From A to B
Dec. 7th, 2025 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI'm still not right, but turning the bed wedge round definitely helped a bit. Every day I feel a little better; the progress is not as fast as I'd like by any means, but it is at least progress. I'm trying to get extra liquid down (this is best done in the morning when Sibyl is quiet, to give it a chance to be absorbed properly), plus extra salt and protein. I oversalted the curry I made in the slow cooker, and that turns out to be a very happy accident. Even so, I'm still not well enough to get to church, which is sad.
So today it occurs to me that I've never explained how I got here. I've said plenty about why I dislike living here, but never answered the obvious question about how I came to be here in the first place. It is, therefore, probably time to do that.
When I was ill in 2016, it took me a long time to recover anything like fully, and it was very obvious I wouldn't be safe living on my own for quite some time. Also, I didn't want to carry on living in Sheffield. So one sister, who was living in Cambridge at the time, very kindly took me in to convalesce, while the other one equally kindly took charge of selling my house in Sheffield (which was not at all straightforward, as it had to be cleared out first, and there wasn't just my stuff but a fair bit of stuff that ex-lodger had left behind when he decamped to the USA). And when I was finally in a fit state to move out of my sister's house, I still needed to be somewhere nearby so that she could keep an eye on me; so I ended up in a rented house in one of the surrounding villages, Cambridge itself being very expensive.
Unfortunately, my balance deteriorated, so after a while I was really struggling to manage the stairs. And then my landlord threw a no-fault eviction order at me (I'm delighted to be able to say that those are going to be illegal from May; they should never have been legal at all). I had no idea what to do, but fortunately I knew a lady called Angela who seemed to know everyone locally, so I contacted her and asked for advice. She said "get on to the council housing department", so I did that; and the upshot was that I was declared homeless and told I'd get a place in the local hostel as soon as one became available. In the meantime I was to stay put, eviction order or no, and if my landlord complained I was to refer them to the council, who were not prepared to stand for someone with disabilities being put out on the street.
They got me a place in the hostel no more than about 4 - 5 weeks after I was supposed to have moved out. It was in the same village, so moving was relatively easy (I did still have help, of course); you've probably heard terrible things about homeless hostels, but I have to say this one was lovely. I had, effectively, my own little flat, which was on the ground floor (a necessity by now) and right next door to the laundry (pretty much likewise, given that I had Squirty Sidney at the time). It was quiet most of the time, and the staff could not have been nicer or more helpful. Granted, there were one or two minor hassles - no wi-fi, so you had to get one of those dongles, and you couldn't stick anything on the walls in the normal way (understandable), so you had to use Command hooks. And the Ocado driver couldn't come to the door of my flat; I had to go to the main entrance to pick up my groceries. That was a security thing - we had some people in the hostel who'd escaped abusive domestic situations, so nobody was allowed past reception unless someone knew them and could vouch for them personally. I felt it was perhaps a little over the top not to make an exception for delivery drivers, but that was how it was.
I was there for about six months, and at the end of that period Addenbrooke's called me in for anastomosis, which in lay terms meant they were going to remove Sidney, replumb my guts again, and set Sibyl up as a proper colostomy (up to now she'd just been a mucous fistula). By this time I was heartily fed up with Sidney, so I agreed with enthusiasm. The operation went extremely well, and a few days later I was lying in bed and my mobile rang.
"Hi," said the voice at the other end. "I'm [name] from [council housing department] and I've got some good news. We've found you a flat."
"Oh, great!" said I. "Whereabouts?"
"[New Town]."
"Where?" (I'd never heard of the place, which wasn't surprising at the time.)
"It's roughly [approximate location]. Can you come and have a look at it?"
"No."
Pause while council housing chap revs in neutral for a bit. "Er...?"
"I would love to," I explained, "but right now I'm flat on my back in Addenbrooke's. I have just had major abdominal surgery."
"Oh. Er. I see. No, you can't really, can you?"
"Not really. So perhaps you could tell me about the flat?"
He described it for me, and in the end I had to take it sight unseen; I didn't have much other choice, and, besides, I was conscious of the fact that there'd be someone else needing my flat in the hostel. As a flat, it's not bad, except that the hall is L-shaped (the one in the hostel was square, which was better for mobility equipment storage) and it's not possible to open the kitchen window unless you're two metres tall, because you have to reach over the sink. That is fairly typical [New Town] design, honestly. But it's quiet and it's well placed for all the things I need or want to get to, and it's a brand new building so the insulation is pretty decent.
I mean. The street numbering is fairly weird, which caused a fair bit of confusion among the district nurses initially (my caseworker managed to put off my move as long as possible for health reasons, but even so I was still having nurses coming to dress my surgery wound by the time I moved in here). But it's nothing compared to the numbering of the street where my friends with the toddler live; and at least my flat is physically on the street, which doesn't apply to every dwelling with this street address!
So today it occurs to me that I've never explained how I got here. I've said plenty about why I dislike living here, but never answered the obvious question about how I came to be here in the first place. It is, therefore, probably time to do that.
When I was ill in 2016, it took me a long time to recover anything like fully, and it was very obvious I wouldn't be safe living on my own for quite some time. Also, I didn't want to carry on living in Sheffield. So one sister, who was living in Cambridge at the time, very kindly took me in to convalesce, while the other one equally kindly took charge of selling my house in Sheffield (which was not at all straightforward, as it had to be cleared out first, and there wasn't just my stuff but a fair bit of stuff that ex-lodger had left behind when he decamped to the USA). And when I was finally in a fit state to move out of my sister's house, I still needed to be somewhere nearby so that she could keep an eye on me; so I ended up in a rented house in one of the surrounding villages, Cambridge itself being very expensive.
Unfortunately, my balance deteriorated, so after a while I was really struggling to manage the stairs. And then my landlord threw a no-fault eviction order at me (I'm delighted to be able to say that those are going to be illegal from May; they should never have been legal at all). I had no idea what to do, but fortunately I knew a lady called Angela who seemed to know everyone locally, so I contacted her and asked for advice. She said "get on to the council housing department", so I did that; and the upshot was that I was declared homeless and told I'd get a place in the local hostel as soon as one became available. In the meantime I was to stay put, eviction order or no, and if my landlord complained I was to refer them to the council, who were not prepared to stand for someone with disabilities being put out on the street.
They got me a place in the hostel no more than about 4 - 5 weeks after I was supposed to have moved out. It was in the same village, so moving was relatively easy (I did still have help, of course); you've probably heard terrible things about homeless hostels, but I have to say this one was lovely. I had, effectively, my own little flat, which was on the ground floor (a necessity by now) and right next door to the laundry (pretty much likewise, given that I had Squirty Sidney at the time). It was quiet most of the time, and the staff could not have been nicer or more helpful. Granted, there were one or two minor hassles - no wi-fi, so you had to get one of those dongles, and you couldn't stick anything on the walls in the normal way (understandable), so you had to use Command hooks. And the Ocado driver couldn't come to the door of my flat; I had to go to the main entrance to pick up my groceries. That was a security thing - we had some people in the hostel who'd escaped abusive domestic situations, so nobody was allowed past reception unless someone knew them and could vouch for them personally. I felt it was perhaps a little over the top not to make an exception for delivery drivers, but that was how it was.
I was there for about six months, and at the end of that period Addenbrooke's called me in for anastomosis, which in lay terms meant they were going to remove Sidney, replumb my guts again, and set Sibyl up as a proper colostomy (up to now she'd just been a mucous fistula). By this time I was heartily fed up with Sidney, so I agreed with enthusiasm. The operation went extremely well, and a few days later I was lying in bed and my mobile rang.
"Hi," said the voice at the other end. "I'm [name] from [council housing department] and I've got some good news. We've found you a flat."
"Oh, great!" said I. "Whereabouts?"
"[New Town]."
"Where?" (I'd never heard of the place, which wasn't surprising at the time.)
"It's roughly [approximate location]. Can you come and have a look at it?"
"No."
Pause while council housing chap revs in neutral for a bit. "Er...?"
"I would love to," I explained, "but right now I'm flat on my back in Addenbrooke's. I have just had major abdominal surgery."
"Oh. Er. I see. No, you can't really, can you?"
"Not really. So perhaps you could tell me about the flat?"
He described it for me, and in the end I had to take it sight unseen; I didn't have much other choice, and, besides, I was conscious of the fact that there'd be someone else needing my flat in the hostel. As a flat, it's not bad, except that the hall is L-shaped (the one in the hostel was square, which was better for mobility equipment storage) and it's not possible to open the kitchen window unless you're two metres tall, because you have to reach over the sink. That is fairly typical [New Town] design, honestly. But it's quiet and it's well placed for all the things I need or want to get to, and it's a brand new building so the insulation is pretty decent.
I mean. The street numbering is fairly weird, which caused a fair bit of confusion among the district nurses initially (my caseworker managed to put off my move as long as possible for health reasons, but even so I was still having nurses coming to dress my surgery wound by the time I moved in here). But it's nothing compared to the numbering of the street where my friends with the toddler live; and at least my flat is physically on the street, which doesn't apply to every dwelling with this street address!
