The man next door

14 September

The guy across the hallway opposite us Roy, is a hard man to get to know, or try to get on with. We got chatting to a friend of his, the person he ever had as a friend, who told us Roy has always been a painfully shy man. He has no family either. It’s a shame really because on the odd occasion he we have managed to chat to him, he shows himself to be an intelligent and thoughtful person, if a little dower in his facial expression.

However, he has little idea how to go about doing anything for himself. We explained how he could get a phone installed, but we forgot he had to approach someone to do get the job done. That was at least a year ago. He still doesn’t have one. Around the same time, he said he had a bath that he couldn’t use, same as we had in here when we first moved in. So we explained how to go about having a wet room installed. So imagine our surprised when we were woken up by heavy banking and hammering at just after 8am on Monday morning. He’s about half way through getting a new wet room installed.

So at least he has made an effort to do something for himself. That to me is a sign of improvement, or am I being over judgemental here? At what point does shyness cross the line into loneliness and mental illness? And is Roy mentally ill? It’s a set of hard questions I ask here, and I’m not qualified to answer them really, but as a lay-person who suffers from depression at times, I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if he is.

What is clear is that Roy needs a lot of help right now, help we are not able to give, simply because we have our own medical problems that take up the majority of our time and effort. But what can we do? We both feel very sorry for the man, how do turn that sympathy into help that won’t overwhelm him and cause him to feel he’s being bullied or pushed into something he really doesn’t want. We are also concerned about being seen as interfering in something we should keep out of.

Our flats are warden supported, but in reality there are times when the on duty warden is hard to get hold of. We have all had a letter from the council to say that the warden is not there to be on the beck and call of all of us, and certainly not to report repairs for us, that is clearly our job. So that means we are now reluctant to call the warden about our concerns over Roy. It’s a hard place to be in right now, but we will find a way out of it soon enough.

There’s the start of a new two-part medical series on telly this evening where a doctor joins a busy GP practice and starts question the number of repeat prescriptions issued by GPs. Have we become too dependent on our prescriptions? They are a huge drain on the system finances. In my case, I have 15 items on my list, but some of them don’t get ordered every month, things like nasal spray and GTN spray. I don’t use them all that often so why order them. So all in all, I do have some sympathy for the ideas. I normally order 12 items monthly, mainly heart, diabetes and blood pressure tablets, and I really would like to reduce them. But which do I cut back on? I don’t know and that last time I spoke to GP about it he very firmly said, ‘NO WAY!’ I left it at that.

Yesterday I said we wouldn’t be going back to Southampton in in a rush. Well, it does have a few places worth pointing a camera at …

Part of the old city walls.

Today’s funny …

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Avenue.
Avenue who?
Avenue guessed yet?