A furthur delay to the Ridge

Have decided to delay longer again the trip out to Lightning Ridge. For some reason I was feeling very anxious about going out there this month, I assume as I was concerned about being out of Sydney whilst the disability application was processed. The anxiety is likely unfounded, as I did ask at the work capacity interview if they had a problem with me being out of Sydney during that time, and he said it should be OK as they have my mobile number. But there's still a niggling worry in my head that they may ask for something more that I need to be in Sydney to access. 

As it's the same form that I used last year for the Sickness Allowance, I remember back then there had been a question I missed filling in and they sent a photocopy of it in the snail mail to tell me the whole process was on hold until this was done. I ended up going to the Centrelink office here and creating a big stink about it, pointing out it was unbelievable that they were expecting me to wait another couple of weeks whilst all this shit went through the snail mail, through their mailing system at Centrelink, interstate, as I had no fuckin money. Pretty much in those exact words. The lady at the counter couldn't believe it either, and had me fill out the photocopied pages there and she had it scanned and emailed that day from their offices.

It was in fact incompetence as well by the Centrelink person who initially received my forms when I lodged them, as they looked through the entire book to make sure everything was in order and overlooked the fact that the questions concerned had been missed. This was after I specifically asked her to look through it to make sure I'd not missed anything. It was another reason I was irate that day. 

If I had of been out of Sydney however, the letter from Centrelink in the snail mail would have just sat there in a pile of letters unopened until I got back to Sydney. I guess this is what I'm worried about; despite things going smoothly so far, you can never take anything for granted with Centrelink.

There's also the thing that if I buy a return ticket to Lightning Ridge it will cost at the moment full price at about $250. If however I'm on the disability pension, I get two trips a year on Countrylink transport anywhere in New South Wales for only $5 return. I told Simon that if it's only going to be about 2-3 more weeks then I'd rather wait and pay only the $5. He's not happy, but he understands.

To be honest I was starting to get slightly annoyed. Thought it a bit unfair that he seemed to be pressuring me to get to Lightning Ridge to see him ASAP. Maybe if he lived somewhere much closer, like Newcastle or Wollongong it'd all be different, but he's right out really far. It's a fuckin long long way out there.