Hello there,
I am really looking to meet fellow neurodivergent people. Are there any peer support or social groups I could possibly join?
I relocated to the city and really want to expand my social circle.
I like history, coffee, book clubs, days out, exploring.
I am married and in my thirties.
I am open to exploring setting something up myself if there is interest and there is no other community established.
Birmingham
I don't really have to add more than just Stourbridge.
I live a solid 5 minutes away from where the fire was.
I was in Spain when the fires started - landing at EMA for 0125. I got home to Stourbridge for about 0400. All you could smell was smoke. Cars were covered in ash. In the morning, I went down to OSH to see if any help was needed. The amount of donations we received was tremendous; I counted over 30 crates of water, and 10 crates of UHT milk.
Whilst I was at OSH, I met a wonderful lady, Vi. She runs Leslie's Care Packages. If you can, please donate to her - she is giving gift cards to those affected by the fires, to buy food, and clothes.
I'm from near Welshpool in Wales, 19M, autistic, i play guitar, I'm good at fiddling with electronics, I'm very close to my mum, and right now I'm friendless. I'm completely uninterested in "romance".
We've always found the best place for me in the alternative education community and made some excellent friends there. My upbringing has always been child-led and I've been empowered to follow my interests and self-learn at my own pace, and now after all that i do not want to move on to overly structured, scripted education such as college, or get some Sisyphean 9-5 job, especially after seeing so many people struggle. I want to do something really worthwhile that i enjoy.
We travel long distances and can meet up anywhere within about 2 hours if it's worthwhile. The rest of the information that follows is supplementary and if you can't be bothered, you needn't read it.
In my early teens i fell in with the wrong people and became friends with a couple engaging in underage sex. I wasn't yet aware of the implications of this and put up with it, even as they increasingly tried to involve me, by just treating it as a joke. Fortunately they're not in my life anymore.
My dad has nothing to do with us and my extended family has cut us out. Since i turned about 16 we've been losing my friends. Some were a bit nasty anyway, some changed and became unbearable, some vanished inexplicably. I was planning to jam and possibly form a band with 3 friends and they've completely disappeared. I'm not clingy or demanding, i have the bad examples set me by my dad and the couple i mentioned to bias me against that behaviour. I just can't understand where all my friends went.
More understandably, some have just moved on to college, and even if i wanted to, my friend group was so scattered (we had friends as far as Worcestershire) that i couldn't follow them in if i wanted to. One old friend is a Polish immigrant and would probably be looked on by the government as a squatter if he didn't take that path. He still finds time to drop me a line every few weeks.
When i was 17 i was wandering around a park with my mum while my sister hung out with her friends. I sat around, queued for the swings, wandered, i had no friends to hang with, and then someone called park security and told them i was a paedophile staring at children - in fairness i look mature and beardy. I was lucky my mum was there, and they were embarrassed when they tried to arrest a 17-year-old, but still... now I'm old, i can't go to the park and exercise, i can't wander about on my own for fear it'll happen again.
We don't live a cloistered existence, we always follow our interests and go to interesting places, but still, apparently there's not much we can do. We've searched for and continue to try neurodivergent and homeducation groups of all kinds throughout Wales and the West Midlands, but this is long enough already and i can't be bothered to write a full account to justify myself to whoever you are.
Anybody out there?
https://www.youtube.com/live/n-csGsGttNw?si=nhtZjM_PRk_YL_Dy
My mate and his wife are at the start of the video. Absolutely heartbreaking. 😢
https://www.gofundme.com/f/richard-rose-sj2mh
Please consider donating to help them get back on their feet, even a couple of quid helps. Thank you x
Hi all
Given we're in yet another heatwave, I was having the discussion at work about the name of the long freezable ice lollies you get in see through plastic wrapping. To many they are ice poles, to the younger Americanised generation they are popsicles. To me and every one in my family and who I grew up with, they are tip tops. I wondered why this was, so went for a little google.
It turns out Tip Top was the brand name used by the company Crystallised Confections, whose factory was on Tunnel Road, West Bromwich.
The owner was Bert Woolston, who sadly passed away in 1990 aged 74.
I can't find exactly when the business went under sadly, but I thought I'd share what I've found so the info has a better chance of surviving.
I'm really struggling to narrow down searches for a solicitor to help with the sale of my flat and a purchase of a leasehold property (of less than £180k). Had a ridiculously priced quote from one already (£4000+) compared to all the research I've done around what the average prices should be. I've tried the ReviewSolicitors website and Trust Pilot but struggling to find accurate recommendations to narrow down a shortlist. Any ideas for a good solicitor who covers conveyancing?
I'm looking for free or very low cost venues where I could get a group together? I'm currently meeting at Dudley Central library and it's not very accessible.