Monday

Well yesterday wasn't as uneventful as expected.

I was busy turning bins and recycling out onto the landing and trashing the bathroom when the landlady turned up.
She was amused at my cleaning lady impression.
She and her daughter had come round to gather up books and junk for a sale, they turned out the loft and the spare room, so with my cleaning and their clearout, the house was chaos.

They let me look through the books they were turning out, and I bough two books off them.

Then there was a surprise. The landlady told me there was a flat being vacated downstairs and she asked if I was interested.
She owns the flats.
I was flat-ttered. It was a vote of confidence in me.

I had a look at the flat, but I don't think I can afford it, more rent and then council tax and bills as well. The landlady said she would negotiate money if I was interested, but she does have someone else interested.
I don't think I can afford it, I can barely make the rent for the room.
I live in the landlady's flat as a lodger, but she isn't here most of the time so I caretake and look after the whole flat and sit here at the lounge table with the panoramic views of the sea, the cliffs, the hills and the town, if the landlady or her daughter are here and need the lounge, then I sit in bed and watch DVDs or sit at the little desk in my room and compute.
The downstairs flat would be my own space, but no panoramic views and more bills.

Anyway, I got on with my assignment and the housework.
I got the assignment in.

I started reading one of the books I bought from the landlady and her daughter, it is called
'No-one Listened' and it is a pretty devastating book.
It is about two siblings whose mother was killed by their father.
Years of domestic abuse had been ignored, overlooked, not acted upon, and the murder happened as a result.
The children came home from school to the chaos of the aftermath of the murder.
From that moment their rights and needs were overlooked and nobody told them anything or gave them any choices or warnings of anything that was going to happen.
They were dumped with unfit foster parents miles from home and endured further abuse and harm.
They had a terrible time with their father's trial for murder, and social services and the authorities didn't look after them or support them well.
When their foster placement broke down they were dumped in a care home and treated like criminals.
They didn't give up but fought for a better life for themselves.
They did so much better than me. They are admirable.

The book reminds me that it is not just me who has been treated shittily by the authorities but gone on trying and fighting for a better life.

There are some words in the book, towards the end that really resound with me, because they relate to my life so absolutely.
Isobel says 'It is hard to know which is the worst option, not being able to talk about your past, or being constantly judged for what happened to you years before'.

The church have left me as a fugitive who is attacked when people hear the church's side of who I am.

Anway, because I couldn't sleep, I stayed up and read that whole book. I salute the courage, integrity and determination of those two siblings who didn't give up when all the odds were against them, and accepted and came to terms with every crisis thrown at them, stoically and bravely.

I didn't sleep well. I need to overcome this crisis of insomnia and nightmares, but I don't know how.
I was tired this morning and needed to get up and go and assess a new garden. It was hard to get going.
The new garden is massive but the type I can work well with.
It is down near where I used to live.
So after assessing and arranging. I went down to the sea, the waves were beating on the wall in the cold and sunny morning. Beautiful.
I will be doing that garden later this week. I am struggling to time things so that the money comes in when it is needed, but we can't arrange for me to do that garden today as they have other things to do, and I have other commitments until Friday, so it will have to be Friday after farm duties, or Saturday.

I am home, sitting here a bit tired, and working through mountains of paperwork and boring stuff, looking for the next steps in my freelance writing career, which will take time to build due to it being a competitive industry.