For No Other Reason...

...than I read an article on olive oil (yes, really) and remembered a joke that, as far as I'm aware, is still in play.

Once I told my (now thankfully) ex-husband that tradition had meant olives were to be picked only by virgins from the local villages.  When they had a bumper crop then they would need to hire these "extra virgins" from towns and therefore it was more expensive as the oil was purer.

Yes that makes no economic sense but it went down as yet another thing I knew about and I know he told at least one other person this amazing fact.

Unlike the Corrs* prank I never did come clean, that is to say I forgot to do so. Simple things for simple minds, eh?

*On remarking how alike the Corrs were (they're siblings) and wondering if they were from the same family, I told him that they'd just had plastic surgery so they would resemble each other. Again, completely forgot about it until a few years later when he mentioned something about it and I had to admit to having him on about the whole thing. Back when we could joke around and didn't want each other to disappear in a puff of smoke.

::wash::rinse::repeat::

This is ME/CFS/SEID/Whatever-new-name-they-want-to-call-it Awareness Day.

All this and more could be yours!

Something I didn't know is that this particular date was chosen as it is Florence Nightingale's birthday and there is a theory that the illness blighting her life after the Crimea was very possibly, maybe, could well have been the very same one I have.  So, tenuous link with a famous person established.

It does show how desperate those of us who suffer this are, that we look to history for examples of this most definitely not being of our imagination.  Despite what fancy pants name they think of that is what most people believe - we've made it up.

In the four years since I've had this (and that includes the two years it took to whittle it down to actually being this) I've heard the following at least once:

- But you look well

- Oh I get really tired too

- You should just get on with things and not dwell on it

- Oh is *that* what is wrong, uhuh

- Isn't that the thing they can't *prove* you have (knowing glance)

- You're just feeling a little blue, you should ask the doctor for some pills and snap out of it

- You'd feel better if you just (enter exercise/diet regime of the month here)

I could make an ME bingo card to play every time someone finds out, because of the above I rarely tell people why I'm not out working my socks off as once I did.  There is almost a determination in people to deliberately downplay any illness that doesn't have a "proper" test and cure.  I can't think of many, if any, who would gladly swap everything they do and everything they enjoy to spend every day feeling as though they've just run a marathon.

For those who scoff how happy they'd be if they could stay in bed for a day I wonder if they really mean it, do they honestly want to write off days at a time just because they dared use up what little energy they have left?

There are so many sides to this disease.  So many ways it can ebb away at life until you end up like a husk just hoping that maybe tomorrow is the day you wake up and feel as though you've slept.  Oh yes, that is a choice many would want if it meant they didn't have to work full-time - and note that is dripping with sarcasm there.

I try to look on the positive, I don't wallow in what I can't do, instead I enjoy what I can.

What did I want to achieve with this post?  It's just another of my ramblings really.  Maybe I'll mention it again, maybe you'll see me dancing down the street when a cure is found or if I'm one of the lucky ones who really does wake up one morning to find it gone, maybe I'll do as in real life and pretend it isn't happening.  In the meantime it is very real, very annoying and very there, I don't expect sympathy, empathy or acknowledgement but I do expect people to remember that it can happen to anyone at any point and for that to be respected.

All The Single Parents

On parents evening:

That moment when you've heard all the teacher's opinions, you've seen all the exam/assessment results and you're like...

My work here is done!

Bright futures and remember your auld mither!

When The Sun Shines

All feels right with the world so let's go for a walk. 

The fresh, Spring air, nature dotted with human rubbish every so often.

Bonus if you can see my sons, this could be like the old "Spot The Ball" competitions but no prize, sorry. They did get down, no broken bones, thankfully.

The peaceful, man made loch. The man (company) who made the loch now wants to turn the area into yet more housing, no doubt luxury housing so screw you nature. For now enjoy the quiet, the birds swimming by; I recognise ducks, coots, moorhens and, um, sadly that's as far as my wildlife knowledge goes. No swans, they're off bothering tourists at the Palace loch.

Happy dog had a spring in his step, being able to go for a paddle in not quite so freezing cold water.  Except when he launched himself into water too deep for his liking.  Then he wasn't such a happy dog.

And that was our afternoon.  I'm working on the "spoon theory", or as I prefer to use pebbles in my explanation then the "pebble theory" so I have borrowed heavily for today but as the Easter holiday stretches out then I can take time for a CFS crash without worrying about the boys getting to school or coming back from school.

When the sun is shining, drink it in, take a moment, enjoy the blue skies.

I have never...

eaten this delicacy, I don't think I can quite tolerate it.  Prefer something with a little more bite, more wit I think.

One Year On

Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother dying.  Six years (at the end of the month) on from my dad passing and you'd think I'd be used to it.  Yet there is a strange difference that doesn't sit quite comfortably with me.

While we all still miss and mourn my dad it sounds almost callous to say that we don't miss mum that much.  No, that's not quite right, it isn't about missing her I think it has to do with how she died.

Dad was ill for three months in hospital, his dying seemed inevitable but because his illness pushed his dementia to the front it felt like we weren't able to say goodbye properly.  I felt cheated, that despite his age (89) I wasn't quite ready to see him go.  Even now there are moments I want to share with him, especially when the boys achieve something.

With mum her downward spiral started in the year after dad died.  She gave up, we weren't enough for her to hold on for and in the last few years she unclipped herself from daily life, ending up in the care home thanks in part to my ME/CFS and thanks in part to the level of care she needed.  I just couldn't carry her any more mentally or physically.  When someone does give up it is extremely hard, impossible even, to help them and once you help them with something you find yourself doing that for them from then on.

Does that sound selfish?  Maybe, but I've spent so long worrying about others, doing everything for them, grinding myself down in the meantime that perhaps I need that sliver of selfishness.

The last week, when mum was taken in to hospital for the umpteenth time, I admit to having been blasé about it.  I'd gotten in to a routine of planning my life around visits, demands, taking her to and from the place.  Realising this was the final time was a shock but in a way I was so well prepared that I was completely ready for what happened next.

That made the difference.

We were used to her no longer paying attention, of being withdrawn and uninterested.  It is still hard to walk past the care home knowing someone else is in her little flat, I think it would be harder if we were to see the flat, all those memories from that last few years.  Does this mean that at some point it will hit me and I will grieve properly?  Who knows.

I don't chose to remember my mother from that time, our relationship had been a roller-coaster and I select the best memories from that but I don't feel the wish to talk to her again like I do for my dad.

Remembering her properly, not as the person she became.  We were on our way to Millport, to pay tribute to my dad, this is the person I miss.

Sometimes It Works Out Okay

A splodge of ink, a sweep and scribble of pastel and what initially was turning disastrous began to look acceptable.  Times two.

The Quiet Room

It has been an odd sort of weeks.  The lurgy came, visited Eldest, me, back to Eldest again.  I took a fantastically graceful (not) dive on the ice that managed to injure both hands, the right faring particularly badly.  Trying dressing without your dominant hand - now try put a bra on.  Yes, exactly.

In the midst of these trivial little daily dramas I got the call I dread at this time of year.  Another of my dad's sisters had died. 
While feeling deeply for what my cousin was going through I realised there is only one of the six sisters left.  Ironically the one who was forever complaining about ailments, as the old Scottish saying has it - the squeaky gate lasts the longest.

I remember being at one of the infamous family gatherings in my auntie Sheila's home.  We were in the kitchen laughing at the volume of noise coming from the living room.  Auntie Sheila remarked that it sounded like they were all speaking at once, they probably were to be honest.

It's too quiet now.

Start The New Year With Some Sad News

It's a blustery, wet, dark, dank day, the kind that lazy days indoors were made for so productivity here has been zero.  So online and messing around was the order for the day.  Meanwhile in my mind is whirring the cogs of creativity, where can I go that will give me the satisfaction I need.

Off I trot to read some crafty, artistic blogs and I was enjoying immersing myself in other people's inventiveness when I learned of this tragic news.  I had followed and really relished the inspiring influence of artist, illustrator, sculptor and crafter Vanessa of the Do You Mind If I Knit blog.  Many people linked to her crochet tutorials as the definitive way to learn the craft.

It's disheartening and, whatever happened, she will be missed by her readers.  She hadn't blogged in a long while and it was already a disappointment when clicking on her blog brought no new goodies.  I can only hope she knew how well thought of she was and how many people she encouraged.

Some of Vanessa's work:

Revolutions

• Paint more (or pastels, or drawing)
• Dance at least once a day
• Hold strong
• Be true to oneself
• Cross-stitch to relax
• Enjoy the surroundings
• Take happiness in seeing wildlife
• Go for long rambling walks
• Acknowledge the illness
• But don't surrender to it
• If it takes longer to do then it takes longer
• Don't be a people pleaser above all else
• Be kind
• Make a living and then some
• Be confident
• Write for myself every day
• Make a plan not a schedule

Well we're here again...

Those Handsome Boys Of Mine

I make no excuse for being proud of my boys.  We've been through so much and on this day when they've become teenagers, despite driving me mad sometimes, they have turned into a pair of fine young lads.  Unfortunately the behaviour of their father is a constant blight but we manage to get past the games and nonsense with barely a blip.

If I end my days know as a good mum and loved by my boys then that is all I can ask for.  This might be a tough few months ahead but I can think on that to get me through.

We three.

High School Never Stops

I find it curious that behaviours my sons' complain about in their classmates (and probably in themselves too) are still swilling around in people my age and older.

Was discussing a friend who hadn't been in touch for a while, one who had stopped speaking to me soon after my mother's death and had been posting unionist images on Facebook during the referendum while I was trying to put the ideals of independence across yet blanking my worried texts, I took on advice to close the book with an email.  Lord, it's like the letter writing of old only this time there is proof of what was written and when and to whom.

So I sent the email, apologising for any offence I had caused unknowingly.  Then today a reply, and not a nice one.  This from a woman I had been colleagues and then friends with for the past five years, a woman in her early 50s, we had both supported each other through illnesses so the abrupt halt had worried me.  Although I had hoped she was okay I was also hurt that she dropped me so soon after mother died.  Without actually answering what I had done so wrong to reap such a response the email was nasty to the point I am now glad not to have to contact her again.

Bizarre behaviour but perhaps I look too deeply in to why people do what they do - curiosity outweighing the fact I can be a sticky-beak in things not of my concern.  It's enough to drive a psychotherapist to distraction.

That is the end of that.  Now all we need is some hair pulling and playground cat calls with friends taking sides and it would be back to high school.  Some things never change.

I am 42 for only a day more and to be honest, not only do I not have the answers to life, I have more questions.

When It's Cold and Dark and Dank

Now I don't mind the cold; there is nothing quite as refreshing as a crisp frosty morning.  Unfortunately we don't get many of those, instead outside is consistently damp, as though nature has wet itself, and that is not refreshing at all.

At these times I remember the warmth, the oven dry heat, azure skies and Vitamin D drenching sun.  I wonder where my future lies, what is ahead, I can either focus on the darkness past or sunshine future and yes, it really is that way.

The Sands of Time Run Fast

I can't believe that it has been two months since I posted here but then as I'm the only one who clocks in then it's me who gets let down.  It's simple like that.

As I had thought I'd posted some memories of our latest holiday in warm and wonderful Lanzarote, made harder by the fact I did not want to come home at all, there is always that to look forward to doing at some point.  However of late my concern has been lack of time.

I sometimes feel that one of the major symptoms of ME is how much time it steals.  While I slow down the world continues apace and I cannot run to catch up because...well...I cannot run.

I need to develop some way of making a living from freelancing, enough for us to live off of with maybe some left over to enjoy a couple of holidays a year.  My savings are almost gone, yet finding the courage not to have a panic attack at the thought of someone not paying up or things going disastrously wrong is almost overwhelming and naturally there is no help out there to guide me through it, to give me my old tenacity back.

One thing I would love to do, but lack the talent and time to progress very far, is to be an artist.  I'm filled with envy and inspiration when I see others do what I wish I could.  At the moment this is how well I can complete a pastel:

Errors, errors, everywhere!  I need to get better, not for anyone else but for myself.

Life Is A Lottery

((insert witticism about having the winning ticket here))

No, I am meaning this literally.  Was having one of those chats with a friend the other day - you know the "if you had the money to...?"  Reality gnaws at the truth we would only be in that position with a lottery win and while buying a ticket does greatly increase the chances of that it can be a fun yet torturous game to play anyway.  Want of ambition when we were at school kept any aspiration we had to be great achievers at bay, this is what you end up doing.

Sometime when my mind drifts, and it often drifts, I imagine a world where I have limitless funds.  Oh the things I could do, the places I could visit.  At the moment the idea of escape is a delicious one.  I have a list, I have a plan and I will have the ability one day to put it all into action - I hope!

We're off on holiday in a few weeks, it is desperately needed.

Might as well dream I have the body as well as the pool.

I Do Like A Bit Of Hyperbole Sometimes

It's Over And Done With

Well, not quite.

To put it politely Scotland sent a huge message out to the world, 55% of our dear population bottled it and decided that being part of a broken down union was a much easier option than actually trying to do something different, to make something better.

Strangely enough though the "winners" seem to be the ones with anger while those who were involved in the Yes campaign have grieved (very briefly), regrouped and have collectively decided that damn the percentages;  if you want to live in a progressive society you need to pull up your sleeves and get on with it.

In the week since the referendum, along with interesting allegations over the vote itself (claimed as conspiracy theories there is definitely something that went on) there has been an immediate back tracking over the extra powers promised by the three main UK parties; more cuts in budget; suddenly the oil isn't running out, in fact there's tons of the stuff; fracking that will happen no matter what; benefits that will harm working families are targeted and amongst everything else a nice little war to keep the flags flying.

You couldn't make this crap up.

I've gone from a news junkie to trying to find reliable sources.  Once you've seen how biased a news source can be it is very difficult, no, impossible to then trust them with anything - each minute is spent wondering what is fact and what is tilted so you think how they are wanting you to.  I studied the use of propaganda as part of my history degree, I didn't expect to see the same methods once used in Soviet Russia still prevalent now.

It is embarrassing to know that a majority don't care about the society they live in.  I have thought that we will move elsewhere if given the opportunity but I want to try, why should those who want to make everyone's lives better and make this country fairer lie down and allow the seemingly angry, bitter and ignorant others to have their way?  I know it sounds belligerent, to say the very least, but you have to look at why people do what they do and no, it is unacceptable to allow those who are comfortably off, the "I'm alright Jack" crowd sit back and enjoy their lives while others suffer.

While we sit have Trident sitting on the Clyde, while the House of Lords dare to rule over us "commoners", while the oil money is wasted on stupid wars, the job is not done.

Then The Day Came

For the first time ever voting came with a little thrill as I marked my X against the Yes box today.  A strangely emotional experience knowing that tomorrow we will be independent or have to take the consequences of staying in the UK.

I'm tired, so emotionally tired that I can no longer give reasons why I'm for yes.

Tomorrow I shall sleep and hopefully it will be restful.

A Memory

It has been a warm summer but all it took was a flick of the tail from Hurricane Bertha to sudden bring Autumn.  Someone online mentioned the days of having frost on the inside window pane and I remembered this:

The house I grew up in was 200 years old.  Built by the man who owned the house next door and although meant to be a weavers cottage at one point even served as the jail.  By the time my parents bought it, a few months before I came along, the windows had been enlarged enough to encourage some sparkling patterns on cold days.  The windows were deep set, enough for the window sills to serve as seats.

I had a picture book about Jack Frost painting on window panes during the night, in the morning I would sit by the window and with my fingers I'd melt my own drawings in to the designs.