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| Small clouds at sunset, Kos |
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| The Askeplion |
We
had a good two weeks in Kos, dominated by dossing on the beach, looking at ruins
(from both the ancient and modern worlds), trips
to Kefalos and Nissyros, watching
sunsets and eating too much. I also tried some sketching but unfortunately
the pastel set I took with me contained no blue limiting my ability to capture
the essence of the place.
Going
out, the airport seemed inordinately busy for the time of year. I was struck by the amount of kids travelling
just before school restarted.
This entailed
queues at every stage. I know they need
to take security seriously, but is there any need to frisk ten year old
girls? She didn’t look like a terrorist
to me!
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| Ruined Taverna |
On the plane, my partner had the seat
from hell (31c). He was hit in the head every
time someone got up for the loo. I
offered to swap but later he said I would have completely lost it if I had to
put up with it – maybe he was right.
Our
accommodation was lovely and clean, but noisy children’s afternoon pool antics meant
no siestas for me. The holiday was also marred
somewhat by nasty insect bites and stings.
One evening I got stung by a wasp on the bottom of my foot. We had been to an out-of-town taverna
situated in a vineyard and I had to hobble the whole half hour home in absolute
agony.
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| Ruined house in Kefalos |
My partner kept insisting I had been
got by a spiky plant. When we got back
to the apartment, he took up a gouging tool and a bottle of Metaxa. ‘What are
you doing?’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re not
putting that Metaxa on my foot. I’m
drinking it!’
After
a night of literally no sleep at all, I knew I had been poisoned. My partner finally agreed it must be a wasp
sting. I started to research local
doctors but realised they were all dodgy.
I took antihistamines and gradually the pain and swelling lessened
during the dayi - just as well as we had arranged to meet my
sister in Kos Town. She got the ferry
from Bodrum and we had a lovely day trying to make sense of piles of old stones and sitting in
cafes and tavernas.
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| Volcanic moonscape on Nissyros |
On
the way home the departure lounge consisted of a tiny squashed space. Three flights were departing in quick
succession meaning hundreds of people milled about trying to make sure they
were in the right queue to board. Still,
the return flight back was much better than going out and I managed to doze a
bit. It was just as well we had our own
food though as they had run out of hot snacks due to high demand on the previous
flight. It made me realise how dependent
most people are on being catered for all the time – like it’s a human right.
In
the taxi back from the airport, I observed the changes since we had been away especially
all the hawthorn berries and different colours.
Following an early autumn start in mid-August, the weather seemed
unseasonably warm and dry. Needless to say, I was exhausted from the long day’s
travel and struggled to stay awake in the evening.
A description of Eleftherias square
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| The old minaret at dusk |
Aegli women’s co-operative cafe in Eleftherias square is a
superb vantage point from which to scan the rich history of Kos. With a slight turn of the head, it is
possible to see vestiges of the medieval city walls, a Moorish mosque, the
Mussolini-era archaeology museum and the public market. With the ancient agora round the corner, it
is not hard to imagine that this was built on the site of the old market. Famed in the ancient world as a major trading
crossing between the east and the west, it makes sense that it would have
covered a much bigger area than the old pile of stones visible today.
During the day, the cafe provides a welcome respite from the
tiring work of sightseeing under the hot sun.
At sunset, golden light bounces
off the ancient minaret. It is worth
lingering over a drink and nibbles whilst soaking up the atmosphere and
watching the antics of the children running about with balloons and neon toys...
For a couple of
holiday anecdotes, please see: http://maryc1000.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/kos-2014-couple-of-anecdotes.html
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| My new guitar! |
The
next morning my partner gave me my big birthday pressie – a guitar! I almost cried at
how lovely it was. I had a bit of a
strum but couldn’t remember anything apart from how to check the strings for
tuning. I improvised a two-note blues
song: ‘woke up this morning and got a new guitar’. I found some free basic guitar lessons on the
internet and practiced every day.
Things did start to come back to me but very slowly
and I really needed to stretch my fingers to play chords.
The
garden had become very overgrown during our fortnight away. One evening I was out weeding while some kids
were playing on the street. I overheard their
conversation about an infamous local character – one kid said he’d been at his
mum’s house asking for money and a very small child chimed in ‘yes but he just
spends it on beer. He just wants to
drink beer and smash things up.’ ‘Very
astute’ I remarked.
My
partner got home from his first day back at work looking exhausted and
fraught. The madness had reached a new
peak with even more loonies to contend with.
We came to the conclusion that his boss liked to surround himself with
people more nutty than himself and in classic narcissistic style, imagined things
had happened because he said so.
On
Friday morning I had a splitting headache and stayed in bed until it eased
off. Later in the day I started reading the book on ‘mindfulness’ that the
counsellor had suggested and tried a short meditation which didn’t seem much
different than ones I already knew.
Saturday
lunchtime, I was pouring some cream out when the whole pot fell over and made a
terrible mess. I tried frantically to
clean it up but it was horrid and greasy. I shouted for help and my partner came to my
aid. This minor incident made me inordinately
stressed. I managed to calm myself down but
felt worn out after the trauma.
In
the evening we went to the pub on the corner to meet a few friends. My art pal was first to arrive. She gave me a
card and we found a free table. My art
friend arrived next, with a card and a bottle of wine. An old pub mate also appeared before going
off again saying she was looking for someone.
She did try ringing me later but when I called back there was no answer. She texted the next day saying she couldn’t’
find me in the pub. I told her she had
said hello then disappeared. She replied
back apologising – she must have been very drunk.
Another
old friend arrived and we had quite a good catch up. My walking friend came straight from work and
gave me a bottle of prosecco. She drank
orange juice as the doctor told her she had reversible liver damage.
Conversation
was mainly about art and holidays and other light-hearted topics. Then my art friend brought up the subject of
my illness and therapy. I told her what
I thought and she started to defend ‘the services’ available.
I
said: ‘I am a lot better than I was but I am still not well. But that is because I get up every morning no
matter how crap I feel. I have lots of
interests and keep busy. Nothing that
has been offered to me has helped. All
you get offered when you go to your GP is ‘talking therapies’ or
anti-depressants. My brain is fucked and
none of them are getting to the root cause.
It’s all about treating the symptoms.
Why can’t I have an MRI scan to see what’s really going on in my
brain? Why can’t I see a proper
psychiatrist?’
Afterwards,
I felt fraught and angry that I had got onto the subject whilst trying to have
a nice time drinking and socialising. I
managed to keep my composure but ended the night getting quite drunk. I wobbled home with my partner and my walking
friend who carried my bottles for me.
I
hardly slept that night and lay awake in the early hours. Eventually we motivated ourselves to get out
of bed and spent the day mainly watching TV and editing holiday photos I resisted
the urge to sleep as long as possible and made it to 10.30 that night. I fell asleep quite quickly and had at least
one lump of four hours thus feeling much better on the Monday, albeit still
achy and fatigued.
I
began to get back into a proper routine that week. I exercised every morning and did yoga a couple
of times. I also started on the main
section of the ‘mindfulness for health’ book which turned out to be an eight
week course. The first week entailed doing
the ‘body scan’ meditation twice a day. Surprisingly,
although I already practiced similar mediations, it did seem to help. It made me more aware and I often felt
relaxed afterwards. I thought it might be
partly due to the soothing voice on the soundtrack, although the mention of
‘anus’ in the middle of it made me giggle like a child.
My
sleeping improved a bit, although one night, I turned over to sleep when I
experienced EHS. This time it comprised
of flashing images and lights. I knew it
was caused by synapses misfiring but why did it happen after meditation? I reflected that while understanding the
underlying principles of meditation and being largely in favour of it, it was
still about managing your situation by addressing symptoms such as pain and
anxiety, rather than dealing with the root cause – again!
An
item on Breakfast news covered the lack of support for people with mental
health problems and the stupid two year wait to see an actual psychotherapist. I followed a link to the ‘we need to talk
coalition’ and considered what I would talk to my GP about that week.
I
finished my blog for August, continued editing my holiday photos, attacked more
weeds in the garden, and practiced on my guitar. By Friday, I could string three chords
together and play two songs: ‘Common People’ and ‘Wild Thing’, albeit badly.
The
Scottish referendum got a bit more interesting.
Earlier polls suggested that it would be a ‘no’ vote by a narrow margin
but the pundits then said it was too close to call. I started to hope they voted ‘yes’ just to
piss Cameron off – the idiot created the situation and then became distraught
at the thought of them leaving the UK. As it turned out, they voted ‘No’ by a margin
of 10%, a lot more than expected. I
posted on social media: ‘commiserations to my Scottish friends. You’re stuck with us’.
In
reality, I had mixed feelings. I felt it
would have been a shame for them to split off and economy wise it would not
have been good for us or them. But I did
understand why a lot of people wanted it and looking at the scenes in Glasgow the
following night (where the majority did vote yes) reminded me of the fine line
between ‘Unionism’ and ‘Fascism’.
The
Tuesday was sunny and I went out in the afternoon planning to do errands before
my GP appointment. I spotted some nice English
apples outside the grocers and went in to buy them. However, a real Guardianista type was at the
counter with two very precocious daughters telling her what to buy and taking
ages having fish cut to their exact specifications. A second worker served two elderly ladies who
were queuing in front of me, then disappeared upstairs. By this time I had five minutes to get to the
surgery and gave up waiting. I threw my
apples down in a fit of pique and stormed off.
I rushed round to the doctors and then had to wait.
As
I had not seen my GP for a few months, I gave her a short précis of the
counselling/therapy lark and ranted about the limited range of services and
again questioned why I was not reefed onto a head specialist. She said all a
psychiatrist would do was prescribe anti-depressants which was all she could
offer too. She said having given the
‘talking therapies’ a chance, maybe it was time to accept that the chemical
imbalance in my brain needed help with drugs.
She explained a bit about SSRIs ii and answered my questions then
suggested I take some literature away and think about it.
I
considered saying yes, getting the script and deciding later whether to try the
drugs. But before I got a chance, the
doctor said that some people say yes then don’t take them so she would rather I
thought about it first.
She
was going on maternity leave which meant I would get to see someone else if I went
back. Later on, I thought of making an appointment
with a different doctor to get the drugs.
However, subsequent research and chats with my partner and my friend
with the interesting ailments made me change my mind. I found insufficient proof of how and why
SSRIs worked. Also, the assumption about
a lack of serotonin in my brain was not backed up by any evidence: why should
it be that particular chemical? How did
they know? This did not imbue me with
confidence. I googled alternative
remedies and realised I had tried them all, although there was ‘some evidence’
that massage helped. A leaflet had come
through the door recently from an aromatherapist which I thought I might try.
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| Stones in the river |
My
partner said that the people he knew at work on happy pills didn’t really seem
any different and it if was serotonin, the best cure was spending time
outside. He also said I was much better
these days and we talked about how my illness had progressed from anxiety and
stress to depression (although I believed this was largely due to not being
treated for stress properly in the first place and the stupid shit dragging on
for a year). He agreed it might be worth
trying aromatherapy.
 |
| Cheeky Jackdaw |
Walking
home from the surgery, I took photos of Stones
in the river and a cheeky jackdaw before finishing my errands. Again, I had to wait ages; this time in the
organic shop whilst they had a nice chat about the SOS campaign
iii
On
Wednesday I went to the art studio expecting to start a new printing course. Confusingly, the painting tutor was there. ‘Am I in the right place?’ I asked. The co-ordinator who was signing people up
for the term looked quite surprised to see me ‘Mary! Did you not get my email?’ (I was tempted to
ask ‘which one?’ as he was prone to sending out numerous reminders to drum up
business) ‘We had to cancel the printing course because we didn’t get enough
people’ ’ He said they might run
printing at a later date. I told him
that I knew some people who might sign up if the course ran in the evening. He told me they were planning to expand
facilities so they could run more than one evening course at a time. He then suggested some alternatives but I’d
had it with painting due to everyone taking it so seriously and I didn’t fancy
anything else on offer.
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| River refelctions |
On
the way back I went to the flea market. I
observed how much more buzzy it seemed at that time of day. There were a lot of
hipsters with beards though: ‘stall, yah!’
I stood and watched the river for a bit, observing how it changed all
the time – light, colour, reflections etc
and considered how the new meditation regime might be paying off. When I got home I re-planned my Wednesdays. I was not that disappointed about the course
being cancelled and decided I would have my own ‘crafternoons’
At
the end of the week, I got a letter from a local production company about the
zombie film idea. Of course it was a
rejection but an encouraging one – they had discussed it and appreciated the originality
of the idea. This inspired me to look up other film companies that I might be
able to send the idea to. I only found
one that seemed promising. I looked over
what I had previously sent out and wrote a letter and drafted the email. I talked to my partner about where else might
be good to try but we drew a blank. I
said I would have to watch more crap British movies as research and he said
nooooo! I reminded him the last low budget
effort we saw was pretty good, if totally lacking in production values.
My
friend with the interesting ailments came round and we chatted about our recent
holidays and her various travails. She
was currently off sick as her arm was still not right and she had an ingrown
toenail ripped out so had a bandaged toe.
She also still suffered from a trapped nerve in her mouth which would
need surgery if there was no improvement after 18 months , and a mild form of
conjunctivitis for which she was taking antibiotics.
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| Frondy mushrooms |
At
the weekend, our friend from New Zealand visited. On the Saturday, we went out for a pub lunch
and a few pints and on the Sunday we caught the country bus up to the tops and
walked back down. Lots of photos were taken, in my case mainly of fungi. We had
a picnic on a nice flat rock then carried on along the river to the cranky
working men’s club. We sat outside near the
river, got eaten alive by midges and retreated back to town. We had food at the wine bar and shared a
bottle of wine then debated getting
another bottle before common sense prevailed.
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| Small brown mushrooms |
I bought one to take home instead but we
hardly drank any. I did manage to break a
glass though; due more to fatigue than drunkenness (honest!)
The
next morning I walked our NZ friend to the station to catch her train back to
London. I spent the rest of the day
working on my blog and read the next part of the ‘mindfulness’ book. The second week involved practicing both a
new ‘body anchor’ meditation and the ‘body scan’ from week one every day.
 |
| Cirrus clouds through the window |
In addition, I was meant to spend fifteen
minutes each day looking at the sky. I planned
to go to the park to do this but failed.
I did watch clouds a lot though and one evening I looked at the lovely cirrus clouds through the window.
On
Monday night I took an antihistamine. I
had loads of itchy midge bites and I thought it might help my sleep. I did have a slightly better night but
unfortunately the same tactic did not work two night’s running. On Tuesday night I lay awake for quite a
while with all sorts of random stuff in my head. I had a think and again wondered if it was to
do with my brain being active during the day with doing lots of different
things. A good thing of course, but was
I overdoing it?
On
Wednesday morning I went shopping in the next town and found a cute pair of
shoes for £3 in the factory shop. I picked some herbs from the ‘community
garden’ and got a few groceries. On my
return home, I checked my bank statement and realised I had three months until
my money went below my threshold and I needed to start earning some.
Later
in the week I briefly reviewed my options for earning money whilst still
working on the writing. Due to my low
energy levels, working full time was still out of the question. Working part time may have been an option if the
money was decent but that might prove unrealistic, so I returned to the idea of
selling stuff. I started reviewing items that we had selected
to sell two years ago. It was so long
since I came up with a price list that I needed to do it again. I Thought I might start with some of the
jewellery and maybe some of the tech and records too.
I
rang the aromatherapist who said she would need to find a room in my town. I did wonder why she said she was available here
on the leaflet if it was such a faff. She
rang back quite late, which she did apologise for. She suggested a time on the Friday but I had
a previous appointment so she said she would try and get a room for the
following Monday. She then started
asking me questions about why I wanted to see her. I said ‘it’s not a good time to talk’ and gave
her very brief details. That night I fell
asleep quickly but then kept waking up every hour or so with all sorts of
random stuff going through my head. This
included the aromatherapy lark which seemed strange as that should have been positive,
but it was because she had rung so late and her questions forced me to go into
details about my illness before bedtime. It annoyed me that people never seemed
to understand that talking about the bad shit late in the day when I was trying
to relax did not help me at all.
I
progressed onto Level 3 with Andy’s guitar lessons (http://www.andyguitar.co.uk/). This introduced the G chord which was hard as
I had to stretch my fingers a lot. I tried
the alternative version employing the little finger on the top E string (apparently
Noel Gallagher does this) which I found a bit easier. After trying to master it for about half an
hour, I had a go at two songs (‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ and ‘Sit Down’ by James).
After practicing every day I could do the chord patterns well enough but
getting that G chord to sound right proved difficult and painful!
On
Thursday evening I met my partner in the big town for dinner and theatre. We went to see ‘Ballad of the Burning Star’ by
‘ad infinitum’ (www.theatreadinfinitum.com). We didn’t know what to expect. It turned out to be really good – a kind of
cabaret performance about the Israeli/Palestine conflict. Very energetic and funny. After the performance, my partner was amused
by a group of young people discussing what they’d seen. They sounded very confused by it all. He said they would probably have to go home
and ‘do a Google’ to find out why it wasn’t all as one-sided and straight-forward
as they might previously have thought.
That
night as I did my mediation before going to sleep, I got very hot which was
distracting and when I turned over to sleep, I couldn’t. That made three night’s running of less than
mediocre sleep, making me even more fatigued than normal on the Friday. I tried to sleep in, when someone knocked at
the door. I heard my partner answer it
and I asked who it was. He said it was
someone for next door ‘probably going to do some clapping’.
After
that, I couldn’t sleep any more. I went
to the surgery for ‘an old person’s health check’ as my partner called it. They
only tested for cardio vascular issues (strokes and heart attacks) so not a
comprehensive check really. I said straight off you’ll tell me not to
smoke. Other than that, I felt my
drinking was not a problem (although I’d had rather more than normal of late do
due to holidays, birthdays and entertaining) and my diet was okay. My weight wasn’t too bad and I was considered
‘active’. They also did a blood test for
cholesterol (which I didn’t even believe in). The results came through at the end of the
month, indicating that my risk of cardio-vascular disease was a mere 6%
(obviously I wasn’t smoking and drinking enough!)
 |
| Sand sculpture |
My
friend with the interesting ailments came round in the afternoon and we went
out in the sunshine. We had a cuppa in a
new cafe in the square. We sat outside chatting
and wishing a woman with baby would eff off so we could have a smoke. In the
end, we moved to another table when it became vacant. However, it was near the gutter and we kept
getting sprinkled by some indeterminate substance and decided to move on. After
a wander round town we ended up at the town hall and sat out on the terrace. We eyed the sand sculpture and laughed at the ‘do not stand in the sand’ sign
directly in front of huge boot prints in the sand!
On
Saturday some new table lamps that I had ordered for the living room arrived. They were a lot smaller than expected. We decided they would be fine upstairs and to
revive the old lamp for downstairs.
My
partner cleaned the base with jiff and I found some material to cover the shade
with and spent the afternoon sewing which required lots of concentration to not
mess it up. I was not helped by ridiculously loud power tool noises emanating from
the work shed behind our house. I asked
them nicely to shut up, or at least close the shed door but of course they
ignored me. . I considered sewing beads
onto the fringe of the lampshade cover but it was too fiddly and my head hurt so
I postponed that idea.
 |
| Through the gate |
Instead,
I carried on practicing the guitar. I
needed to tune it and managed to over-tighten the top E string so it
broke. Luckily, a spare set came with
the guitar and I managed to fix one end in fine then struggled with the other
end. My partner said Hey! Rock n roll!’
then tried to help but said it was hard in the dwindling light and postponed it
to Sunday morning. After we fixed it, we
both played a bit. He annoyed me by just
picking the damn thing up and doing a tune straight away while I still
struggled over a chord!
Later in the day, we walked up the hill on the
other side of the valley and took a small path through a gate which led rather prettily up to a ridge then down into woods containing lots of interesting
features and over a stream by way of a rickety
old wooden bridge.
 |
| Tree shaped like a horse |
We stopped for a
break and saw my new friend from art class with her dog coming the other way. I invited her to the cinema the following weekend. We carried on along the ridge until it joined
another path going down to a small bridge over the canal.
 |
| Rickety old bridge |
We
walked along to the pub on the canal for a couple of pints. We then intended to go home for dinner when my
partner spotted that it was ‘Sunday steak night’; two steaks and a bottle of wine for £25 – very
good value! Despite feeling mellow from
the drink and very tired, I had a mediocre sleep again. I suffered from bad night sweats which were truly
irritating – not helped by the alcohol I suppose
In
the morning I had to force myself to get up.
I tried doing exercises but it was too hard. After doing some housework and writing, I
read the next chapter of ‘mindfulness’.
Week three entailed a ‘movement meditation’ (quite nice and relaxing) as
well as keeping a diary sheet to log how all my activities affected me in terms
of pain, fatigue and stress. I was also
supposed to do a ‘kettle meditation’ once a day (hmm!).
I
went to my aromatherapy appointment.
She gave me a back, shoulder and head massage which was very nice
indeed. Obviously I expected her to find
the tension round my upper back, shoulders and neck but she also found a spot
in my right hip that I had not been aware of.
We arranged for me to go back in two weeks’ time. When I got home I felt relaxed but very
tired. My upper arm ached quite a lot too. I did some relaxation but didn’t sleep. At bedtime, I was doing the ‘body scan’ meditation
and kept dropping off! It was an effort
to finish it before falling asleep and I had the best night I’d had for three
weeks! Perhaps I had found the right
therapy and this was the beginning of the end...
 |
| View across the valley |
i Later in the week, the same
foot got bitten by huge ants at the Askeplion and swelled up like a fat pink
sausage.
ii SSRIs – Selective Serotonin
Reuptake Inhibitors
iii In January 2014, I posted a
funny blog (http://maryc1000.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/an-open-letter.html) concerning the Guardianistas
response to Sainsbury’s planning to open a branch in our town. It saddens me to report that their ‘No’
campaign was successful thus piling smugness on top of smugness.
