Frost bitten rose

 

The winter is cold now

There’s a bite in the air

A snowstorm, it invites me

To walk alone without a care

Into the white cascades

Death is a dream to me

I invite it

I embrace it all the time

Now it calls me

I go to it

You may find me near the springtime

Like a frost bitten rose

Birthday poem for Nanny Howe

I miss you now you are gone

I miss your funny ways

Such as waking up at six O’clock to carboot it all the day

I miss your dusty, ashy house; I miss how you used to swear

I miss everything about you gran, I wished you was still there

I know a lot of people would call you crass and uncouth

But if you weren’t there every day, I would have had a worst youth

You showed me what normal should be like

You bought me down to Earth

You taught me nothing domestically

But you always had a warm hearth

Literally, like in the summer, we are all baking hot

And you will still put the fire on, killing us lot

I miss how you used to guzzle tea and mispronounce your words

I miss how you used to talk about the fights you had with birds

I miss all of your gypsy superstitions and your weird little ways

I miss you so much gran, I think I will always

Happy Birthday Nanny Howe

This poem was for you, you silly cow ❤

For those who don’t know my gran, she really wouldn’t have been offended by the last line, it was more or less something everyone said to her and she was so confident in herself she literally rolled her eyes and ignored us.

If anyone wants to know what she was like, I am telling you now, the likeness of personality between her and Catherine Tate’s Nan is amazing!  It is almost like Catherine Tate knew my Nan herself!

But my gran physically looked very different, very exotic to some.  She had dark olive skin, thick black tight curly hair like an Italian style, she always said we had Romany gypsy in us, Italian, Chinese, Hindu and black, but no one ever believed her.  I was told to ignore her, but I never did, I always felt she was the most honest person I ever knew.  As it turned out, two years ago I discovered she was right about certain things genetically.  I found it wasn’t a Chinese man who was supposed to be her great grandfather, it was a Vietnamese man, I found out on GenesReunited.com he adopted the surname of his English wife to fit in to Victorian Britain.  I also found out that her great great grandmother from 1840 was born in Boston USA and was mixed race, her mother’s former owner was so kind about her situation he had her educated to become a teacher but something happened by the time she was twenty three which meant she needed to go to Gibraltar, I don’t know what, but there she met a sailor who was British, married him and went to live in Kensington London.

So my gran was right to attack my mum all those years about racism, she was right in saying “we’re not all white you know”.

I was never sure of the gypsy claims though, but I do know that she took me to Portobello Rd Market once and introduced me to Old Gypsy Lee who lived under a bridge and he recognised her as kin.  I do know that Nan was raised on a farm in Enfield and that gypsies in the olden days often worked for farms, so it could be true, the family do have a big love for horse brasses.

Haven’t found the Hindu bit yet, but there was something in her history which showed in the 18^th century that there was a Spanish lady who apparently was thought to be of Muslim origins, which makes me wonder about another claim gran had – the one about us being Egyptian somewhere down the line too.

I never forget the time that I was arguing with my mum about grans claims; mum was adamant we have an all-white and all British history that goes back before time, so I asked her to explain grans colouring and mum was quite offensive with her reply.  She said that she got her colouring for not being hygienic and washing enough, gran was there at the time and slapped her one, it was classic.

I got a slap too and was chased to my bedroom and threatened with all sorts of things by mum when I blurted out that she deserved that as it was a disgusting thing to say.

I believed gran more than mum because I have found evidence of these things a lot since leaving home.  I found out that gran was right about great grandpa Ernie being born and raised in a workhouse and he ran away aged thirteen and stole food from allotments to survive until someone employed him as an assistant gardener.  I found his workhouse papers on Genes Reunited; mum reckoned this never happened because she would have known about it as she was close to her grandpa Ernie; but mum fails to understand that before the 70s a lot of people didn’t like to dwell on a bad past because life was tough enough to go around wallowing in self-pity and many people liked to be private, so they never did talk about things, not even to family it was almost seen as a taboo to be nostalgically gloomy and my mum likens herself to being an avid historian – yeah right.

God I miss my gran.  I miss staying with her overnight, watching wrestling, horror movies and the shopping channel, whilst munching on fish and chips as she couldn’t cook to save her life, I reckon its why she visited us every day, because we fed her.  She wasn’t at all domestic, not the type to keep house, granddad did all that when he was alive, me and a couple of cousins tried to keep on top of it for her when she was alive, it was why I spent a lot of time with her.  Mum allowed that because it would keep me out of her hair and secondly it was to keep an eye on my dippy gran, as gran would do stupid stuff and that was normal even before her dementia.  She was in every way a bimbo and she knew it and she relished in it, because a bimbo can’t help it see, it works out good for her in a lot of things – to play ignorant that is.

It was a miracle my gran was alive at all, born in the early 30s with a heart condition and having a heart operation every 18 months her whole life and being on warfarin since she was in her mid-twenties, one of the first she claimed to get that medicine, coincidentally as gran was accident prone she was also haemophiliac which was scary as she was given a snappy jack Russell called Star.

You are probably wondering why I keep skipping from gran to Nan a lot when talking about her, it is common even when she was around, everyone called her Nan but I always alternated.  Her name was Doris-Dorina but everyone called her Dolly, which suited her bimbo nature.

I love you gran and wished you were still here.  But blimey gran, you’d be 88 now if you were. 

She died too young by today’s standards.  She died in 2006.  She was absolutely fine before she got ill; she got ill because of a car accident.  She had a car crash which caused her to have a head injury, like a fool she didn’t bother to go to the doctors and the crash was so mild that neither parties car was damaged and so she and the other party decided to not mention it to anyone and gran went home, she suffered migraines for a while and started to do silly things over a six week period – eventually we took her to the doctor as she was showing signs of dementia and a quick forming one too – turned out we were right and it the dementia was so fierce that within six months gran couldn’t talk anymore and would only stare into nothingness and needed to be forced fed.  Within a year of silence, gran died of a heart attack whilst at hospital waiting for a place to go into councils old peoples home.  She was living in a hospital for over a year waiting for some other old biddy to die so she could have a new home being cared for properly.

Apparently it can happen even to young people, a head injury in a certain way and within months you can become vegetative.

My gran hadn’t even retired when the accident happened, she was a cabby.

Flying Vampire

I spread my wings and fly into the night

I soar past the moon and in my delight I dive

I dive, long and low, down, down towards the street

Brushing past strangers, I hear their hearts beat

I fly on up and up again

I wish this night will never end

I fly on until I reach a place

That brings the worst in me

For I hunger for fresh warm blood

It’s the only thing that sustains me

I reach out in the dead of night

I grab a person for a bite

I drink their blood and they can see

That I am nothing more than me

A vampire that lives dark and true

A vampire and killer through and through

Let’s hope someday I won’t kill you

The solitary vampire

I look young but I am centuries old

I look meek but I am very bold

I look sweet but I am made to kill

I look precious, yet I will kill you still

No matter how you beg and plead

No matter how much you love me

I need fresh blood and I will drink you now

I will kill you to death, which is my solemn vow

I won’t make you like little old me

Just because you worship me

I will kill you to get you out of the way

I will not have another near me; it’s always been this way

You sought a vampire, well you got me

If you had common sense you would run and flee

But I see that you don’t, so I will do what I do

I will drain the life right from you

What is luxury to me?

I have always loved reading books about cosmic ordering and creating your own reality and yet still I haven’t mastered my own mind enough to make the realities I want – happen.  I am not at all surprised at my financial status for two reasons, I am sick and don’t work and therefore live on benefit handouts, I do try and do something to help change this, but sometimes it can become too much to handle with all the daily symptom managing – also I am not at all surprised at my financial predicament because of another matter… the fact that I find money one of the biggest evils in the world, so therefore, it keeps away from me because of that mind-set.  Well that is what cosmic ordering experts would say anyway.

So it is my own fault for two reasons.  One I believe that money is a source of evil and two I am too sick therefore can’t work, therefore the universe adds more sickness to keep me in that reality.  It is pretty screwy stuff, but I actually believe it to be true, which makes it all the worse for me I guess?

I am in what I call a ground-hog day of sickness and poverty and I have the knowledge that my own beliefs can change that.  So, why can’t I favour money in a more benign light?  Because I would be lying to myself, that is why and for me, lying to my-self is an even worse evil.

I have always been by nature a very philanthropic person, therefore I have tried to think about who could benefit from my future wealth, when I get it?  There is always someone in need and I always want to help, but I am not a sucker for a sob story unless there is evidence for it first.  So I have tried to concentrate on benevolence regarding money, because as evil as money is, in the current social climate it can be a blessing for many.  I have another belief about finances too, whether or not it contradicts my former belief that money is evil or not, remains to be seen.  But I have always lived by this financial code of conduct (before benefits came into my life) that 33.3% of my earnings go to me and my needs, this includes bills and essentials and fun, 33.3% goes into savings and 33.3% is invested in some way.  Now to me an investment doesn’t have to go towards a personal gain for me, it can be an investment for a charity of which I will not benefit from – to me, it is a social investment, bettering the society I live in, I deem an investment.  Not many people can understand where I come from stating this, but to me it is quite simple, the more money you put into your local charities and amenities, the more you will benefit and future generations will benefit.  It is a shame people recoil so much from taxation and donating, they just don’t see how it can benefit their local area, and they can only see what benefits them, unfortunately they don’t always see it as a positive circle which could include them eventually.

Currently we live in a world where the idea of a no money system is a non-starter; as much as I hate it, I have to come to terms with it and work out a system for my-self which will make me and others around me happy.

I have never really wanted huge extravagances, but I have wanted comfort and happiness – I mean, who doesn’t?

To me a luxurious life would come across very basic, plain and simple to a lot of people of today.  My main desires for a happy and indulgent life is determined by how big a piece of land is that I will personally own in order to grow my own food, raise my own chickens and geese, build an adventure playground for my children, entertain guests with lovely BBQs or alfresco dinner parties, a very large area for rewilding, as I love wildlife and want to save it.  I have thought if I ever became rich that I would buy woodlands just to make them a nature reserve, stopping logging companies and housing from using the land. 

For me a luxurious life means I would be able to afford natural fibres for my clothing, I dislike all the plastic in my clothes.  I would be able to afford a very healthy allergen free semi-paleo diet – why semi-paleo?  I like legumes; I like vegan cheeses and gluten free grains that’s why.

My idea of true happiness is the ability to care for animals too.  To have the pets that I desire, though I will not be one of these horrific pet hoarders like most people who know me personally think I could be if my finances were better, I am not like that; I will never take on more than I can manage.  Despite my dreams about running a small holding or a farm, I know and realise it is just a dream, even for when I am better off, because I know my physical limitations, and unless I can afford staff to help me run things, then I can’t live exactly how I want to.

For me, luxury is being able to go out to town and choose something to eat without worrying about the cost.  Without worrying that my trip to town on a bus and a lunch would actually take half of my week’s food bill away – which it currently does, hence why I rarely see the doctor, despite needing to see them more often than I do.

Luxury also means that a zoo trip won’t be negotiated with Henry about whether or not, if we go to the zoo, we may not be able to go to the Severn Valley this year or have a birthday party, and to me luxury would mean that we can do it all that year and go to other places too, such a beach – we’ve never been to a beach as a family before.  I haven’t been to a beach since I was fifteen years old!  I have only visited the beach twice in my entire life!

I have never had a proper holiday, the only thing that came close to it was a four day camping trip in Yorkshire with some spiritual friends, but that is the only real holiday I have ever had.  I am curious about a few places in the world, but I wouldn’t say I have a strong desire to travel; I am very boring regarding this.  I get home sick by day four; I can’t be away from home for more than four days at a time.  I am a home stayer and lover.  For some reason people think this makes me a recluse?

Unfortunately the places I would like to go to are so remote, it will take four days to get to them, I have researched, and so by the time that I would have got to those places, I would be pining for home again.  I find it a struggle to be in hospital for more than three days.  I know that isn’t exactly a holiday, or a hotel, but the ten day stay at hospital when I was having Henry was very emotionally difficult for me that they felt the depression was postpartum and very nearly kept me in longer because of it, until I had almost broken down and burst into tears explaining how I have never coped being away from home for too long.  Then they had to release me.

I think I know why I am like that.  In my past when I have been away from home for more than four days, I have come home to big changes that were always uncomfortable.  Also after around two weeks of being somewhere something strange happens mentally, where I feel like that new place is a new home and unless I leave that place quickly, I will start to pine for that too.  There are many places in the UK I pine for, even to this day, because of stays longer than four days.  Not holidays, family visits that were prolonged.  I don’t include a six week stay in Cheshire with an aunt as a holiday, funnily enough.  As a child being sent to this person and that all the time for varying lengths, I guess I have a nomadic heart, but I have always been bought back to base as it were.  I get itchy feet, but I don’t like to stay away for long.  It is all rather difficult to explain.

But generally the longer I stay somewhere the more I will pine for my actual home, then the longer I stay in that place, the more likely I will start to pine for that, like home.  Basically going somewhere new will be difficult for around ten to fifteen days, and then I readjust and think that this new place is another home.  I have homes everywhere in my head, but none of them are actually my homes.

Shrugs* I am mad I guess?

But yes, I miss a lot of places.  I miss a few places in London – Burnt Oak, Hammersmith, Hendon, Brent Cross, Wembley, Barnet, Finchley, Whetstone, Enfield, Northolt, Kingsbury, Edgware, Portobello Road, Camden Town, Kentish Town, Swiss Cottage and Kensington.  I miss Luton (I know who misses that?  Well – me), Dunstable, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard, Wickford, Basildon, Margate, Crewe, Leeds, Market Drayton, Telford, Manchester, Halifax, Sheffield, Sunderland, Scarborough, Derby, Seven Sisters, Maidstone, Barnstaple, Battle and whatever that little village on the Welsh border was (I never knew I was a kid when I was there for a while) same as a small village in the Scottish Highlands too, Crawley, Radlett and Slough.  Imagine if I did have houses in all those places, I would need to be rich just for them!  It would be ridiculous to purchase houses in places like these though and selfish.  But for me there would need to be three homes in specific locations, because of how long I know I would stay in specific areas for, because to me they are too much like home.  A house somewhere in Barnet or Hammersmith & Chelsea, London; and a house somewhere in West Yorkshire or Cheshire, as well as something suburban or semi-rural around Rugby, Warwickshire.  I could stay at either of these areas until I start pining for the other, then, instead of constantly pining for places I can’t even afford to visit for the day, like I do now.

I make do with wherever I am put though.  I get on despite my pining’s.  I don’t mean to sound depressing or down-hearted, but I have got used to disappointments and discomfort, as my mother always made sure I never felt settled in any regard in life.  Therefore, she has made me resilient to change and adaptable to most hurtful and life changing situations – by making certain things happen so regularly I eventually became numb to certain types of sentimentality.  In a bad way too, in one particular thing; that I have learned that nothing is permanent, I must always expect things to change drastically and quickly, things such as people dying.  Don’t get too attached to organic things such as people or animals, because they can die.  I will mourn an animal more readily than a human, despite how much I may deeply love that human and I have always been afraid of losing Paul or Henry, because, I am not known to cry for human passing’s.  It could be because my mother was very aloof about it all when I was growing up and if I was to shed a tear she would berate me and make me feel humiliated for being sad about a person’s death.  It could also be because I am clairsentient, a strong clairvoyant.

I don’t usually talk about that part of me.  It weirds people out, but it is a true part of me.

Some people when they die can take ages to visit in the spirit world, some people don’t understand that.  There is a cleansing process for spirits when they first die, some can visit us literally within minutes of dying because they don’t have that much baggage, others can take years before they start visiting the living again.  My grandma, Dolly, took nearly nine years before she started visiting me, whereas grandad only took a few weeks.

But generally to me, luxury is comfortable natural fibre clothes, the ability to travel across the UK whenever I like without financial strain, to eat a healthy diet, to have a lot of family time, gardening organically and for wildlife on a large scale, the financial ability to fund continued learning in desired subjects, charities and pets.  That’s all I really want.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other hobbies

What do I do when I am not writing?

Quite a lot actually, because I don’t write much at all these days; I have lots of ideas for things to write but I think illness has made me lose focus and passion for it.  I was a lot more passionate about writing than I am nowadays.  It is simply because pain distracts me and makes me lose where I am heading – coughing fits and a severely runny nose are the biggest contributors for throwing me off course, yanking me out of the zone, as it were.  As I have said before in many posts, I live with a perpetual chronic cold, with ear, nose and throat infections thrown in.  It isn’t just a sniffle, I wish it were, but I can get through five hundred individual tissues on a bad day, two hundred being the norm for me.

Since the 21^st December 2019 the only things I have written are what are on the blog and approximately 5000 words of non-posted works of other things, but nothing contributing to my novels.  Hand written notes of other ideas are not included in this, I am spending more and more time in bed these days as I can barely move.  All these problems are giving me severe insomnia and hypersomnia.  What do I mean by that?  Well I don’t sleep at night, I seem to sleep better during the day, for some reason my chest and sinus is worse at night.  When I do eventually sleep during the day I sleep between 7 and 16 hours in a stretch, to wake up for 2 hours in a choking fit with a dry crusted mouth.  Not a pretty visual I know.  I can go 30 to 40 hours without sleeping, purely because I am too busy clearing mucus from my system.

So it isn’t any wonder why I lack focus and concentration really.

Basically, everything I do when I am not writing, are things I can do at home, in the bedroom.  Primarily with my desktop computer, as I have recently had it moved to the bedroom due to the fact I am often too sick to get downstairs these days and I have moved my laptop downstairs for the rare occasion I am down there for more than an hour.  Because my legs swell a lot sitting at the computer desk, I can only sit here for an hour before I have to rest with legs up for thirty minutes, to get the swelling down, so even if I am on a roll, my ankles start burning and that throws me off course and I have to go and put my feet up.

I read approximately 30 to 80 pages of a book per day and about half a magazine too.  The types of things I read the most are fantasy, sci-fi and comedy fiction with a lot of non-fiction thrown in; the non-fiction I enjoy are self-help books, nutrition books, history books, theological research, mythology, folklore and cultural studies.  My current reading list is Time Song by Julia Blackburn, The Toll by Neal Shusterman and Roy Vickery’s folk flora. 

I do puzzles such as codebreakers, arrow words and gardening magazine crosswords – before my chest got too bad I used to love doing 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles, but it is frustrating having a coughing fit and losing pieces across the room all the time!

If I am not too busy fighting mucus, I get to knit, crochet, sew or practise my recorder and keyboard. 

I watch TV only if there are documentaries I am interested in, I mostly watch Smithsonian and BBC four with some Drama channel thrown in.  I will watch anything with Lucy Worsley, anything about the history of jazz, soul and classical music, nature and wildlife documentaries, documentaries about farming and country life.  I like science too, so I will watch sky at night and space science programs as well as things in the past such as time commanders, gladiators and the occasional wrestling show.  I love comedies, I only watch the comedies on the Drama Channel, but I am picky about which ones to watch.  I like only connect and some quiz and puzzle shows like Countdown, but I don’t watch them all the time.  I have to be in the mood to watch TV and before I was sick I watched around three hours of TV a week, these days it’s about two hours a day.  We never miss Michael McIntyre’s Big Show if we can help it, nor do we tend to like missing gardeners world or shows such as the RHS show, cruft’s and BBC Proms.  I’m pretty old fashioned I suppose for someone who is thirty seven.  I dislike soap operas and drama llama stuff – yes I mentioned the drama channel, but there are three hours a day where it is strictly comedy and I tend to only watch that channel (at the comedy times) or food network when there is nothing else on.  Sometimes I put on a DVD and I will often choose vampires or family animations and comedies. 

The main things I do these days are play games online.  I don’t even socialise that much online anymore, because I lose concentration and people who know me are starting to think I have memory problems.  Because a coughing fit will make me forget what I have said or what I was on about.

The online games that grip me are… Roblox, yes Henry got me onto it and to be honest, Roblox has saved my relationship with my son!  Because I find his kind of games hard to do since becoming sick – Roblox has opened a whole new world for us and we play hide and seek and various other games together.  When Henry is at school, I still sneak onto the site and play bee swarm simulator, Ripull mini games and fairy simulator.  Bee Swarm simulator especially!

Other online games I play are ovipets it is a cute breeding game on facebook and I have been addicted to that for nearly 5yrs. 

Flightrising is another breeding game, but I go in and out of phases with that.  Primarily I have played this for a whole eight months without a break, purely because Henry wants to see what dragons I breed and he loves to name them and do what we call “Dragon Lottery”.  Dragon Lottery is where I look through the offspring possibilities scrying menu to see what will happen if I pair certain dragons up, sometimes I can’t decide, so I make a list of all the best ones that go with my chosen female that day and I number them, then Henry, Paul and I will choose a number from the list and put it through random.org and sometimes someone gets the number right, in which case that person must get a treat of some kind or get to choose to do something; I breed five pairs of dragons every five days, because that is how long it takes for the eggs to hatch and we have a limit of five breeding nests on this game. 

I used to play online scrabble but I have got accused of cheating because I know too many unusual words.  I don’t cheat on that game, I don’t see what purpose that serves other than the joy of creating misery on another person who loses and I am not a vindictive person like that.  I really do have a broad vocabulary, though I rarely use it outside of scrabble and I love doing anagrams for fun, so I see a lot of seven letter words and I am a dictionary and language addict, so I know words that are weird to normal people.  Here is a list of words I know for high scoring on scrabble, which have got me accused of cheating when used previously – plus, I have read books written by scrabble champions.

ZEBU – QAT –  QUARE – SEQUIN – AWK – EUOI – AIA – QI – KIMCHI – VEX – VAV – TAV – EAU – UVEA – AEON – OXIDE – POXY – QIN – QINTAR – FATWA – QABALA – QADI – SJOE – KHAKI – EUOUAE to name but a few.  I have to admit I was shocked when SEQUIN was considered a questionable word, the others I can understand, but I was sure almost everyone knew what sequins were?

I love words and word play so much I have considered about having a word of the week thing, but I am unreliable with keeping to things like that, as you can clearly see from past efforts or lack of.

Other than sketching with pencils or sharpies in bed and/or colouring in and story planning, I don’t do much else on a bad day.  On a good day I can add about an hour of light gardening to the list but not much else anymore.

I’m pretty boring I suppose, by my peers.  I can’t even cuddle the rabbit lately because I cough too much it terrifies the poor thing!  I suppose I sound like some big barking bear or something to the poor creature.

I have gone out to the doctors and walked past dogs when I am like this and the dogs think I am barking at them, they react accordingly, it is embarrassing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Money free world

Money’s a problem all over the world

It’s a simple solution and not in a dream world

It used to be reality, for everyone around

But men fell in love with shiny rocks in the ground

It’s a funny old thing, love, but it does astound

We all have to have currency, the shiny tokens of gold

It’s to help everyone, or so I am told

But I just see greed and exploitation

Unfairness and hunger and lots of discrimination

It shouldn’t be like this, in a human world

We are smarter than this, our minds have been swirled

I have heard of a time where everything was free

Money is an illusion, you just can’t see

Warmth, food, water and a place to call home

Are all basic needs which everyone should own

You can’t put a price on good quality of life

So why has humanity invented this strife?

It’s a puzzle, it really is

I hope we’ll soon all work out the quiz

But suffering world over would end in a jiffy

If everyone thought that money was whiffy

Everyone all living a life they deserve

With food, warmth and water, what a learning curve

Imagine how far we could all progress if price wasn’t an issue we always had to address?

Money is a barrier in this modern world

Money needs to go now, a new system should unfurl

A system of voluntary work and good will

A system where people go to work still

But system where freedom is always a choice

A system where people in their lives could rejoice

A system with a world united where barriers should fade

A system where teamwork is always displayed

Yes there will be some who won’t do their share

But society is good at not keeping people there

People are good at motivating the herd

People who are lazy would be considered absurd

Even the sickest has their worth

But whilst there is still money, plenty resent their birth

It is a horrible fact, but it is quite true, whilst money is still around

It’s imprisoning you

Not just you but all of mankind

Money is very, very, unkind

Imagine your life without money there, what would you do?  What would be your cares?

How would you live?  Who would you help?

Please do think about this, it might self help

It will open your mind to what you can become

I wish more people thought that money was dumb

This poem was written quickly, I know it can come across a little uncomprehending but it was written at 5:45am on a cold foggy, frosty January morning and I have a bad chest infection and I tend to think about too many points at once and my brain gets scrambled at the best of times – but this is an important message I think.  One that really should be shouted as loud as climate change awareness, because I think, if money was eliminated and people worked together in teams and progressed without the need of money incentives, things like climate change would reserve rapidly – the cure for cancer found – the ability to terraform Mars would have already been done and so many other things.

I mean come on, think about it – do you really need the incentive of a few shiny coins a month to make you make this world a better place?  Do you really need the incentive of earning little fake tokens of your supposed value in the world in order to give you the life you want and deserve?  It is a belief system that you do need these tokens as an incentive to go to a job you hate, being stuck in situations you hate, that have you enslaved, slavery is never ever truly over, until the fat cats decide to change it.  Though how many fat cats are there in comparison to the slim?  I am talking money here not the supposed “obesity crisis”.  I have always struggled with the concept that I can’t do this, I can’t do that, basic little things that most people in the Western World take for granted, because of lack of money.  I have never ever had the ability to be extravagant – I can tell you what I think the most extravagant thing I have ever done financially has been outside of special occasions – bought, shock and horror a book that cost me £25 that to me is an extravagance!

I have never had the ability to afford to get my hair done at the hairdressers when I became an independent adult, living away from my parents, I cut my hair myself!

There are so many things that would change in my life, if money was removed from the social system.

I have been told several times by many doctors that they can treat my problems, it is easily treatable with basic surgery, however, it is too expensive for a struggling NHS right now, so therefore, until the illness infringes my life to the point it becomes life threatening, they will not help me.  Money, I am afraid to say, does determine how moral and humane a doctor will be and from my experience, it means that money makes them carefree, it makes them monsters; not just them, but everyone, people kill for money for fucks sake!

People need to learn that money is evil.  Yes, money saves lives and all of that too, but that is just an illusion – really many people would never have got to the extent of needing charitable donations if it weren’t for the problem that money exists in their world.  Most people’s relationships are affected by six core things; money tops it the other four things are, lying, political and sport debates, religious differences and general discrimination (racism, disability discriminate, age discrimination, fashion critics etc.) – people argue about those six core things a lot and that usually determines how well you get along with a person or not.  Money being the biggest factor because not only do families argue about the lack of it or the want of it, but people generally avoid creating relationships with new people in case they might become their victim in some way financially.  People become more uptight socially if they are wearing expensive clothing and have the latest mobile, than those who are poorer in the community towards strangers socially approaching them. 

People also judge you by your supposed wealth or lack of wealth.  I have been in situations of worse poverty than I have now and the general public; do treat you differently, either with sympathy or with contempt, especially if you are known to be unemployed due to chronic illness.  I have also been in a situation where I have been considered quite wealthy (though the money was never mine, I was dependent upon someone for a time) and again, society treated me differently.  I became more human the more I showed to others that I might actually be better off than them and I have had friends who are super rich or of celebrity status tell me that it gets worse the more you have, you become almost godlike and infallible and this particular person who told me this said that she hated it, because she just wanted to be recognised as plain old normal Sue; she adored me because I never treated her or anyone else any differently to anyone else.  I won’t tell you her whole name because I don’t like name dropping.  But I will say she is a very respected and talented British celebrity. 

Going back to complaining about the doctors again; When I have been too sick to dress properly or fuss over my hair, I get treated like a piece of fermented meat in which the doctor is even reluctant to physically examine.  I am clean, but I wear a baggy grey jumper and black leggings those days with trainers and my hair is in a messy bun. 

I go back to the same doctor a few months later after coming from a funeral in a dress suit with the same messy bun might I add and they treated me as though I had a brain and they spent ten more minutes with me than usual and examined me thoroughly.  Why the snobbery?  Same patient, same doctor, different clothes and class appearance!

I am going to number and list everything I can’t have because of my financial situation – then I am going to number and list what I would do and have in a world without money.

1. I can’t have an operation to remove unusually large adenoids which makes me long-term unable to breathe through my nose and smell, it also causes severe post nasal drip and breathing problems, it affects my voice and larynx and I get throat infections 8 times a year and living with constantly ear infections due to Eustachian tube blockages purely because of the adenoids. Because of this, I have severe insomnia and hypersomnia, depends on how much my body will let me sleep before I literally wake choking on the entire gunk in my body, this has gone on nearly eight years now.  One of the biggest factors of why I cannot work, because it affects my breathing, my voice and my hearing levels.  I also live with vertigo because of sinus and ear pressure and almost constant sinus migraines.  Because of the amount of antibiotics I need, I have been developing antibiotic resistance and my digestive system is collapsing as it is affecting my gut flora.  As an added bonus because of my health problems, I am self-conscious going out, because I have been accused of infecting everyone, because I come across as having perpetual flu like symptoms, cough and cold.  It is especially difficult to go out since this new Chinese virus is going around.
2. I can’t have an operation to stretch my tendons in my left hand which renders three of my fingers almost immobile due to how tight they are, despite how twisted my fingers are that when I fall down I am constantly at risk of breaking my hand.
3. I can’t afford to get rid of old furniture and broken televisions, computers, cookers and washing machines via a skip, so have to store them in a corner in the garden and I hate that, because I am extremely house proud and as far as the neighbours are concerned by our back garden, we must be pack rats in the house, the nasty hoarding sort – but we’re not. We don’t have a car or anyone who has a car who would be willing to help for a day.
4. I can’t afford to get my son to socialise outside of school, because I can’t buy him the rugby kit he wants and I can’t afford the membership for the marathon club. Though there is light at the end of the tunnel for his marathon club, Henry has been seen doing so well at free running events around town that we have been told as soon as he is 10yrs old (which is May 2020) he will be eligible for sponsoring and free membership!
5. I can’t have a balanced diet which meets my needs; even the food bank struggles with someone like me – gluten and lactose intolerant with a few other allergies thrown in like certain herbs and fruit allergies. At least once a week I have to consider eating something I am intolerant to, because our budget can’t stretch for the whole week.  It’s either that or having an entire day of just meat and potatoes with hardly any or no veg and maybe some sauce.  When money was better 2yrs ago I was having an 80% paleo diet and my health bloomed, I had more good days than not.  But when the government cut that evil thing – money, I had to cut the food and my body isn’t responding well to that.
6. I can’t afford a fish tank and supplies, a dog or some chickens.
7. I can’t afford certain gardening tools and supplies which will help me grow more food.
8. I can’t afford to get a gardener to help me when I am on a run of bad health. I regularly get bed bound sick where I can’t do anything for 6 to 8 weeks at a time, by that time, my garden is ruined when I get back to it, by aggressive bindweed.  The bindweed in my garden are triffids – I was ill for 9 weeks last summer and it managed to pull down and break an entire 7ft cherry tree I had put in.
9. My husband knows I need to get out more and see the doctor a lot more than I do, but I don’t go to see him more than once a month (though it is essential) because it costs us £12 a time in transport. Therefore, we can’t afford a car and we can’t afford to pay for me to go out, so unless I can walk somewhere, I can’t go out, so I am even more isolated now.  I am also not eligible for a disability scooter for free, because my problems are not mobile, it is mostly breathing problems due to enlarged adenoids so they don’t take that seriously at all mobility.
10. I am struggling to be able to pay for the amount of tissues and symptom relief things I need. Such as throat lozenges, vic rub, Vaseline, sanitary towels because my coughing fits have weakened my bladder severely.
11. I have lost a lot of weight since becoming very ill, losing weight because coughing fits have made me become involuntarily bulimic and with the lack of affordable food I can eat which fits into my dietary needs, it is hard. I have lost nearly 50 pounds in the past four months and I can’t afford to get smaller clothes, so I am wearing clothes that are ridiculously big on me.  I know there is gumtree and all of that, but really it is hard to travel to pick things up and the women getting rid of their clothes don’t like the idea of a man (my husband) picking it up for me without me present, tried.
12. I need a wig because my trichotillomania has got worse, but I have to make do without one and tolerate the whispers behind my back when out.
13. My bed is broken and needs to be replaced because the frame broke when Henry jumped and pulled on it last summer. I can’t afford it, so we are literally trying to hold it all together with planks of wood and gorilla tape.
14. We’ve lived with a leaky roof in our biggest bedroom for eight years now, we can’t have the roof fixed that would be 4k, heavy rains with a northerly wind causes havoc. Also our utility room roof has caved in too.
15. Our toilet is coming away at the wall, again we’ve had to resort to gorilla tape and sealant to try and make do until we can afford to replace that too.
16. Henry needs new clothes too, he is growing fast, but he has my problem at the moment too – having to wear clothes too big, because he is wearing his father’s hand me downs to keep him warm this winter. Thankfully Paul is a stick and is the smallest man’s size in clothing and doubly thankful that Henry is taller than most for his age. 
17. Our sofa is broken and that needs replacing, we don’t sit downstairs anymore because of it. Also because it is winter and we had our gas fire taken out and gas supply to the fireplace removed because it was unsafe four years ago, so we have no heating in the living room except for an electric fan heater and we can’t afford to use that more than an hour a day.  We put it on whilst we eat our dinner, we don’t eat dinner in the dining room anymore because that is even colder than the living room.
18. I can’t afford my psoriasis shampoo and wash, so have to tolerate discomfort as the NHS has refused to prescribe me again for more, told me to buy it for myself if I need it. Also they don’t fix hearing aids in our hospital anymore; I have to go to boots, so I have a malfunctioned hearing aid now, which means I am completely deaf a lot of the time. 

Surprising isn’t it?  This is England.  This is the 21^st century.  Bet you didn’t know people like me still live like that?  The funniest thing is, I am one of the better off ones – one of the least poor, there are others worse than me, I have known them.  If you think my situation is shocking, honestly, you are a very sheltered person who needs to get to know others outside of your social circle a bit better.  I have known people so poor, that despite sugar tax, it is cheaper for them to get more calories into their child with a packet of haribo sweets than to cook them a veggie dinner.   I am not that poor yet and thankfully Henry has manageable allergies.  My Henry does however, live on sausages, mash, cucumber, carrots and baked beans more often than I would like, but that is the cheapest food I can get him that he is guaranteed to eat in full.  Some of the nation’s poorest can’t even afford to give their kids beans on toast, so I really can’t moan that much I suppose!

I am not poor enough in the eyes of the government to need charity help or help from the council, because we own our home outright and therefore we must fix things ourselves.  We’ve been told that if things are so bad, why not sell up and rent?  Because our money will only last five years, I would lose benefits and security in one fair swoop and we have no means to pay the rent, it’s unlikely that I will ever get well enough to have a proper job and Paul retires in three years.

In a world of no money my life would be bearable, it would be happier, it would be easier and our needs would be met; because people are more humane to those in need when they are equal to them.

Here is my no money list.

1. Even though I am sick, in a world of no money I would have to contribute to society like everyone else.  But society would be more understanding that not everyone can cope with long hours and hard labour.  I would help places grow food or advise people on gardening for food, even on my sickest days I could sit on the internet on live chat, helping some gardening in need with various issues.
2. I can help the world with aesthetics, by giving people my artwork to decorate their homes with, giving people my poetry and stories in books for them to enjoy. I could even get a group of actors together and we can make plays and movies based on my ideas.
3. I would go to a workshop on my good days and help teach people how to make preserves, jams, chutneys, allergy free cakes and breads.
4. I could do motivational talks.
5. I can help sew and repair local peoples clothing from home, if they deliver.
6. I can teach people about which flowers are edible, to help broaden peoples diet.
7. I can do the occasional arts and craft workshop to help people recycle and upcycle things.
8. I can help people learn French.
9. I am a good massager and manicurist.
10. I am very good with people who are suicidal or going through a dark time. I have had several people say that if it weren’t for me they wouldn’t be around anymore.  I have often thought about becoming a therapist, but in the last five years it is debatable whether or not I will be a hearing person in the future or not.  In fact, I have been told to prepare myself for becoming profoundly deaf to becoming totally deaf with a deaf dog support.  So I gave up my course as soon as I heard this.
11. All my household problems would be solved, no dangerous stuff, more respect from neighbours and warm living room that is comfortable.
12. I would be able to live the diet that is optimal for me as an individual.
13. My operations would have been done before my health got this far and I would probably be able to do more things than what I listed above.
14. We would have an electric car.
15. We would have a dog, a full fish tank and some chickens in the garden.
16. We would have tools for the garden and help in the garden.
17. I would be able to wear appropriate clothes and so would Henry.
18. We would have a safe bed.
19. I would probably need to apply for a house extension so I could have an extra room to use as a library.
20. I would be able to get out more.
21. I would shave my hair off entirely and get a wig, so I learn to stop pulling.
22. I’d go to the cinema once a week.
23. We’d go for a pub family meal on Sundays like we used to.
24. I’d take Henry to the big televised rugby matches.
25. I’d adopt four kids and concentrate on getting my body healthier, rather than push my body to get that second child I want.
26. We’d go out on a big family day out once a month at least – a zoo, a museum, a steam train ride, a bowling day out etc.
27. Because a world without money would be more cooperative and free, I would be free to lend my services to certain people. I would be able to assist the local elderly, cook for them, visit them to keep them socialising, take them out, play games with the playful ones, and do the same for the severely disabled. 

It is all just hearsay I know.  I am down to earth enough to realise that I may still be struggling day to day with my own needs, like I am today.  But even in a world of no money, I could manage to help society from home, in my bed with online talks.  I could go out for one half day a week doing any of those things above and still be a worthy member of society who does her bit.  Basically, I would have a better life than I do now.  But because of my current needs, ESA will not tolerate someone who can do half a day of something, without pulling the carpet from under them and saying “well in that case you can work, we will take your money from you henceforth”.  They don’t care that my illness is such that I can go out for one half day a week, but I will be bedbound for four days after it and so therefore will not function around my own home – that to them, doesn’t matter.  What matters is getting me off benefits at any cost!

I am saying, in a world of no money, I can volunteer to be present outside of the home every 4 to 7days, if society tolerates someone who has a permanent streaming nose and allergies when she does it – I often feel that people recoil from me a lot when I am out about and this leads to me thinking things such as “Well why not just euthanize me now, then?”.

I burden too many people with my presence, they make it all too obvious and people who work in benefits don’t help matters!

Money is evil, it makes us heartless.

Remorseless vampire

I am standing in the dark, drenched in blood from head to toe

I have killed him, the man on the floor

Tomorrow his family and friends will be filled with woe

Am I remorseful?  No I am not

As far as I am concerned, there he will lay and there he will rot

I have no heart within old me

I have drunk his blood, can’t you see?

Why should I care when he is many?

I need food as good as any

Be it him or be it you, I need blood, to me that is nothing new

Tomorrow I will feast again and the next day until I don’t know when

But I am a vampire, it is plain to see

So it is best if you kept your distance from me

Not a poem, food food thought

The world is a confusing place.

Everyone wants acceptance and yet they all criticise others.

Everyone wants peace of mind and yet they will still hold grudges and set themselves up for failure or arguments.

Some people want a better life, yet instead of trying to find a way to make their lives better they would rather end it instead.

It is easier to hate than to love for many.

It is easier to ignore than to question.

Everybody wants a better world but no one is ready for the effort and strife to make it better.

A single person has a lot of power, yet they choose not to use it, because they have no time, energy, health, they have other commitments – so they sit and watch TV or play online games for three hours without fail every evening; instead of doing something constructive that will either improve their lives, the lives of their family members, a sad friend or their environment, it is strange, but true.  They would rather poison their bodies with junk food, alcohol and drugs, than spend that extra fifteen minutes in the kitchen to make something healthier for them, something that will prolong their life and give them better mobility or health.

A lot of people would rather not see that they are doing this because then that would mean that they have admitted to being a failure in some way; they can’t pass the buck, they can’t blame anyone but themselves if they realise and admit it.  People can’t stand being wrong or thinking that they are more ignorant than they know.

People would rather walk out in difficult situations rather than solve them, they would rather break up or divorce someone than work it out – because of the time and energy and self-satisfaction factor.  If you want a relationship you need to look first at how much you get along with the person in a non-romantic setting, are you good friends?  Then you have to question whether or not you both have the same life goals, morals and ethics, then after these things are established and known, you should have a relationship together and once in that relationship it should be easy to focus each other on remaining with each other, supporting each other as friends, working things out like a team – not abandoning ship.  If you feel you are a person who cannot be strictly monogamous for goodness sake be honest about it before you let someone get too deep with you – the world is more liberal than you think!

People have got to start becoming more open with the people who are involved in their lives.  They have to work together, work things out, they have to get out of the habit of this throw away culture – because people are treating other people like material possessions too much – this will eventually lead to us all losing our humanity, it is bad enough as it is with the millennial generations mobile device addiction, let alone allowing ourselves to continue how we’ve always been.

Humanity needs to concentrate very deeply on their psychology, on the way that they think, how they handle things.  No more should people just simply walk away when the going gets tough, because that will never solve anything and will only poison your spiritual environment more and more, attracting more negativity to you.

We are probably the loneliest generations ever known to human earth.  More and more we are cutting ourselves off from others.  It was said once that the average human was close to 120 people at all times with around 1000 known acquaintances – but recently that figure has dropped to a contemporary socialite having only 26 close contacts and around 300 acquaintances – online people you have never met do not count – if it did, I would be extremely gregarious!

Fifty years ago it would be normal if a friend knew you were sick and lived in the same street, to come and visit you and make sure you didn’t need any help and would make a fuss about helping you even if you didn’t want it – these days, they could care less.  So long as visit and visiting is exactly 50/50 split, like tennis, taking turns one after the other, they couldn’t be bothered to come and see how you are – even family life is becoming like this.  I have never liked the concept of a nuclear family, I always wanted to have a lot of children, but ill-health dictated that to me as well.  I do not like it, I would love nothing better than to have around five children and a little organic smallholding in a suburban place somewhere as I can’t do strict rural again.

I’m really very lucky at growing vegetables in particular, they seem to yield more than average for their type and are always bigger than expected, I have often been told I should attend vegetable shows, but I would feel silly doing that, sometimes people in those contests get a bit daft.  Now if I was to show anything, it would be dogs and guinea pigs, I would love to do that eventually.

The purpose of this post and like many more to come is to broaden your mind and help you see how you can try to have a better and happier life.  I am going to stop writing more to this now as I have noticed I am losing focus and it is 5am when I am writing this on 19^th January 2020.  I will schedule this for later in the week, because I have a lot of things going on at the moment.  I am not yet over the pneumonia though I feel better today, but in the next few days I have several medical appointments to get to as well as an ESA medical and another minor operation (not sure they’d entertain that if they know I have a chest infection, it has been cancelled 6 times before because of serious sinus, throat and chest infections, it takes 6 months each time to get a new appointment).

Phantoms of the sea

We hear echoes in the dark like night

But it is daylight outside right now

We are in a mouldy damp place

Shadowed with stones around

Every footstep is like a heartbeat

Every movement a rustle like many leaves

Everything is black and wet

This is a home for us thieves

We are scurvy vagabonds

Fresh from the sea

This is our hiding place

It’s not nice, but it keeps us free

We do not wander in the daylight hours

We sit and wait till dark

Then once everyone is tucked in bed

A commandeered new ship we’ll embark

We keep this way forever

We are the pirate ghosts

Though some say we look fresh and alive

If I said I had flesh I’d boast

We’re not like what we used to be

What we are I really don’t know

But we don’t have mortal concerns and we have far to go

So maybe we will see you on the shores of some sea town

But it is likely if we see you, you will surely drown

What we are, I cannot tell

But we won’t be looked on at all

If you see us, by perchance

We will take you to Poseidon’s ball

Some may even call it Hell