Married life doesn't really feel much different if I'm honest, it does feel more secure somehow though. We went down for breakfast yesterday morning and unfortunately for Lee I knocked over my mug of coffee which flew across the table and landed on his legs, his jeans were steaming.
"Oh god I'm so sorry"
"Its okay" he replied picking up the cup a waitress came over with some cleaning cloths.
"What happened?" She asked us.
"I caught the cup with my arm and it just went everywhere I'm so sorry" I apologised.
"One day married and she's chucking coffee at me" Lee joked, she didn't laugh obviously no sense of humour.
"Sorry love" I apologised again.
"Its okay it was an accident" Lee replied and gave me a kiss. "Are Elle and John still here?"
"Don't know they may have left already I'll text and ask" I picked up my phone and got up from the table to get some breakfast.
"Not sure I want anything, I'm not feeling too good", Lee replied. He didn't look good either he was pale and shivery. My phone beeped a message from Elle "We're still here heading down for breakfast soon".
"Elle and John are on there way" I told Lee as I ate my breakfast of beans, bacon, sausages, mushroom and scrambled egg.
"Oh right"
"You're feeling lousy aren't you?" He nodded.
"I'll have this cup of tea and then I'm gonna go back up and lie down okay?"
"Yeah that's fine" Elle and John appeared and we chatted as I finished breakfast.
"Sorry but I'm gonna have to go back to the room, I'm not feeling too good" Lee told them and gave me a kiss before he left the table.
"I don't know if he's hungover or ill" I told them both everyone was buying him drinks last night so it could be a hangover, but there's a bug going around so who knows".
"Oh I hope he feels better soon".
"Mm so do I otherwise today's gonna be pretty boring" I smiled. We said our goodbyes shortly after and I headed back upstairs to the room.
Lee wasn't well all day we went down to the bar for a drink around three but he'd felt really ill and had left only minutes later to go to the toilet in the room. I got up there and found him dripping with sweat looking as white a sheet. I'd helped him to bed and lay watching TV before falling asleep myself. It had been a long week after all and we were both exhausted. We'd ate in the room that night in case Lee felt ill again but by nine o'clock he was feeling lots better. We left the hotel the following day at noon and headed to my mums to collect the car.
Over the next couple of days we spent as much time as possible with Lee's parents before they headed back to Cyprus. It was sad saying bye not knowing when we would see them both again and when we dropped them at their hotel on the Tuesday evening there were a few pairs of eyes filled with tears mine included.
Then it was back to reality I got through information from work saying that my ill health retirement would commence from the 15th January along with my P45 and SSP1 forms. I filled in my Employment and Support Allowance confirmation pack with the missing information and then looked at evidence required for both of us. They wanted my P45 and sickness forms from work and required our marriage certificate. For Lee they wanted me to provide them with evidence such as Aeroplane tickets or his stamped passport to show him leaving the country in 2004 and returning in 2011. I rang them discussed, questioned, and eventually lost my rag. If I couldn't provide plane tickets for Lee, which obviously I couldn't, I mean do you have tickets from a flight you took in 2004? Then they required his stamped passport.... his passport hadn't been stamped... mine hasn't and I've been to Cyprus four times in the last year and Spain twice. If I couldn't provide this they wanted a letter from the home office to confirm his immigration status.... he wasn't an immigrant he was a British citizen, for gods sake!! I was fuming. Any lack of evidence sent could delay our claim and we were living on £125 a week now until our Employment and support allowance and lee's carer's allowance could be sorted out. In desperation we emailed our local MP to see if they could help and awaited a reply.
The following day which was the nineteenth of January we headed to the local Job centre to see if they could help us. We walked in hopeful only to be disappointed.
"We don't deal with Employment and Support Allowance you can use the phone" we headed to the phones on the wall and I waited and waited for an answer. Eventually I got one they still required the evidence what a waste of time!! I advised I wasn't willing to send original documents and so they advised me to get the job centre to endorse them as originals and they would deal with the evidence they got and take it from there. After half an hour the documents had been photocopied and my application was on its way but I didn't hold out much hope. On Friday the 20th we got good news though the MP was going to follow up our case and send letters to Employment and Support Allowance and to the Carers allowance team to see why the evidence was needed and see if they could push through our claims. We are still waiting nine days later!!
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