3.30am, I wasn't sleeping, I was having terrors about the church, so when it started to rain I got up.
I stashed my bedding and walked into town, it was about 4am by the time I got into town, McD's was full of drunken all-night revellers but I got a bottle of orange juice and a cup of tea, and went back out into the rain rather than stay in with the revellers.

Thomas was sitting alone on the steps, smoking, he is alone in his porch now his porch mates have moved on, and the rain must be soaking the porch now.

I went down to the lockers and got my things, and sat in the shelter of the bus station to sort my things out, then I went in the toilet and had a thorough wash and took my meds and changed my underwear, socks and teeshirt.

Time is creeping on, 4.30, I walk back to McD's as the rain continues, I get a cup of tea and wait until McD's starts serving breakfast, I get a bagel with philadelphia, 5.15am and it is still dark, good, winter is coming.

I go out and walk in the dark, the rain is easing up, I walk onto the dangerous ground where the addicts prowl, I don't know why, but there is no one, just revellers heading home.

I go and sit on the tram stop and make faces at people on the trams, it is quarter to six and almost light. people and buses are increasing in number.

I get a copy of the free paper and go back to McD's to read it, it has stopped raining.
7am, the free shuttle bus is running and I shutle up and down until the library opens at 8.15am and then I sit and read.

10am, I am supposed to be doing maths and English tests today, this is not a good day to be doing tests as I have been up and out in the rain since 3.30am, but I go ahead anyway.
It is very stressful being in the learning centre, I hate it, I am trapped and crowded, my English is too high a standard for them to teach me, but it is the maths that I want anyway, my maths is not good because of learning difficulties, and that shows on the test, they want me to start maths next week, but there is no way I can cope with the learning environment.

I meet my friend for lunch, we have a jacket potato in a cafe, very nice, the weather is going to get worse so she said I could stay over with them if I could get to them after 11.15pm as they are out until then, God, this is going to be a long long day.

I spent the rest of the day in the library, and then went to the soup run.

Soup run was good, and I got talking to some of the volunteers, they invited me to walk round with the soup run, and they prayed for me as I was in pain.
There was a guy who was drunk and kept getting down on his knees and asking the volunteers to pray for him.

I ended up with FAR too much food, 10 packets of crisps!? they must think I am a bit hungry!
They were very nice to me.

Nearly 9pm and I am so tired that I am afraid that I will fall asleep somewhere, which would not be good, it is Friday night and this town is exceptionally dangerous on weekend nights.

I go and put my food in my locker, then I make my way up to McD's again, my phone is dead and I ask them if I can charge it because otherwise my friend won't know where I am when she comes to meet me at the bus stop.

I sit in McD's, charging my phone because they are kind to me, it is raining again, and the place is full of drinkers and partygoers, not long to go and I will be able to sleep again.

I charge my phone for 25 minutes, it is a cranky old phone, but now I have enough battery.
I go to the bus stop and shelter in a porch as I wait 21 minutes for a bus.
Someone tries to beg bus fare off me, but I have barely enough money for myself and they are obviously not in need.

I get the bus and make my way up to the area where my friend lives, I shelter in a doorway as the rain is torrential and wait for my friend, she comes to get me and we go home and have a cup of tea, and I fall into a deep sleep as soon as I lie down on the floor.

That was a long day.

I still don't update the blog very well.
I have been on more picnics, been to see castles, been to church.
Been staying at my friend's house, and getting as upset as usual about being indoors.

Hi, sorry I am not updating the blog as I should.
Hard to update because I am battling despair and the weather.

Had basic skills tests today, did really well in English apart from communication and comprehension of conversations - typical!
Maths was harder and I am supposed to do a maths course now.

It's so hard to write anything these days, so hard,
I feel so ill and defeated.

On Monday evening I continued my walking challenges and walked a few miles to the out of town soup kitchen, it wasn't worth the walk.
I got back to my sleeping place early and slept, my friend is staying indoors with his friend, so he is not in his porch at the moment.
Tuesday: My money is running out, I get a cuppa at McD's and get my meds from my locker, I go to the daycentre and take part in messy paint-ey art class, then I go to where my friend is picking me up, we drive to the place we are having a picnic, it is a big old manor house with parkland and deer.

We have a lovely picnic and I roll down the hill a few times -which I regret later - a combination of the nursie massaging my injury sites and the rolling triggers pain and migraines.

Anyway, after the picnic we go and have a nice cup of tea and then we go to look round the manor house which is a museum, then we have ice creams. We see the deer and I try to get some pictures on my new old camera phone.

My friends give me some money to keep me going, I never ask or expect anything.

I go back to my friends' house and we watch a movie and have supper.

Then I go to my sleeping place, bed down and sleep with just a wake up in the early hours again.
I wake in the morning feeling like I have been run over by a tram, I ache all over and am in pain, damn hill rolling, I must grow up one day! :(

I stagger down to the tram line and get the tram into town and get a cuppa at McD's, I go and sit by the church and my friend comes for communion and I go with her, after communion she offers to buy me breakfast, so we go to a cafe and I have a bacon roll and tea and she has a cappucino.

Then I go to the daycentre and make a nuisance of myself for a while. Then I go to the homeless drop in at the church. I end up chatting to the female nursie there.

Then I go back to the daycentre for lunch.
The staff warn me that the weather is going to be terrible tonight. So I text my friend and take up her offer of letting me sleep in the garage.
She says she will collect me later.

I make my way to the library and suddenly start feeling very ill, my belly hurts, I feel sick.
It is torrentially raining and I take up residence in a toilet cubicle in the library until it is time to go and meet my friend.

I think I will be ok now, feling better. I get soaked waiting for my friend. We get to her house and she starts thinking about supper while we watch a game show, and then I start being sick.

I was sick a lot, fortunately always in the toilet or a bowl. There is a bit of blood as well.
I had a bath and was sick some more and my friends ask me if I want to sleep in the front room, which seems sensible under the circumstances, I lie down and sleep on the floor in a pile of bedding, there is a window open but the house seems too hot and dry for me and I am aching and queasy and ill.
I sleep and dream, something about Woolwich, where the hell is Woolwich and why am I dreaming about it? I have funny dreams, the other night I dreamed I was holding the olympic flame but it was a candle and it melted and I asked the people around me if any of them wanted it as a souvenier.

I got up and felt dreadful again but I wasn't sick, I had a cup of tea, but I didn't want food.
My friend dropped me off in town, I had a meeting at the daycentre with safeguarding because of the bogus counsellor man, the meeting was short and sweet, he has had a slap on the wrist and the church are aware of things, that is the end of the matter. Phew.

I had another cuppa but no breakfast, and a shower, then computers, then went to see the nursie about being sick with blood, as I thought it is nothing new, just the usual.

I feel queasy, I think I need morte tea, and a 100 mile train journey.

Sorry bloggypeeps, I keep forgetting to write the blog.
I will go back to Friday and see how much I can remember.

I enrolled on a Maths course on Friday, it will be Friday again before I can do the assessment and start the course, which will get me to a decent grade GCSE equivelant.

On Friday night I went to soup kitchen but I was fed up of being pawed and pushed about by the addicts and fed up when the staff took to asking me, in front of everyone, where I was sleeping. So I got rather cross, I also got worried about how irritable and snappy I am getting, the depression is deep, and I have had too many traumatic events recently, the hospital ordeals, the bogus counsellor, the being flooded out and the attempted assaults and threats by the addicts.

I took the advice of the daycentre man and didn't try to pitch my tent as I get too distressed, I slept where I have been pitching the tent and was perfectly comfortable, but didn't sleep deeply. Waking in the early hours is becoming a habit again.

Saturday morning, I move quickly and leave nothing but a little puddle to show that I was there. I get the first bus into town and go to my locker where I go through my routine of stashing bedding, taking my meds and getting what I need for the day.
I have a wash in the toilets and go to McD's for my breakfast.
Then I spend most of the day in the library as there is no daycentre or outreach open.

In the evening I read my book until the daycentre opens for it's weekend evening outreach, I chew some supper and have a shower and read my book, but I don't enjoy being there, and there is the usual problem with drunken immigrants getting kicked out.

I get the bus to my sleeping place, I sleep undisturbed.

The first bus on Sunday morning is quite late 8.10am, and I am up by 6.15am, so I play on the playground gym equipment, doing some light exercise, and I get the cheap newspaper and read it and I play games on my phone, I am used to having to pass time.
I get the bus and go into McD's for a bagel and a coffee, it is Sunday after all. My friend is absent from early communion and I go to have a wash in the toilets.
Then it is time for church, I have been looking forward to it all week and a bit nervous that my hopes will be dashed and it will be horrible.
It is not horrible, it is lovely, I get to church and start drinking tea, an elder comes up and asks about my week, I tell him it has been a struggle, he asks more and I tell him. He says there is a food parcel for me, and he goes to get it, it is a hefty parcel. He asks if there is anything more that the church can do for me, I ask if they can pray for me, he says that after the service they will gather some people to pray for me.

Other people come to greet me and chat, a couple invite me to have lunch at their home after the service, yes! at last a Sunday afternoon not spend miserably waiting for the evening to come with nowhere to go.

The service is the usual, good. Afterwards one of my friends adds to my food parcel and arranges to collect me for lunch club picnic on Tuesday.
The elder and two others pray for the problems I have been facing with the alcoholics and addicts recently.

Then I go with the couple to their home, they have invited another lady too, and we have a good meal and lots of chatter, then I embarrassingly start dozing, the combination of tiredness, a good meal and a warm hous makes me dozy. They tell me I am welcome to doze, I end up asleep for a few hours.
When I wake up we go to the evening service and afterwards the church puts the olympics closing ceremony up on a big screen and we have coffee and nibbles and watch the ceremony and chat.

Then it is my bed time and I go to get my bedding and scoot up the hill because I have no money left for bus fare. I bed down in my old drain and no-one disturbs me as I sleep snugly, I wake vaguely in the early hours for no apparent reason and sleep again.
I get up at 6.30 and stash my bedding. There is an immigrant sleeping nearby, I pray he hasn't seen me as that would put me and my bedding in danger.

I go into town and get a cuppa, then I start an adventure that I don't want to start. The daycentre in town will close for two weeks soon, and I have to take myself to the out of town daycentre, walking, to familiarise myself with it, I have heard good things about it but I am nervous of it and the walk.

I manage to walk there, and find it easily! I am interviewed, as new clients always are, and one of the fist things the lady says is that she wants to see if there is a charity that will help with the costs of an agent to get my life story published! I am amazed!
She takes a list of things I will need, clothes, food, a spare sleeping bag, and gives that to the stores, and I line up for breakfast and a cuppa, breakfast takes a long time to arrange here, half an hour, but I get lots of tea.
I am asked if I want a hand massage, I have had this at another daycentre, it is a comforting therapeutic thing, much needed safe physical contact and soothing of tense muscles, she does my back and shoulders as well, I have a shower, change some of my clothes and get my breakfast, then I read, drink tea and have lunch, the new daycentre will be good for me, and I leave with my bundle of new things and get a bus back to town, stash things in the locker and come to the library for music and blogging and reading until this evening.

Last night was cool and clear, I woke properly at 3.50am, needing the loo, after a long time of needing the loo but being unable to wake properly.
I slept again and was reluctant to wake for the alarm at 5.15am, too depressed and too comfortable.

I knew I could be spotted if I didn't move, so eventually I did. It was 6.15am as I struggled yet again with the tent. I was nearly spotted by a dog walker.

I got to town and had some tea, I didn't have long to wait for the lbrary to open, and then the daycentre.
At the daycentre the staff talked with me about my life and future and I had breakfast, a shower and lunch.
My friend was at the other daycentre most of the morning, and he came back loaded with goodies.

I had lunch, wandered to the church, my friend was not around, but the verger made me a cuppa.

Then I went to  the lockers, swapped my morning bag (wash kit) for my afternoon bag (computer, notebook and pen) and came to the library, it is warm and cloudy outdoors.

Hello, welcome back to the blog.
After leaving my friends in Sattelite town I was deeply depressed and unsure what to do, how to go on surviving, and so the blog faltered as I wandered about unhappy and aimless.

so what happened? Well I went from Sattelite town to chavtown for a while but the homeless population in Chavtown had doubled and it was rather stressful and thin there, I learned that the outreach there were no danger to me as they had decided, with the help of a formal letter from me or not, to leave me alone.
I slept well in my porch in chavtown, and dealt with some major festivals such as the torch relay and the Lord Mayor's parade, which left town too crowded for me and further frazzled my nerves.
I then helped with a local festival on behalf of and for my friends, this reminded me of the old days when I used to help out at events, I had a lovely time and it helped me after my nerves had been further frazzled when the old emnity between me and my former friend flared. No harm except trauma came of that, I wish I knew how to be assertive, not react when I am hurt and how to conclude and walk away.


Anyway, I left chavtown after helping my friends with the festival, and I went back to Sanctuary, my old home on the coast, and said hello to my old friends. Then I travelled further afield and captured a new town, and that is where I am now, and an awful lot has happened since I got here!

I arrived here alone and depressed one evening, I made a new friend the next morning and she developed a regular habit of buying me breakfast or coffee, she is part of a church that is friendly to homeless people and offers some outreach, so I go there regularly to have a cuppa.
I was swiftly pointed in the direction of other outreaches as well, including the daycentre, and soup runs.

The daycentre have become a big source of support, I have a good breakfast and shower there each day, and I use computers there, access some medical help, get clothes, and drink tea of course.
There is also art class and books to read.

Shortly after arriving here I was sitting on the church steps, feeling very low, when a man came over and said 'you're homeless aren't you?' he was a quiet, clean, sober older man, I said I was, and he invited me over to meet his friend, another quiet, clean, sober older man, they were both rough sleepers, and they became my friends, we would meet at 5.30pm every day to have a cuppa and a chat, and also at the daycentre in the morning, and they helped me through a sad and thin time.
Then one day the first of the two men decided he wanted to return to his home town, so he went, leaving the remaining two of us bereft, but we have become very good friends indeed, completely platonic but very good friends, we help each other  through the bad days, we have a laugh, we survive together.

another friend I quickly made was another long term homeless woman who stays outside of most homeless outreach including the daycentre, doesn't get benefits but is clean, sober and very funny, she is always laughing and having fun, and I look forward to meeting her at the church for a cuppa. She lives in a tent.

Very soon after arriving here I was no longer alone, my new homeless friends, the church staff and congregation, the daycentre and outreach staff, and the congregation of another church that I chose to join means that I already know quite a few people even though I am shy and antisocial.

We have soup kitchen a few days a week, and that is good. Some outreach is closed for the summer, which is a pain, but I rarely go hungry, one person or another feeds me.
My posessions are in a big locker, but unlike the chavtown lockers, I do not get any money back. So I have to carry a bag with me and try not to access the lockers too much, otherwise I have to put more money in. But at least my things are safe and dry, and I don't have to carry too much.

Toilets in this town are scarce, so I am grateful for my radar key, and there is a toilet near the lockers, so if I time it right then I can wash and change in the morning or evening when I go to the lockers.

A man from church decided he could 'heal' me, and if you know my story you will know why this caused alarm. Anyway, i gave him a chance as he claimed to be a counsellor and I have started to feel ready for counselling, sadly it was a disaster and he tried to force me to accept that my lifestyle was wrong and he wanted to find me accommodation immediately, even though I am not ready to live indoors.
I ended the 'counselling' relationship, and that made him angry, and he made excuses for himself and blamed me for things not working, but my concerns came to the attention of the homeless health team, the daycentre and the church, and I was astonished to find that they were sympathetic to me and bending over backwards to help me, and still are.

I nearly left town at this point, I scouted out the neighbouring cities to look for a place to overwinter, but everyone surprised me again by asking me to stay.
So here I am, at the moment.

I am part of a church lunch club, and the people are kind and generous to me, it is hard to leave this town.

I was flooded out of three sleeping places recently by torrential rain, highlighting the difficulty to find a safe, dry spot to sleep, and I took the advice of many people and bought a small tent. Last night was my first night in the tent, and I was a bit scared, felt vulnerable, and had nightmares, but I got some sleep, which is what matters.
As well as a new tent I have a new sleeping bag and blanket to replace those ruined by the rain, I also have a new set of clothes and new boots, as everything was getting ragged and smelly.

Recently a drug using immigrant tried to assault me, I was carrying my bedding bag and gave him a hefty whack with it, he sat down, and I called the police, apparently there were onlky three officers on duty for the area that night, and so it took them half an hour, in which time I followed this immigrant as he staggered around and swore, and whacked him with the bag every time he turned on me. I also got photos of him on my camera phone, but by the time the police turned up, I had had to give up following and was waiting with someone who offered to wait with me after they saw some of his aggression.
The police said the man fitted the description of someone who had been reported by other women for accosting them and attempted assaults, so they went after him.

So with the flooding and that incident, I didn't sleep much for two nights, and now I am sleeping lightly and feeling stressed.

It was also recently that I went to the hospital and was given three new diagnosis to do with my internal problems, they explain why I have had some much trouble with sme things for so long. I am awaiting biopsy results that will probably be clear, and I am on double doses of meds and will be re-tested at some point.
Oh, I forgot to say I got taken to casualty with some of these probnlems a while back, got released at 3am, so another sleepless night. It was a weekend too, imagine casulty on a weekend night! :(

I am trying to work out where I am with my life and the future, and I feel very low and confused.

The library here has vending machines and loos, and is big enough for me to have space to myself.

Nothing else to tell you unless I have forgotten anything.