Ummm

Well... That was shit!

Thank goodness that decade is over. There's NO indication that my future will be better, but looking back on my life since 2010 is depressing. The Selfservatives announced "Austerity" in 2010 which was implemented from the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2011 which adversely impacted the Voluntary Sector where my work is based. The organisation I'd developed from an irrelevant monthly 3 hour chat between minority ethnic elders into a dynamic agency supporting creative professionals from minority ethnic communities to secure work in the region's cultural venues had its funding cut and I was made redundant. It was run by people who were out of touch with what the organisation was actually for and who'd ignored my warnings about what I thought the government would do in response to the global banking crisis... But I did get an apology from them when I was proved right. At the end of the decade I've closed the 'CIC' I started after being made redundant, held three jobs; one I left before the end of the probation period because it didn't match the job description, got made redundant again and then resigned from the third when I realised I was being ripped off and have been out of work since August 2018. Closing the CIC meant that for the first time for a LONG time, I can't raise funds for a project or programme I could deliver with some of my freelance "associates" until another contract came along.

So there haven't been that many positive highlights for me since 2010 . I DID finally meet up with the Faeries which has been nice... mainly. I realise that I haven't had a "relationship" since I've been here, I think it has been about twenty years since any dalliance lasting more than three months! This has also been the decade where my health has begun to slide significantly so I accept that I'm much less of a "catch" than I may have been before (lol). I'm now taking half a dozen pills every day to (allegedly) keep me functioning within accepted perameters and am nursing discrete twinges and occassional stabbing pains (LMAO!). Having said that; poverty is the real reason for my solitude; I've had so little cash I can't afford to go out. I live to pay my mortgage! A suitable suitor is unlikely to come knocking at my door, so I'll have to get out there to find him. I'm amused to think that the cronies on "the scene" probably think I'm dead or moved away. I've lost out to dishonest and selfish lodgers- one lived with me for abround TEN YEARS without me asking him for rent- because when he moved in I had lots of money and didn't need to ask him to contribute. When that situation changed; the fucker actually objected so we parted ways... Come to think of it; when he went off on his supposed life trip across Europe I'd come into some dosh and gave him £2K (He was back within 8 months)... I met up with a former colleague last week who criticised me for giving stuff away all the time. I see it as "sharing". I don't think I would change even if I wanted to.

I'm very saddened by the result of the recent UK election; I saw a likely Labour government as the dawning of a new age for this country. Their manifesto was the clearest declaration of a government determined to support and enable its people I've seen. I've been fantasising about Jeremy Corbyn as UK Prime Minister with Bernie Sanders as American President. The current 'Selfservative' majority in the UK parliament means it will be unlikely that there will be any significant change in the foreseeable future; the Labour Party's would-licking exercise hints at a probable dumping of the socialist ideals behind the 2019 manifesto. I'm most sad for the 18-24 year olds who voted overwhelmingly for Labour's policies but saw their votes disappear in the ultimate result. 3 million people registered to vote in the weeks up to the election, most of them  18- 24 year olds, a lot of registrations were from people who'd never voted or hadn't for a long time, I just hope they don't give up.

I was shocked to find out that someone with whom I'd spent a couple of years developing a complicated project was so far off 'the same page' as me as to be reading a completely different book! That was a shock and a setback, but i am SO glad this was revealed before irrevocable steps had been taken which could have bound us together permanently as business partners. Actually; that experience helped me make decisions about the sort of people with whom I'll choose to work in the future and what I will demand of them before offering any support myself! I've reviewed papers and a trunk full of photos recently and discovered many outlines and business plans and funding applications for organisations and enterprises, most of which were successful and few of which paid me!

Unearthing thousands of postcards and photographs amassed from going to university to moving to Newcastle was an interesting experience: I looked at faces of forgotten friends and 'lost' friends... There was also a LARGE number of male nudes taken from freebie gay papers in the 1980s & 1990s. I laughed when I realised that; if I died and the trunk was discovered, it would look like this guy approaching 60 years old had a 'secret cashe' of hundreds of pictures of nude/nearly nude men under 25!! I ended up dumping a lot of them in the recycling. It amused me to imagine the batch of pics being sorted by hand and raising eyebrows in the recycling sheds. 

2020 has started well: it is a glorious, bright and sunny day here in Newcastle. I even won the lottery last night... £7.10 will go towards the next round of "Desperation Tax" subs. I've been content to have been at home with my cats. I've got one lodger at the mo, there were two, but it transpired that the other one hadn't been telling the social workers the truth about his situation and, when I discovered he'd been treating the bedroom like a squat, I kicked off, much was revealed and he is back with the same people who emptied his bank account before he came to live with me. I am empathetic as a rule, but, after the lies etc from this kid, when even his family gave up on him it seems clear he needs to hit the bottom with a hard-enough bump to wake him up, which will probably happen once his bank account is again empty.

I hope to make some lifestyle changes, but calling them "resolutions" and sharing them makes me a hostage to their fortune so I won't.