She could so easily have given in, gone on the social, had her kids pretty much paid for.

Instead she slogs hard to make ends meet.

Her son is 14. He’s getting a bit much to handle, and he certainly doesn’t like being a poor kid.

You can understand all too well, he wants the stuff his friends have. When I was a boy I wanted / needed a bike. Strangely now you can get a bike for less than I could 25 years ago, and his was just found somewhere. It wasn’t nicked, it had just been abandoned by some other kid, it just needed a bit of oil and a clean.

But he wants a phone, wants a PSII, wants cool gear.

Trouble is the only way he can get it is to steal, and so far he won’t do that. I do so hope he manages to retain his strength in rejecting theft. He does a paper round, he cleans cars at the weekend, he earns an OK amount of money, but Kate needs most of it to feed them all.

Kate’s home is clean. Not spotless, but clean. She cooks at home every day and serves up an OK meal.

Her flat is small, the kids share a room, and she has her own. It’s a council property so the rent is reasonable. Do you get the picture?

When I write some words tomorrow I’ll introduce the fellow I took to Kate’s house. He’s not an ogre, he’s not even unreasonable. We’ll call him Ken.

I’m going to write about the work I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks more like a story than the usual posts. And if I use the word ‘the’ more often than might seem sensible it’s because I have lost the ability to type the quickly and so I need to re train my head and fingers. The. There. The.

So yes. The story of these customers.

I’m thinking of one particular family.

I’ll call the mum Kate.

Kate works blinking hard. She’s a cook at the school. She starts at 9.00, which is cool as her youngest goes to the school she works at, that means she can drop the little one off and go straight to work. She finishes at 2.00, but the little ‘un doesn’t finish until 2.30. But Kate can’t hang around for her as her next job starts at 2.30 cleaning in a restaurant after the lunchtime shift. So little has to go home with her friends, and no one can know that she then just goes home alone. At six!

Kate’s shower is cracked and I just looked up a new one on UK Bathrooms as I’d just used them to buy Mum’s new suite. But of course Kate couldn’t even pay to have it fitted let alone buy the damn thing. I wanted to buy it for her but the poor girl was torn between anger that I’d seemingly taken pity on her, and gratitude that I’d even consider doing so.

It must be an odd thing being hugely well paid, for a long time you must carry on thinking you’re normal, leading normal lives. But then eventually you have to realise that it’s not normal to send your kids to private school. It’s not normal to get your driver to take your dog out to the park. It’s not normal to have a bonus each year at all, let alone one that resembles the GNP of some countries.

I’ve been introducing guys who are in that sort of position to customers who bank with us who might have nothing.

Nothing.

No house.

No car.

No job.

Or worse than that, a job that only just pays the most basic of their bills.

But then they have to do that annoying thing of eating.

And even worse, the kids need to eat too. How inconsiderate of them.

And then there’s the need for TV.

I’d argue against TV being a need – but then I can afford to go out. And so I’d argue that for these folk the TV is a basic requirement.

If it’s wet and horrible as it was over the weekend we have a tendency to stay at home. It’s natural surely. No one wants to get soaked when they don’t actually need to go out in the first place.

But for us that’s such a big mistake!

Living in a fairly small space works well – provided you get out of that small space on a regular basis. By that I mean really regular basis. By the time we went to Carluccio’s for lunch yesterday we were at each others’ throats to such a degree that it wasn’t until I made an unwarranted apology that we could actually start talking to each other civilly.

The rest of the day Y was studying so I took my leave and my dog and got pretty wet, but that was better than staying in the flat. She’s now using Essays marked by teachers to help her get a feel for how well she’s doing. It’s funny in a way because I know she’ll get a top mark for absolutely everything she sends in, but I guess it’s a good thing that she doesn’t get complacent.

And after the horrors that the clouds threw at us all weekend we’re now back to work in glorious, if chilly sunshine again. Arrrgh!

She laughed at my sensitivity on the hair loss points, but strongly denied having talked to mother about it, and I do believe her. But then she admitted that it was a bit of a set up and if it hadn’t been for her noticing that the place sells propecia then she would have referred me to one of their viagra type products. That would have really pissed me off!

It has rained pretty much all weekend and we haven’t done much yet. I reckon we’ll need to get out today though or we’ll have early onset cabin fever. Even if we just go to Carrluccio’s around in Clerkenwell that will be better than staying in. I proposed talking the papers and the new Wallpaper mag down there and it seemed to be accepted. Thirty quid on a light lunch is worth it to avoid us descending in to the snappy bity mood we achieve if we’re at home too long.

I got a tad snaky on the subject last night and I now think she thinks I’m more sensitive than I am. But still I think a man should be allowed to quietly lose his hair without too much attention being brought to it. I already have it cut really short and every couple of weeks so that you won’t notice as much. I think what I’m most sensitive about is those two talking behind my back like a couple of witches – though of course she denied it out right when I challenged her and had another go about being touchy!

Pah!

We both love notebooks, we pay far too much for lovely Moleskines, and love the French cahier style ones the name of which has momentarily escaped me, and then there are the ones from Paperchase with hard, semi transparent coloured covers, and even real old school ones from Labour and Wait that really are the horrible things we used in junior school, horrible back then, but much loved now.

At work there are young kids going around as if glued to their i-pads, convinced that they will never need pen and paper again, but they’re missing the whole experience. Even if only the experience of not knowing which notebook anything was written in.

The fact that I might never open a book again doesn’t cut any cloth with me. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to having anything to show for my work.

But every time you take the tube on a work day you have to vow never to do so again. It was horrible, made worse by me being a bit later than I would normally be. That’s because I had taken clean, ironed shirts to work yesterday for the week, but not bothered to iron a reserve for the flat. I truly don’t mind ironing, but I hate doing it either in a rush, or in the morning, and today involved both.

SGB was a very grumpy man by the time Canary Wharf station finally came along. Crushed in with everyone else lacking the imagination to get up earlier – surely not all of them could have needed to iron, and intended to catch ride the bikes? In which case is this the fate they accept for themselves every day? When just a bit of change could make a difference – like getting up earlier. Or something like riding a bike could revolutionise their journey.

It’s probably a good job that we’re all different, but sometimes I just thing the masses are plain stupid. No social services job for me then!

What I have noticed though is just how early the sun comes crashing into the flat now we’re moving away from winter at last. The bedroom is at the back and pretty much west facing. That means that as soon as the sun pokes up above the flats and offices across the street, we have blazing light in the bedroom.

It makes me dream that I’m being pursued by a car with its headlights on full. It feels as if it’s actually hurting my eyes, and I am getting to really hate it. Strangely Y doesn’t seem to notice at all and she thinks I’m being daft. That’s all very well but I have to do something about it and i’ve been looking at websites at work this morning selling blinds of all sorts and kinds. I reckon these roller blinds from Tuiss will do the job, full blackout!

Y can always pull them up a bit when I’m not around if she’s obsessed with getting more light in after I’ve got up. And actually if I can just stop it shining right onto my eyes I reckon I’ll be happy anyway.

Who’d have thought that a bit of light could cause a man such grief! But I’m absolutely definitely not making it up.

Are they always wet and horrible, or is it just that we just remember the bad ones because we Brits are so good at moaning about our weather?

Yesterday wasn’t too bed, but today is grim grim grim. No temptation to go out other than a couple of quick pee walks for the poor dog. Mind you I’m sure that the dog seems to like just having us around, and the fact that we’re being a bit moany and not doing much more exciting than watching TV and browsing the web doesn’t seem to bother her at all, so long as we’re happy throwing her ball along the floor every now and then, and digging it out from under the sofa.

Tomorrow we’ll be back at work and wondering why we weren’t just grateful to be able to spend some time together with nothing pressing whatsoever. Like can be a bit like that can’t it? The stuff that we crave when we’re doing one thing can seem rubbish if it doesn’t go off like a dream.

I was reading a book about a fella who was gradually falling to bits as the dreaded alzheimer’s took a grip of his faculties and I vowed never to moan about anything again – but, as Y is fond of saying, it’s all relative. I can’t say I’m sure what that means in the context – but it seems to fit.