Snow in August

 On my first morning in Limerick, having had no sleep and having been soaked through in the rain, I made my first connections in Limerick, with a charity who were out litterpicking and who habitually had a coffee together afterwards, so I got to know people straight away, and that's Limerick, it's a friendly city. I went on to volunteer and to study and train from the streets as there was no accommodation, I arrived when the students did, and the city has a severe shortage of accommodation.  I begged Michael to conclude and to confirm he'd stop interfering in my life behind my back. He ignored me. He texted once in the three weeks, some ramble about how 'we will pay for your storage unit' again who is 'we'? No one else was involved, with my consent, and his wife remained in the house and didn't meet me on the occasion he took me to the house.  He came after me trying to absolve himself and put me away in a mental illness charity which would not be availa...

 According to emails from me to Michael's doctor friend, it was August 13th, 2024 that this happened.  Michael had emailed saying he would meet me at the penthouse and we would go for a meal. He said we were going to discuss plans for my future. He made it sound exciting. I was looking forward to seeing him. My mentor, my rescuer, my future. The good in life after all the bad. And I was left devastated.  When he arrived at the penthouse I opened the door with a smile, delighted to see him, but he just stood there with his head bowed, his hair was grey, which was strange as his hair is white, but I realise that his hair must have been sweaty, turning it grey. He very obviously wasn't okay, I was holding the door open for him to come in but he kind of stood there not looking at me and then said 'Can I come in?' as if the door wasn't being held open for him, and I started to get the vibe that things were weird. He came in and pushed out onto the terrace and sat down. H...

 I always wondered why the story of Nanny McPhee and the Patrick Doyle soundtrack always attached it self to my relationship with Michael. My brain is an interesting machine, damaged so badly by injury and trauma and rewired with an autistic slant. The brain always insisted in attaching Snow in August and Nanny McPhee to the penthouse and Michael.  You see, the relationship between myself and Michael wasn't romantic, he unsurprisingly had no interest in me that way, I was overweight and looked pretty awful from homelessness and my teeth were broken and so on. Sometimes because of what he said and did, I was afraid his actions might be to do with trafficking. And I sometimes wonder if he was disappointed to find I was older than I looked. He did push me for my birthday, age and date of birth and when he stole my data, I presume he got all his info.  Snow in August has romance and challenges in it, it begins with a widower and his troubled children. The widower is being for...

The trip to Limerick was a bad turning point in my relationship with Michael. It was during a heatwave and Michael had scheduled just a few hours to meet me in Limerick and sent me a schedule which crammed a huge amount into this few hours, adding 'Welcome to my World!' After some confusion when he'd gotten confused about whether he or I was booking the tickets as he kept swapping it around, he booked the tickets for early on the Tuesday - Tuesday being his special day. Michael knew better than me that the Green Bus was very unreliable, for myself I'd only been on it a few times to go to house sits, and it hadn't been great but as I prepared to go to Michael, the bus was so late it was covering the next bus as well as it's own schedule and thus also very crowded. Michael knew about this being fairly routine but hadn't told me. This meant the bus was running late for his packed schedule which he was so proud of - someone later told me that the packed schedule...

The scoping report was released and I still think this is part of what went wrong with him. One of his main schools was Sexton Street, which was named in the scoping report as one of the worst in the country. He would have had some sort of connection with abusers there. So he was more strange than ever in that last week.  He was moving me to Limerick almost immediately on returning from holiday.  Or not. It was the plan, it was what he'd told me to expect. But it didn't happen. This was normal in the two months, nothing he said went to plan, or rather the plans simply changed instantly and frequently.  I had arranged to meet with the HAP team to get the paperwork clarified and finished, I was registered as HAP eligible so it was just a small procedure or two now, they didn't even need my latest tax return, which I'd painstakingly downloaded and printed.  Michael knew I was meeting with the HAP team, he'd previously made so many claims that he'd help and support ...

  Famous Christmas scene in Limerick Limerick. August 2026.  I work weekends. At lunchtime I sat with my salad and looked at my phone. My eye was drawn to something, and I looked closer.  A year ago, someone in my life asked me to help them to commit suicide, and I immediately contacted their mental health team and asked them to come out. The person in question was a recluse, wouldn't go to them and wouldn't speak to them on the phone, and I had to badger the mental health service to come out. The person in question had attempted to get the means to commit suicide and I took this seriously while his friends said 'Oh, he's always like that'. I knew before I was trained that if someone is trying to obtain the means for suicide, they mean it.  The meeting which ensued was calm enough, but the person in question was open that they wanted to die, that they had a method in mind, and that they'd asked me to help them. The mental health team engaged, listened, changed t...

Limerick, August 2026. The alarm wakes me at 6.15 and it's time to get ready for work. Clean work clothes are laid out and my bag and boots are by the door. I make my tea and look round the bedsit as I try to wake up. It's clean and tidy, ready for an evening of writing and study when I come home and my new ukulele is waiting for me with clean new strings. The walls are lined with exercise programme instructions from the neuromuscular therapist, there are souveniers on the cupboards, Leinster House, UL, events. Things are so different from two years ago, and so much has happened, one thing that reminds me of the penthouse is the floor, the same brown bare floor, the other thing is Michael and his associates still showing off in the press - I can't understand the psychology of a man who behaves like that after nearly killing me and doing goodness knows what to others. I make the bed, pack my lunch, check I've got everything, put my headphones on for 'The Belfast Polk...

This morning I woke up from dreams as I often do. Because I was never able to get appropriate therapeutic help, all I can do is suppress what I have survived and live each day but everything comes out in dreams. During my time with Michael, as he planned to move me to Limerick, he told me my rent would be covered by HAP and I would be able to get fuel allowance, he seemed obsessed with fuel allowance and getting me onto disability allowance. This would leave me with some money in my account, something I'd never had the luxury of before, I've lived in extreme poverty in Ireland in order to keep a roof over my head. I told Michael that the scenario he created meant I could probably seek the psychological help from a local clinic in Limerick, with the money I could have. His response was typical of him, he vaguely said 'We will help you with professional counselling'. There were several things he did there which he did a lot. He said 'We' as if someone else was inv...