WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES.

Those of you who regularly read my blog entries will realise you’ve had nothing new to read for weeks. There are two good reasons for this, the first of which is simply that I’ve been too fed up to right and the second is that I’ve been busy because the spiritual “sun” which I thought had gone behind a permanent cloud, has peeped out and spread new light on my circumstances which are now about to change.

I am sure you will recall the loss of my dear beloved guide dog, Esme, now happily settled in the New Forest while I have been trapped without her in my home with only a painful back and feet for company. You may also recall that I said I couldn’t have another dog unless I move.

In January, this year, I had a letter from another housing complex for blind people, asking me if I wanted to remain on their waiting list. Having only moved last June I was tempted to say “no” but something told me not to so I said “yes” instead. I was told I was second on their list, having jumped up from fourth. If only they’d been talking about a book in the best seller list, written by me of course! Instead they were talking of their waiting list and my place on it. Each day I waited patiently for the phone to ring with the news that I longed for – That I had got a place there.

Just before Easter I was told they had a vacancy and offered the opportunity of staying for a week in their guest flat to see how I liked it and help the staff and me make a decision as to whether it’d be the best place for me. I went. We all got on well. I loved it and am moving tomorrow. In the weeks between January and now, my present environment has gone from bad to worse – Children running around an unattended complex at night, no meals provided for those who need them, and people clamouring to leave in droves, not least of whom was a lovely and efficient receptionist who couldn’t take working here any longer. This must be the only place with a waiting list to get out!

Without caring relatives I wondered how I was going to manage this move and what I would do regards the practical problems of clearing stuff out and packing. My lovely German lady who boarded Esme has said she will come and take me down to my new home and help me all day; other sighted people have lent their hands and helped with writing letters to folks I can’t email and helped with the acquisition of the post office form needed for the redirection of mail. Esme’s former boarder and my fairy godmother, even gave me the details of a removal firm which is reliable and that really was a load off my mind.

I managed most things like arranging for the stopping of my standing order at the bank and to have my BT account transferred but my back problem has made clearing stuff out very difficult though I’ve even managed that also to a very large extent. What I have been stunned by is the unexpected kindness of those I hadn’t thought would come, including a lady who I met when she talked to me on the street about God and tried to involve me in her religious group. Most outstanding of all though is the goodness of U, the lady who looked after Esme when I was first ill and whom I shall meet for the first time tomorrow.

I have mixed emotions today. I’m glad to leave the worst run place for blind people that I have ever had the misfortune to enter, sad to leave those who unfortunately can’t come with me, especially some of the old and frail people who are being sold short when they need help most and who are having their anxieties heightened instead of relieved and I shed tears when I said my farewells to S, my kind and trusted home help. She has also been a great help to me in these last weeks leading up to this move. She will come and see me I know.

Tomorrow I will be off to a bigger flat in a better area with more facilities and nearer shops and dedicated, kind staff some of whom hugged me when I came home last month, saying: “See you in a month’s time”. While there I went out for three meals with tenants, some of whom have offered me their help when I get there tomorrow. It will be strange at first, for I don’t know the area, only know my way round part of the building and everything will be in different places in a completely new flat. However, I’m also relieved as well as dog tired and excited to be making a new start. Maybe there will be another wagging tail at the end of another dog who will come bounding into my life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring apart from the furniture van and my fairy godmother? I can only offer up a silent prayer of thanks for my deliverance from this dismal dump and hope that the needless sorrow to which my poor friends here have been exposed, due to crass and stupid mismanagement and a profit before people ethos will soon end for them too.

I’m not stupid enough to believe my problems will all be left here and will not be found at my new home but the difference is that there will be joys too which is more than can be said for life here. Those whose responsibility it is to run this place should hang their heads in shame for they do not even deliver their services with kindness or care. When the door to this chapter of my life closes tomorrow, I can only hope that the opening door will indeed be on a brighter and happier day – Something I thought would never happen, especially when the Guide Dogs employee took away my lovely Esme last August. She, together with my friends, some dead and some living, was all that kept me going through the sixteen years of needless misery and worsening services which I’ve had to endure here and which are now, thankfully, coming to an end. Maybe that annoying cliché really is true (my Nan said it often enough to my great irritation because I don’t like clichés and platitudes). “When one door closes another one opens”.