Some of my readers…

Some people come here to be nosey. There are people who behaved so badly as neighbours that they were mentioned in my blog. I never say where I live, and would never put my address on here.

They moved because they were stupid and don’t realise there are many people with that last name here.

I am so glad they are that stupid as they made my life untenable and refused requests from the council and even the police to stop causing me agonising pain.

Who does that? Who knowingly causes unbearable pain to another human being? Torture is a war crime. They were torturing me.

They send their minions to hassle me. They don’t live a purposeful life. They live with bitterness and unkindness.

I am enjoying better neighbours now. I have made a window box for them and passed some of my daughter’s childhood things to their children.

I enjoy giving pleasure to others. I always have.

The previous neighbour believed me to have fake accounts. I’m not sure what that means. The flowers I sent were returned. She has written to other people about me maliciously.

What a tiny, sad, mind.

Bleeuuughhh…

I have found this week hard. Someone shouted at me in my home and left in a fit of pique.

I hadn’t even finished my question.

I was left, open mouthed and shocked.

Quickly I dissolved into tears. I sobbed for a couple of hours.

This was the help I had wanted so that I could live with more freedom. This woman was paid to make my life easier. My self-esteem had done well. My dignity had prospered.

One hidden resentment on her part blew the whole thing out of the water.

That service is available in my area except from the ‘company’ she works for. The company are all best friends, going to each other’s family events. And talking about clients.

So I was never going to stand a chance in putting my point of view.

Pablo Neruda…

Emerging

A man says yes without knowing
how to decide even what the question is,
and is caught up, and then is carried along
and never again escapes from his own cocoon;
and that’s how we are, forever falling
into the deep well of other beings;
and one thread wraps itself around our necks,
another entwines a foot, and then it is impossible,
impossible to move except in the well —
nobody can rescue us from other people.

It seems as if we don’t know how to speak;
it seems as if there are words which escape,
which are missing, when have gone away and left us
to ourselves, tangled up in snares and threads.

And all at once, that’s it; we no longer know
what it’s all about, but we are deep inside it,
and now we will never see with the same eyes
as once we did when we were children playing.
Now these eyes are closed to us,
now our hands emerge from different arms.

And therefore when you sleep, you are alone in your dreaming,
and running freely through the corridors
of one dream only, which belongs to you.
Oh never let them come to steal our dreams,
never let them entwine us in our bed.
Let us hold on to the shadows
to see if, from our own obscurity,
we emerge and grope along the walls,
lie in wait for the light, to capture it,
till, once and for all time,
it becomes our own, the sun of every day.

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More from Issue 57, Spring 1974

Buy this issue!

Entertaining Angels…

• 

Yesterday, through a complicated story that I won’t tell here, I became involved with a lady on a website who was looking for someone to clear and weed her garden. I ‘offered her a solution’ by recommending someone to her, and because I clicked on the ‘solution’ icon I was told by the website that I would get her money that she had set as payment. I was puzzled by her confusion as she seemed to think I would be doing her garden. This confusion persisted while we were exchanging texts so I tried to call her but her phone doesn’t take calls. But we arranged to meet, and it turns out she is deaf.

So I took a notebook and my mostly forgotten British Sign Language, and she arrived with her husband and toddler who are also deaf. They are a lovely family. The husband told me his father and grandfather were deaf. I asked if they would have cochlear implants for their child. The father replied no, because the hearing world should learn sign language. I have known for a long time that many deaf people feel this way, but to look at a tiny child and know he will never hear anything is a shock. They were very nice to me, thanked me for my recommendations and help, but made it clear that don’t want to teach me more BSL or become friends because I am not deaf, and don’t belong in their world. In a while, though, I will ask again if they will teach more sign language. I learnt quite a bit of ASL when I lived in the States, as the youngest daughter of a family I lived with had a speech impediment so she would sign, and we all signed with her too, as well as speaking.

On my way to meet this family, I ran into difficulties with my mobility scooter. A young man asked if he could help me. He pushed me to an ATM, and then to the café so I could meet the family. He said he had to get some shopping and he would come for me after 45min. This was perfect. So he came back and brought me home and wondered why my battery had not charged. I keep my ‘trolley’ as I call it in my lean to porch, but there is no door, so I said to him about making a door from a shower curtain to pull across. Later while I was doing stuff, I realised I’ve been given several sheets of wood. So I messaged him the idea of making a gate. He already said he would come back, so he said we can discuss ideas then.

I am so full of gratitude. I was able to make recommendations to this family. I met this very kind young man, and his partner is expecting a baby so I shall have a lovely little tiny human to buy cute things for.

Thought for the day…

• 

Yes . The lover you had. The horrid boss. The mother in law. Theperson at the photocopier. Every one.

Serendipity

• 

Yesterday morning my kettle would not switch on. After a few moments I realised the unit had tripped, so I pushed up the thingy on the consumer unit, and made my cup of tea.

A couple of hours later, after having taken some lunch to a friend, my trolley (the mobility buggy I use to get around) was losing power. I could not understand it. Then I realised that when my kitchen electricity had tripped the power to my trolley on charge had stopped. My trolley is plugged into my shed which adjoins my cottage and is on the same circuit as my kitchen. My trolley stays under my porch, but moisture affects the converter which sits on my kitchen window sill outside.

I was hoping I could make it home but I was at a snail’s pace and then I noticed a young couple beside me and I asked if I could be pushed. They asked where I was going, and I gestured forward and said that even a few yards would be a great help. They started pushing and I asked where they were going. The Quay, they said. I live by the Quay so they took me always the way to my gates and to my back door. As we went along, only a few hundred yards, we chatted and I explained that it hadn’t dawned on me that finding my kitchen tripped would mean my trolley would not have got a full charge.

When we were at my place I got a plastic bag and tape and the two of them made my converter as watertight as possible. Then we sat in my garden and chatted. It started to rain. Big, fat, juicy drops of rain. At first I did not move as I was so pleased. Then I realised that not everyone sits in the rain, so we moved indoors and chatted some more. It turned out they were on their way to have lunch, now a very late one, so they left, promising to call when they were next on the Quay or High Street.

Today, my trolley has no power. I don’t know why. I’ve tried to phone the places they work, but as yet no response. But all is well, as this enforced stay at home has given me rest and time to get things done. I know I will hear from them.