One Year On ...

Wednesday marked the anniversary of my removal to Goldthorpe and I thought it would be interesting to review the last year.  A few weeks ago one of my 'Sunday Friends' asked how I was getting on in Goldthorpe.  Aware of my limitations, I answered only the first part of his question, having brought with me a 'bubble' of life into which I felt I had largely withdrawn, cocoon-like.  Join me on a journey through my diary to see if that's true.

The move itself was interesting, starting in rain, but all was unloaded by 2.0 pm.  The major snags were attributable to the steepness of the staircase and the fact of its being enclosed.  The wardrobe had to be disassembled in the lounge and then rebuilt in the bedroom.  The bed wasn't so fortunate; it lingered in the dining room for ten days or so, and was finally destroyed and taken to the council tip.  Meanwhile my first few nights found me using the mattress on the floor until a self-assembly bed frame could be procured.

The garden was the next big challenge.  I hadn't wanted a garden anyway but, in a tight market, I wasn't about to make a fuss.  Many a morning was spent moving concrete slabs, and digging out giant weeds, before trampling it flat and laying a membrane, on which I repositioned the slabs and surrounded them with lots of granite chips.  At the front the tiny area was already stone-covered, but through this was growing what amounted to half a tree. I cut out what I could and treated the root with bleach. However, when it showed signs of new growth, I knew I should have to clear the stones and dig that out too.  By this time the back was ready for the chips, so some got diverted to make the front tidy as well.

As early as the first weekend, I found water running down the landing wall, and the roofing people came to 'fix it' a couple of weeks later.  Only they hadn't. A few months after that, the problem recurred in greater force and just before Christmas scaffolding was erected so that a more permanent repair could be done.  Meanwhile a mystery parcel had arrived.  My landlord, aghast at these and many other 'teething' problems that I'd had to cope with, had sent me a tin of shortbread!  Not much, I hear you say, but she'd had to bear the not insignificant cost of all the work that had been done; I only had a little inconvenience.

By this time, I'd become established in my new place of worship, the Quaker fellowship in Doncaster, who are inheritors of one of the very first Meetings, established in 1652.  Here I'd learned of their need for an Area Treasurer, and offered my services.  Being new to the fellowship, and not a Member, there were a number of administrative hurdles to be negotiated, but in January I was appointed and set to work immediately studying the complex workings towards the completion of 2020 accounts, and building my own spreadsheet 'family' to produce the required documents for 2021.  This exercise is only now completed - albeit a bit earlier than last year's was - and I can turn my attention to the current year.

I spoke of the 'bubble' I'd brought with me.  The greatest component of this was my work for WEBBS, which I've mentioned often on this blog, helping in the production of digital scriptures in foreign languages for use in the mission field.  Another was my Welsh studies.  By the time I'd clocked up 900 days, I decided that, for all the use I would put it to, my knowledge of the language was sufficient.  The main problems are primarily vocabulary (I probably have only about 1,500 words, if I can remember them) and secondarily, remembering the mutations.  But, given that most of my use of yr iaith Cymraeg is going to be translating into English, I shall recognise these when they occur, and won't have to worry about remembering to use them myself.

Of course there has always been family history to squeeze in. I brought with me the collection of microfiche of which I had been custodian for some years.  When I reminded the Society that I still had them, and was willing to do look-ups if anyone wanted, this was greeted with a kind of semi-serious mirth.  The technology of micro-fiche is virtually obsolete and, thinking that the subtext of my offer was a desire to get rid of them, I was told that they could be junked.  Seeing that I was serious, not only was a notice put in the Society magazine, but a month or so ago I was presented with a redundant fiche reader from the local record office, which is in much better condition than the one I owned.  And it's not an entirely dead technology either, for only this week I've received an e-mailed enquiry that I shall begin to look into after a busy weekend.

Realising the limitations of the answer I had given to my friend's enquiry, I decided to do something about this, and I'm now getting regular exercise by walking into the town one morning a week to join in a community coffee morning which, in some ways, is similar to the one run by the Salvation Army in Letchworth that I helped with before Covid.

I have plans for the future in many of these directions, but I keep reminding myself that the whole idea of moving away from the 'First Garden City' came from the Almighty, and I keep looking to Him for guidance as the days and weeks roll by.