St. Helier 2008

I know I haven't finished writing about St. Saviour and living with the churchwarden, but as you can imagine, that is so much work that I will be writing it for the rest of the life of this blog,

So I am going to, as best I can, talk about the turbulent months after I left the churchwarden and his wife. And will return to my time with them at intervals.

Unfortunately my move from the churchwarden's home to a bedsit was when I really started to learn that non-quals tenants can be treated like animals, with no privacy and no dignity. But we will get to that.

• The Korris report incorrectly states that I moved from the churchwarden's home when my relationship with them broke down. That is not the case. Anyway, on the subject of the Korris report, after 15 months of me lobbying the Bishop to amend or remove that incorrect report, suddenly it has been removed, how funny, I wonder if they will put it back up? It was purely self-glorification and cover up, it did not tell what happened to me, and was never amended to do so.
• Anyway, by the time I found the bedsit on the edge of St. Helier and Trinity, I had taken charge of finding myself a home and had discovered Jersey insight and had been applying for rooms on there, I actually can't remember if the room was in response to my advert or if I responded to theirs.
• Now, at this time it was still intended that I kept in touch with the churchwarden couple, although I was unhappy and so was his wife, and she and I had had a row, because I had mentioned him talking about sex, and he had told her I was in love with him, which made both of us angry, he was happy, because part of what he did was play us off against each other, he enjoyed the fight.
• But anyway, I had been to view a room that was just a store cupboard, and after the row, the churchwarden's wife said she didn't want me living in a cupboard and I should stay until I found something decent, which surprised me, I don't think having association with a cupboard dweller fitted her 'lady' scenario, poor woman.

This is St. Clements Church, which I attended for the first time after I left St. Andrews while living with the churchwarden

• So, anyway, I went to look at this bedsit in a family home, and decided to take it. 
• I needed to move out of the churchwarden's house.
• So, I took this bedsit, when Philip LeClaire heard about it, he said it wasn't the right place for me because the loud orange walls and lime green carpet were upsetting my senses.
• So, loud orange and lime green for a start, but at least I was independent again.
• Yes, well, you never know at first what you are taking on.

• It started out that I wasn't allowed to cook or eat meat in the house because the woman and therefore the family, were vegeterians.
• This was a bit restricting, but I lived with it, it was so funny that the churchwarden and his wife knew I was missing eating meat and the churchwarden's wife only did non meat food when they got me to go round for meals!  But never mind.
• But then my new landlady wanted me to eat all sorts of strange health foods and vegeterian stuff, she ran a health food shop and she wanted me to 'eat healthily', just when I needed to be me and not be overwhelmed with this kind of thing, she also wanted to send me organic food newsletters by email and get me to enter competitions to win organic hampers from her shop. I didn't really want all this in my life, I just wanted to get back on my feet and be me.

Jersey Goldsmiths, a tourist attraction.

• So, I was under pressure to be something I was not, this lady was obsessed with organic, health eating, spiritual and psychology stuff, and usually an obsession like that, to that extreme, comes from unhealed abuse, and she did tell me she was abused.
• But she had got through three marriages and now had a live-in partner, and as well as this making me uneasy, because it is against my beliefs, it puzzled me that someone could be so obsessed with 'trying to make life right, with organic food and candles and incense and psychology and astrology, and yet they had 3 divorces and were sleeping with someone they were not married to, it was kind of topsy turvy, please excuse my thoughts if you are reading this and feel that sleeping with someone you are not married to is acceptable, everyone has their own views.
• Anyway, I felt uneasy about all this.
• I felt sorry for the 16 year old son, he lived in the house, went to Victoria College but he was the product of one of the failed marriages, and his Dad didn't seem to be around, there was a daughter somewhere as well, but, Jersey puzzles me, it is all fractured families.

• So, I had  my bedsit room in glaring colours, but didn't really have peace and privacy, the walls were thin, and I could hear the lad and his friends in the next room, there was also a window in my room wall by my bed, that looked out onto the landing, it was fristed glass but it wasn't exactly privacy, but the lack of privacy was worse than that, as I will explain.
• Anyway, soon after I arrived I realised that the house was swarming with ants, they were all over the kitchen and in the food, they were also all over my room, even in my bed.
• Now, when I spoke to the landlady about this, this is when I realised what a totally bizarre place I was living in, she said that she could not kill anything so the ants had to stay, and that I should say to them 'go away' and they would and I should 'befriend them', now, the church make me out to be mad, what about people like this?!
• The ants didn't speak english, so they didn't go away.
• Worse than that, there were mice and rats, and there were mice in my room, they shredded my posessions, and again this woman said she would never kill anything and I should tell the mice to go away and they would. What rubbish.
• The woman tried to claim I was attracting the mice, she said it was because there was a snack bar among my posessions, well, no, the mice were there before the snack bar, and they were there when they had shredded and chewed a number of valuable things of mine.

• So, with mice keeping me awake at night and shredding my things, and ants biting me and ruining my food, this was the tip of the iceberg as the unhealthy situation with the churchwarden and his wife continued to cause me misery, and I was battling depression.
• So, I went to the doctor, was put on an anti-depressant, tranquiliser combination and this really knocked me for a six, I was ill and in a daze.
• I went to Romerils and got ant powder and mouse poison and put them down, because no matter what the silly dizzy landlady said, I was not living with vermin any more.

To be continued.