Claire Morgan 25/01/2022 Member StoriesNews

We’re back in our new place now, after a little holiday to stay with Neil’s cousin in London. We really enjoyed going away for a week or so.  It did us good to go somewhere different after all the lockdowns and being stuck at home for so long.

Ann’s gall bladder operation was a success and we’ve both had our booster jabs, so health-wise things are ok.

Our new place is great, but we do feel a little bit isolated here because there isn’t a very good transport service.  The buses finish at 6 pm and we used to go to quite a few evening meetings which we can’t go to now.  We used to be out and about a lot and we feel like we’re not seeing so many people these days. We haven’t met many of our neighbours yet either.  We hope things will improve as the better weather and the lighter nights come.  It is a quiet area and there are nice places to walk the dogs around here and perhaps the bus service will be more frequent in the spring.  Ann has been keeping busy doing her drawing and colouring and playing games on her phone.

Ann had a new hamster for her birthday!  We’ve got 2 dogs, 2 hamsters and 14 rats now.

We’ve still got a lot of sorting out to do in the house – Neil needs to go in the attic so he’s waiting for his brother to come and help him.  We are also waiting for the support staff to come and help us change our electric supplier. We have a pre-payment meter, and it is really expensive. We have asked to be put on an ordinary meter, but they won’t let you do that until you’ve gone 3 months without pressing the emergency button.  It’s been so cold that we’ve had to press the emergency button a few times. Neil’s support worker isn’t allowed to come into the house at the moment because of the Covid rules; he dropped off some supplies from the food bank at the front door last week but if he can’t come in, there’s not much he can do to support us.

Ann is also waiting for some support to help her to be more independent – at the moment she can’t use the bath and she’s waiting to hear when someone will come along to support her.