up the video camera on a tripod watching the car all night in case someone had any bright ideas, but it appears to have escaped unscathed.

Simon is now confined to playing on the garden only since I can't trust his big mouth not to get him in trouble.

Pat and I are considering trying to get a council exchange. Shiregreen isn't known as a bad area (yet) in Sheffield, so we might get lucky, even maybe be able to move out of area entirely. We could consider Rotherham or even Barnsley... Even if I get this new job and it carries a substantial pay increase, I still don't think we'll be able to afford a mortgage on anywhere decent. We've got to get out of here, I can't take much more of this.

Been back at work two days now. Relieved to find that the two guys who sit with me, Matt and Andrew, are being retained and no longer at risk of redundancy. Thank fuck for that, because I seriously couldn't imagine how we would cope without them.

I was a bit disturbed on arrival on Monday to see the car park practically empty. It turns out that most of HR just walked on Friday afternoon. It appears that Capita may have slightly miscalculated and will no longer have sufficient bods to apply for the positions available. OTOH, this could be a cunning strategy on their part to being in existing employees of their from other sites. So far they have shown themselves to be total bastards, so I feel the latter is more likely.

Bumped into Andrea yesterday who told me she had heard a rumour about Freeserve, but wouldn't pass it on as she didn't want to scaremonger and had no proof it was true. Wonder what it was? Half-hoping FS is going, obviously not for the sake of the unit employees, but it would solve our seating problems at a stroke and provide us with some transferred agents!

It has been nice to be back, I feel really refreshed and re-motivated, even though I feel like I wasted my holiday a bit. In my absence the team didn't do too bad but results weren't as good as with me at the helm, heheh. Scott apparently managed to piss off all the Corre teams by throwing his weight around, which is no surprise.

As far as home goes, I am hating living here more and more every day. This area has totally gone to shit. Simon has been having trouble with the kids down the road again. Disgustingly, they appear to be picking on him because he is friends with Nolly and Noella on the end of our terrace, who are Black. Of course the children cannot be blamed at their age for taking on their parents' opinions, but it boggles the mind that these bigots are still clinging to their old hatreds in this day and age. It really makes me sick.

Told Pat we should look at right to buy, so at least we can get in with a mortgage on this house so in a couple of years time we'll be able to leave. Pat very resistant, as I was I initially, but I can't see any other way forward - the council will never move us. Pat seems to have resigned himself to remaining here, but it's killing me.

Terrible dreams last night about being trapped in a nightmarish urban wasteland with gangs of young men roaming around killing and mutilating people. Then I woke up... and nothing had changed :-\

Heheh.

When I came home on Tuesday, Simon was being tormented by a group of little evil brats from down the road, whose mother is well-known to us as a mad ginger. (Her husband's okay but she's mental - last Summer Pat went down to her house to tell her that her kids were climbing in the tree across from us and breaking bits off it, and liable to break their legs. She screamed in his face "My kids will play where they fucking well want!" much to her husband's embarassment...)

Anyhow, Pat chased them off, telling them to fuck off or else. A little while later, Simon asked me if he could go down to his friend's house to get his basketball back, so I said okay - it's only like 300 yards. A few minutes later I was wondering where he was, so I went out to look. He was running back up the road crying - the little shits had scared the crap out of him, pretending to run him over on their bikes.

So I goes charging up to them calling them a pack of stupid cowards and telling them to stay off our front or there'd be trouble. The little twats are sitting there giving me all mouth. Their dad (who's ok) came over and told them to stop being cheeky. But no - mad ginger slapper comes flying out and gives me the same charming speech as she gave Pat last year. I just shakes me head and walks off with Simon (whose basketball, sadly, had deflated).

Following day we don't see 'em, Pat reckons their Dad's told 'em to stay in. Fine.

Thursday I didn't go to work cos I was throwing up in the morning. When we got Simon from school, we went off to Morrisons, seeing as I'm working Sautrday and we had quite a bit to do today. Fuck me, when we comes home, there are two of the little sods (the mouthiest ones) hanging around 2 doors down from us, waiting for Bethan to come out and play. I give 'em an evil look but don't say nowt as we go past. I were thinking, well, Simon's not allowed out today anyway (grounded for not tidying his room) so it don't matter. But then as Pat's going back down to the car for another load of bags, the boy gives him the finger behind his back.

OK. I go out and tell both of them to fuck off now because nasty things can happen when you disrespect your elders. "Ooh, we're scared." RIGHT. I goes out the back, chucks a load of loose soil in a bucket and mix it up with some cold water. Mmm, nice. I go back out again and tells 'em they're being warned to get lost. In the midst of this, Bethan comes out of her house to play with 'em. I'm saying, right, where you playing, going down there are you? Lad's giving it lip again, then Bethan says she's not allowed off the front. Right fine. I go back to the bucket and get a mug from the cupboard (sadly my Spurs mug but needs must) and fill it up with a nice mix of mud. Mmm-mm!

Back out we go... again tell them to get lost, I don't want them playing up here and there's going to be trouble. More fucking lip from the lad. I says, right, you can play up to where Bethan's house is, don't you come no further down. Lad immediately jumps, hilariously, across the imaginary line.

I let him have the mug full in the fucking face. Not so hilarious now, is it, son?

(No I didn't throw the mug... that would be assault, and a Very Naughty Thing.)

He goes running off wailing, his sister's sitting there going "Go and get Dad!" I'm yelling "Yes go and get him, I want a fucking word with him! Get your slapper of a mother up here and all, I'll sort her out!"

Patrick comes out and makes out he's going to chase them, the little madam legs it as well.

5 minutes later of course, their dad (called Simon, just to be confusing) is knocking on the door. Now he's a nice bloke, but he really shouldn't be married to a mad slapper. That's his lookout. Anyway we have a bit of a discussion and I says to him that if he wants to be opening the door to the police 5 nights a week within the next 5 years, just go ahead and let his wife continue bringing them up like she is. But we're not having it up our end of the road - I will not have our Simon frightened to go outside into his own front garden and play, and I will not have attitude like that.

So Simon was very apologetic in the end, but I didn't apologise for my mud-slinging attack - frankly the little twat can think himself lucky that none of us wanted a crap at the time, otherwise he would have had a very fragrant shower.

Anyway, we haven't seen 'em today and hopefully they'll not come back up here - Simon said he'd keep 'em down that end. Man I'll be glad when we can move.

So anyway, day off today - working tomorrow :p Pat had a hospital appointment this morning and then we tried to go into town, but couldn't get a parking space anywhere, so gave up. Pat is going to be fitted for a second hearing aid on his other ear, hopefully this will also improve his tinnitus, as he finds his left ear is much better for that when he's got his aid on. After picking up Simon, we went down to the bank to complete an application to have Pat put on my bank account. Also made an appointment to get Simon an account; Pat will take him down the week after next. (They're really short-staffed at the local branch right now.)

Bit annoyed today as I was looking forward to a couple of lengthy shagging sessions, but due to going at it a bit hard yesterday I was too sensitive for much :\ So no shags tonight and hopefully I'll have recovered by tomorrow night ;-)

And so to bed...