I know a woman who just like me had a small business for approximately as many years. We’ve cooperated a few times, I know her from a network for women in science and technology. She has a PhD.

She too is getting some kind of benefits now. She’s in the Netherlands, but not in Purmerend. She has a very well managed bipolar disorder. She gets to talk about what she would like to do in terms of work. In a normal relaxed atmosphere.

No people are climbing onto her balcony either.

No people are suggesting that she has dementia or whatever. She’s slightly older than I am. She’s divorced these days, living on her own.

I feel HOUNDED and HARASSED, by contrast. HATED. I’ve never before felt this hated. Not even in Portsmouth.

I think that that’s because this is supposed to be my home country. This is where I should be able to expect to be treated like an equal. To discover that my civil rights get violated just as easily here is very painful.

The Dutch say that they want to treat people equally in equal circumstances. This last bit holds the clue to inequality.

I want to feel safe again. I have not been able/allowed to feel safe in a long time, I think. The first two or three weeks after I moved from Southampton to Portsmouth, perhaps. That was at the start of 2009.