Well I’m a lady of a mature age. I lived in a cottage. It was a lovely cottage. There was four altogether. They were coloured, mine was pink, next door was blue and I think there was two green ones. It was an unmade road of shingle. We didn’t have a garden but we all put pots out and hanging baskets. I’d been there 12 years. I had lovely friends. I worked in the charity shop. I sang with the community choir. I really loved that. The cottage was lovely, it was small. But when you were sad there were arms around you and when you were happy it felt as if the cottage was rejoicing with you as well.
On summer days we would sit outside in the morning and have a cup of tea and in the evenings we used to sit outside and have a chat until the sunset behind the church. It was all really very beautiful.
One day in September, my landlady came, she knocked on the door. I was having a cup of tea with a friend. ‘Well hello’, I thought to myself. I haven’t seen you for ages, especially when my jobs needed doing. She, she said to me with a cup of tea in her hand. “I want to sell the cottage.” I just felt so lost and drained but she also said if I didn’t move out of the cottage by December the 12th then I would be taken to court. “Be taken to court? What an awful, awful thought. What a worry!” It was very difficult because people had to come and view the cottage and they came in but they didn’t wipe their feet. They also looked in cupboards and opened doors, that made me feel very sad. The weather changed and it started to rain quite a lot but people still kept coming in but they still didn’t wipe their feet., I talked to myself and said, You have to go and look for a new home. I walked the streets, in the wet and not very nice weather at all which made it very difficult. I went to try and find somewhere to rent but when we went each one was either too small, too expensive or “we want long term tenants in here:.
But my neighbour came over one morning. She said you’ve only got two weeks, come over to mine and we’ll go online. “Online? What do we do online, I’m not very techno minded.” She said “you bid for houses” and I said to her “will there be one with a bus route back to here so i CAN SEE ALL MY friends.” I was in a bubble and I didn’t really want to get out of it because from where I was sitting it was a beautiful bubble. I did go over. And we went online and there was lots and lots of bidding going on but nothing that had got a bus route. So…Kirkley came up! I said to her “has it got a bus route”. She said “yes it has.” So i said “press it press it” and we did because there was only one other one on there. But I said I don’t think I have a chance because if it’s nice it will have gone. But within a week I received a letter to say would I like to come for an interview to look at the flat in Kirkley. Wow! I was really really excited!
So I did go, the lady was very nice; she showed me round. It was very nice. She was kind and she understood that I had found it very difficult to fill all the forms in being as I was dyslexic, and she was really kind, very helpful.. And then I had, and then a week later, I had a letter to say yes you have got the flat, I felt joy, I felt a little bit of sadness as well as I had to say goodbye to my cottage.
All the years I had really lovely times with friends and neighbours but I did, I did move, it was a lovely sunny day! And over the weeks I met lovely people, my neighbours were lovely. There was a beautiful park called Kensington Gardens, what a joy! And the sea front, wow! I felt so lucky.
There’s a theatre nearby and it’s called The Seagull, wow! So I did go and I watched and it was free one Sunday afternoon and I watched and it was very good. And I thought to myself I think I’m coming back here again. I think they’ve got singing on, something called Shanty, hadn’t really heard of that but I did go along.
I couldn’t sing the shanties very well because I was dyslexic and the words were rather fast but over the weeks and the months I did some shows with them. I went to the elderly people’s to sing and I was very fortunate because they let me out! What I’m trying to say is cherish your friends, don’t give up hope, the sun shines in my heart most days and in the sky. Thank you for listening.
