 |
| May bluebells! |
 | |
| Soho - dodgy shop |
On Friday the weather was dull
and grey but not rainy so we had the idea of going up the London Eye. However, the queues were huge so we went to
the National Portrait Gallery for the David Bailey ‘Stardust’ exhibition which
was quite good (I especially liked the photos of Johnny Depp before we was a
big star). After that, we had a pub
lunch in Soho then spent the rest of the afternoon taking photos and mooching
outside a small Italian cafe. There was
a small ‘clothes shop’ across the road and my partner challenged me to buy
something for a tenner. I said okay but
suspected that it was a front for some sordidness (there was a sign saying
‘model’ with an arrow pointing downstairs).
The cheapest item in the shop was a vest tee fro £12 so mission not
accomplished. On our way back to Charing
Cross, via St. Martin’s Alley a guy came out of one of the shops and said hello
to my partner who turned out to be an old College pal from back in the ‘90’s
which was random.
 | |
| The Shard |
In the evening we cooked dinner
for my sister and had a pleasant time drinking wine and chatting. I had a better nights’ sleep so felt more
rested on the Saturday. The weather had
turned nice and sunny so we got the train to London Bridge and took some photos
of the shard. We got told off for going
right to the end of the platform to get the whole thing in shot. We briefly visited Borough market which was
heaving of course and the ‘street food’ (yah!) really stank so we escaped into Southwark
cathedral. We looked at some of the archaeology
and the courtyard and listened to some posh singing until we’d had enough of
the holy crap. We went in search of The
George, an old pub we used to frequent, before heading for the South Bank. We met my sister at Tate Modern
for the Matisse cut-out exhibition which was rather good.
 |
| Location for 'Call the Midwife' |
After, we walked the length of the South Bank,
looking at the ‘Spanish market’ and ‘Malaysian market’ and marvelled at people
constantly eating (yah! Street food
yah!) We were in search of somewhere to
have a quiet drink. We failed, but we
did see a 'Call the Midwife’ film location.
In the evening we went to the ace Indian restaurant round the corner
from my sister’s.
On the Sunday my sister made us
a huge brekkie which we ate outside on her patio as it was lovely and sunny
again.
 |
| St. Alfege church, Greenwich |
We went to Eltham Palace and were
there quite a while, taking in the art deco and Tudor splendour before exploring
the grounds. Then we got the bus to Greenwich and wandered along the river and round
the market before going into St. Alfege churchyard for some Hawksmoor splendour and respite from the
crowds. We had a quick look inside the church – just in time before an old man
said they were closing and we were chucked out.
After that, we went to the park
and climbed up the hill to the observatory (rammed as well quell surprise) and
walked along to the other hill, which was a lot more chilled.
On Monday we had a trouble-free
journey home although our connecting train was very smelly and hot. We struggled to stay awake and felt jet
lagged when we got home. I said I felt
like I had been to Turkey not London!
That night I slept for almost 9
hours although not in one go. I took a
while to come round on the Tuesday morning but got up to get on with unpacking,
washing and so on and also started on my draft blog for April. In the afternoon, I was still so tired that I
was falling asleep but I had to stay awake to go to the doctors. I talked to her about how I was and what had
happened with my benefits. She had a
copy of the letter so she already knew and agreed with my partner’s analysis
that I just got lucky.
In the evening I went swimming
with my friend with the interesting ailments.
I had washed my hair that morning and as my dye was still quite new I
didn’t want to get it wet again so I bought a delightful (sic) bathing
cap. I did about 30 minutes swimming and
we also took the piss out of the aqua-robics.
By the time I was doing my last length, I had very achy arms and only
just managed to finish it. My friend seemed
surprised that I got tired relatively quickly, but as I said to her, at least I
still did it even though it knackered me.
Later, I was watching the
locally shot TV drama and got involved in some chat on social media concerning
the ice cream van drug dealer. Dialogue
highlight was definitely the ‘Teflon twat’ league of gentlemen comment.
I expected a good sound sleep
after all the activity, but I had a mediocre night, woke several times and felt
groggy the next morning and could hardly move my legs. I forced myself up and did some stretching
exercises then had a radox bath for my aching limbs. Later on, I went to see my close neighbour
friend and we chatted about our respective weekends and swimming. She said she now goes swimming with her son
some Weds afternoons if I wanted to go with her, so I said maybe next
week.
I posted part 24 of my blog
which took a lot longer than I expected and I felt too drained to do any other
writing afterwards. Instead, I played
with the steam cleaner we had recently purchased then looked for pictures to
use for my art class later. My art
friend had texted to say she wasn’t signing up for art this term but might come
for a drink the following night.
 |
| Pussy willow source photo |
At art class, the tutor helped
us to choose and sketch out designs for multi-coloured lino prints. I did one from my photo of a pussy willow
branch in front of a tree trunk (lots of texture!) I was enjoying colouring my design in when
the tutor hassled me to get on with transferring the thing onto lino. I traced it, then transferred it, but
realised it would still come put backwards which confused me, but I didn’t
really care. I cut out miniscule pieces
of lino as only a small amount of white was needed. From there, the idea is to build up the
colours, going darker each time.
I
walked back with my art pal, and chatted about swimming and her complicated
life. That night, I took Temazepam
and was asleep sooner than normal, but still woke lots. When the alarm went at 8, I dozed listening
to ‘small waves’ til 8.37 – smashing my record of the previous month! I tried to do some stretching exercises but I
was too groggy. My partner was getting
himself ready for interview number two but seemed quite relaxed about it. In the afternoon I got an idea to add some
scenes to my Zombie film plot. I worked
out where to insert the scenes but got stuck on what would happen at the end.
In the evening I went to the
pub round the corner and met my art pal.
When I mentioned my film idea, I was about to ask for her contact in the
film industry, when she said ‘well, I know a writer’. I felt slightly crestfallen as she had said before
that she knew someone in the industry and would ask them to read my idea, but
I’m not going to give it to another writer am I? However, I was not deterred by this setback;
it just meant that I needed to do some research into other places to send it.
After about half an hour, my
art friend appeared then my partner arrived later, having had a stinking
day. The interview had not gone well,
but he didn’t go on about it too much and instead gave our companions an ipad
art lesson. After they had both gone
home, we had one more drink and my partner told me a bit about the interview
which sounded weird; it included a paper-based programming exercise (WTF!) and
questions he couldn’t answer as they wanted without lying, which of course he
couldn’t do as he knew the panel. This
sounded even weirder as he was the only internal candidate and yet the
questions were skewed against him. He remained
stoical however, saying it was good practice for the interview for the job he
actually wants, scheduled for the following Monday.
I had a reasonable but short
sleep, and woke at 7.00 a.m. on the Friday.
Whilst doing other things, I watched all the Eurovision song entries,
including those who did not make it to the final. My favourite by a mile was the Austrian entry,
although I also quite liked the Azerbaijan song (very mellow); and Moldova (who
were robbed as they didn’t make the final) I was sorting through some old documents on my
laptop when I found something I wrote back in Jan 2011 which I thought might be
useful for ‘pervasive evil’. This
started a train of thought I didn’t really want to have on a Friday but then I
reflected that this might have been because I hadn’t done any for a couple of
weeks so maybe I needed to. In the
evening I rang Mum but wished I hadn’t as we got onto stressful topics such as
my partner’s work situation and my condition and I had a headache afterwards.
We had quite a mundane weekend. My partner did a lot of preparation for his
final job interview. However, we also
got some useful stuff done round the house and my partner put a keyboard on a
red HP laptop he had acquired with the intention of it becoming mine if I liked
it. Meanwhile, I sorted through all my
London photos which took hours and made some jewellery. I also had a chat with my neighbour who knew
a few people in the film and TV industry and she said she would like to see my
film idea which was quite encouraging.
 |
| Go Girl! |
We did pause from all this
useful activity to watch the Eurovision Song Contest which was moderately
entertaining but the voting part was far too long. I voted for Austria, who actually won! And they got 12 points from the UK! I was actually inordinately chuffed at this
if a tad amazed. My partner said it was
all about the beard but I reckoned it was all about Russia – either countries
not voting for them thus splitting the Balkan bloc, or sending a message to
them by voting for a tranny. Conchita Wurst
said in her thank you speech ‘this is for everyone who believes in a future of
peace and freedom – you know who you are’.
Bless! I did find out later that
the British public had voted mainly for the lewd Polish entry which marred my
joy somewhat.
When I woke on the Monday
morning, I was very thirsty and was clearing my throat and taking a sip of
water when my partner came in thinking that I had I made a comment which I had
not; I could barely speak. He snapped
something back at me and closed the door.
I was rather at a loss until I remembered that he had his big interview
so was probably a bit on edge. Later on,
I noticed a skip with cement in it right outside the house. I swore at the damn cheek of this and my
partner’s response was where else should they put it? I tried to explain that they could at least
ask and not just assume it was okay.
Again I reflected that he was preparing for his interview and I didn’t
want to argue. I sat on my own and had a
coffee and a bit of a cry then tried to pull myself together and started
looking at what I had on for the week.
My partner seemed calm and
composed but he was doing that breathing thing so I knew he was quite nervous
about the interview. He lightened the
mood by making some League of Gentlemen -style jokes. I wished him luck and saw him to the door,
just as some awful stone cutting noises started. The street was full of dust and I thought
again how irksome it was that people could just turn up and do this shit on
your doorstep without so much as letting you know and with no regard for the
disruption it causes to your daily life.
I still felt very tearful and
was not sure if it was transference from my partner’s stress or just that
Monday feeling and/or the bloody noisy builders. I tried to ignore it all and concentrated on
my draft blog for the first part of May which took about half the day. I also posted several parts of my
‘illustrated blog’ during the week which took me up to August 2012 and felt
like an achievement.
In the evening we talked about
my partner’s interview. He said he
wasn’t sure how it went and I suggested that might be a good sign. Obviously, he was exhausted and relieved that
it was all over. The next day I still
felt quite fatigued and got out of breath when doing some housework but was not
as depressed as the day before. I worked
on ‘Pervasive evil’ and wrote 1,200 words which was good going, even though it
made my head ache.
 |
| Wall shadow |
That evening the earlier rain
had cleared and it was lovely and sunny when I met my friend with the
interesting ailments at the bus stop to go swimming. We had a pleasant walk through the park before
doing 40 minutes swimming and then I was shattered! I was also very thirsty and we got drinks
from the vending machine – I couldn’t believe there was no water though; in a
sports centre FFS!
When I got home, an
old drinking pal had messaged me about my blog and we said we would get
together the weekend after next sometime.
That night, I couldn’t get to
sleep at all. I was tossing and turning
for ages with stuff churning round my head.
I tried to think stuff through a bit and did some relaxation. When I did eventually drop off, it was
intermittent and I also wondered if it was anything to do with the moon, which
was almost full and very big and bright.
It was indeed beautiful and enhanced by Mars on the right and Jupiter to
the left. Of course, my attempts at
capturing the spectacle on camera were as hopeless as ever.
I felt very unrested the next
morning but I had to motivate myself to get up and go to the big town. I was
cheered up by the fact that the sun was shining but after rushing to get the
bus on time I was far too hot! I got
there just in time for my psych appointment then had to wait for the therapist,
whilst filling in that daft questionnaire yet again. It turned out I knew her as well – she used
to work where I worked, in a totally different team and I only met her a few
times but I was involved in her induction and it felt somewhat weird. She said that she left about the same time as
me and I did wonder how she had qualified as a therapist in such a short space
of time.
However, we decided to continue
and we were chatting for almost half an hour when she said our time was up. I was rather surprised as I thought we had an
hour but I later found out that it is standard for CBT sessions to be only half
an hour. Anyway, there was some
discussion as to whether CBT was right for me at this juncture or if I might be
better off being referred back to counselling but to be honest I had no instant
answer when put on the spot and then she was on about needling strategies to
work on for next time. She said I was
doing all the right things in terms of low mood (i.e., getting up every day no
matter how hard it was, having structured days, keeping busy, having a range of
positive activities etc.) so she said we could work on my sleeping, anxiety and
‘moving on’. We set another appointment
for two weeks’ time. It was only later
that I started to realise I didn’t want this at all; I was already sceptical
about CBT and had said to her what I’d said before that everyone was offered
either that or counselling nowadays so how could it be tailored to the
individual? As my partner later observed, it was as if all other psychologies
had been ‘uninvented’.
 |
| Cute pony collecting money |
Afterwards, I did some errands
and was shattered by the end of it but was cheered up by the mini Shetland pony
collecting money – too cute! When I got
home, I needed some time to recoup then I went outside in the early evening sun
and did a spot of weeding before going to art class. We worked on our multi-layered
lino prints. I made eight prints and got
two layers done, and took photos of each stage so that I could replicate it if
it went wrong. The next session was
scheduled for oil painting which meant we would probably not get back to
printing for some time and I took my lino home to cut out the next layer. My art pal’s boyfriend came to pick her
up. He looked different to how I
imagined but definitely had strong guardian tendencies! I wished them a nice time in Portugal and
walked home alone. I was so exhausted
and hot! I had a drink of water and
collapsed on the sofa.
At bedtime I took Temazepam and
don’t remember falling asleep; I woke briefly and found my lamp still on as was
my ipad (I had been reading an eBook), turned them off and turned over and went
back to sleep straight away. After that,
I woke a few times but had some decent sleep in between.
I did some thinking about how I
felt about the whole therapy/counselling malarkey. I honestly did not think it would do me any
good at this stage. If anything, I felt
more angry after the session because it was all about trying to subvert your
anger and turn you into a good dolly. I understood
that it was not healthy to be angry all the time and that I needed to look
after my own sanity and not let it eat me up, but felt that I was managing it quite
well and channelling the anger into constructive action and that my writing was
actually the best therapy. Even if the
CBT did work enabling me to ‘move on’, the bastards would still get away with
it and continue to destroy lives. I
would not feel good about myself if I let that happen.
Also, I found it quite
laughable talking about strategies to manage sleeping for example as I knew
what they meant by ‘sleep hygiene’ and I had tried it all. It would not get to the root cause of why I
was not sleeping which was that my brain was still trying to process what
happened to me. Being told not to drink
coffee or watch telly at night or whatever would not make any difference until
I had resolved stuff in my own head. I
decided to ring them and explained how I felt and the receptionist was on the
verge of discharging me in a very abrupt manner. I said no, that I wanted to speak to someone
and my therapist came on the line. She
was very nice about it and said she would speak to her super about offering me
counselling instead.
When I went to bed, I had a
funny night, woke up lots and had some very muddled up dreams in between. When the alarm went off the next morning, I
couldn’t face getting up and dozed for a further forty minutes but then the
inevitable noise of men using their stupid power tools woke me up.
I spent most of Friday shopping
and gardening in the sun. My partner got
home very late that evening and told me that he hadn’t got the job he was
interviewed for at the start of the week.
Obviously he was pissed off but didn’t seem too stressed out. I had quite an unexpected shock reaction to
the news – some of my old stress symptoms which I had learnt to manage pretty
well, resurfaced and my head felt all foggy and heavy. As it was Friday night I didn’t want to talk
about it, but I did say he couldn’t stay working there for much longer. What made it even worse was that this was
about the fourth staff re-organisation in as many years, and they had just
announced another one. He agreed and
also told me he was no longer going to be ‘on call’ to fix the system at all
hours of the day and night which I thought was a good move.
We relaxed with wine and DVD’s
and the next morning we talked some more about his situation. I told him how it had made me feel and that I
was quite upset. He understood but said
that strangely he felt like the stress had lifted; it was a conclusion at least
and he was definitely going to step up his efforts to look for another job (or
be a top photographer!) I was rather
puzzled, however, as to why he had put so much effort into preparing for the
interviews, even working over weekends, but he said it was because he ‘had to
know’. Now it had been confirmed what he
already knew and that it didn’t matter what he did or how much effort he put
in, the twats in charge would just follow their own agendas regardless – the
same old story again!
 |
| Bullfinch |
We walked up to the nearby pub
and sat outside taking photos of a bird on the telegraph wire (a bullfinch we
later discovered) and of course, my partner’s efforts were far superior to
mine! We got the bus back into town and
went to our old local to enjoy the evening sun and chatted to various
people. We were then invited to go round
to the club and had a nice time socialising until about 9.30 before getting a
takeaway and beer to take home.
I had a really bad night,
waking loads and at one stage I had such bad hot flushes that I just lay there
trying to get cool for almost an hour.
On Sunday morning, my partner remarked on how much he slept and I said, ’lucky
you!’ We went out to the Sunday market;
it was crap but we got some plants which I planted out later. We also fixed the trellis that had been
broken for a while and I transplanted some rose bushes aiming to train them up
it.
On Monday, I had a slow start
and it was almost 9 when I woke up properly.
I was due to visit my art neighbour later that morning so I rushed to
get ready, but she had texted to change meeting up to Tuesday which suited me but I wished I had seen the message the night before so I could have chilled out a bit more. Everything felt like such hard work!
During
the week I had a few calls from the counselling people but they kept offering
me appointments the next day or at 8.30 in the morning which was totally
useless and when I said I needed more notice, they said they’d have to ring me
back as they only got appointments one week in advance – what a daft system! And they have so far since failed to ring me
back with a sensible suggestion.
My friend with the interesting
ailments was unfortunately ill again which meant no swimming. I did, however go
and visit my art neighbour who also sometimes went swimming and she said she
would let me know next time she was going (although I fear it might be a bit
early in the mornings for me). We talked
about the CBT lark and she agreed with me that it was all about control and not
getting to the root cause of problems.
She had been in a similar situation and ended up paying for proper
psychotherapy which she said was much better.
She also reckoned that if people actually got proper therapy it would
reduce a lot of other illness thus saving money in the long run.
On the writing front, I got to
the end of 2013 with my ‘illustrated memoirs’ and did some work on ‘pervasive
evil’ which of course made me very fatigued and my head hurt. I started reading
the second half of ‘office politics’ which as predicted, I did not find as
useful as the first part and I thought a bit about his advice to put on an act in
the workplace and decided it was bollocks.
I got a bit stuck with my own book so I did some work on the zombie film
plot but I was still struggling with one of the later scenes.
My sleeping remained erratic
and after a particularly unrestful night, I started to think things over. Recent events and conversations made me even
more certain than ever that the writing I was doing was what I NEEDED to do –
it was like my own therapy, working things through. When I started ‘pervasive evil’ I soon became
aware that I had been fighting the same battle for almost 10 years, not 18
months. So was it any wonder that it was
taking me ages to sort it all out in my head and be able to deal with it? I
really needed the time to get my head sorted out and I was not ready to ‘move
on’ in the way that CBT therapists mean, which I interpreted as leaving the
shit behind as if it never happened and carrying on as normal. I was still determined to confront it, deal
with it and get something constructive out of the anger. When I went to see my close neighbour friend mid-week
I expected to talk to her about this stuff as well as fill her in on my partner’s
situation as I had promised, but
instead we did small talk for half
an hour with mainly her doing the talking which was a bit strange.
At art class we did oil
painting with a different teacher. He
was very nice but his teaching style was a bit ephemeral – he didn’t really
teach technique and kept going on about the ‘colour of the air’. On the plus side, he had chosen apples for
our subject matter which I thought was a lot more realistic and achievable than
doing a whole still life and my effort was better than previously. I talked to him about other courses he was
running and badgered him (on my art friend’s behalf) about doing an evening
painting course.
 |
| Wild flower |
The next day, I went to lunch with a good friend I hadn’t
seen for a couple of months and talked about all sorts including her latest
walking exploits and my epiphany about my illness which she totally got. We then wandered about a bit in the mizzle. She was on about going for an actual walk but
I said the weather was too changeable so we just pootled along the river and
found some old bits of pot and glass before going for a couple of pints.
My partner was miraculously
home early for once but I missed his call to ask if we were still in the pub
and I was already on my way home. That
night, I found it impossible to sleep and I tried to do some proper relaxation
but kept seeing weird pictures in my head.
Eventually, I must have slept, but it was an unrestful night again and I
still felt knackered the next morning.
We watched the news and laughed
at how long it took to count votes for the local council and Euro
elections. We had discussed it earlier
in the week and decided not to bother voting.
Some lefties were campaigning saying that if we didn’t vote, UKIP would
win but I reasoned that if they did, they would all defect and/or be exposed as
the heinous bigoted racist xenophobes that they are so bring it on! In fact, as the Euro election results started
to come in on the Sunday night, it looked as if there was going to be a right
old scrap with loads of far right and far left parties getting seats.
On Friday evening, my partner
got home late and said it was mayhem out there with middle aged delinquents
getting over-excited amidst blues festival madness. We watched the last episode of The Borgias
which was very annoyingly inconclusive as the series was axed before the last
two episodes were made (now available as an eBook – as if!), let alone the
fourth series there was meant to be. I
tried to find Neil Jordan on twitter to have a rant but failed.
On Saturday the weather was
truly terrible so we stayed indoors and did some fixing and cooking. We were meant to meet a friend for a drink in
the evening but she said she might not make it and I said fine as we didn’t
really feel like it anyway and town would probably be full of soggy blues fans
wandering the streets.
On Sunday I was trying to find
holiday accommodation for early summer and my partner was putting some software on a new
laptop. He asked me to try it but I
wasn’t in the mood, and added to the frustrations of failing to find anywhere
to stay which was not too expensive, amongst other things, I got quite pissed
off. I started to feel very depressed
and annoyed and had a bit of a rant. I
was actually going stir crazy and after some shouting we agreed that we both
needed to get out of the house. The
weather was a slight improvement on the day before, but still pretty wet.
 |
| Budgie grafitti |
We walked along the canal and
through the park to the station to see if we fancied going somewhere on the
train but there was a replacement bus service one way and a 40 minute wait for
a train the other so we abandoned that idea.
Instead, we carried on walking to the border of the next village and
took photos including budgie graffiti on the ‘abandoned wreck’ and considered
going further but the way was blocked for repairs.
 |
| Food face |
We reflected that trying to get to the next
settlement was a bit like a crap Brigadoon as every time we set off on a walk
thinking we would end up there, our attempts were foiled.
We went back into town and
after circumnavigating the streets, had lunch at the old coaching inn. I made a
face with the leftovers which I later posted as ‘food art’. We then wandered about some more in search of
decent free music. The first pub we
tried was completely rammed so we went to the pub round the corner where a band
was just setting up. They turned out to
be quite entertaining and played a good hour and a half of not strictly blues
which suited us fine. We also got the
authentic festival experience of being outdoors in the rain (albeit for only a
couple of hours).
 |
| Not-blues band in pub |
The Bank holiday Monday stayed
dry and was actually verging on sunny at times.
Despite yet another unrefreshing sleep, I really wanted to get out and
about. We took a picnic up into the
woods and went along a path I had not taken before. We found ourselves quite high up and stopped
on a nice flat rock to enjoy the views and refreshments. The path then went through a very damp and
dank but very picturesque wooded dell.
We then came out onto a cobbled lane and turned up to go to the nearby
village for a pint before coming home.
I subsequently discovered that
we were very lucky with the weather compared to other places which made a nice
change. When I rang Mum she said it had
rained the other side of the Pennines and the next day’s papers were full of
‘washout bank holiday Monday’ stories
That night I was asleep soon
after 12 and slept quite well up to 6.30 but then I couldn’t sleep properly
after that – I considered getting up but I felt very unrested so instead I
tossed and turned until 8.40. I spent
the day doing housework and drafting my blog and in the evening whilst watching
the locally-based TV drama (in which our little town featured quite strongly). Plot-wise I thought they were dragging it out
a bit to make up the 6 episodes after the previous cliff-hangers of episodes 3
and 4.
The next day it turned out that
a UKIP councillor had already been suspended for calling gay people ‘perverts’.
I said it wouldn’t take long! I worked on finishing ‘illustrated memoirs’
for the first part of 2014 which were all posted up by the Friday. This made my brain ache but I was pleased
that I had done it because it meant that from May 2014 I would be able to insert illustrations as I went along
which would be good.
 |
| The inspirational Maya Angelou |
As a diversion, I did some
cutting on my lino so it would be ready for the next layer of printing at art
class after half term. I also posted up
some photos from the weekend and did a bit of holiday research. That night I was saddened by the news that Maya
Angelou had died but she was very old. I
took Temazepam and was asleep soon after 12 and had quite a good night so on Thursday
I felt miles better than the last couple of days.
We eventually came to a decision
about our planned early summer UK holiday.
I had found a very reasonably priced Christian Guild hotel but had
originally eschewed the idea of booking it as I thought it might be a bit like
going on a retreat but on looking at it again, we decided to go for it – it was
in a nice area, within walking distance of rail services and might be a
laugh. We booked four nights and said we
might stop off somewhere else as well before coming home. we talked about whether there was any benefit
in booking rail tickets in advance and I said my partner could be one of them
really annoying people that goes to the station ticket office and asks loads of
complicated questions about how to get there, and what happens if we break our
journey, and is the station we want a ‘request stop’, and will there be
engineering works that weekend?
The following night I was back
to square one, tossing and turning for ages with all sorts churning round my
head. One idea occurred me that I have
had before but not considered in any depth which is that when I write my blog
(which is now current), it feels like events happened ages ago, even if they
were only yesterday. I think it is the
actual act of writing stuff down that makes me feel detached from it. It isn’t like they happened to someone else
(as people sometimes say) but like it is a different me (if that makes any
senses).
On Friday morning I felt
terrible again but my partner made me laugh at some liberal peer antics. I forced myself out of bed and after a bath I
felt a bit better and busied myself with some admin and grocery shopping and
more holiday research. I got a bit
carried away with this to be honest and spent ages looking at train times and
opening times for various places we planned to visit.
In the evening my partner got
home at a reasonable time for once which meant we could eat together and we relaxed
with some wine and DVD’s. One disc had a
massive scratch on it and although it was still playable, it made for some
interesting glitching which my partner took photos of. This set off a whole train of ideas and we
decided we should get apple TV as then we could record stuff off telly and it
would go straight onto computer which would be cool).
On the Saturday we spent ages
doing a file transfer from my old laptop to the new HP one which of course took
all day. I also tried to get it on the network
but it kept asking for permissions so I gave up – I was tired and my head hurt
after all the effort. In the evening I suggested catching up on a TV drama we
had not seen yet. We had to watch the
first episode on 4oD and faffed around for ages trying to make it work on the PC
that is plugged into the telly but it just wasn’t having it. We ended up watching it on my partner’s ipad which
was rather challenging due to all the black night scenes. Again, I said, let’s just get apple TV then
stuff will just work!
So, May was a varied month with
some fun but a lot of frustration. Would
this continue into June?
