
Oh, Bright New Day – We’re Movin’ Away!
I haven’t updated in forever. There is a reason for this: I moved house!
We have desperately been searching for quite some time – half looking for a couple of years, and properly trying for a year.
We had a battle with the council who puts everyone into ‘bands’ and were banding me too low for my medical needs. This was detailed in the post When Those Who Are Meant To Help Do Not. We finally got the right banding – but it was still totally impossible to get the right housing for me, as they all went to downsizing their properties.
Then I was awarded Disability Living Allowance, written about in the post And the results are in…, and became entitled to claim Working Tax Credit – which went my income went from pitiful to being able to contribute to the rent.
See, the thing is we really wanted a bungalow. I struggle with the stairs, so wanted everything on the group floor, but the thing with Fibromyalgia that doesn’t get mentioned so often is trouble with noises. It’s not all the time, but it comes over in waves and it feels like a drum playing directly on your brain, and your pain levels shoot up in response. It overwhelms you, and you can’t concentrate on anything but the noise, and the panic rises until it stops. So, we felt a bungalow would be good having been cursed with noisy neighbours previously.
But bungalow rental costs a lot more than a house or flat, so it was a distant dream until I could contribute. Our ideal place was two bedrooms – with another room of some kind. A box room, a dining room – something. And then this place came up. A two-bedroom bungalow with a conservatory.
We were the first people to see it (which you have to be with a bungalow) and we took it on the spot. The living room could fit about four of my previous living rooms in. I have this beautiful space in the conservatory for crafting, and computer work. The bedrooms and kitchen are a little small, but the rest outweighed that. There is a lovely enclosed garden for my cat, as well.
What I didn’t bank on was how much moving would take it out of me, for days all I could manage was a shower and then sitting on the sofa for the rest of the day. But we are slowly getting there with the unpacking, and yesterday I put together my craft room!
My final worry is that after a year the landlord will want to sell it, but here’s hoping to happy times here.