My neighbours, Mike, and Quay Living…

I have decided that these people cannot rent space in my head anymore.

My neighbours’ windchimes are making a din and quite frankly I can’t bear it, I will be buying headphones. I can’t let myself become ill because of them. I don’t like to do this because I love birdsong, although they ended that. I also love the sound of wind and rain.

Now the man nextdoor has started hammering nails above and below the handle of the drop down bolt of the rear gate that they keep open. This breaches their tenancy rules. I’ve had to pull them out once, but they were put right back. Such immaturity is beyond me.

Quay Living, the letting agent, don’t care. All they want is their money. They couldn’t care less that the wider neighbourhood has been upset by their tenants.

Mike has been hard to get out of my head. It’s not my fault he thinks so little of himself that he decided I only wanted him to be my ‘cleaner, cook and nurse’. It’s not surprising though as when he lived next door he was treated pretty much like a dog. Not allowed out, not able to keep promises he made to me about making amends for waking me at 3am and manhandling me.

He broke my laptop, and is so cowardly that he changed his phone number. He must have much lower self-esteem than I ever realised, but it’s not surprising considering the relationship. She referred to him as a complete idiot, and the money I owed didn’ ‘matter, it’s Mike’s money anyway’. And she moved him a 40 minute walk from his work, telling him they need to save money, when there are rentals under £850 much nearer. It was to control him and keep him away from me. But it didn’t work. He came to see me, and that was what tipped me into love.

But it’s useless loving someone who is so messed up that they stay in a toxic relationship.

The Good News Never Happened…

For those of you who follow my blog fairly regularly, I wrote a post entitled ”Good News” a short while ago. Well, I’ve had an answer now and it isn’t good.

About a month ago, I had a visit from a local Chief Inspector of Police. He owed me an apology, as he had forgotten to write to me about a matter another officer had messed up. During the visit, several things were discussed and I mentioned the wind chimes. A Sargent told me he would visit and mediate but could promise nothing.

So yesterday, the Sargent phoned me and told me my neighbours still refuse to move the wind chimes. I was staggered. I thought that the police asking them might just shame them into moving them.

That is why I wrote the article I posted yesterday. It will appear in a local new source, but will reach much further afield. I hope to create a law requiring consultation with neighbours before installing anything that makes noise or visual distress.

I may never benefit from such a law, but hopefully others will, and it may cause neighbourhoods to be closer knit. As far as I can tell, these neighbours have no contact with anyone else in my road. I do, I have friendships and acquaintances.

In my chat with the sargent, he also told that Woodhouse will get her come upance, if not to do with her harassment of me, but sooner or later the law will catch up with her.

I feel comforted by these men, who enforce the law, although they need proof and evidence. These men are upright and honourable. They remind me of when and why I worked at the Citizens Advice Bureau.

All my career has been about empowering the disadvantaged and giving hope to the poor in spirit.

I’m not changing. I will not become bitter. I will keep my spirit sweet.

So the good news never came, but good will come out of this. I believe that with all my heart.

Pain, garden and anthologies…

I have to say that since I was told an attempt will be made to get my neighbours to take down the wind chimes, I have found that they cause me to be more on edge and more pain. I don’t know when it will happen, I will only be told afterwards.

I know this could be psychosomatic, but also the effects of the windchimes have been cumulative. I have managed so sow some seeds, and dead head some flowers. I cry out in pain, but the pleasure of my garden is a pull, even in this very cold weather. Tomorrow the gardener to whom I gave my piano is coming to put back some flower bed near the house. I won’t have so far to carry my watering can, but drought tolerant plants will be planted anyway.

I’m looking forward to this. I love designing flowerbeds, I like swathes of colour. I have mislaid my spring bulbs but hope to find them tomorrow. I have a lot of plants in bloom out of season, but although scary due to climate change, I’m enjoying them.

In twelve days One Hundred Memories, an anthology for the Alzheimer’s Society is launching. I am a contributor. It will be great to have a copy. I’ve been in several anthologies, but this will only be the third one of which I will own a copy.

Persevering…

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An old friend came over this morning. I realised I was in a very irritable mood, which is very unlike me. He put together a piece of furniture for me which is so very kind. I don’t remember when I met Jim, but I’ve known his wife since I was sixteen. She’s older, but I have no idea by how much. She’s just always been my friend, even when we haven’t been in touch for years.

I don’t know what to make of this mood. I feel very hot and the ceiling fan on. It’s not a hot day and the humidity is lower than yesterday. I’ve had irritations, but they don’t usually get the better of me. I threw up this morning because I mentioned what Mike had done to me. It’s still very raw and painful. But I found my front door key, it was on the bed after I remade it when Mr Ebsworth left.

The wind chimes my neighbours have continues to provoke symptoms of my disease that I haven’t experienced in years. My left arm and foot do their own thing. I cannot control them. It’s worrying. My neighbours have been told by letter that the pitch is making me ill, but they refuse to take them down.

My laptop is very unwell indeed, as it got kicked to the floor by accident while Mike was here. He seems unmoved by this, or by the money I spent on green groceries. I think I’ve mentioned this before. This blog is meant to be about my health and my journey with it. Not the bad manners of other people.

It is a legacy from when Dawn Woodward, a malicious person and compulsive liar lived next door. Just now I can hear some pipe music and I’m going insane. … It’s stopped.

I’ve also been trying to sign into my Samsung account and it is a merry go round. It has driven me into further irritation.

I don’t know what to do. Whether to stay in and rest or go out and see friends.

Slightly testy…

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I’ve had no progress on the wind chimes next door. I say next door, but it might as well be in my garden or house. I’m exhausted from the pain. It’s an intolerable cruelty.

Also, I have met all my deadlines so feel an sort of anti-climax. I don’t like how I’ve felt today. No one would have noticed. I have just been out of sorts. I made myself get groceries. I dislike shopping. Of any sort. Unless I’m in the Middle East, then I love wandering around markets.

It seems like I have a pressure at the back of my head, and just behind my eyes. In Germany, it is against the law to inflict such pain on anyone, especially a neighbour.

Still very tired…

• 

September is here so I feel a sadness. The warm long evenings have gone and the days are cooler.

I’m still feeling tired and there’s no reason for it. I’m eating healthily, although perhaps not quite as much as I should. I’m sleeping really well. I get plenty of fresh air.

The windchimes next door still cause me so much pain. That’s all I can think of that would cause this weariness. I have phoned the local paper.

I disturbed a monarch butterfly in my garden and then it lit on the ground in front of me. They are so beautiful. There have been no birds in my garden since my neighbour cut back his vines. A dead bird was put in my porch, which really upset me.

I’ve been to poetry readings, which are always good. Some people from Salisbury were there, which added more into the mix. I shall be reading there later this month.

I am going to have a nap, which is very unusual for me. It’s the only way I’m going to get through today.

Instagram: @purbeckpoet

The now waning moon…

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Look for the now waning moon in the morning this weekend. I know I’m late with my invite to the party, but this gives me such joy.

I lost an entire poem today. I had spent ages crafting it, and had tried and failed to turn it into a Word doc. Then I realised the draft has disappeared.

My head has been aching from the sound of my neighbours high pitched wind chimes. They refuse point blank to move them, and if only they were a lower pitch.

Great news is that my doctor has prescribed a smaller dose of the medicine that helps my breathing so much. I had to come off it because I was getting the rare side effects. A smaller dose will be ok. I’m trusting that.

So the good outweighs the not so good, and the absolutely awful. I try to look for joy in everyday things, and I find it. It makes life so much happier. Today I wrote about how a bee had landed on my skirt, and I discovered it as I sat down in a coffee house in Bournemouth. I found such pleasure in watching it, before it flew off and found it’s wiggly way through the door back out to the polluted air, and I wondered where it has been living.