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| Moss on wall |
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| Twin trees – the inspiration for my art class project |
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| Twin trees – my interpretation |
I got the tutor to look at it and he made some suggestions about
foliage and lines (contradicting what he’d said previously) and I took the plunge
and started painting on canvas.Afterwards, my art friend gave
me a lift home and it sounded like things weren’t as bad with her house as she previously
feared following further investigation, and was on the verge of starting to get
sorted. That night, I took Temazepam and slept until 8 o’clock and realised it
was getting light and my partner was still in bed so maybe the alarm didn’t go off. There was a thick hard frost but the sunrise
just visible in the East was amazing!
I’d never seen that shade of pinky red before.
Later that day, the Counsellor
rang – She kept going on about lack of confidence which was annoying as that
wasn’t what I felt. She suggested we worked on anxiety management and ways
forward at future sessions.
It started snowing later and had
gone even colder and my back was hurting
so I put yet another extra jumper on and started to prepare for a visit from a
friend later who was due to come round for tea. However, she texted to say she wasn’t
coming because her cat died. I was sad for her, but felt sorry for myself as
all my recent attempts to meet up with friends had gone awry for one reason or
another – I knew it was nothing personal but it got me down a bit.
Later in the week, I called on
my next door neighbour as she had invited me round but there was no answer even
though I rang the bell twice. Then I
tried phoning her but there was still no answer. She came round later and
explained that she’d been delayed on her morning errands as she fell on the ice
twice, but she seemed okay. We had a chat and a coffee which bolstered me up a
bit. I had planned to go shopping in the car but decided it was too dangerous
due to the icy road. I sent e-mails to the
council about gritting – I had to submit three separate requests: 1. grit road,
2. grit pavement, and 3.grit box – stupid system!
At the start of the following
week, there was a brief respite from the arctic conditions and the ice had
actually melted on our street. I took
the opportunity to drive out and get the Christmas tree and do some other Christmas
shopping that I couldn’t do in town. This took me half the day and left me
absolutely shattered but at least it was done, which was just as well because
the ice returned the next day and our street was frozen solid for the second
week running.
After art class that week, I
told my friend about my first counselling session and she suggested I ask them
to clarify if it was actually counselling, or CBT or what? She knew about this subject so I valued her
opinion on it. I asked her if things were moving along with her house. She started
getting all stressed about the money and I suggested some alternatives rather
than extending her mortgage in a bid to be helpful but wasn’t sure if it was.
I had tried e-mailing my Union
Rep earlier in the week to organise a chat before the impending grievance
hearing, but I got no reply so on the Thursday I tried ringing again – twice –
and still had no response. He eventually
rang back Friday (which meant it had taken me a whole week to get hold of him)
and we arranged to meet at 10.30 on Monday. During my next counselling session I
explained some of the conversations I’d had and sought some clarification and
it felt a bit better after that.
That evening, my partner
arrived home with a weird tale from his works Christmas do. They had been for a
meal in Leeds and then they went for a drink in the beer tent at the German Christmas
market when it all went horribly wrong. They were on their first round when a member
of their group suddenly slumped (but not to the floor) and then had a fit
(standing up!) My partner called an ambulance and waited with the victim until
it arrived. When we talked about it, we concurred that said person was probably
on meds for epilepsy and shouldn’t have been drinking. This
is why I never mix valium and alcohol!
We had a very dossy weekend. On
the Sunday, I slept in until 11 o’clock.
Wow! The most sleep I’d had in
weeks – I must have been really worn out. However, it didn’t stop me starting to feel very
anxious about the hearing (about which I had a weird dream). My
partner said he would come with me for moral support so I was able to tell my
friend she didn’t need to come, but I would meet her after for lunch and tell
her all about it.
The night before the grievance
hearing, I took Temazepam to try to calm myself down and although I woke up
lots of times I slept a decent amount in between. I had to get up at 7 to allow myself enough
time to get ready and drive there, which was a shock to the system. My partner
accompanied me to a pre-meet with my Union Rep in the foyer we discussed a bit
of strategy. He had nothing mind-blowing to offer, but said he would broach the
possibility of a compromise agreement. My
partner went for a walkabout and the Rep and I went upstairs to the meeting
room.
The meeting itself was a very
arduous experience for me. My Rep and I
sat opposite the Chair and another member of the Board who was there to hear my
grievance, and the administrator who was taking notes. I was asked if I minded my
boss joining in as apparently she had some information she wanted to present
herself. I was absolutely gobsmacked as
they obviously still had no clue what their actions had done to me. I said I didn’t want my boss there and it
turned out she was downstairs in the foyer waiting to be called. This meant
that I had missed running into her by a matter of seconds. Unbelievable!
I started to voice my grievance
and every time I started to feel overwhelmed with anxiety and nerves, I just
looked down at my notes and read the words, having taken the trouble to
highlight the key points before the meeting so I could focus my mind better.
They then tried to deflect the issue with a bunch of semantics and we went
round in circles for ages with them supporting my boss’ version of events and
reiterating the lies she had told to cover her own back (so much for
impartiality I thought, not that I expected any different). Eventually it came towards an end and they said
they would take my request for a compromise agreement back to the full Board,
which sounded quite hopeful. They said it
was unlikely for anything to happen before Christmas with only one week to go
so I had to try and push it out of my mind and concentrate on enjoying time out.
My partner was ensconced in an
internet cafe so I went to pick him up and we were walking towards the station so
he could get the train to work when he suggested getting some lunch which threw
me a bit. I really didn’t want to hang
around in the town I used to work in and had already arranged to meet my friend
for lunch, but I did feel a bit rotten turning him down. He walked me back to the
car and I drove back home to find not only could I not get up our street due to
all the work vans, BUT there was a huge hole in front of the house! It turned out that houses on the other side
of the street had an electrical fault and the guilty cable ran from outside our
house. AND they said that they might have to dig the garden up to find it. I
spoke to the head engineer who was very nice but I did point out that they were
meant to let people know if they were digging holes on their property. The workmen claimed to have knocked on the
door but I 'weren’t in’. I replied that
they could at least have put a note through the door to explain what was
happening, with contact details if I had any questions.
In the afternoon, my good
friend came round and I took her to lunch and we went to check out the Christmas
decorations in the traditional pub which did not disappoint in their
awesomeness, then she wanted to carry on drinking but I felt exhausted so I went
home.
I had a bad night; waking up even
more than usual and sometimes lying awake for chunks of time. I realised I was really angry; obviously a delayed
reaction. THE DIRTY LYING BASTARDS!
The next day the workmen
started on the hole outside very early and they knocked on the door to tell us
they would indeed have to dig the garden up – great! I went to the doctors and told them everything
that had happened and got another note til 22nd Jan and some more
pills. My sleep didn’t get any better
though, but I tried really hard to put the shit behind me and concentrate on looking
forward to Christmas.
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| Winter berries at the train station |
Dance class started an hour
later that week (which was a better time for me) with drinks and nibbles
planned for afterwards. When they got to
the sequence bit, I went in the back room then went out for a root in the junk
shop opposite which I had meant to do for weeks. When I went back in, the oldies were doing
the Okey Cokey (OMG I thought, so glad I eschewed that section of the
class).
Afterwards, we had some pink
fizz and nibbles and cake – well, I say nibbles but it was quite a spread.
I got a lift back which was nice and I did
some local shopping before going home and then I was absolutely exhausted.
We were not sure what was
happening with the hole outside – a workman had appeared after a day of no progress
so we were worried that the rain which had now taken over from the ice as the predominant
weather feature, meant they were going to leave it for weeks. A cable had been
laid but the hole still needed to be filled in. I saw a neighbour from across the
road who explained a bit more about what had caused the issue. She also said
there was some chalk saying ‘no parking 21/12’ seeming to suggest they were
going to fill the hole but the chalk had washed off with all the rain, which
was getting progressively worse. We had visitors
from New Zealand (a couple of old friends from London and their 17 year old
son) who arrived in the dark. I heard
their car approaching so I went outside in the pouring rain to make sure they
didn’t drive into the hole.
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| Sylvia Plath’s grave - A ‘must see’ tourist attraction |
We had a lovely couple of days despite
the crap weather. Luckily, the rain
eased off a bit on the Friday so I took them for a walk in the woods followed
by lunch (the 17 year old was thrilled that he was eating Yorkshire pudding in
actual Yorkshire!). We then went back into town and I showed them some local sites
including the traditional pub so they could marvel at the Christmas decorations
which they agreed were indeed fab. We went for another drink but some of the
pubs were already rammed so we returned home before Mad Friday mayhem set in
for real. It was nice to have them here
and they said that they really enjoyed themselves.
I suggested they stay longer rather than go
to her mum’s canal boat (‘a corridor in a muddy ditch’ as they called it) but
they said life wouldn’t be worth living if they prevaricated any longer. They had to wait to get the car out as some Yorkshire
Water people turned up right on cue (great – now there were 2 holes dug in our
road!) and I was a bit concerned that they wouldn’t get to their destination
before dark, and it was still raining loads so I made them take some cake for
the journey (am I turning into my mum?)
Later that weekend, my partner
and I went to see some other friends and over a cuppa and mince pies we laughed
a lot about the end of the world not happening on 21st December as
some doomsayers predicted, unless we were now in some weird after-life
alternate reality which was strangely identical to the old one....Someone came
up with a crazy idea about everything going into reverse which was quite
amusing. We also made up mad local celeb baby names and my partner came up with
Craftaganza Cupcake Burlesque.
Later that evening, we went out
for a drink with another friend but after that uncharacteristic burst of
sociability, we had a very dossy Christmas during which we became almost
hermit-like, which was just as well as my partner had another cold (as is
traditional). We ate and drank lots and
gave each other lovely pressies. We watched
loads of films and too much telly (high spot of which had to be Brad Pitt’s ad for
Chanel no. 5 - ‘inevitable’ - you can actually see the exact second when his
soul dies!)
I found it really hard to get
up in the mornings during this time. It could have been because of the awful
grey drizzly weather meaning it was nearly always dark. I was also out of
practice with the overeating lark and so lethargy set in big time. On the bright side, all the drinking raised
my alcohol tolerance so I did not suffer too badly from hangovers! We did manage to get out of the house a
little bit, but only for short walks and the odd pint. As the year drew to a
close, we were hit by near blizzard conditions and when we went into town,
people were walking round looking thoroughly miserable which was a laugh.
For NYE we considered various
options, most of which we deemed a grim prospect in the awful weather, so we
just had a nice dinner at home then met up with a friend and had a few drinks in
town. I wasn’t bothered about staying out until 12 as that NYE lark is all hype
and usually dreadful anyway. I became aware for the first time of the weird phenomenon
of dressing up just to go round pubs – a trend which had eluded me up to this
point. As it turned out, we ended up in
our local pub and chatted to a few people, had a few beers, a couple of
sambucas and a Jaeger and got quite drunk in the end.
Hence New Year’s Day was quiet,
although I have had ones where I felt much worse! We also found out that my partner’s mum had
been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He was liaising with his sister who still
lives near his parents to sort stuff out and I offered to help if I could, to drive
him over to visit or whatever, but he didn’t seem to want me to so I decided to
wait and see what developed. After all,
I had enough to worry about already and was expecting the official response
from my grievance hearing now that the holidays were over.
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| A suitably grey and grim end to 2012 |
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