Coping..

Well so what?

Over the last five years I lost my 'place on the housing ladder' - more than 50,000 pounds on a failed business and my marriage of seventeen years yet there is still worse things can happen. Living alone now in a rented furnished place with a sea view - barely two rooms I also run an allotment for which it is my habit to collect recycling stuff for the compost bins. One day a few months back I noticed that this separate rubbish bag was a bit smelly and grotty and hadn't been emptied in a while. So I just stuck the lot in the normal rubbish and left it to go to the collection. Not very green but practical. The next morning I took that out for collection and went to work. In the evening I cam home and fed the dog, to my horror beneath his bowl I found dozens of squirming maggots. Feverishly and hair standing on end I collected them up, but beneath everything there was more . Under the sofa, the rugs, in the bottom of the curtains, in the newspapers under the X-box and the computer. I was in a kind of fugue hoovering them up. Then I had to empty the hoover bag. Wriggling and squirming they were digging into the carpet and had spread into the hall - under the doors, beneath the bookcase, the TV and the cooker... I have a skin crawling horror of these insects. Not a phobia just a principled dislike.

The more I cleaned the more I found even into the bathroom and the stair well. Each new discovery reawakening the horror of it all.

I can only say that I was very unused to looking after myself. I didnt know how to properly keep things clean and wholesome and I had no idea that a maggot infestation could spread so far and with such speed.

Guess what?

I am still alive and OK. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
I can manage.
I am a rock . I am an island.