Hello peeps,
Welcome back. It has been a tough bank holiday weekend with no money or food or anywhere to go. and the hot sunny weather has not helped. As you may remember, I am allergic to the sun and too sensetive to heat, so while the rest of the world is joyful about the sun, I have to be careful and with nowhere to go and struggling for food and money, heat stress, caffiene withdrawal and low blood sugar have been a problem.

Anyway, back to the beginning.
Friday evening, I finished my work on the computer and went to Mass and met with my friends there. After Mass we headed for their home and stopped for chips on the way.

When we got home we had our supper and then I had a bath, I was tired enough to sleep halfway up a lamppost so I went to bed with wet hair and fell asleep.

I woke in the night shrieking with pain from cramp in my leg. I had been dreaming sad and distressed dreams about the church of england.

I slept again and woke in the early morning, I wandered out of bed and went to the loo and had a cuppa or three and some toast, one of my friends had gone out to Mass and the other was still in bed but she got up and came and joined me for a cuppa.
My hair was in a mad frizz from being slept on while wet, so I kept wetting it down and combing it until it agreed to behave.

We set off and had a nice drive to Chertsey and collected our friend, then onwards to London, another peaceful journey.

We got there in time for a cuppa and then it was time for Mass. It was a lot quieter than usual with so many people away.
Mass was good, and then we had our lovely lunch, chicken soup and bread. As usual I had trouble digesting mine and felt ill for some hours.
Thankfully the gardening tasks were all but rained off by the heavy rain and hail showers, so I could just rest.
someone asked if I wanted to go on the confessions list but my friend told me that Father was going to speak to me separately.

When it came to the Talk, I fell asleep, usually the brothers fall asleep but today I fell asleep.
Then it was Evening prayer and Holy Hour and I didn't fall asleep.
Then Father came to speak with me, we sat outside on a bench that was sheltered and he asked what was happening, I tried to explain the complex and horrible church of england situation and he listened and asked a few questions and then prayed for me and the situation.
I would have liked to have gone to confession as well but I suppose it was important to let Father know what was going on so he could pray.

Then it was supper time, nice chicken and pasta and Birthday cake because our friend from Chersey had her Birthday a few days before.

Then we were off, surprisingly early, but there were less people so everything had gone quicker than usual.

We did good time back to Chertsey and then onwards.
My friend was going to drop me off at a station but she couldn't find the money she was going to give me, and I had an idea that would get me home safer, I asked if she had time to drive me to the city.
She did.

I got the train from the city and changed train halfway, I got home feeling ten years older, on the first train someone had opened an emergency door so the train had had to stop, and on the second train someone pulled an emergency alarm cord. It was all purely because they were drunk, and it was one of the worst drunk trains I had been on.

Anyway, 1am in the morning, I got off the train and got a free cuppa off my pal in the burger van. He wasn't flirting too much either, for once.

I wandered into my porch and tucked in, I used less bedding but I couldn't sleep. 2am I fell asleep.
I woke at 6am on Sunday morning knowing that I was now out of money and food and that it was a bank holiday weekend and I had nowhere to go and nothing to eat.

actually I had enough for a cuppa, so I went to McD's and got a cuppa. And I also had a food parcel containing a some tuna sandwich, two bananas and two mini pork pies.

So I had a tuna sandwich and a banana for breakfast.

I went and sat in the foyer of a church and listened to the service and had a cuppa after church, someone invited me to something on Wednesday afternoon where I can get a cuppa and maybe some food.

I went and sat in the shadows of the other church, trying to keep out of the sun, people tapped on the windows and waved hello, and I waved back and rocked along to the music on my little radio.

Lunch time, I ate the other tuna sandwich and banana and the pork pies.

For most of the afternoon I rested quietly in the shadows, I took my boots off to try to help my battered feet, and I tried to trim some of the sore away and remove as much of the broken and infected nail as I could.
I lay on my sleeping bag and read books. And I sorted out my messy backpack until it became a light backpack again.

In the evening I went looking for food. I looked and looked in the bins and gathered five McD's stickers but couldn't find the vital sixth one.
I found a slice of pizza with a few bites out of it, and I ate that for my supper. I also found a half full bottle of lucozade, which I put in my backpack.

I went back to my sleeping place as soon as I could. The bank holiday meant that it was another noisy weekend night.

I woke in the morning feeling tired and ill. I tried to get up and staggered, neither my leg nor my head were steady, I was dizzy and the bad leg didn't want to take my weight.
I worked hard to pack my bedding up, but I was dizzy, as I put the bedding away my stomach lurched and I thought I was going to vomit, but I didn't.
I headed for town to see if I could find that sticker that I needed, I couldn't. I had to sit down because I was so dizzy and in so much pain, I remembered the lucozade that I had found the previous night and I poured it from the original bottle to my drinking water bottle, I drank it, it was flat, but within ten minutes the dizziness faded out,  and by the time I had done all the bins I was at the supermarket and it was just opening.

I took out my emergency small change, all pennies and tuppences, I counted out 23pence and went in to the supermarket. I got a packet of biscuits for 23p, this has saved me in thin times before. The assistant was very nice and asked why I was up so early on a bank holiday and I said I woke up early.

I walked to the church yard and ate a third of the biscuits with a lot of water to wash them down.
Then I went on with my search and found nothing.
I asked the cafe man if he would accept small change for a cuppa and he gave me a free cuppa.

I went back to my sleeping place and lay down on a sleeping bag with my boots and socks off, the sores are looking better.
I lay there and read a book, I looked at the emergency small change and there was maybe a few pounds, so I went to the other supermarket and got a cheap sandwich and a cheap swiss roll and paid at the self-service  tills so no-one would mind.

I went and ate my sandwich and saved the small swiss roll for later.

I kept walking round looking for the elusive sticker. I ate the rest of my biscuits. My friends were at the bus stop, they seemed to be there for ages and in the end when I was sitting by the cafe, reading a paper that I swiped out of a bin, they came to join me and bought me a cuppa tea.

When they left I wandered into the shopping centre and saw someone who recognized me and said hi. Then I found an unused £15 gift voucher with a receipt, someone had dropped them. The receipt said 'To get a refund please return within 14 days'.

I thought about this, I knew that it would be dishonest for me to return the voucher and get a refund as if the voucher had been mine. But on the other hand I was in deep need.

I asked God to send me another sticker so I could get another cuppa tea.

I tried a few times to go in the store where the gift voucher was from but I was panicky and I nearly fainted from the heat in the store.

I went outside and checked a row of bins, but there was nothing. Then my pal with learning difficulties shouted to me. He had one McD's sticker and he asked if I wanted a sticker, I said yes, I was grinning like a Cheshire cat, he also seemed very happy at my response.
I know I was not depriving him by taking the sticker, he has plenty of money for tea and cigarettes and often walks round town with a mug of tea from his home. Some months ago he had a card of four stickers and was offering them to everyone in McD's but so many people are nervous of him and his familiarity, I am ok with him and I know he just wants to be sociable, so I accepted the stickers back then and chatted to him.
But it was such a wonderful co-incidence that he had just one sticker for me today.

Anyway, I went back into the store when he had gone, and told the lady I had found this gift card, she told me she remembered who had bought it off her, it was an old man who couldn't decide what to get someone as a present so he got them that gift card. She took my name and contact details in case he came back in.

I went back to my sleeping place and lay there and read my book. The phone buzzed, it was the old man who had lost the gift card, he had gone back to the shop and they had happily reunited him with his gift card and he was grateful and thanked me.

At about 6pm I went to McD's and used my stickers for a cuppa tea and ate the swiss roll.
Then I raided the supermarket bins and got some grapes and bread and ate some of that.
Then I went for my walk and waited for bed time, I went back to my sleeping place and read my book and when I was reading it by lantern light I knew I could probably safely go to bed.

I lay down and slept quietly through the night.
I woke in the morning feeling distressed about the church of england and dreading the day, back into battle.

It was 7.30 before I could persuade myself miserably and painfully out of bed.
As soon as I had packed my bedding I had to dash for the nearest toilets with an upset stomach, thankfully that was only temporary and I came back and ate some more bread and grapes and drank lots and lots of water.

I foraged around the bins but got nothing. I waited for the library to open and I put some deodorant on but I have no wet wipes and very little else left so I couldn't easily wash myself.

The library opened and I got on the computer and was indeed straight back into the full horror of things.
Oh Jesus, how long must this go on for?

I couldn't concentrate as I was in so much pain and 1000mg of ibruprophen and some co-codamol wasn't actually making any difference.

I logged off as soon as I could and went to community group and asked if I could pay for my lunch and drinks next week as I had no money. They said I could, and one of the leaders had heard me and she lent me £5 to keep me going.
As soon as I started my first cup of tea I felt a bit better and as I drank more tea I felt progressively better. Well it seems that caffiene withdrawal was playing a big part in the pain then, though there is still some pain I am a lot better.
I had lots of tea and some fizzy pop and for lunch I had soup and a chicken burger and a hot dog.
I do feel a lot better but will be better still as the temperature drops and the rain comes, sorry to be a spoilsport.

Pray for me, peeps, I have to return to the church battle now, to remember the hell and horror and to answer questions and write statements.