Dear readers, its Thursday once again and I hope that you are as well as you can be.

I was struggling to decide upon what to write for this weeks blog. It’s hard to get it right sometimes and we have had such a big news week because of the pandemic and the events in America.

This week I thought that I’d tell you how I am this week, I haven’t done this for a while and I hope that you don’t mind.

As you know I’m now suffering from long covid, after becoming ill with covid 19 in April. Looking back at how ill I was I should have gone to the hospital, but I didn’t mainly because I didn’t want to burden my local hospital when it was already struggling.

Since then its been an uphill fight to recover, basically its varying types of shit days. Bad shit day, medium shit day and a good shitty day. I laugh about this because its exactly how it is.

Today is a bad shit day because I didn’t sleep well last night, I’m in pain like many of you probably are, and I’m worried that the brain fog is going to return again. I’m stressed, fed up, is it bedtime yet? I rushed out of bed because the electric had gone so now I’m going to have to try and stretch the emergency credit out.

Long Covid, like Covid is a very strange illness, you don’t know when its going to hit you and how hard. Personally it hit me the most in my right lung, the bottom of my left lung and a bit on the top. This means that my breathing isn’t brilliant but its better than many others so I shouldn’t complain.

As we entered into another lockdown, myself and many others were already self isolating. Physically it really takes it out of me when I go shopping and I haven’t stepped into a big shop since before Christmas. I wish that I could, it would be great to see people again but I can’t, I need to keep myself and my daughter safe. I really don’t want to catch it again.

The downside to having to stay safe is that most of my shopping has to be done online. This week I’ve not been able to do this because it was bill week, and every penny was gone as soon as it arrived.

Online shopping isn’t cheap though. At best you can buy some things for the same price, maybe a few quid cheaper or basically you have to pay more. I’m in agreement that we shouldn’t buy things from Amazon because of how they treat their employees, but its been one of the only places that I can do my shopping on. Needs must, and I cant afford to take the moral high ground with this. It is what it is.

The good news is that we now have two vaccines available and hopefully we will be able to have our vaccinations soon. It’s important to realise that you can still transmit and catch a milder form of covid when you’ve had the vaccination, so keep safe until you’ve had all the vaccinations and keep this in mind.

This week I’ve been ranting about the governments refusal to state that they’re going to extend the £20 uplift that Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit claimants now get. Boris Johnson said yesterday that he wants to get everyone working… Yes in the middle of a pandemic. People are dying, more and more people are catching covid 19 and many more are now suffering with long covid.

Johnson hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing though, he didn’t even know that people are working and claiming universal Credit. People are dying, we need to keep safe and all he whitters on about is that he wants us all in work…

I’m sure that returning to work isn’t the primary focus of someone recovering from Covid 19, recovering is and trying to survive on the pittance that we get are our main topics to focus on.

The government wont extend the uplift and include everyone that was excluded the first time unless we fight for it. They don’t want to give poor people any money at all, so be prepared to fight for this. If it doesn’t get extended its going to be disastrous for so many of us.

£20 isn’t a lot of money in the scheme of things, but it does make or break you though. It can pay for a weeks shopping or it can be used to buy gas and electric. It’s a no brainier isn’t it. Personally I’m all for increasing it so that we are able to eat better, heat our homes more and spend money in the local community.

I’ll end it there, this weeks blog has been a bit of a rant and I apologise. It’s how I’m feeling at the moment and I’m sure that it will get better.

Keep safe and I’m thinking of you all