I was lying in my blankets feeling depressed and was very surprised when the summerhouse lady came in and sat for a chat, she usually only says a brief hello to me occasionally.
she talked to me about my life and health and tried to persuade me not to move on! I was surprised.
It is hard to think of moving on anyway and she brought tears to my eyes with her persuasion. We had a lovely chat and I feel kind of choked up.

I had my supper here in McD's and I used tomorrow's bus fare on it, so I will be walking into town in the morning.

My deed poll arrived and I am now someone else.

Hello new blog reader.

Today has been frustrating, I had to deal with trolls invading a happy and close-knit group that I founded on the internet, they were backstabbing chat-room type trolls and they disrupted a happy close group before I booted them out and changed the settings to protect my lovely people in the group. All is well now but that took up too much time.

I also keep needing to go outside and walk around, something to do with disbelief that I am actually leaving this town.
My friend is now a verger at the church nearby so I popped in to heckle her :)

Last night I went in McD's and syphoned their wifi, then I went home to bed, I am really battling depression at the moment, especially at night, but I slept in the end, woke up groggily and a bit late, so I washed and made coffee as I was out of milk, and waited until after 9am to catch the bus as it would be too busy earlier, in town I went to have my earring checked because one ear was hurting. It is a hurty ear, it is the one that gets most infected in the summer (I am allergic to the sun), there is no infection in it apparently, I just have to wait and see if it settles down.
I had breakfast at the market, a nice cup of tea and some thick peanut butter on toast.
It is cloudy, misty and drizzly here.

It is a misty type of day, cloudy, murky, today has been about trying and failing to write, trying to deal with my friend who I fell out with, and just feeling low.
I am also thinking of the road ahead, I will be moving on in two weeks, after my next session at the walking clinic.
It feels scary to be leaving the summerhouse, and indeed leaving this town and my friends here.

But it is time.

The depression is still overwhelming, so are the bad memories, so it can be hard to be alone in the summerhouse at night, last night I accessed wifi from the summerhouse and tried not to be alone. A ladybird kept buzzing around me and trying to tell me it was a wasp, so when it climbed into my tin mug I put the tin mug out the door, which baffled me in the morning when I forgot I had put it out.

I woke early with my alarm and wandered dozily out of bed and out the kettle on, packed my bag and headed for the bus, the bus was nice and quiet and soon I was in town for tea hour at the market.
I had a wash and a wander, and here I am, the bad memories are hurting me too much.

A bit of unexpected rain has rained on the town this evening, good.

I wish the wireless had a better signal, it keeps losing it's signal.

This morning I took my little netbook to the computer man at the market, he adusted the word processing programme and reset the wifi thing, and talked, he talked about how I should have a boyfriend, this is a comment that I am sick to death of, I said no I shouldn't, he said why not? and then launched into something about how women can 'just go out and get it', oh can they? I thought it was men who did that, anyway I took the wind out of his sails because he said well why didn't I agree? and he asked if I was gay or bi, ok, thats enough computer man, I told him I belief in marriage and faithfulness and that I have no interest in relationships.
hm.  wish people would get over this thing about me needing someone, I am enough trouble to myself, never mind taking on someone else and making their life as bad as mine.
Big Issue man was also going on about me needing someone, grr.

computer is working apart from the letter n.

My heart is torn three ways
where I was
where I am
where I will be

Spring is here
overwintering is over
and the road lies ahead
where does it lead

I remember my home
but I am exiled
I owe this town my life
but my heart is out there
on the endless road

I went to my walking clinic today, that was ok, he talked about possibly taping my ankle but he didn't in the end, he adjusted the new insoles that I got, and he made today into a half-session to save me money, which is great, the new insoles are comfortable and the therapy wasn't too bad, he checked that I could do my exercises ok, and that was it.

So I have been sitting here worrying about the other blog and I have been struggling with bad memories and distressed at the way the church invalidated me, I feel invalidated, day and night, alone and with friends, and the way that silly woman spoke about my other blog and the fact that the main supporter of the other blog has gone makes it really difficult. I hoped the blog would tell my story but it barely does and I am too traumatised to properly relate my story.

Yesterday afternoon was the usual empty space, I did have enough stickers for tea, stickers are plentiful at the moment, so I had a tea and went to the samaritans, but I got the wrong samaritan again, it was an muddle.

I got there and this samaritan man, he came into the room with me but he wasn't the one who was going to talk to me, it is a small room and he kept moving around too close to me, I have no idea what he was doing or why, and he touched me twice, once on the back almost under my arm, which is too intimate and once on my shoulder. I was getting very wound up, I was I had no idea why he was in the room with me and getting too close if he wasn't going to see me, he tried to get me to sit down but I was not at all comfortable, so I left, the woman who was supposed to be seeing me was faffing around in the hall and had her back to me as I left when I got sick of this wierd man.
But I was rattled by this and went back to ask what was going on, I asked the man who was in charge and he obviously didn't want to tell me that but in the end he did and he also apologized. I didn't stay and talk because there was only him and that woman there.

I went to the shed and changed my socks and deodorised my boots because I smell terribly homeless despite having washed and everything.

Then I walked up to my friend's house, I had supper with her and her neighbour and we watched some television, then I had a bath and it was bed time, I didn't sleep very deeply at first, woke up needing the loo several times and then dreamed terror dreams about everything and woke up having the terrors.

Had boiled egg and toast for breakfast, then I gave my friend a thank you card because a certain other person recently implied I am ungrateful, that certain other person is from the other church and she and I have fallen out :(

Here I am, librarying.
Today is mild and cloudy.

I couldn't cope with church today, I tried, I went to my old church after coffee with a thank you card for my friend who helped me out the other week, she gave me two vouchers for each daycentre and a banknote in return, I talked to my other friends there about film club and the fact that Jesus still needs dusting, really badly. And also talked to my friend who I will stay with this evening.

Then I toddled thoughtfully in the direction of the other church, they told me I was welcome to come in for coffee but they had run out of milk, my bad jokes pal was there and I gave him the vouchers for the daycentre that I don't use, he was happy with that and we talked rubbish to each other and any ears that wandered close enough :) what a sociable morning.

Then I went and exchanged some of my banknote for a nice roast dinner, I really am an extrordinary homeless person, don't you agree?

My netbook is refusing to access any wifi and I can't fix it until tomorrow, so I am here in the hot library, standing up on aching legs to compute, I also have interesting books to read though :)

It is a hot summer's day in february here :)
I am having the terrors and flashbacks and hell despite the smiles.

bye bloggypeople, see you later.

I phoned an NHS centre 65 miles away, the phonecall was a struggle but they said they would check my asthma, so I happily journeyed 65 miles to check out this new town. I like it.

The centre was in a very rough ethnic minority clinic, there was just one doctor on duty and the wait was more than 2 hours, but at least I got my lungs checked.
I seem to be fairly clear, my peak flow is not very good though, but the doctor gave me a new prescription for ventolin, which is good.

So I headed back to the station, the last train was about 20 minutes wait and I had been in a crowded waiting room for more than 2 hours and I needed a hot drink, so I scuttled as fast as I could hop in the direction of McD's and got a hot chocolate and scuttled back to get the train by the skin of my teeth.
Teeth do not have skin.

Got 'home' at about 11.15pm and was glad I was in the bed and breakfast a minute away from the station.

woke up this morning feeling very relaxed but because I was indoors the terrors overwhelmed me.
showered, ate and tried to go to church but failed.

I woke once in the night needing the loo, so I got up and looed, had to hold the furniture and stagger, I cannot put weight on this ankle without boots on, normally in the summerhouse I sit on the floor and crawl about.
Then the terrors and distress started but I managed to get to sleep.
Woke with the usual neck pain, thankfully it is quite faint.

I have had a brief walk around and went to the daycentre but it is too crowded.

today is sunshine and clouds.

I just watched the bit where Mulberry died.
it is hysterical when he got up off the mortuary slab and went looking for his clothes and scared the hell out of the hospital staff! :-D

Hello bloggypeople, I am in the bed and breakfast, this is because my hair badly needed washing and I needed to sort it out, and I decided a night or two in here to wash thoroughly and sort things out would do me good.

I fell in love again recently :) hehe, well you see, there was this sitcom called mulberry that used to be on the BBC when I was about 11 and we had a television for a while, it is a brilliant and underrated series that was axed and forgotten but I have located it on Youtube (and it is hard to locate - type in mulberry S1 Ep1 and go in sequence from there), I found it when I was looking for the theme tune which I knew and liked. The storyline is about an angel called Mulberry who's father is death and who's mother is springtime, mulberry is supposed to be apprenticed to his dad and is assigned to an elderly wealthy lady as her servant, it sounds grim and gloomy but it is the most touching and tender and hilarious comedy with the sad and serious undertones, I love Mulberry I always loved him, and his waistcoats, and it is so uplifting and cheering to be watching the whole series on Youtube at the moment, it is helping me.


Here I am with a cuppa and my darling Mulberry. :)
chest pain, yes but it is very faint now, I am recovering.

It's a funny old day, I am kind of dozy. Still getting chest pains, I emailed Asthma uk and they say I need to see a doctor, they say it sounds like I need a course of steroid tablets, fair enough, but I cannot easily see a doctor, so I may have to pop over to the walk in centre in the next county.

Friday is cup of tea day, I had a cup of tea at my old church earlier and saw my friends, I checked out how to spell one of my friend's names because I wasn't sure and I owe her a thank you card for helping me out the other week. I also just had a cuppa with my art gallery friend.

Homeless lunch earlier, I had no breakfast but I wasn't hungry, I had some soup and a bit of bread, not hungry :(

There were no gossips or addicts there at all.
There was a young lad in a really bad way, he has come off drugs and is in a seriously bad mental state, his friends want to still do drugs with him and use his flat for drugs and he is saying no, so they have taken to attacking him and smashing his windows and he doesn't dare go home, he says that even if he sneaks home he has no electricity left and he doesn't want to sit there in the dark in fear of his former friends.
He slept rough last night but isn't used to it and so he got no sleep, I remember my first rough sleepings, I barely slept either, you have to learn rough sleeping, it doesn't come naturally.
The homeless lunch staff were trying hard to help him, they had been with him to the doctor but he is in a bad way and talking about killing himself and it is going to take weeks for the mental health services to see him, he is due to see shelter today but because he is housed it is difficult for the homeless services to do anything, despite the fact he is scared to go home and is sleeping rough in a terrible state that won't get better from no sleep.
The staff offered to go back to his flat with him but he said no because he couldn't buy electricity.

I spoke to one of the staff quietly and asked if I could contribute towards some electricity if they were going to his flat with him but they said it wasn't a good idea to encourage him to be dependent, which is true, handouts can do more harm than good and I tell people not to give me handouts, and I remember the tricks of the drug addicts in hometown, I also offered my spare blankets if he is going to stay outside but they hope that shelter will help him.
I feel so useless sometimes, the staff said they felt useless too, and they were really trying hard with this poor guy because he has come off drugs, which takes incredible courage and willpower and the withdrawal from drugs is leaving him in a dreadful state and then he has this extra trouble of his former mates attacking him because he is no longer in agreement with their drug taking. He is afraid to go home and his home is cold and dark and he has barely any food. He is in such a mess but how can anyone help?

Homeless people usually help each other, but here in this town that is less the case compared to the other towns where I have been, just odds and ends of fellowship, like when cheerful big issue seller was given a load of packets of sandwiches and he told me he would never be able to eat them all so he gave me some of them and as I walked along one of the beggars was there in his blanket (begging is illegal here) and I offered him sandwiches, sharing and helping each other is one profoundly good and refreshing part of being in the homeless community, it is so diferent from the high society people inviting each other to 'At Home's' whatever they are, that is affectation, homeless people sharing blankets and food and watching each other's backs is real altruistic fellowship.

wafflewafflewaffle :)

Well I didn't call an ambulance last night when the NHS direct website said I should, cos I am not stupid and that site is so flawed, they need to do a separate questionnaire for asthma attacks and not assume I am having a heart attack.
I left a message with the summerhouse lady to say I was having a bad asthma attack and would she check on me, I wrote down all my details in a notebook and put it by my blanket pile, put my asthma card and inhalers there and went to sleep.
I woke up this morning ok, didn't die in the night, so isn't it a good thing I didn't waste emergency staff time? My chest is still very tight though.

My second benefit money is in my new account today, so I went and got a little bottle of body wash and a cup of tea, big spender.

Today is homeless lunch.

It's mild, I am tired and I have chest pain.

I am going to sleep in a minute.

So what has today been about?

Well I was having an asthma attack earlier, but I walked round the doctor's surgeries as far as I could walk and none of them would accept me as a patient because I am street homeless.
So someone phoned round for me but we still couldn't get me registered.

So I have written a formal complaint to the NHS.

Apart from that I have had a quiet day, last night's freezing wind and rain turned into a very mild and sunny day today.
I managed to speak to some NHS people who offer nutritional advice, I can access that help apparently, but not a doctor's surgery!
Anyway, writing a complaint has used up most of my day. HUMPF!

I went to the daycentre and had a cuppa earlier.

Yesterday evening I went to McD's at the summerhouse end of town, but it was too crowded in there to sit in peace and compute, so I wandered off, went to the shop to get milk and they were selling milk that was best before yesterday at 11 pence and it was organic milk so I got some of that, then I went back to the summerhouse and dealt with a big buzzy wasp that insisted on crawling all over my bedding and Patrick and  didn't want it to hang around and bite me in the night so I clouted it.

It was a mild wet night, I slept almost at once and woke at 5.30 with no specific dreams but I needed the loo when I woke and I was hellish depressed as well.

I got up and went through the wash and meds and change of clothes routine, I actually like washing and dressing in the summerhouse, I feel ok being in the summerhouse, just right said goldilocks.
I had a few cups of tea and listened to the radio, this is all really normal and ok.

My ears don't seem to mind being pierced, I used to wear little earrings years ago and I do like to have just some little sign that I am female, strange as that sounds.

Anyway, I was all sorted and off to catch the 6.40am bus, which is not crowded, I had the top deck to myself. I always take my rubbish to the bus terminus and put it in the bin there, there are always teabags and toilet tissues to get rid of every morning and I leave the summerhouse tidy and my blankets neatly folded.

I got into town just before 7am and wandered into the market for breakfast, breakfast was peanut butter on toast and a cuppa.
Then I went to get a clean teeshirt from my stash in the shed.

As I wandered round the bins I met Scotty, he looked very smart and I asked why, 'Everything else is in the wash' he replied, he told me his aunt was ill and his mum was flying to Britain and he was trying to work out how to afford to go and meet her, he asked what I was doing and I told him I was on my bin round and needed one more sticker, he gave me his card of four stickers.

So here I am n McD's, blogging.

Is there anyone out there who can throw me a lifeline? Life has quality in it in some ways but I drown in despair from memories and having to give up on my family and falling out with my friend immediately afterwards

welcome back english blog readers, I missed you.

I am in my blankets and accessing a little bit of internet from my portable device, the internet is very intermittent.
Google is proving so hard to use now that I may have to export the blogs to another site.

Today has been busy, I got my radar key which will make life more comfortable as it gives me access to 24 hour toilets in many towns, very handy as sleeping places but shh, don't tell! no the access to use of the disabled toilets will help me no end.

I have been waking up too warm in my blankets and that means that my overwintering here is nearly over, it is time soon to have a lighter bedding pack and to be on the move again.

My deed poll is in the post, and I am looking at passports and bus passes and all the other necessary paperworks of life, and registering with a new doctor soon.

The man who was collapsed in town was collapsed again this afternoon, must be a bad batch of heroin.

It is cold and windy and rainy.

My mood is very low but plodding on and being busy to try and keep the sadness and horrors at bay.

got my radar key today, yay, easier toilet access

I want to go and join my friends at the midweek service but if I do then I will face the wrath of my old friend who doesn't love me no more :( : /
so I wont.

I went to the dentist and had a mold taken for the new mouthguard, I shake when I go to the dentist, it is terrifying.
The mold for the mouthguard hurt my gum, and plasticine doesn't taste nice, but after that I went and had breakfast, and then I went to the dreaded ear piercers as well, and had new ears installed. It has been years since I wore ears. : /
I have little dolphins.

It has been really difficult to blog recently, a combination of depression and friendship problems, google completely screwing up the system and not taking into account that poor people cannot upgrade to what google want them to have and should not be penalised and left without access to their accounts, the fact that the only statistics on this blog are now russian spammers, and just the struggle to be here and write since that brainless woman told me that my blog didn't make sense,
well, she is living with someone she isn't married to, why should her opinion matter?

I am going to write this blog starting from Sunday evening when I stopped writing:

Sunday evening: I went back to the travel terminal and tried to connect to wifi but failed, so I stayed and watched the end of a movie that the last few passengers were watching, it was called 'Journey to the centre of the earth', then I went for a walk right to the very edge of the town, which is not far from my summerhouse but I had never walked there before.
The stars were beautifully clear and it was very cold. I walked out of the street lights and into the darkness, the edge of the countryside, poultry farm and tree plantations, it was so lovely looking at the stars.
Then I went back to the summerhouse, but I started having the terrors and distress, I phoned the samaritans but they were deeply unhelpful, whoever I spoke to did not want to hear me or accpet my distress, they were so obviously a church person who didn't want to accept the bad side of the church, I think that the samaritans phoneline is a waste of time, when they are unhelpful on there it is much worse than when they just endure me when I go to the samaritans centre, because I only phone the samaritans if things are really bad and they are so rarely helpful that it is not worth it. Even those that seem helpful are in a hurry to end the call and move on to the next caller, sometimes they even tell me so. No one can understand me and the learning difficulties by phone.

Anyway, Monday morning, hopefully this will be my last walk into town. I start walking, my leg is painful but not awkward. On the way someone from the church I went to yesterday leans out their car window and asks if my migraine is better, I say it nearly is, I should have asked that person if they were going into town and if I could hitch a ride, but I never thought of it.

I got into town, went to the church, my friend who I have a cuppa with was there, but my other friend is also there and she and I have fallen out and she is not happy to see me, so I leave and later she says in a text I shouldn't have left without talking to her, but she was angry earlier, so what good would me staying do? I am so very confused.

Anyway, my money hasn't turned up, so I go to the benefits office, and the money is there for some reason. The lady makes a phonecall for me to ensure that my money goes into my new post office account in future, so here I am with last weeks giro and another one due into my account on Friday.

I do a brief shop, the benefits office seems to waste hours of my time and  it is now past lunchtime. I go to the daycentre to let them know my money is sorted and to thank them for helping me through the bad time.

The man at the daycentre is talking to a little girl who is wandering around while her dad reads the paper, there is a lady ordering food at the counter and wearing a big fur coat and he solemly tells the little girl that the lady in the fur coat is a giant teddy bear, the little girl points to the woman and whispers 'Teddy?' and points questioningly to the next woman in the que, 'Thats Margaret' says the daycentre man, then he goes back to his work and the little girl goes back to daddy,
a few minutes later the little girl comes back to where the lady in the fur coat is standing and pokes the woman's fur coat and says 'TEDDY BEAR!'.

Anyway, I didn't get any writing done on monday. I went to the bed and breakfast in the end and relaxed there with the almost non-working tv and my computer.
The best thing was that I got to wash my hair and have a thorough shower and sort out. I am not using the church shower while me and my friend are at odds. And I am broken hearted at falling out with her, she is a gem and I have trusted her with a lot of my story.

In the bed and breakfast I slept with no insomnia and woke just once with the most awful and horrifying memories of the church and sadness about my friend who I have fallen out with, we hadn't been friends long, but she is a special gem, someone I trusted with everything, and that is rare, I miss that trust.

Got up in the morning and made my way to town after a shower and breakfast. Didn't get any writing done, but got shopping done, did something I had wanted to do for a while, had a proper bra-fit, fascinating, my mum didn't bother to help me with bras and when Janet measured me for bras I was still a teenager, so I have never been sure about size, but guess what, I wasn't really wrong in my bra size at all, so I am not one of the 70% who are wearing the wrong size bra! :)
The store that measured and advised me didn't have anything suitable in stock, so I got a soft sports bra from primark, I am sure you don't want to know all this. :) I am no good with lacy bras as they itch, I like plain with good support.
Anyway, I got a haircut, the hairdressing college in London take too long and leave my hair not much different, and now they have started charging, so I will go back to proper cheap haircuts that don't take and hour and a quarter, I am quite pleased with my new haircut, the hair is off my forehead at last.

so now I am haircutted and wearing new jeans, the old ones had gone at the seams. I have replaced all my toiletries as well, so things are feeling better.

I go to the meditation at church, but my friend and I are still not seeing eye to eye and she is snorty and huffy at me and I just want to hide under a chair.
After meditation we have tea and cake and I have the delight of chatting to another friend who always takes the time to sit and chat with me when I am there.

Then it is time to head for the summerhouse, I am tired and I get some milk and make tea and fall asleep, this is good, I am sleeping again.
I dream that someone I know and his wife have bought a boat and they are roping me into helming it and they get me to steer it alongside the quay so that we can wash the boat down, it is a smart white 32-footer and I like this boat. Then I dream of my estranged brother that he and his girlfriend are looking for a house and also a boat. Then I wake up, the depression is overwhelming as I wake, not because of the dreams, but I get up and muddle around trying to sort myself out, I have tea and a quick wash and head for town in a packed bus.

Here I am. I have to go to the dentist in a minute because I have lost my mouthguard and I need a new one, it will help.

last night I walked home, it was quite a hard walk but I made it, I had enough milk to make tea and I tried to cook a tin of sausage and beans on the hexamine burner but it didn't cook well.

It was very cold and windy outside and I cuddled down in the blankets with the radio on softly to drown out the crashing wind.

I slept but I had the saddest dream ever, I dreamed that I was standing outside my Dad's study door and I could hear dad crying inside the study, I knocked on the door and asked if he was ok, I asked if I could come in and give him a hug, I went in and he was sitting on his wheeled chair where he spent most of his last two years, I hugged him and it seemed to comfort him but the chair kept wheeling away beyond my reach while dad looked helpless, in the dream his disability was not a stroke but a badly damaged back and I wondered vaguely about back transplants.

I woke up crying in the early morning and phoned the samaritans, I got through to a gruff northern man, they are always the best to speak to, and I told him about my dad and my family and the dream, then when I finished speaking to him I made tea with the last of the milk.

Then I went to check the times of the services at the local church, and got there in time for 8am communion which contained the worst sermon I ever heard, then I came back to my summerhouse for a wash and breakfast,
then back to the church for the next round, the next service was too crowded and noisy for my migraine so I went outside but someone came out and chatted to me and took me back in to the foyer area and got me hot drinks and a food parcel including some milk, so that was ok.

Then I came back to the summerhouse to sort my things out, I sat there and sorted my things and cleaned and cleared up, the lady who owns the summerhouse appeared with some mail for me and gave me a kind of message about my friend who I fell out with, it sounds like things are getting better :)
The letters are helpful but there are two missing, I wonder why they haven't arrived, one in my benefits money, so I will need to do something tomorrow.
Today I am not walking into town but tomorrow I will.
It is nice to rest, I have food here and it is freezing outside.

I went over the road to try and access wifi in the travel terminal but it wouldn't connect, so I washed my hair in the disabled toilet washbasin and dried it under the drier.

I really am having a food allergy problem, hives and upset stomach :(

I went to the daycentre to get another cuppa, they gave me some food too, they are very nice.

It is raining and I have a long walk home.

Tomorrow I doubt I will try to get to town.

I went to have a cup of tea with my friend at the art gallery, it was busy in there. It is raining outdoors.

I talked to the computer man because my word processing programme didn't install properly and that is holding up my work.

I am more keen to start studying now.

I got the bus back to the summerhouse last night, and I decided that because it was early and I shouldn't spend too much time alone or I get the distress and terrors about the church I would go to McD's as I had a full card of stickers.
It was a mild foggy night and I wandered into McD's and had a hot chocolate and went on the computer.

Then I went back and settled down to sleep.
I was asleep immediately, but woke in terror at 2am in the morning crying out to God for help because I was in a horrible nightmare about being sexually assaulted.
It is interesting that I always try to cry out to God when I am trapped in a nightmare being harmed by something or someone, and I always tend to wake up then.
In that nightmare a while back when I was in a possessed lift I was saying hail marys and crying out to God, I think I missed that out of the description of the dream.
Anyway, I woke up and said some prayers because in my terror the summerhouse seemed full of scary shadows, I lit a candle and bowled out of bed to wee in the pot, I was really boiling hot, I tucked back down with just my feet in the sleeping bag and the rest of me under a thin soft blanket, and I was warm still, the wind was blowing fiercely and hurling itself at the summerhouse and making the doors and walls rattle.

I slept and woke up still warm and groggy, the neck pain and headache chose today as their day, so I had tea with paracetamol and I had a wash and eventually persuaded myself to head into town, when I got to town there was a collapsed man on the pavement with some paramedics doing paramedicky things.

I went to the daycentre and got some food and drink and then came to the library to type this :)

I went to the homeless lunch, then I came back to the library and read a book called 'precious', which was about a nigerian girl fostered by a white family in sussex and grew she grew up with a bit of an identity crisis.

I remembered as I read it how my ambition was always to go to university, even right up until the time when the church took my life off me.

I want to go to university, look, I have a degree in homelessness already, and I wouldn't have to worry about how I would eat or where I would live, I would sleep in my blankets with my textbooks in my backpack and I would eat from soup kitchens and live as I live now. Any sponsors? I want to study languages or agriculture.
and if it is a choice between oxford and cambridge then I would have to go to oxford because cambridge does not allow street homelessness in their city, they move them on, oxford has some provision for hungry homeless, so I would be ok there.
Any sponsors out there? I can easily get as many A-levels as I need, within a year.

No, unless someone undoes the injustice of the church I cannot apply to go to university.

I just went and had a cuppa with my friend in the art gallery, she made me a nice hot chocolate, a guy came in to play the piano, she doesn't know hs name or who he is, she just knows he is a brilliant piano player.
'The mysterious piano player' would make a great title for a short story, I wish I had the imagination to write short stories, but I don't.

My friend told me about a poor foriegn national chap who had come in crying because he had been sleeping rough nearby and someone had attacked him, you know how I feel about this! grr, I would like people who attack the homeless for being homeless to be chained to a wall and be punched by a line of homeless people who have been attacked for being homeless. Grr.
My friend said she told him to go to the charity meal tonight because there is one of his fellow countrymen helping out there and he will help him. This guy who's been punched is new here.

I settled down in the summerhouse last night and realised how much I really like it, it has a roof and walls from the weather and is basic and deeply silent, there is a kettle and a radio and not enough light to read by even when the lamp is working, so when I'm in there I just doze and snuggle in my blankets and listen to the radio and boil kettles for hot drinks :) what more do I need? nothing.

I slept and I got up after my alarm had been on repeat for an hour, and I thought that was no good because the bus would be crowded.

I had a cuppa and sorted myself into some sort of order before going for the bus, which was crowded, and worse, a horrible large lady got on at the last minute and decided to be rude about me having my backpack next to me because out of all the free seats she wanted to sit there. :/

Anyway, got into town and got a cuppa from the market, went to the shed and got a change of clothes and went to the market toilets for a wash and a change of clothes. Clean clothes and clean :) I like being clean. Smelling homeless is one thing I don't like about being homeless. My hair is dirty though, I hope I can wash it soon.
So I had my cup of tea and some cereal bars for breakfast and here I am, typing away busily.
The weather has been mild and rainy for a few days, the summerhouse was cold this morning so the temperature must have gone down.

excuse me bloggypeople, please read this blog or I will be upset, today the russians are just spamming the blog with false statistics.

Well what happened earlier? I went to look in my stashpile in the shed in town, I found a bottle of pop, a tin of tuna but no tin opener, two candles (the lightbulb in the lamp in the shed has blown), and a bottle of deodorant. handy, my deodorant was running out.

Then I decided to walk up to the church and see if anyone was there, no one was so I stopped and glugged some of the pop from the bottle, as I stopped one of my church friends crossed the road to say hello, we got talking and went to have a cuppa and some food, and she got me some food to take away as well and took me grocery shopping and put me on the bus with a little bit of money. I am blessed with some of the best friends anyone could have.

We had a really good talk as well, she talked about a programme called 'The midwife' which is one programme I love, and if I can sneak round to my friend's houses to watch it then I do, she said that the author of it never believed that her story would interest people, and she said that myblog should have incredible potential and that I will also have great potential to help other homeless people.
I suppose those were words of inspiration that give me hope again.
She is yet another of my friends who has a less than ideal family but goes on living a good life.
Inspired.

Good Samaritans, bad samaritans. I went to the samaritans twice after that row with my family, saw two helpful samaritans who helped me, saw a less helpful one yesterday, who endured me, on Tuesday I actually phoned the Samaritans and got a judgemental Scot who said that 'a young lady had no right to be sleeping in a shed' and continued that way, a samaritan who appeared to put me on hold while I talked, a woman who really didn't understand me, and so I gave up on phone Samaritans.

There was a lovely sunset but it is still hard for me to think about sunsets.

I have lots of food :)

Last night I started being sick again, there must be something in a cheese and onion sandwich that I am allergic to. I walked back to the summerhouse, it is a long way but I walked it.
Got back, brewed a sugary coffee, rubbed my legs and feet with deep heat cream and fell into my blankets and slept.

Woke up with the alarm this morning, wide awake, no doze, brewed the last of the coffee and started walking through the early morning towards town, walking well, got to town in time for the library to open, computed a bit, then went to the daycentre for tea and toast and to listen to the rudeman, he decided to tell me all the names he calls me so I told him I call him the rude man, that stopped him for a few seconds and then he started rambling and contradicting himself as usual.

Here I am, I have been in the daycentre a lot of the day. I can't really sort the blog out very easily at the moment. I am distracted and still in crisis and without much by way of food or drink.

Yesterday I stayed in bed, funny thing for a homeless person to do but I could hardly walk and had no reason at all to get up. Really very depressed. I got up twice to go accross the road to McD's and get tea with my stickers.
I had almost no food, a few old apples and some chocolate and biscuits, but though I was hungry I wasn't really using any energy either, so I thought it would be ok. I didn't feel ill with low blood sugar, just exhausted and despairing.
I was in the summerhouse, so I just stayed tucked into my blankets.

I checked my emails and things when I went over to the cafe, the clinic that was treating my walkign said that they think I need an x-ray and maybe I should go to A&E, but there is no way of getting to A&E, and I couln't even walk into town.
My doctor's surgery were ringing me about a letter for an appointment that should have been cancelled, they are the rudest and most unhelpful people and I am not getting the help I need from the doctor and yet they are phoning me about appointments that clearly are not valid, I am very annoyed. They still won't actually help me and were rude to me, so I made another complaint. I realise that I am not going to get medical help from this surgery because I won't go there and deal with the rude staff there, and since the doctor failed to help me I have heard nothing from him, he refuses to reply to messages. So I need a new doctor, but as with everything else, I simply cannot get the energy to get a new doctor, this county has the worst medical services in the country and I am tired of being messed about and being drugged for medical problems that need physical treatment, my body cannot tolerate the medicines.

Anyway, I stayed in bed and drank coffee from my brew kit with lots of sugar, because I had no milk left.

Eventually I slept through the night with the radio on quietly.
I woke up feeling a bit better, my leg is very bad though. I didn't feel hungry when I woke, just weak.
I washed and had some coffee and started walking.

It is a few miles walk and I can only walk very slowly. I walked past the police testing cars, and I kept walking.
Eventually I stopped at a church, I remember the nice vicar telling em I could always come to that church for help. But the vicar there was a different one and not too friendly, I didn't think I could walk any further in the cold rain as I was getting dizzy, so I was grateful when he grudgingly got me some toast and tea. I felt better at once. I continued my walk and arrived in town, my big issue seller friend - 'Cheerful' stopped me and gave me a full card of McD's stickers, and I saved that for later and headed for the daycentre.

The daycentre people got me a sandwich and some tea and I sat with rudeman and co and listened and rested.
Then I went to the library and caught up on computer things a bit.
Then I went back to the daycentre, they got me more tea and the leftover sandwiches and some spare packets of crisps, so I have supper of sorts.
Here I am. In the library.
There is still a gap in my blog from the last few days, and I will catch it up soon.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2011/03_04/2011_03_11_TheConger_DioceseChided.htm

what on earth would posess church officials and leaders not only to allow a person who has allegedly abused to go on serving and furthermore not tell the diocese that he is moving to that he has been in this trouble?

It is so utterly incomprehensible and echoes what happened to me, both my abusers in the church had allegedly abused before and remained in positions of authority.

I can't do anything constructive at the moment, but wandering through facebook and looking at my friends' posts is ok for now. I have a lot of clever, creative and constructive friends, people who say good morning to their facebook friends every day and post nice pictures and inspirational quotes, so for once I have the luxury of actually stopping to look at the posts and share and reply.

Hello bloggyfriends, I am struggling to blog because I am too distressed.,

Things aren't good.

Nothing fades the pain and distress of the way the church have destroyed me, not even knowing that I am far from alone in beiing destroyed.

Well I pottered along boringly today, went to my friend's art gallery for a cuppa, it was freezing in there, and I saw my old big issue seller friend, he was messed up from a fight but he can still walk better than me.
I must sort these big issue sellers out so you know who is who, he is an ex-big issue seller now, he is the one who fancied me, I will call him M. and the other two main ones can be 'gloomy' and 'cheerful', and there is one called Luke who I rarely see at the moment, and there is a short one who can be 'shorty'.

:)

I went to the samaritans and talked rather a lot, actually told them things, Good Lord, what is wrong with me?

I am in constant flashbacks and I wondered why and I remembered how my old counsellor used to say 'did something happen at this time of year?' when I had flashbacks before, yes, it is a year since I was battered about as the police and diocese tried to make me out to be insane.

Here I am at McD's. It is still very cold but last night was something like -18, and tonight and tomorrow the temperature will rise and it may rain and leave ice on the ground as the snow is still lying.

One of my friends on facebook joined in the discussion about family and he said ' Admitting that your family is dead is much easier than dealing with the constant haunting of ghosts', I like that, really I do. So I thought I would share it. Leaving the fears for their safety and concern and confusion about what they are doing behind and moving on is healthy, nothing I did was going to put things right.
At the moment it all hurts, but it is better to hurt and heal than go on being asociated with them.

Last night I went to the summerhouse and bedded down, I left the radio on quietly to help with the distress.
I slept, slept deep and dreamed loads of multicoloured and meaningful dreams and forgot them all.

I woke when my alarm went off, snoozed it and dozed without stupor, then I got up, I had been warm and comfortable in my blanket pile, but when i got up I found to my surprise that the water in the kettle was frozen! well the kettle is right by me on the surface. I went over to the water jug and it was frozen, yesterday's used teabags were frozen, just the milk and my toilet pot weren't. I wondered if it was wise to boil a frozen kettle, but I did and it was ok, so I smashed a hole in the thick ice on  the water jug and got the water out, leaving a thick shell of ice. I had a few cups of tea and a quick meds and wipe down and mouthwash and deodourant.

By the time I got out to the bus the bus was crowded with saturday shoppers, hm. hot and crowded, not good.

Got into town and wandered into the daycentre to amuse them with my woeful tale of frozen kettles. Rudeman was the first to greet me and he told me had just been wondering how I was and he had told his nephew that he had been worried about 'little sweetie', oh God, I am in Rudeman's favour, maybe I should jump off a bridge! Rudeman calling me little sweetie is highly astonishing and unnerving.
Anyway, got a tea and offered up my vouchers in return for a bacon roll, but the staff told me to save my vouchers and have a free bacon roll and a tea. so I did. I sat with rudeman as he rambled away, and then I wandered to the market and up to the church shed where I left my dirty thermals and underwear in case anyone wants to wash them tomorrow :)

No-one at church, so I got another cuppa and here I am, writing, still trying to come to terms with my family and also flashbacks from the church this morning.

Last night as I headed back from McD's I went to get a pint of milk from the supermarket, in the supermarket there was a very drunk man making advances on me while the assistant just stood behind the counter and did nothing, didn't offer to serve me, he seemed to be friends with the drunk and they had been talking before the drunk staggered over and got too friendly, I told the drunk what I thought of him and asked to speak to the manager, who didn't seem a great deal more helpful than the assistant but at least he reminded him to let me pay for my milk. What on earth is wrong with the world apart from it being the weekend and time for lots of alcohol?! :(

If you need to understand why I have been nervous of my family and tried to eascape them here are a small sample of examples

Family eccentricities and black and whites or untrue forceful statements:

·       When I was young I remember my dad telling me that he wouldn’t be alive in 20 years. That is a pretty scary thing to tell a young child, especially as there was no backup or reasoning to this statement.

·       I remember when I was about 10 or 11 , my mum told me that the world would end in 2006. I used to lie awake worrying about this, and I wondered what the point was of growing up and thinking about marriage and children and work if the world was simply going to end. And deep down I went on fearing this until 2007, which, incidentally was when I was adopted into my abuser’s family and my world did end.

·       I remember my mum saying how we would fight in the war at the end of the world in Israel and if we were lucky we would be the ones picking up the bodies on the battlefield – imagine being told that when you are a child! The depression and worry of these statements and others used to keep me awake at night.

·       During the worst and most violent times my dad said that he and my mum would die violently but not there, and that was what God had told him, and they didn’t die there, but he didn’t really die violently in the end, he died in a coma that I believe was preventable.

·       Also my parents used to go on about the mark of the beast and how we would be rejected because we didn’t have this mark, how we wouldn’t be able to go in shops, horrifying when you knew how much shopping my family needed every week! My older sister surprisingly bought into this prophecy and reinforced it, terrifying me, she was my role model and I thought she was always right.

·       These beliefs were plentiful, frequent, and I came into the adult world completely at odds with the real word and unable to live in it, and my parents continued to terrify me and leave me in collapse as I struggled through college with undiagnosed Asperger Syndrome, trauma and learning difficulty, unable to fit in or socialise at all and penalised for it too.

There came a time when I had to decide what was real and right, my parents’ fantasy world or the real world that I was in. It was a wrenching horrible tearing feeling, I felt as if I was being disloyal and doing wrong against God as I distanced myself from my parents, but I was following the example of my older brothers and sisters, which helped, but the beliefs remained firmly entrenched for years and I remained on the fence between the real world and my parents’s world, the remaining family’s world.

·       I remember one day when I drove back to see them, as I was leaving they were leaning on my car, forgetting that I had to go, that I had to get home to work, and they were carrying on a discussion that was to with black and white beliefs about women in work, the thing that got to me was that they kept repeating and repeating what they said, and then my brother was talking about the US presidential elections, this was when Barack Obama was first running for president, and my brother was insisting that Barack Obama would be assassinated, again repeating and repeating it. They have to be right about these crazy ideas, no one is to contradict them.

I couldn't sit on the summerhouse having the terrors despite beng comfy so I came to McD's again.
I have deleted my family from facebook but I have made new facebook friends and had a lot of support from facebook and non-facebook friends over this.
Friends are the family that you choose for yourself.

It is freezing cold outdoors.
I am going back to the summerhouse to tuck down in a minute.

I got so tired that I have come up to the summerhouse, and I am in McDonalds.
I am going to have a cuppa and go to bed. zzz

Lets go back to Wednesday and work our way up to now:

I went back to meet my friend after she had been to her funeral and we headed for the town where a number of my family live.

I continued to try and make contact with the family and they continued their usual refusal to communicate.
Eventually I left a message saying that I wasn't going to bother and all of a sudden my older brother who never speaks to me, or anyone, unless it is time to go drinking, started accusing me of owing him money.

I gathered it was to do with the time of dad's funeral when that brother offered to book my plane ticket and messed it up and had to pay an amendment fee, I repayed him the plane ticket and also as much of the fee as I could and said if I could possibly afford the rest I would pay, this was despite the fact that he still owed, and still does owe me money for petrol for a time when I drove him several hundred miles to get a new car he had bought on ebay. My sister came with us and I remember them heading for the pub as I drove away.
Shortly after that when his wife took his children to America to live and never told him or made contact I went to see him and he was sitting in the dark with no food and he apologetically said he would pay me when he could and I assured him it wasn't important despite my own lack of money. He never paid me and he has been sitting on a grudge about me apparently owing him money and nursing this grudge and maligning me in the true style of my family.
Anyway in response to his outburst I said all this, and told him to come and get some money, I had hoped to give my other brother a small amount for his baby daughter as he is working 12 hour shifts and struggling to keep a roof over his head, his girlfriend and baby's head, his girlfriend's sister and her boyfriend and their baby's head. So I wanted that brother and his family to have a gift.
But anyway my brother didn't want his grudge taken away, so it ended up in a huge row, why do I bother to row with that family? they won't change or scapegoat me any the less.
In the end I said and decided completely and finally that I am crazy to even try to go crawling round this banch of self centred self-righteous idiots who treat me like a bit of dirt, call me mad and exclude me, why did I ever bother coming back to them and acknowledging them as my famly again? If money and grudge and emotional kicks from bad mouthing and excluding me is what it means to be family then they are not worth it. And I told them so, as usual they tried to make me out to be insane and I told them I hellish wished I was but the assessments say otherwise.
The exchange of words brough back memories, memories of waiting to go home to Hometown and being held up because my family wouldn't stop talking, wouldn't stop their black and white opinions of women in the workplace and how if a certain person was made president of the USA he would be assassinated, (he hasn't been yet, thank God). I remember waiting and waiting for them to get off my car and stop the one-sided schitzotypal rant and let me go home, I remember thinking that no matter how much I was struggling in county A I needed to remember and rejoice every day that I was there and away from this crazy family, and I continued to look for my 'real family' and continued to be abused.

So that was it, I told them what I thought of them and as usual that was a waste of energy. And I am rid of them.

But it was a shock, and I went to the backpackers hostel for the night and it was not the peace and quiet I hoped for, well, firstly I lost my way and wandered into gangland and my leg gave up and wouldn't take my weight, fortunately a kind police officer walked past as my leg gave up and he walked with me back to the area I was headed for. Then the hostel was full of squabblesome girls, one in my dorm wanted all the heaters on full blast so it was roasting hot, the last thing I needed, then a girl came in and immediately started grumbling about the mattresses, I was wound up by my family and I asked what she expected from a £10 a night doss house, then she decided she didn't like me being on the computer, to cut a long story short it was an uncomfortable night.

I didn't wash or eat, it was too upsetting. I am not sure where the day went, I had a cup of tea and a snack eventually, and wandered round town, this right leg is bad though, I need to contact the medics.
I found a debit card and handed it in at the police statiom, the police station had a number of people who had been in trouble and were complaining about police brutality, I sympathised. I asked the police for the number for social services, I have worried sick about my unstable mother and the two youngest children who are outside of society and in desparate need of help, but social services said they are not allowed to help without permission, so never mind walking away with peace of mind about the safety of those three, I will just walk away, but it explains why the church have been unable to set social services on me.

Eventually my friend picked me up. It was a relief and she immediately knew that things hadn't gone well, we talked as she drove, and she understood, we talked a lot, and she told me about the visit she once had to a certain cathedral and how disgusted she was by the way she was treated there, and how there had been a scandal there, I told her that two of the people involved in the church destroyal of me had worked at that cathedral, it turned out that she understood things and I understood things and the unbearable burden of my family and the church became easier.
She dropped me off at a bus stop on the edge of town and headed out to her home, and I got into town and wandered into the library for a bit. Then I went to the samaritans because I was afraid of going to the summerhouse alone after all the distress.
The samaritans were very helpful and understanding, and then I was just in time to catch a bus to the summerhouse.
I went to McD's before I went in the summerhouse, and I sat and had supper and chatted away with friends on facebook and we had a laugh about family and everything and I felt ok again.
I went to the summerhouse and settled down with the radio on softly and cuddled down in my soft bedding with Patrick giraffe and slept lightly but peacefully. My family were never my family, there is nothing to grieve, I tried to replace them and failed, I tried to belong to them again and failed, so I am one alone, and that is not all bad, my friends online joked about being family.

I woke up in the early morning needing the loo,  you don't want to know this but shewees work ok. I really need a slightly bigger ovaltine pot though.
I wondered if I should get up and go to the bus stop but I decided I had more time to sleep, no stupor, just catching up on the zzz.

I got up eventually, went into town, collected a letter from the benefits office and spent time at the benefits office working out what the letter meant.
Then it was lunchtime already, and I went to the homeless lunch, there were a group outside, one of them was talking about getting caught on camera for something. Inside there was no trouble and I had a nice lunch.

Then it was back to the library, filling in the deedpoll forms and going to the post office to start my post office account and send a postal order and documents for my deedpoll name change, next week I will be rid of my family name forever. I will be me at last.

The library has had trouble today with police and arrests and fights, and the market had police investigating as well. :(
I didn't wash properly this morning, I must go and wash. I am looking forward to my bed tonight as well, I am emotionally tired.
There was freezing temperatures and snow forecast but not much is happening.

Hi, it's ok, I will return to blogging tomorrow when I am fit and well.
I am interested in the sudden increase of statistics in correlation to the current circumstances where I have not written much due to circumstances.

blame my family - after all, they usually blame me,
and excuse my language but they are a bunch of assholes.

Here I am in a strange new library. I have refrained from getting another library card for my collection and am on wireless instead. :) this town is like most towns, it has a library, a McD's, people, shops, not much by way of homeless provision at the moment, due to relocation of the daycentre taking place.

I will be heading off to see my family, or not, if they don't stop the usual assing about with communication.
Well I will be heading for their town in an hour or so when I meet up with my friend, and then home tomorrow afternoon, home? to the town I stay in this winter.

God this country is full of towns, all with cup of tea potential.

I have visited three churches, one was open but the women on duty were too busy gossiping to make me welcome, the second was in mid-prayer service when I waltzed in, the third had welcomers and they got me tea and biscuits and chatted politely. They thought they had met me before, but no, I have never actually stopped in this town centre before. I still have a double, obviously, and I hope she behaves herself.

It was a fraught morning. I managed to wake up and get moving though my friend who said she would be up early to wake me didn't get up until later than usual and was holding me up in leaving and not seeming to understand that I needed to get to where I was meeting my other friend on time, I managed to flee the house, late after a quick wash, hurried to where I said I would meet my friend, took a wrong turn due to not knowing the town well enough, got lost, text messaging was barely working but my friend who I was trying to meet came to find me, tearing her hair out because she had to get on the road to this other town as soon as possible as she had to be at a funeral.

I was absolutely upset at holding her up, but it worked out ok, we got there, we even had time for a coffee on the way. She is now at the funeral while I am in McD's in this big town, we meet back up at three and head for the town where my brother and sister are.

There is snow still lying all the way from our town to here and it is cold with wall to wall steel grey cloud. Winter.

I dreamed about my tea stall friends, who I rarely see any more, I dreamed I was at the market, only it was in an airport and I was going away.
The tea stall people caught up with me before I went and gave me a bag of softmints and a key to the airport and told me they were sad I was going and they knew I would be back.

I felt incredibly sad and lost as they walked away and left me to embark on my mysterious journey.

I woke up with the terrors about church and police, and depression.

Richard, put the kettle on.

Well I worked away on blogs and statements and then went to meditation and tea, my friend who had done my washing was offering me a bed for the night and she lives near where my other friend is going to pick me up tomorrow to whisk me away to other towns includng the one where my family are, so here I am, indoors and struggling with this sticky keyboard.

I am in real difficulties with sleep and depression at the moment, I can't get to sleep easily, I don't end up in a stupor any more but I have trouble waking up and getting up because of depression and distress.

The temperature is dropping sharply, it is going down to the double figures in minuses soon, real winter! and guess what? I would still be very comfy in my blankets in the summerhouse and I amabsolutely going mad with longing for the cold and dark of sleeping out.

I didn't go tired and dizzy and ill today, my legs ache from the physical therapy yesterday but at least I am in less pain.

I sorted out my backpack and had a shower when I finally got up this morning, then I headed for town, my church friend was going to Tesco and thought she had lost her purse, but she found it, she went and got milk so we could have a coffee.

We had coffee, her and me and the lady who owns the summerhouse and then I went to the library to prepare statements to send to the psychologist who is going to assess me, as he says this will be helpful.
Then I remembered overhearing my church friend saying she was going to another town tomorrow, and I wondered if I could hitch a lift, yes, if we can get all the details of her picking me up sorted, because she is going early, she is also going from that town to the midlands, so I will go with her and hopefully see some family and come back on Thursday, we just need to arrange the fine details.

I was due to have my new glasses fitted tomorrow, so I went to the optician to change that and they fitted them today instead, they are incredible these new ones, thin, light, well fitting, I look better, apart from how my hair has gone thick and messy again so despite having a neat face with new glasses, I have messy hair, but it is vanity to worry about that.

Here I am, beginning to sort out messy blogs and statements.

It stopped snowing and is clear,  I stayed at the bed and breakfast last night becasue I went dizzy and sick agan. I am more comfortable at the bed and breakfast than I am at my friend's house, but even so it was hard to settle down at to sleep, and when I finally did sleep I was woken by some girl who had somehow got into this secure compound and was bangng on the door and going 'hello?' It was 1.30 in the morning and I wasn't going to answer.
I heard the landlord speaking to her and she left, then I lay there with the terrors and distresses overwhelming me for ages, then I slept, got up and found I can put weight on my feet but my right ankle is still very painful.

Here I am, I need to get up and deal wth life.

I am scared of sleeping because of the distresses and terrors.

and where is my last thing at night blog reader? Is he on strike? His statistic has been missing for days :(

I was beginning to wonder if I would get to the clinic for my walking appointment, the buses that are supposed to go to the clinic according to the website are incorrect, but a bus driver told me what bus to get, but then I wasn't sure where I was supposed to get off the bus, thankfully it worked out ok, and I got there in time.
A thorough assessment and diagnosis and some physical therapy to unlock the joints and take stress, off the tendons, advice, exercises to do, orthotics to take the strain off, and another appointment in a few weeks.

I waited for the bus back and looked at the beautiful snow on the verges and pollarded trees. The bus came within a few minutes, and I returned to town and the library, suddenly I am cold and tired and blurry again, and though some of the snow has started to thaw, it starts to snow again.

I haven't got much done today by way of work, but at least I have got other things done, such as emails with the psychologist, he says I can send him information prior to the assessment and that will help him and save time on the day of the assessment, it will help me as well, as writing is my best form of communication and it certainly will make things easier.

I just went to see my church friend at the church, the friend who was snowed in yesterday, and she and I had a coffee and a chat, she asked about the doctors and assessments and we nattered away and then she said 'lets go and look online about replacing your driving licence', so we did. My new licence will arrive in two weeks. (The old licence was an overseas one from the Island, but I originally held a UK licence, the old licence was lost or stolen on my return to england and because I had no money and was never going to drive again I did nothing about it).
So that is that, and I also got a letter today about getting a Post Office account, argh! I am being shoehorned back into society, stop society I want to get out!

I have just had a very belated message saying that I have this private assessment of my walking at 4pm, and I have to work out how to get there.

good morning bloggypeople.

Last night I emptied out my overfilled backpack but ran out of energy to put it in order so it is all just shovelled back in in a mess.
The promised thaw and rain never came, the snow stayed on the ground and it froze in some places. In town the snow is still lying thickly apart from where brine and grit have been spread.
The media are being hysterical because they are so dumb that they forget it snows every year.

I got up and had a shower this morning, and tried to sort myself out, my clothes are all dry but my friend says she will bring them to town tomorrow to save me the trouble of carrying them. She wanted me to stay again tonight, but I will go mad if I stay indoors any more, my beautiful cold dark winter is slipping away without me while the hot dry bright indoors sends me mad with distress.
I will be sleeping out tonight.

Last night I dreamed about palaces and Bishops and clergy and churches. Then I dreamed about a fantastic art show and then woke up, I didn't sleep well or deeply, I do not sleep well at this house.
I sleep well at my other friend's house. I need this friend to let me go and let me do my own thing, she is so kind but staying with her is deeply uncomfortable.

In town there is an obnoxious new big issue seller on gloomy's pitch, he is rather rude and I tell him that I am worse off than him and that I can speak to his employers as I know them.
The other big issue seller is cheerfully selling in the snow and talking to the tea stall man.

The snow here is deep, I think it is inches deep, and there are so many bits of snow that no-one has trodden in or messed up, but plenty of people have been playing snowballs and sledging.

This may sound ungrateful too, but actually I would be better in my blankets because this room is as cold as outdoors and the bed is uncomfortable and I sleep in all my clothes because there is only a small thin duvet, I would be better in my blanket pile in my sleeping bag that traps the warmth and is comfy.
Tomorrow I will sleep rough no matter what happens. I need to be me and be in my space in the big dark outdoors.

somene needs to break it to the media that we are deep in the northern hemisphere and it does snow here, every year, and other countries don't stop and get hysterical when it snows, either people should take time off or get on with their lives and stop making a fuss, and as for airports cutting flights - Canada and norway don't, so Heathrow is inefficient, get a grip English media, the fuss is like going to casualty for a splinter! It is -40 and snowing allthe time in Russa and Poland, do they whine like the bored english media who have run out of scandal?

I am back at my friend's house, I wanted to go and sleep in the shed, but she has my washing drying here and kind of expected me back.
I am glad to see my special 'Hot Paws' socks from canada drying on the radiator. I will wear them tomorrow.

I am sleepy. But I want to stay up and watch the second half of 'call the midwife' when my friend's dancing on ice programme finishes.

My backpack is cluttered with good quality health and medicine things and toiletries, I want to sort it all out into a neat order.

I threw up some of my dinner, but I think I just have an unhappy tummy rather than illness, I need to take my tummy to see a doctor who will help me work out how to look after tummy while leading this strange lifestyle.
doctor who?!

The buses were packed full of people so I walkd back here in the cold snow, it killed me to walk it but I just plodded as everyone else was plodding because of the snow on the ground. I am glad I was able to walk it and enjoy the snow.

I went to my other church to inform those that would be concerned that I was alright, not being arrogant, there are some that would worry.
I got there but they had finished early because of the snow, a few people were left but none of my friends, one person came over and asked how I was coping as I demolished the pure untouched snow in the churchyard. She said she would let one of my friends know I was alright when she next spoke to her, I texted my other friend and she replied that she had been wondering how I was doing in the snow. It helps to let people know I am ok, that way no one will set the outreach on me :)

I went back to the other church, their meeting dragged on until 1pm so I just drank lots of tea as invited to.

A blackbird hopped hopefully up to the window and informed me it was starving, I offered it cornflakes from the church kitchen and it ate those and said that they weren't as good as a juicy worm but they would certainly do. :)

After the meeting my friend who I have been staying with took my spare clothes to wash and saidshe hoped I would come back for the night, argh! I need my outdoors and my cold and dark, please!
I had a cup of tea with some of the others and then unexpectedly one of them asked if I would like to sleep on their boat sometimes and turn the engine over every day to keep it running, she and her family have bought a boat and she hopes I will remem,ber my boat skills and be able to help, argh, she says that she will have to get the agreement of her family though, and she will let me know.

ok, so I was struggling between a rat alley and a porch and struggling to keep myself clean and fed not so long ago, what on earth happened to change my life so radically?!

Anyway, I pottered off to play in the snow and have lunch, I have a nice sunday lunch spot when I can afford it now. And here I am back in the library, V. is here and he was telling me about his samri sword or whatever and things.
I am sleepy, my dinner was good.
I hope that my snowed in friend gets to the church tomorrow as I need to talk to her.

My mouth guard is pinching my gums, I wonder if that is why I get ulcers.
Last night I had a fantastic dream and woke up needing the loo and thinking I would remember the dream, but I don't.
I think I am at my limit of living indoors, I am getting the terrors and bad memories a lot. Please can everyone understand that I appreciate the kindness but need the space.

I am outdoors, I am not in church :) how naughty.
I got to church with my friends and found that there would be a business meeting as part of the service! hm.
I decided that as the room was rearranged and I couldn't find a corner for myself I would go outdoors and get some space, I was told I should come back at coffee time, so I duly will.
The snow is thick and deep, even in the town centre, but too powdery for snowman, or maybe I am just not focussed enough.
The outreach are out, pestering the homeless, they pointedly didn't pester me, yay.

My friend is snowed in in her village, I bet she is delighted to miss the meeting and enjoy dog walking in the snow and a roaring open fire :)

I am just happy it has snowed, some of the market tea stalls are open if I want tea now, and there is miles of snow that people are barely playing in, what is wrong with everyone? I can play in the snow even though I am lame and asthmatic, come and have fun! :)

Tonight my friend wants me to stay over, but I need to go back to being a rough sleeper and recharging my life force with cold and dark and alone.

The snow is waiting to be played in, I just need to stop having terrors and wake up and wash ad play in the snow.

I wonder if we are snowed in or if we will get to church.

The blog statistics have gone a bit mad, one reason is a good friend who has been offline for a while has come back to catch up, but have I got a new reader in England? :) I hope that they aren't the diocese.

I am always in slow motion in the morning, it takes forever to do meds and wash and sort things out.

Eventually I headed for the railway station, a minute's walk from the B&B. It is a day for a special day out. I have never mentioned it but I am an hour or less from some of my childhood homes, there is a city in the nxt county and my family orbited this city in our travels round the villages in that county.
Today I am going to visit the city and maybe even get the bus and visit a childhood village or two.

There are light flurries of snow and the temperature is freezing.

I get the train and have a peaceful journey. The railway runs past one of the old villages, but at a distance, I remember how I used to stand at the attic window and glimpse trains far away on the railway, I look and look to see the house and village, but they are too far away.

The train arrives in the town, it is cold and I am hungry. I look at the buses, there are bus services running to all the villages we lived in.
I go to look for somewhere get lunch as time is pushing on. My blood sugar is a bit high considering that I have only had a cup of tea with one sugar since breakfast.

Eventually I find a cheap and cheerful cafe, I get a jacket potato and two cups of tea.

I mooch about and go into a church to pray and light candles, I said 'see you tomorrow God' as I left, and someone coming in looked a tad startled and I am sure Jesus cracked up laughing.

I decide not to visit my old homes this time, it is cold and I am still not feeling very healthy, so I head 'home'.
A peaceful journey.

I go to the library and check emails. Because I was offered the psychological assessment privately I decided to see what I could do about my walking the same way. I have an email offering me appointment times on Monday. I accept, it will cost, but I cannot go on in this pain and crippled, I can't walk a mile, my trip today has been limited by my walking, and the pain is so bad sometimes, so bad.

Anyway, then I get on a very crowded bus to my friend's house, we have supper and head for the quiz.
The quiz is one of the most diffcult I have done, my brain is fuzzy and the quiz goes on from 7.30 to 11pm. Or table wins the wooden spoon - packets of wine gums, I end up with three packs. There was plenty to eat at the quiz and so no point checking my glucose levels tonight :) high as a kite.

The quiz was fun, I wonder what would happen if the diocese saw me being a participating member of society again, they would rip me apart again and take my friends again, and I would move on.
I was useless in the quiz and wanted to go off and hibernate, but I was not too distressed by the packed room and huma contact, just uncomfortable.
I am diagnosed as having social phobia, and I do, but I also love taking part.

We came out of the hall and thick snow was falling and lying on the ground. I was too tired to play in the sno, but you bet I will tomorrow! :):):)

Last night I went to film club. the weather was cold, a druggie/wino asked if I had any spare change, you should have seen his face when I told him that I was homeless and that he should go to soup kitchen! :)

The film wasn't deeply interesting. But the chocolates and cups of tea were. My blood sugar was 7.5 after that, which is not bad, not good. I was still being sick before and after the film.

I slept, too tense to settle at first, and waking with terrors about the church at 3am, went to the loo, settled back down, was disturbed by noisy people having a cigarette break outside.
Had a murder mystery nightmare that contained two people called Matthew and Grechen, I have no idea at all who they are or where the names came from.
Woke up with relief as the alarm went.
Checked my blood sugar before breakfast, 6.1, too high, I am wondering how much the seretide inhaler that I take morning and night is affecting the levels as it contains sucrose.

Had breakfast, peanut butter on toast and tea.
Now I need to sort things out and get moving!

I went to the library and did some work on the A-Z blog and then went to the homeless lunch.
Remember how I used to dread the homeless lunch? I dreaded it because of the gossips. The gossips no longer even look at me, and I don't care about them, the table is divided in three, the gossips are on one third and the other two thirds are nice people, reasonable people, my friends.

I had a nice lunch but I was feeling the same cold tiredness that I feel now. I was sleepy, the cold seems to be inside me, but I don't feel cold from the weather, the weather is crisp and cold but not the coldest weather by any means. I like this weather and would sleep perfectly happy in my bedding pile in this weather.

I went back to the library after lunch, but I was still sleepy and cold inside.
I went to the post office and cashed my giro.
Then I went to the chemists and got two things I want in order to try and work out what the hell is really wrong, a blood pressure monitor and a blood glucose monitor. (this extra money is very beneficial to my health and wellbeing).
My blood pressure is known to be variable, from too low (which feels like hypoglycemia stupor) to too high - it has been 187/110 when checked and re-checked by a doctor, but this was when dad died and my family were going mad.
I am questioning what my blood sugar is doing and I am tired of asking the doctor why I get sick so much, I want less medical intervention and more answers, so I am going to monitor and see what is going on before asking the doctor for more help. I have stopped taking a medicine that I didn't need as my system doesn't cope well with lots of meds. Time to be procative, I am unwell and I want to know why.

As well as knowing what hypoglycemia feels like, I know a bit what hyperglycemia is like, horrible buzzy feeling from too much chocolate or sweets that I have to try and persuade me to settle and write down what has happened to me in my blogs and statements.

I go to the bed and breakfast. I watch 'my parents are aliens', I check blood sugar fairly easily 8.1.
Blood pressure takes a few tries, 160/103.
I am going to keep checking these things and then consult the gruesome medics and ask for diet advice. I really don't know what I should or shouldn't eat, I am restricted in what I can eat because of my lifestyle and while there is food I comfort eat and also eat whatever is on offer/offered because of fear of starving again or low blood sugar, I fear low blood sugar because it is so awful and makes me feel so bad and makes me vulnerable when I get to the drowsy and no longer lucid stage and I am terrified that the police would find me like that and knock me about or lock me in again.
I am not diagnosed diabetic and I hope I won't be but I have a genetic blood sugar problem that means I get low blood sugar too easily, if I miss one meal I will get sick. Hence the thin times on the street being so harsh on me and hence my desparate efforts to get sugary tea sometimes, but I wonder if I have done more damage by getting paranoid about keeping blood sugar levels up. If 8.1 is still a bit high then I need to keep an eye on it and hope that home testing isn't as accurate as medical testing.
Life would be hell if I am diabetic because I am allergic to some artificial sweetners, shoot me now! I am too fragile to be alive!

sometimes I wonder if I get sick because of emotional illness, which was suggested some time ago, but I am no more emotionally ill than usual and I have been throwing up my lunch all afternoon and it was a nice bread and soup lunch with fruit and tea, and I always do throw bread and soup up, why? it is a good meal, a meal I have several times a week.

I am comfortable in bed writing this, but there is snow forecast and there is film club tonight, so I will be out of the comfy bed and into the nice cold again soon.

This bed is warm and comfy, and I will have a shower later with lots of shower gel.

When I left my friends house earlier she gave me a pot of vitamin tablets, she invited me to a quiz and to stay over tomorrow night, hm, I need some cold dark alone time really, but I will see how I feel, she also said she may be able to wash my clothes on sunday, she is an angel.

Hello bloggypeople, it is a sunny day with light clouds.
I am awake from a slightly stuporish but wakeable stupor and it is not late.
I think the stupor is caused by: being too warm, too many meds, or depression, any or all of those things.

I was dreaming when my friend woke me with a cuppa. I was dreaming that I was at the back of a dusty old church and the dusty old congregation were singing 'Jesus loves the little children' so drearily and slowly that I was falling asleep.

Time for a wash and breakfast and to attack a new day ;)

Here I am, a mile out of town at my friend's house, I am fed, I am tired and sleepy an I will climb into bed soon. I seem all cold and clumsy at the moment.
Tomorrow there is homeless lunch, and there is film club in the evening.

Stunned is a good word. I feel stunned.

I just had a reply from a good clinic saying that considering my circumstances they will assess me free of charge! wow!

An initial assessment is a start and a good one. But I wonder how I will cope with the results, and how I will follow up the recommendations on the budget I am on. But wow anyway, an asessment is what I wanted I guess and now I have been offered one. A proper independent private assessment not done as part of the church and police attempts to make me out to be mad, and seeing as those assessments failed to diagnose me as mad then I can look forward to seeing someone with the skill to decipher what is what in my brain and why.

:)

I actually went back and got my giro. Then I got a bus up to the summerhouse and left some of the heavy contents of my backpack there and picked up things I needed and removed food and milk that wouldn't keep that I had left there, not knowing I would be away, and left a note for the summerhouse lady saying that I will be away for a few days.

Then as I went to get the bus I started having awful memories, but I also had an idea, I decided I may as well ask around the local clinics to see if I can afford psychological asessment privately.
When I got to town and the library I made a few internet enquiries, I contacted 6 clinics. I had one missed call from a clinic in return, I wish they would email instead.
I will now be getting a giro every week and in almost equal amounts, and I am used to going hungry and eating from bins and now have more friends who feed me, and a kettle to make hot drinks, and also the backpayment from the new benefit, so I may as well try and fund this absolutely vital psychological asessment even if it means being thin and bin diving again.

I went to get a cup of tea, gloomy big issue seller was standing in the freezing cold, I asked if he wanted a hot drink, he said yes, coffee with five sugars, so I got him coffee with five sugars and I got myself a cup of tea with four sugars. In other towns and places I have been closer to the homeless people and we all helped each other out, the homeless community here are not so close and friendly, so it is nice to be able to help out. Big Issue man said he had some spare McD's stickers for me but he said his hands were too cold to undo his bag and get them, I now have more than two full sets of stickers saved for when I need them though.

A few more snowflakes fell earlier, not much.

What a complete waste of a day, I went to the benefits office to arrange to have the benefits sent to a c/o address, then they had 'forgotten' to issue my giro that was due today anyway, after a series of mess ups and complications, during which it was revealed they were and had been using a hometown phone number that was not mine on their system as my number, a few hours went by as they messed me about and did not get my giro, thankfully I have money from the other benefit backpay.

Bugger the giro, I have spent enough time frustrated and in tears at that stupid office to last me a lifetime.

I have writing to do and they have wasted my whole morning and left me deeply stressed.

Good morning bloggypeople, I slept ok again after a bit of tension and focussing on A-Z things again.

I dreamed of my family and dreamed they were real wagon and horses gypsies and that we trotted off to the doctor in our wagons and then out into the sky and onto a cruise ship to keep the posh people amused.

Now it is breakfast and then I go to the benefits office.
snow has gone

Here I am at my friend's house, getting extremely frustrated with the useless keyboard on her computer.
It is freezing outside, and snowing, and as usual I want to be out there playing in the snow. :) The snow is nothing much and won't last.

So what have I achieved today?
Well I have changed my socks and underwear and bandage,
had a shower,
interacted with friends,
done some research into medicine and illness,
prayed and meditated,
drank tea
been shopping,
blogged,
sent important emails,
started arrangements to have post sent to a c/o address
taken an asthma test from asthma Uk - that says I am at increased risk of asthma attack.

That seems like a few useful things,
I wish I could work hard outdoors though :(

Time to upset you all by getting poetic (or not) again:

Family:

What is family?
a group of people around us
to help us, talk to us, boost us
hear us, annoy us, quarrel with us

people who share our lives and values

family, people with empathy
for our joys and sorrows
people who share the hardship
and the pain

people who share food and drinks and laughter

people who understand, siblings,
the people who are closest to us
my family are the homeless
my street brothers and sisters,

And our parents are the people who reach out and tend to our needs.

At lunchtime I went to the midweek service and lunch, the person who I stayed with has said I can stay until the cold weather ends, but I doubt I will stay that long, I need my nice cold outdoors.

I went shopping and got some essentials, a new support bandage for my leg as the old one is dirty and horrible, and some decongestant oil for my chest, very helpful for clearing the lungs.

I have been on the computer a bit, progressing slowly, I went back to church for a few cuppas and to talk to them about having some post sent there, they are agreeable and it means I can get the benefit giro sent there and I can get my medic alert things sent there, medic alert is a lifeline to people with hidden disabilities.

I do wish the librarian didn't keep buzzing around in this corner, I can't get anything done. Ah she's gone.

Raffish is in the library for the first time in ages, I wonder where he has been.

The weather remains freezing cold.

Last night I couldn't get comfortable, I was tense and having terrors and couldn't sleep.
Eventually I was thinking of getting up again and I turned from the terrors to what to write in the A-Z of homelessness, and I fell asleep.
My friend who I was staying with woke me up at 8am with a cup of tea, and for once I felt no stupor, I actually woke up instead of the waking up being mysteriously beyond my reach and staying drowsy, I wasn't drowsy, I got up and checked my emails and blog statistcs, and had a shower.

After breakfast we headed into town, and I had a few cuppas at church and headed here to blog and work.

It is very cold and clear, a lovely sunny day.