Reclaiming Independence

Hey everyone,
I am sat here in my sunny warm conservatory, the sun is going down and its been a busy but beautiful day, and I start to think about independence...what really is it? and how we take it for granted. As I have told you before, I have always been a fiercely independent woman, my sight has never been good enough for me to be able to drive, and I hate asking for help, hated relying on people to run me around, I would much prefer to get a train, bus or walk to a shop. I used to love cycling to work, I used to go out cycling with a friend, we would cycle to a pub, have lunch then cycle to a different one for pudding. I always thought that was the independence I lost, but that's not all the independence I lost at all, yesterday I went into Asda on my own, I hadn't written a list because all I needed was pizza and stuff for a salad, while I was walking through the town to Asda I realised that I was planning my route around the shop. The minute I got into the shop I began to feel anxious, but the route I had been thinking about sprang forward to the front of my brain, the usual bumping into people and getting in peoples way was all still there, but I am used to that now. I wondered down the card isle because it was empty and my anxiety melted away, I floated my way to the pizza counter feeling relaxed and confident...THEN! There was no one serving at the pizza counter!!!!!! A lady in her white overall's tells me to come back in about 10 minutes....10 BLOODY MINUTES!!! doesn't she know I have planned this route? what do I do now? I cant just stand there like a wally for 10 minutes, I smiled at the lady and backed away, bumping into a lady with a trolley with what looked like six months worth of shopping, she tutted and shook her head at me, suddenly I wanted to get out, run away. Last week when I was feeling low, a day like this would have sent me into floods of tears, not being able to adapt to changes, that's a form of independence loss for me,  I was angered, not at the lady in her overall, not at the lady with her massive trolley, but at myself. Its a effing pizza counter in Asda, how many people would have seen this as a real problem? some might have been a bit pissed that they couldn't have their pizza made for them as quickly as they would have liked, so I forced myself to wonder around the isles pretending to look interested in the difference between garden peas and marrowfat peas, then I went back to the counter and ordered my pizza's....that my friends is me regaining my independence, I could have run away, phoned my nearest and dearest and got him to come rescue me and get the pizzas, and he would have done exactly that, but I didn't. Independence means very different things for everyone, what we need to keep in our minds that its all the small things that make the big things easier. I have to start somewhere and while I do manage so well at somethings, others are shockingly difficult and frustrating.
I think acceptance is the first steps into regaining independence, if you don't know where you are in the world, what you are safely capable of, then how can you find a base for moving forward....I am crap at mowing the lawn, but I still do it, because I can and all the while I can do it safely, I will continue to do it.
Adapting your environment is a way of reclaiming that independence, for instance, I keep smashing the glasses in my dishwasher because I don't see them in there and dump other stuff on top of them, I could get someone else to load the dishwasher, but actually, I like doing it because I can, so after a lot of thought I brought these.....

Problem solved.

Obviously I brought more than three, they were £1 each from Tesco and I haven't smashed any....yet. I don't really know what I am trying to say, except we all look at life differently and what we perceive as having our independence is different too. I might come across to others as being awkward or irritable when I don't except help from others, but as so many things have been taken away, that I thrive on the things that I can do, no matter how big or small those things are.

On a different subject I have another counselling session tomorrow, and as promised, I will continue to let you know how I am finding counselling in this form. Last week, as you know, I had a lot of time to think, I don't think this type of thinking was very productive and I began to wonder if having counselling via email was right for me, but after re reading my last email from them, I realised that I hadn't read it properly at all! It had seemed very negative when I first read it and now wonder if this, added with the 'blind lady' in Woodbridge was the reason for my dark mood last week. I did speak to my contact at Action for Blind about this, and he mentioned a team that do like a phone counselling clinic thing, they phone you once a week, I know I wouldn't be comfortable telling someone my deepest darkest thoughts over the phone. Maybe I have to go backwards to go forwards, if you know what I mean. Some parts of my life have been covered that I haven't shared with anyone, so revisiting all those emotions has unsettled me, and I suppose our natural instinct is to stick our heads in the sand when there is something we don't want to talk about or remember, so I think for the sake of maintaining my sanity and the thought maybe of encouraging one of you out there to try this avenue of counselling I will keep on going, it'd be daft to give up now, if I don't see it to the end I cant give it a fair trial!! ....speak soon xx

Blind Lady

Hi Everyone,
well, half term has been a complete wash out here. I suppose the importance of my blog was to let you all in on the up and downs of my little life. I am truly down at the moment. Last Friday we took our class out to the park for a picnic, the sun shone and the children had a great day, ending the term on such a high, it was lovely. Saturday we woke to a hazy start but it soon brightened up inspiring me so do some gardening, my youngest cut the lawn for me and then we sat in the tidy looking garden all afternoon admiring our veggies. Mum popped up and we all went for a long walk with Ralph, calling in for a Chinese takeaway (for the girls, Chinese food is not good when you are on weight watchers, mind you, I put on a pound this week, so I might as well have eaten the bloody takeaway!!) Sunday, the girls wanted to crack on with revision, so Ralph and I went for a nice long walk and just had a chill day, perfect start to half term.
Bank holiday Monday we decided, as my eldest was going off to the slamdunk festival, my other half and my youngest would take Ralph for his very first trip to the seaside. The nearest coast to us is southend, but we figured that it might be too busy and overwhelming for Ralph, so we went to Felixstowe, via woodbridge, woodbridge in Suffolk is my most favourite place in the world to be, its calm and beautiful, no one is rushing, when I am there it feels like home. Its also where my dearest and most favourite friends live, when I am under their roof I feel safe, I know I can share my deepest thoughts without being judged, and I think that is an important part of wellbeing, is to have someone you can share everything with, someone to listen, but who is smart enough to understand that when you are sharing stuff you don't always need advising because just talking is enough. All that being said, we just didn't have time to call in on those people, mainly because they were working, but I did get my fix of tinkering boats! I love to hear the noise that boats masts make when they chink together and you can hear the boats sloshing in the water, the smells of the boat yard, oil and yacht varnish, just sitting watching people cleaning their boats and getting ready for the summer, so very very relaxing.  But, it was a grey and cold day, we ate lunch at the Whistle stop café, really lovely place to visit if you are ever down that way, while we sat there, there was a group of errr, pensioners, who had set up a stand for promoting knowledge of and asking for funding for guide dogs for the blind. I don't know why, but this seemed to spark something in the back of my brain, my stomach sank and I could feel my mood getting low, I watched them for a while, there was a lady sat on a chair, clearly 'blind' beside the stall and the group of others were standing a few feet away having a chat and a good laugh, she just sat there at the back with her blanket over her knees, smiling to herself, I still now while I am talking to you about it, have mixed emotions, sad, because is this what I have to look forward too? and anger, because she was happy to sit there as a sort of trophy,  I wanted to scream..'get up off of that chair, use your stick and go and stand in the middle of your friends and join in the bloody conversation, how dare you sit there and accept that its ok to be tucked up in a corner with a effing great label over your head' and then I felt bad because I don't understand what I am feeling or why I am feeling it. So I gather my family and march them off in the other direction up and over the bridge to walk along the river, and that was when I lost my contact lens, the local council are doing something with the path along the river, looks like resurfacing, but it was very windy and a gust caught a load of dust and most of it landed in my face and eyes, knocking the contact lens in my bad eye off and sent it rolling around the back of my eye, do you think I could get the bloody thing back, in the end I stopped poking around and just left it, between my daughter and partner they got me back to the car, It took a full 40 minutes for it to appear again, but it hurt so much as it was covered in dust, I don't know if I mentioned before but my contacts are hard, and a real bitch if you get something on them, when we were in the car I managed to get it out, my eye pouring with tears felt instant relief, there I sat with this tiny piece of glass in my hand not knowing how the hell I was going to clean it, what I should have done of course, was taken my spare set of lenses with me (let that be a lesson to you, always have a spare)  but what I did was pop it in my mouth then stick it back into my eye before anyone saw or I had time to think about it! There problem solved, yuk!!
Felixstowe was fairly quiet, that might have been due to the crap weather, but Ralph got on the beach, there were signs everywhere telling you that dogs weren't allowed on the beach from May to September, but as there was no one swimming in the sea or attempting to sunbathe, we took a chance, along with about 20 other dog owners who had done the same, and he loved it!!

Tuesday morning we were woken up by torrential rain that never really stopped for 3 days, its been so cold we had to put the heating back on. Wednesday my youngest had a appointment with Chums, and we thought as Wrest park is the other side of the road, we would go for lunch there and then look around the gardens and the house, as I sat in the parents room on the second floor of the building, listening the rain drumming on the windows, I was already thinking about hot chocolate, freshly cooked bread with loads of butter, my pj's and a dvd, and that's what we did.

Yesterday, Ralph and I got up early, wrapped up and walked down to check on my sisters horse, As we got home my Tesco delivery arrived, I stood at the front door and realised I had forgotten my key...and that is how the day carried on, in the end I went back to bed, which is a complete no no in my book, I got up at about 1.30pm and tried to pull myself up and out of this awful dark mood I have been in all week, it didn't really work, in the end I got on the cross trainer and did only 20 minutes, but it was a hard 20 mins, when I finished my legs were all wobbly and I could hardly breathe, but I felt better. This morning I feel better, I AM going to get out of bed, get dressed and go out, I don't know where this week has gone, but I am glad its gone and hopefully my awful negative mood has gone with it. I still don't understand why the blind lady upset me so much, and I need to stop looking for a answer to it, I don't think there is one, my way of looking at life might not be the same as the old lady's, she was happy to sit there, I wouldn't have been and that's all there is to it. x

Walking..

Hello Everyone, thank goodness for half term! For the first time in months I slept in until...7.36am on Saturday morning! So what have I got to share with you this week? Well I went to weight watchers and lost 4lb this week, although this is fab it seems to have been a green light for 'stuff my face with as much crap as I can'.
I have had a call from Bedfordshire sensory team to tell me that there has been a problem with processing my new aids so I wont be seeing anything of them until at least 16th June! I've managed this far without them so a couple more weeks wont hurt (for anyone reading my blog for the first time, Bedfordshire sensory team came for a home visit and are providing me with some aids to help me at home, they come to your home, assess your needs and talk about different gadgets to make life easier, they then go off and process your little list of aids, this time they are putting the money into my bank account and I have to order the gadgets myself, then you fill in a form with the item codes and price and send it back to them with all the receipts, this process is notoriously slow, but I am not complaining as I am very grateful for the support they are providing). I was also contacted by them to give my input into a meeting about the service and my experiences as a 'user' there are two meetings one this Wednesday and the other on the 23rd June, and I would need to attend both, they are in Dunstable, they would provide transport and would be grateful if I could attend as they feel I would be confident enough to be completely honest and open about my experiences....my first thoughts were COOOOLLLL, I was so flattered and my tummy did one of those excited little flips (I know, sado! I don't get out much!!)...then the 23rd June started flashing in the back of my head..mmmm...23rd June, what is happening on the 23rd June? I have to nip down and vote...oh crap, its my hospital appointment date, for a very tiny second I considered seeing if I could change my appointment, and then my Mums voice popped into my head, going, 'don't you bloody dare cancel that appointment' so I had to turn them down, but told them to consider me any other time as I would love to do something like that!
Thursday I had another counselling session, I don't think you get the same impact as if you were meeting someone face to face, however, the lady who emails me is very nice, and this week set me some homework of making sure I have 10 to 15 minutes each day to sit quietly and think about myself! OMG, how hard is that! Every time I feel my mind wondering I have to bring my thoughts back to myself, I have found it really really difficult, one to get 10 minutes to sit still and two to think about myself, how do you think about yourself? where do you start? I started thinking about the things I have done, but this led me onto thinking about all the people I have done these things with. so today, I tried to retrain my brain, and started to think about things like how my body and brain works, the clothes I like to wear, the foods I like to eat, I think I managed about 4 minutes before Ralph started whimpering for his morning walk.
I've been doing a lot of walking, if I am walking Ralph on my own I stick to my familiar route, mostly so that if I need help and someone has to come looking for me, I will be some where on that usual route, but my sister has been recovering from spinal surgery and is now very much on the mend, so we have been exploring all the field walks around our village, you can walk for miles all along the river and there are well kept tracks through and around farmers fields, my sister has a Dalmatian, called Pongo, who is, well, a bit crazy really, he leaps into the river at every opportunity and spends a lot of time running, poor Ralph is only small and spends his time trying to keep out of the way of Pongo's thundering paws.
My daughter downloaded one of these step apps onto my phone, at the moment I am averaging between 18,000 and 20,000 steps a day. It also tells me how long I have been walking for and how many calories I have burnt, so this morning I have already walked for solidly for 1hr 30mins, taken 7396 steps and burnt 188 calories, oh, and it tells you how many miles you have walked, so Ralph and I walked 3 miles this morning . Its over cast here today, and perfect lighting for me outside, not too bright, not too dull, it was a lovely walk and we even met lots of dogs and their humans this morn, some times we don't see a soul!

I have noticed on my walks that British Rail are doing loads to improve the surroundings for visually impaired people, new railings have gone up at Arlesey station as you come down the steps there used to be a very large high curb, even though I knew it was there I was always falling up or down it, there is a lovely bright yellow railing around the curb now all the way to where the curb lowers to stop curb crashes! The little things like painting a hand rail yellow makes such a massive difference...

when I had some mobility training, they taught me that if you are holding the railing, it should dip where you would be going down a step, then has a little kink where the last step would be and then the rail would be straight so you know you are on level footing, then another kink to tell you there is another step and then the rail should carry on down until the last step where it kinks again, if I haven't explained this very well, if you look at the photo above, this is a newish train bridge and shows exactly what I mean. Thumbs up to BR, shame they cant get trains running on time too, but you cant have everything I suppose!

Just a very quick update on my veggie growing, so we now have potatoes coming up, yesterday I put in carrots  and sweet peppers, every thing else is going great. we brought a little fire pit, mostly because my eldest has now finished school and only has A level exams to do then she wants to have a ritual burning of all her course work, I, on the other hand thought it would be lovely to pick sweetcorn, wrap it in foil and cook it straight on the fire pit.

The chilli's are starting to come up too, I am so pleased with it all, I never would have thought growing veg would be so much fun!

Tomorrow we are talking Ralph for his first trip to the seaside, so will pop some photos on soon, if its not pouring with rain all day, x

Dementia..

Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to share with you a little story that I was reminded of this week and its been on my mind ever since. I was listening to the TV one night this week, I very rarely sit and watch television, mostly because I am too busy but also because I cant stay focused on it, anyway, I wanted to follow that programme about the EU and the whole in or out thing.  It was very interesting and I have made my decision, although while I sat there I realised that the 23rd June is the day of my hospital appointment so I will be going down to the polling station 'blind' so to speak.....I hope they still let me vote! yeah, they should do, and its weight watchers weigh-in night, so it might be good if I cant see. I lost 2 pound this week, so I've made a good start, my bestie lost 4 pound, so she made a even better start.
Back to the story, so, after the EU thing, there was a documentary about Dementia. It talked a lot about how the partners of people who develop Dementia cope, and Angela Rippon, whose Mum had Dementia, had looked after her until she had to go into a nursing home. Angela took various tests and they showed ways of avoiding and coping with the disease. Towards the end of the programme it showed a lady who was running like a support group for people with Dementia, she was well dressed, funny and very capable....normal. seeing her in her surroundings you would never have guessed she also had developed some of the first stages of Dementia. In her own home she had such structure to help her, she even needed help to make a cup of tea, she would forget to eat, so every time she had something to eat she would leave the washing up in the bowl so she knew she had eaten, a empty glass meant that she had taken her medication. I was overwhelmed with respect and understanding for this woman, my sight loss is not a life threatening disease but it is invisible to some people. While parts of her brain are slowly dying mine are getting more exact, I am learning to work around things in the same way she does. It was very humbling to watch. when I went to bed I lay there for a long time thinking about it, I used to, many years ago, work in a residential/nursing home. and there was a very old married couple the wife was blind and when her husband developed Dementia and she could no longer manage, she wouldn't leave him so they had a double room at the home. He was in quite late stages of Dementia and would become violent towards staff, so staff had learnt to approach him in a certain way and to talk to him in a gentle calming manner. The wife who had been Blind for many years, could only remembered him as she last 'saw' him, as a young, good looking, happy care free man. When she used to hear the staff talking to her Husband in such a very gentle way she would get very jealous and would say such hurtful things to the staff, but she just couldn't see or wouldn't see that her husband was no longer the man she married all those years ago. As a young woman then, I found it hard to tolerate the wife, hard to understand her insecurities, I remember knowing that the husband was not a pleasant man, and I was ignorant in thinking that he had always been this way. How easy it is just not to care, just to do a job, walk away and collect the pay cheque at the end of the month. This couple clearly had loved each other very much and stayed together right until the end, I am sure she passed away before he did in the end, I wish I had talked to the wife more, had the time to reassure her and maybe have been more respectful towards the life she had lost.  How devastatingly cruel life can be.

Weight Watchers

Hey folks,
As promised just a very quick up date on my weight watchers meeting, So, for starters I weigh more than I thought I did, I knew I had put some on because I had been forcing myself into my jeans and my little summer cami tops I like to wear had started to roll up my belly, and I just felt horrid. anyway, my bestie and I were the first people at the meeting, with her help we filled in the registration form and went off to be weighed and collect our joining packs, the whole weight watchers thing has changed again, and where they used to use good old fashioned books to look through, its mostly been replaced with apps for your phone and recording your progress through a website. This for me is difficult, I struggle to use the computer, I like using Blogger because its easy and there's no fancy crap around the edges of the page as I write to distract me, sometimes I find doing my Tesco delivery shop too overwhelming, luckily there is a little tab thing that you click on called favourites and, well, it lists all the stuff you've recently brought so all you do is click and scroll, then I write a little list of extras and just tap them into the search box at the top of the page, well easy!! I did look at the WW website, and tried to put in my monthly pass code, but when it wouldn't go onto the next page I gave up! I know this sounds proper wimpy, and I will re do it but only when I am in the right frame of mind...so there! The interesting part of the meeting was, well, actually the meeting! Last time we joined we used to sign in, get weighed and run out, all done in 10 mins, this we browsed the little shop they set up that has loads of WW products to check out, then we got settled, I never do well at these things, and I turn into a bit of a critic, I know its the whole 'fight or flight' thing going on, if I act unapproachable then no one will ask me a question or put me on the spot. But, as I sat there and looked around at all the people moving around...wait, let me back track a bit, one of my old neighbours used to go to WW and I had heard on the good old village grape vine, that she was attending as a errr 'helper' I think you call them, anyways, as I walked through the door, I instantly heard her voice and knew she was the other side of the hall, so I called her and waved her over, in my mind a big TICK, I didn't want her to think I was ignoring her because I hadn't seen her, because I recognise people by body shape I was worried she might suddenly be a size 0 and look completely different, although she had lost weight, she was still the same person who had been my neighbour for years. So, back to sitting at the meeting, I was surprised that everyone in the WW team remembered and were pleased to see us, when everyone was sitting down I felt really relaxed, I listened to what everyone had to say, instead of thinking about what I needed to do when I got home, everyone was happy, everyone was proud and smiling, wanting to share their achievements. I am one of those people who sit on the edge of their chair because they feel that they haven't really got time to sit down and MUST be ready to spring into action at any time, but sitting their I realised that this was about me, doing something for myself, not as a Mum but as Lynda, its social interaction, I don't really meet new people because I am not a very confident person. When I climbed into my bed that night, I had a big smile on my face, one, because I am taking control of my weight again, but two because another door has opened and this time I am going to try my very best to attend every meeting and see if I can get around the WW website.
Today my girls were struggling with their moods, one was grumpy because she was tired after stomping all over London yesterday and the other was feeling low after the madness that is caused by the GCSE mocks over the last two weeks, so I bullied them both into getting up, dressed and taking the dog out with me, we walked to the Five Bells in Henlow which is about a half hour walk from our house, we sat in the garden and had a lovely pub lunch in the garden (I had tuna salad, wayyy healthy), while we were sat there my eldest put a step counter app on my phone, I am astonished, from the pub we walked to Langford garden centre, brought some more chilli plant seeds and walked over the fields home, we took 9110 steps, walked 6.0 km and burnt off 250 calories!! More importantly, my ladies were both in much better moods and were actually being nice to each other instead of trying to tear each others heads off, and we even saw wildlife, well, Ralph did, there was a massive Deer just standing in the middle of a field, the girls were mesmerised and I was straining to see it, next thing the stupid dog is bounding across the field to see if the giant fluffy thing wants to play with him, unfortunately it didn't!  Alice took some fab photos of it, I will see if I can get some for my next blog.

Poor boy, totally worn out!

I am ready for another week, I have more seedlings to go out and my counselling session that was cancelled last week is on Monday, so bye for now....

Sunny Weekend

Hi everyone, what a beautiful weekend we've just had here, the weather has been glorious and although we haven't had much planned I feel that we have been constantly on the go. Friday night the girls and I went to our local pub for open mic night....NO! I cannot sing, but a friend of ours can, he also plays guitar, and did a splendid rendition of Princes, 'Purple Rain' one of my favourite tunes!
This was also a good opportunity to catch up with my bestie sitting in the pub garden with a glass of something nice. I used to go in this pub in my younger days nearly every weekend and although the management has changed, the layout (and the décor and some of the errr, regulars, we'll call them) haven't, again I am always in awe of what the brain remembers, mind had remembered every step of the building, filling me full of confidence as I strutted my way to the bar to order drinks. It was a nice evening, and we were home by 9.30, pj's on by 9.45,bed by 10! see, I really know how to rock.
Saturday morning with the sun streaming through my window and not even a sign of a head ache, though this was probably due to only having a Archers and Lemonade and then a diet coke the night before, I get to thinking about my garden. My girls are teenagers so they sleep in till at least lunchtime, I am middle aged which means I wake up at 5am for a wee, doze off for a hour and am buzzing around looking for things to do buy 6.30am. So, you remember I told you about my vegetables going into the ground where the slabs were...well, it seems the soil under the slabs is only about a inch deep before it hits concrete, so after a quick shopping trip into town with the bestie, I walk Ralph and one daughter, only one because the other is still under the duvet, to Langford garden centre to buy massive pots and more soil

My sweetcorn, potatoes and courgettes are all in and my onions, peppers, chilli and carrots are not quite ready to go out yet.

So, it all turned out ok in the end, and hopefully they will all grow just as well in the pots as in they would in the ground! I also put in all the flowers, Mum gave me a load of Marigolds and I popped them around in pots too.

Sunday, was beautiful again, so after my Tesco delivery the girls, Ralph and I all went for a long walk over the fields and along the river where we live..

Needless to say we all felt a little like Ralph when we got home....

Unfortunately, this meant that this morning when I went to get up for work, my head was throbbing and my eyes were aching, I had crammed way to much activity into the weekend and although its fab to see the sun, it does tend to drain me. So, I stayed home, the trouble with me is although I am struggling I don't seem to be able to sit still, I had taken a drink back to bed with me after making sure the girls got off ok, and then because I have clumsy hands when I feel like this I knocked the drink all over my bed meaning...guess what? change the sheets, then, I might as well do the girls beds, although it took me twice as long as it usually does, I battled on, after stuffing the sheets in the washing machine, I flopped on the sofa and closed my eyes, within five minutes I was wide awake and wondering what to do next! It was the whole devil on one shoulder, Angel on the other situation, so ignoring the devil and the hoover I listened to my angel and routed around in my wardrobe for something to do that would keep me sat still for a while.  Then I found it....a Large piece jigsaw puzzle! I had brought quite a few puzzles when I was signed off work and enjoyed doing them, as time went on and my sight got worse, I tucked them in the loft and forgot about them until my sister asked to borrow one after her op (seems not being able to sit still runs in the family) anyway, I got comfy and prepared myself for being disappointed that I couldn't see enough to do it. I was pleasantly surprised, I loved it, it took a lot of concentration, but it didn't matter, there was no rush, the pieces are cut in to all different shapes, so if there is a piece that you cant make out, you'll be able to match it by the shape, also although this particular puzzle looks really busy, there's not a lot of one colour, if you know what I mean, there's not too much sky or too much grass, there's lots going on and that somehow makes it easier.

This puzzle is made by a company called HOP I think I paid about £7.99 for a 250 piece and about £12.00 for a 500 piece, I got them from the local garden centre and the Koi carp centre in Henlow, my photos don't really do the puzzle justice, check them out though, very relaxing, I wanted to have a go at the adult colouring books, but they are way too small and they don't seem to do them in large print...mind you I suppose they would be kids colouring books them ! :)

 I am due my second counselling session on Thursday, and although I am excited for this it has made me think about the past a lot over the last week or so, thinking about all the memories, changes and challenges, the ups and downs along the way has caused many mixed emotions, but thinking all this through has, sort of, make me want to change things... change myself, its easy to just accept you are who you are, but its also easy to tweak and make changes, and to have things to look forward to instead of living in the past, what is it they say....there's nothing you can do about the past, the future will pan its self out, so live for the now!....or something like that anyway. Sooooo my bestie and I have decided to go back to weight watchers, we went about four or five years ago, and frankly looked like a couple of hot babes by the time we were done, I recon we must have lost about 4 stone between us, so Thursday we will be joining again! And get this...they do large print weight loss packs!!

I will think very carefully about sharing my weight with you all after Thursday :)

RNIB Counselling and Veg!

Hi everyone, I thought I would try having a lie in this morning, but the sun was shinning through my window at 6am so here I am an hour later ready to start Saturday. I am still struggling with the three day working week thing, I wake up in the morning truly having no idea what day it is, which at first was funny but now is just very annoying, it doesn't help that my eldest has had her school timetable changed so is home some days and school some others, study leave starts in a couple of weeks so its all changing. Although I have had three weeks of doing three days, not one of those days off has been solely for me to do what I want, not that I'm complaining, as I worry a bit about if suddenly people stop saying, ohhhh you're off on Tuesday, lets go shopping, or lets do lunch, will I get lonely? Or, maybe the days are meant to fill naturally, I don't know, time will tell I suppose.
This week I feel I have been carried along in a big bubble, totally unaware of things being said to me or things going on around me, maybe its my age, or maybe its because I had my first counselling session this week, I am a big 'thinker/worrier' and what I was going to say in my first email was worrying me, so, you have to make sure your email reaches your counsellor and RNIB the day before your appointment, it can be no longer than 1000 words and you can begin wherever you want. My appointment was on Thursday at 10am, so I sat quietly on the Sunday before and tried to compose my email, there I found I had no idea what to write, so I began with a brief outline of my condition, personal and work life, I think it came to about 350 words and I pinged it off to my counsellor. You are given a slot and the counsellor replies to your email at the end of the session, which is about 40 minutes long, with another email. I was concerned that counselling via email would be less personal but the email that came back was very in-depth and long! These people are very obviously very, very well trained, from my very short email she had picked up lots of things and information that I didn't even realise I had given, and had asked lots of questions for me to reply too. I had wondered that the service would focus on sight loss, but she had picked up every little piece of information and was encouraging me to elaborate on it, oh also, before you start with them, you sign a agreement that no-one can read any of the emails and no information can be shared as firstly its confidential and then they own the copyright, so although I am sharing the fact that I am having counselling with you guys, I cannot tell you about the content.  I wanted to encourage people not to dismiss the idea of receiving help through RNIB or any other organisation that provides counselling through these channels, as I've said before, counselling can be through email, instant messaging or via skype (or something like skype), I like the email because you can refer back to it, unless your session is being recorded for you (and lots of people find it hard to listen to the sound of their own voices) with such a lot of information being shared sometimes it had to retain and digest all that's been said, with email, you can go back and read it again and again. I think this is a massive step forward for me, for many different reasons, sometimes its not about needing help or making massive changes, sometimes its about talking through the changes that have already happened, working through emotions, thoughts and feelings with someone totally independent, for me sharing Diary of a Blind Lady with you guys has been a massive therapy, and at times I may have been too honest, but some of my life I cannot share with the world, some of what you go through in life you lock away, and for me opening up to you all about some stuff has made me need to download all the other little things that are tucked away in little boxes at the back of my mind, I hope this makes sense, I know I am rambling a bit, so I am going to change the subject.
Wow, I feel like I just got off my soap box as my Gran used to say! So, with this extra time I have on my hands, I thought I would have a go at.....growing vegetables!!! I didn't realise how excited I am getting over vegetable, I mean, I've been to Mum's and my mates house, and they go...ohhhh, come look what I'm growing in the greenhouse! Or, look at my veggie plot, and I'M like yeah yeah, that's realllly fab, BUT OMG, what fun, so I am growing, sweetcorn, peppers, chilli, spring onion, onion, marrow, potatoes and rhubarb, oh and carrots I had no idea what to grow, so we went with what we eat the most, I only have a little garden, but at the end of it there's a little patio where my ex used to stand his motorbike, some of the slabs were oily or cracked so I took some of them up and dug it up, I got a little fertiliser and worked it in, and last weekend I sowed the seeds in trays in the conservatory....Let me just go take some photos.....

Its a bit Stoney and looks quite small, but people grow their veg in patio pots, so i am hoping it will all be good! 

Delighted to see little plants growing.............But look at my flowers I (well, the help from Mum) planted a few weeks ago, they are Massive!!

We started the seeds out in trays and then Mum helped me do the pricking out thing, and we put them in those trays with the individual little pot things, and then about three weeks ago, mum gave me some old pots, I did the pricking out thing again as the plants were bigger and they are just going mad! :)

Every day the girls and I have a little confab on how well the seeds are doing, never realised growing veg would generate such a feeling of pride and wellbeing!

Well, the washing machine has finished, so I suppose I should go put it on the line.

I will try and blog more often as several people keep asking me when the next one will be, the only worry I have with blogging too much is that it becomes boring!

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