Claire Morgan 11/05/2022 Member StoriesNews

I’m so disappointed that I can’t afford to come to AdFest this year.  Because I live in west Wales, I’d need to come up for two nights and I just can’t afford it at the moment.

Work is a bit stressful right now.  The restaurant is busy, and they are keen for me to do more hours. I’ve given up my cleaning job to accommodate this, but I am only allowed to work a certain number of hours because of my benefits.

I’ve only seen my boyfriend once since the start of the year!  It’s because of our work hours and the transport situation.  He works in Carmarthen, and I can get a bus from my place straight to Carmarthen but there are only a couple of buses a day and the timings aren’t great.  Plus, he works a different shift pattern from me so it’s hard for us to synchronise!  Neither of us drives at the moment so we have to rely on the bus.

I did meet up with a friend who came down to Tenby the other week for a holiday. We had a couple of days out – at Heatherton Country Park and we went on the boat to Caldey Island.  The boat trip was a bit bumpy, but we had great fun. I’m going to see Ed Sheeran in concert in Cardiff in a couple of weeks. I couldn’t get a hotel in Cardiff though – they all got booked up very quickly, so I’ve booked a hotel in Caerphilly.  I should be ok as the hotel isn’t too far from the train station and the last train back to Caerphilly is quite late.

There have been quite a few drag shows on in west Wales these past few weeks and I’ve seen them all! 

I had Covid in February – I was off work for 12 days and it felt like a really bad cold. I haven’t had my annual health review – I’m diabetic and it’s important for me to have it.  I went to the hospital a couple of times about my ongoing chest pains, and they told me to ring my GP and talk to the GP about the pains.  But I can’t get through to the GP to get an appointment – nightmare!  I’ve given up now.

In terms of self advocacy work, the LDMAG (Learning Disability Ministerial Advisory Group) hasn’t met for a while – we’re all having difficulty finding mutual dates.