I'm shocked by how sparse my posting has been this past month. But life has certainly been on the insane edge of normal. However, the last few days it's felt quite liberating to be in limbo like this. Since I last posted, my doctor has advised me to get out of the flat as the deterioration of my asthma was threatening me with hospitalisation! Since Friday night I've been staying with Stuart back at the old house in Stockport. It's a good job we still get on as well as ever, or this really would have been a nightmare.

Anyway, with all my stuff at the flat and me here in Stockport with only coffee, my book and thirty poundsworth of asthma steroids for company, I've felt some kind of reconnection with that feeling of just living for the day and making the most of what is around you. Perhaps this is all a lesson that being "comfortable", "healthy" and "content" is often a long way from being happy and from enjoyment of what is really valuable in life. More to the point, it gives a pretext for getting completely slaughtered, as I did on Saturday night, apparently tipping a waitress excessively, talking too loudly in the restaurant and generally making a fool of myself all evening.

May such behaviour carry on coextensively with fate's continuing immersion of my valuable tamagotchi in the piddle-filled wine glass of life. /green wing references

Labels: chorlton, stockport

Oh dear, things are not going well. What were, on the face of it, fairly minor problems with damp appear to be having a serious impact on my health, and I've now got to work out what to do about it. I have gotten so used to my asthma being improved over the last few years that I forget I do officially suffer from extremely acute asthma. The last few nights I've been waking up struggling to breathe; waking at night is always a sign of very bad aggravation of the illness, and just living with it is not an option as this situation inevitably leads to chronic chest infections and other complications, quite apart from getting very little sleep.

I'm due to see a doctor later today, but undoubtedly the biggest challenge will be getting the place sorted out in terms of landlords and letting agents. Even if they are able and willing to carry out necessary repairs, this is by no means guaranteed, is likely to be a long process, and is not guaranteed to be sufficiently effective. There is apparently legal ambiguity about the extent to which landlords and agents are responsible for damp specifically. If it came to the crunch, I imagine I might have a case under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act that the property is unsuitable for habitation, but this would also involve a lengthy process involving local authority environmental health officers.

None of this really seems an option, so I think I'm going to have to try to negotiate, hope that the agents are sympathetic, and release me from my contract without penalty. This is all completely exhausting and depressing, not to say potentially highly expensive.

Encouragement encouraged.

Tags: damp, house, landlord, health, tenant.

Labels: chorlton

What a crazy few days. Stuart and I need to get very, very drunk some time very, very soon. My move is going okay, apart from some slightly distressing damp issues in the new flat. Stuart's, the while, is not going so well, on account of his prospective tenant having withdrawn at twenty-four hours' notice, leaving us in one dilly of a pickle. I never thought I'd say this, but after this weekend, I never want to see IKEA ever again. Anyway, should anyone know of someone looking for a very nice room in a very nice house in Stockport, please email me (replacing "[at]" with "@"). It's at a bargain price! (Click for more information).

On top of this is the inevitable emotional fallout; as the reality of leaving a place, life, and person you love hits home in the way reality can only hit home through its presence, immediacy, and tangibility in front of your very eyes. The walls are bare, everything feels empty, echoey and cold, and you start to believe you will never feel at home again and that there is no future. But there is future, there is always a way forwards. The darkness outside my new windows is for the time being a different darkness from the windows of this house; but over time we come to know a new environment, explore it, and eventually trust it. The shape and contours of a new place, with its smell hitherto alien, unfamiliar and therefore threatening, its unknown cupboards and mysterious carpets, are eventually all filled with a personal narrative and experience which makes them new, familiar, and innocuous; and this simply takes time.

Tags: chorlton, manchester, stockport, moving, tenant, housemoving.

Labels: chorlton, stockport

Five cups of too-strong coffee are keeping me awake, lying in bed thinking about all kinds of things. There's just a few days to go now until I move out of this lovely house; I'm packing my stuff into foldable plastic crates, which now half-fill the study. I've learnt by now that it's silly to invest too much emotionally in a new place, in a new flat, in a new routine; but emotions are incorrigible, and it is only human to dream about new experiences, new ideas, and new ways of living. My first project — if I survive the move both physically and financially — is to take my car off the road. This is both an environmental and an economic gesture, and my move has been chosen partly to facilitate day-to-day life in Manchester by bike. Chorlton is only seven miles from church, and a negligible three miles from university, so there will genuinely by no need for me to drive. Therefore, if there's anyone reading looking for a T reg 1999 black Fiat Punto with a completely new set of tyres, new timing belt kit, new part exhaust, six months' tax and MOT, and a snazzy Kenwood radio, I'm your man...

Tags: chorlton, manchester, car, fiat, punto, forsale, moving, coffee, environmentalism

Labels: chorlton, manchester, stockport

Hurrah! Today I have effectively finalised my move to Chorlton, which is both scary and exciting. Scary because it's going to increase my rent by £125 a month, exciting because it is an opportunity to waste even more money than that with trips round Manchester's new Ikea and Ilva stores. Scary because it means living alone for the first time, exciting because I will be able to frequent such bars as the Marble beerhouse and indulge my primitive bohemian streak. What's more, a friend told me the other day that Quentin Crisp died in Chorlton not far from where I live. So I might even meet his ghost.

Tags: chorlton, marble, quentincrisp.

Labels: chorlton, manchester