Oct
13
2007
1

Nice man…

…let’s hope he isn’t a fuckwit.

Well the building man came over… they are going to do my kitchen tomorrow and they reckon they will get it all done by Tuesday, with the exception of the plastering. Even better he quoted me less than the tosser who was meant to be be coming to do it.

Let’s hope he isn’t a cowboy. Prayers at this point would be good… trivial I know, but I need my house sorted out before I utterly lose the plot!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Oct
13
2007
1

Not a happy bunny

About a month ago a builder agreed to come and fit my kitchen next week. Yesterday I phoned him to confirm the day he was coming and he said he would get back to me when he had his diary in front of him. Today I chased him again and he has told me he cannot do it for a month. Whe could he not have had the courtesy to phone me and say he had problems with fitting it on?

I am bloody livid. My lounge looks like a B&Q warehouse and it feels like a squat. I want it sorted out NOW!

I have another man coming around to do a quote in the next hour and I just hope he can do it at a reasonable price and starting on Monday! Too much to ask for? We’ll see.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Oct
11
2007
1

What a nice surprise!

When I got home from work today not only did I have my lovely delivery of organic food from Abel and Cole, but I also had a delivery of Guernsey Freesias. My lovely cousin Beccy sent them to me and I so appreciated them. I haven’t had an easy week so it made me very happy. Clearly I am easily pleased by nice flowers!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Oct
09
2007
2

HIV and Me

Tonight I watched the second part of Stephen Fry’s documentary called HIV and Me. I really ‘enjoyed’ this documentary, if enjoy is the right word to use about a documentary about a terrible illness. Maybe I should say that I found it very interesting. He looked at all sorts of different people who had contracted HIV, from children born with it to heterosexual and homosexual people who had contracted it through sexual contact. He also considered current risk taking, shame and stigma and whether the shock tactics of the 1980’s and 1990’s actually contributed to the stigma that people who have HIV today continue to suffer with.

When HIV and AIDS were discovered in the early 1980’s the disease was viewed as life threatening and individuals were given extremely poor prognoses. These days people are now living with the HIV virus who contracted it over 20 years ago, largely due to the development of new and more effective drug therapies. I only know two people who are HIV positive and I remember being utterly horrified when one of them disclosed this to me about 6 years or so ago. Working in drug treatment I am so aware of the risks of blood borne viruses , and one of the reasons that Needle Exchange Programmes were developed was to help reduce the transmission of HIV infections. Admittedly these days we are less worried about HIV than we are about Hepatitis C but that is another story.

Stephen Fry’s documentary gave me lots to think about. Not least he starting me thinking how wonderful the advances in medical science have been. There are so many more people who are HIV positive and living lives which are full and satisfying. However, these people are generally in the developed world. The HIV and AIDS epidemic in Africa was described as being ‘out of control’ and there is just not enough drug therapy available to be able to treat all the people who are positive. Surely, there is enough to go around? One of the reasons that was given for this lack of treatment was due to corruption in African governments. How terrible that people are not only dying from civil war, poverty, starvation and lack of clean drinking water, but also from lack of basic care for an illness that can now be controlled in most cases.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Oct
08
2007
5

A work in progress

DSCN2918

There are times that I feel as though I am being pulled apart by the fact that I have to be different things to different people. Some people see me as a social worker, a friend, a sister, daughter, granddaughter, cousin, key-worker, colleague and some people see me as ‘Anna’ – they see all of these things and recognise that I have different roles for different people. The question for me is how do I reconcile all those different faces, if indeed it is possible at all.

For me my life is a bit like a patchwork quilt. Sometimes I feel as though I am full of contradictions; different colours, shapes and textures. Some people only see one part of who I am, they only see the little patches but not the whole quilt. Because they don’t catch sight of the whole thing they miss out on the way the colours complement each other and the fact that each individual part is necessary to the whole. Some of my friends see the complete quilt, they see more than little tiny patches of my life, more than the individual roles and as a result they can see the whole picture; the full quilt. The real me. The real me that I often think it unacceptable, but somehow it is much more satisfying than the individual patches alone.

Nb. The pretty quilt at the top is one I have been making for ages… it has sat in the cupboard for months, but I have been getting on with it again. I love it, and lots of the fabric is from old clothes that belonged to various family members. You could say that my memories are being sewn together!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Oct
07
2007
2

The seach goes on

I went to another different church today. This time an Anglican church just down the road from me. I really, really enjoyed it – which is something I haven’t said about church for a while. I mean I liked the Quakers, they gave me a lot to think about but I was pretty convinced that it wasn’t something I would do forever and ever, but it was an amazing part of the jouney (and I suspect I will go back sometime again soon!) Today though I went to a harvest festival. The church was full of families and it was warm and welcoming. They had a puppet show and the guy speaking did a pretty good job with the noisy congregation.

I am tired of wandering now. I need somewhere to call home.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Oct
05
2007
0

New kitchen

My new kitchen was delivered at 7am this morning. I can’t fault B&Q for their delivery service – especially as they had told me it would be with me between 8am and 12 noon. I suppose being early is better than being late. So now my lounge looks like a B&Q warehouse and I have to leave everything in here until a week on Monday when the Nice Man can come and fit it for me. It will be lovely when it is done, but it is sooooo much hassle!!!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Oct
01
2007
4

Is it so wrong…

… to want to talk to someone in the UK and not someone in an Indian call centre?

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |

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