
A Road Less Travelled
It didn’t take me long to realise that whatever life that I had enjoyed before, it was going to be different now.
That is not to say it would not be fun. It’s not to say that it was going to be tougher it’s going to be just as I said. Just different.
Moving to a new town during Covid it’s quite a strange experience. Nobody knows that you actually have arrived. None of the shops are open. None of the people are open to conversation. Everyone just pops to the shops. It took ages for people to realise that I wasn’t just a visitor to the area. I actually live there, just like them.
Years later, I still have people approach me asking if I was new to the area.
The first issue I had when I moved to the area was housing research.
I tried many a place. Some were too remote. Some were too busy.
One particular place seemed to be rather friendly (as you can be with a mask on your face) and it had all the amenities that anyone could possibly want. The only problem it was a tiny flat on a busy High Street above a dodgy shop, however I made the best of it.
It became a little haven where I could tuck myself away.
Living on a High Street is not for the fainthearted, especially in the middle of the night when you can hear all of the motorcycles revving their engines and tearing up and down. Also when you can hear the police sirens and the fire trucks going to all sorts of emergencies.
Pretty tricky trying to sleep during the Christmas period too. It was the issue with Christmas lights which happened to beam down into my living area which was also a little much.
Now, I like Christmas like everybody else, but I became became a little bit jaded when I was trying to sleep to the pulsation of electric blue lights of the Christmas lights that was directly outside the window, it kind of takes the shine off of the festive period and I could not wait until January came when it would be taken down again.
Parking my car was also an issue as I had a parking space which was very close to the building dump, so every time I got in my car, I ran the gauntlet of several refuse sacks and the smell bins.
I also come across a person one evening, which was really worrying, as he seemed to have settled down for the night and he was not too keen on it somebody parking their car and encroaching on his space.
I have a feeling he thought I was parallel parking in his bedroom. I felt kind of mean asking to move, but I was where I was supposed to actually put my car? I think I was doing him a favour because the ground was smelly and wet. He trudged off, mumbling to himself, never to be seen again by me.
Another issue with living by yourself is the situation when you fall ill. I was used to having someone nearby who I could talk to, who I could ask to pop to the shops or chemist for me and I could just lay in bed and just try to recover. Being sick by yourself is not nice.
I was on my own and I had to work it out. How I managed to get to work at all with a reeling headache and shivers, I will never know. Good thing I was working in the building by myself.
One afternoon after returning home, I realised I had to put my bins out for collection the next day, which was two floors down and I just did not have any of the energy to do so.
In the end, I had to call someone from work who belonged to a different department to drive across town to pick up my bin and to take it downstairs for me. Luckily, they were very kind and did so, and I was always very grateful to them to this day, for being such a nice person.