A Bank Holiday

The last few bank holidays I have planned that I was away for them, like in May – one weekend in the Lake District and the other in Cornwall. This was a great way of taking advantage of a long weekend otherwise it turns in to a long weekend like this August bank holiday has. Saturday was good as we had a picnic planned with friends but after that the rest of the weekend was basically a lot of sitting around feeling tired, feeling sorry for myself and generally not getting much done. I had great ideas for getting all my packing done for the holiday – all I managed was to lay out some clothes in to big piles. I definitely need to downsize the piles otherwise I won’t be able to buy anything new.

So, this is a good reminder that I need to book something for bank holidays – weekends away or incorporate a holiday around them. This almost makes me wonder how people entertain themselves while having a “staycation” (a word I detest). I find that if I’m at home for a day off work then I do nothing exciting. Instead I will put some clothes washing on, food shopping or just doing nothing except worrying about doing nothing. Worrying about worrying is a favourite past time of mine lately. The next bank holidays in the UK is at Christmas and New Year – how I would love to go away for the whole Christmas period but I’m not sure my family would like that.  It’s a shame as this bank holiday just feels like it was a waste of time off.

Fight or Flight

Sometimes it takes months and many readings for the brain to actually realise something. Today I was reading my study skills book and I was on the section about coping with stress. It talked about “how the brain interprets stress or anxiety as a danger and tries to help us by drawing the main resources of the body to the large muscles and producing extra adrenalin  so that we are in alert state, ready to run away”. It says that “being in survival mode is not very helpful for study”, and “if we don’t use up the adrenalin by moving the big muscles, we may feel tense, over-alert, easily distracted and unable to concentrate”. Now, I’ve read many articles about this to see if I can stop my worry, anxiousness and general wobbliness and the fight and flight response comes up a lot.

It only made sense this morning, I think that is partly because I did some yoga breathing exercises earlier before reading my book so I had a clearer mind than normal. The sense to know that I’m in a constant state of “fight and flight”, full of adrenalin explains the reasons behind my lack of motivation, lack of energy, feeling down, and most probably the dizziness that I feel sometimes. All this adrenalin is clouding my mind and I spend most of my time worrying about feeling odd or dizzy. All I’ve got to do now is try and change my mindset, stop the adrenalin until I really do need it…. I’ve just read this article on The Times and it’s interesting to read that after a “fight and flight” event has happened a person can feel “overwhelmed by exhaustion and despair”. I just feel like I’ve got a long way to go to feeling better – that’s not very optimistic is it now. I will get better and feel much happier very soon!

Too busy…

Thinking about my holiday to Minnesota to think about what to write on here tonight so it’s a short one. All I will say is that I had a lovely afternoon out in The Regent’s Park with ex/current colleagues for a picnic. It was a really nice time and it didn’t rain which is a bonus. Good to see some old faces and new faces (all the kiddies). Hopefully the picnic is something that will happen every year. It also makes me realise how much I miss having more people in my working environment.

Happy Friday!

Only two random things to write about today – firstly as part of my history course that I’m starting in October, it was recommended that I should read The Study Skills Handbook by Stella Cotterell. It’s actually a really good book for dipping in and out of and in one section it talks about the different parts of the brain for learning. Left brain – right brain. Left brain is logical: sequence, numbers, lyrics of songs, reasoning, names, sense of time. Right brain is Gestalt thinking: image, colour, imagination, emotion, tune and rhythm, seeing the whole. The list in the book is longer this but I didn’t want to bore my readers. Just from this list (no need for me to do a test for this) I know I’m a right brain thinker – image, colour, emotion, tune and rhythm are just me.

With music I was remember the rhythm and tune and I’m always drawn to the rhythm whereas I know friends who always talk about the lyrics first. Colour is very important to me as well. I can remember names, sometimes but not always – so at least I know the left brain is working now and again. Luckily, this book has lots of helpful tips for using both parts of the brain plus new techniques that I’ve not tried before. The second thought for today was this great animation about #followfriday on Twitter and actually mentions someone I know locally – he is famous! Enjoy and Happy Friday!

Quickly, oh so quickly

Quick, I’ve got fifteen minutes before I head out for the evening. So, I’m going to talk about how I’ve been feeling today (again, I hear you say!). Anyway, the morning was quite good and at only one point did I think “hang on I haven’t worried about something for a while”. Now for my point of view this is a good thing because it means I’m trying to control the worry. Lunch was good as my mum came to meet me and had a sandwich in a local church garden. Felt fine until I had to carry a heavy box downstairs to reception and while straighting back up from putting the box on the floor I felt all wobbly again. Once I get over my fear of going to the doctors I will get this sorted but in the meantime I will just worry about it or try to convince myself that it is to do with my tense neck/shoulder muscles. On that note I’m outta here and I’m going to partake in some drinking and eating as that is good for the soul.

Making decisions and longevity

I’m sure I have talked about my indecisiveness before but I’m going to talk about it again. I’ve now come to the conclusion that I will always be like this and need other people to help me make decisions. Or maybe that is my problem – my gut feeling normally knows what I would like to do but I don’t have the confidence to say so and I’m quite easily persuaded by others to do something that I don’t want to do. So, I’m back to that old thing of lack of confidence, low self-esteem again. Half the time I think I’m too lazy to do anything about it or when I’m feeling OK (or consumed by other feelings) I forget that I should practice my mantra of “Trust in yourself”.

As for longevity, I’ve been with my present company for eleven years now and surprisingly the powers of above have decided that some of us who have worked for ten/eleven years should get a gift for sticking it out for that long. The gifts that I can choose from are amazing: a Tag watch, diamond necklace or a BA travel voucher. This is where my indecisiveness comes in again, well almost. I don’t really wear jewellery so I won’t go for the necklace but trying to decide between the travel voucher and the watch is tricky. I don’t wear watches but it would be nice to have a ‘posh’ one to keep or even wear on whose special occasions. With the travel voucher I could go to New York or Philadelphia for a long weekend (the gift of experience, as the catalogue says). Hmmm, I need to sleep on that one.

The Lake District – photos

Some photos from my long weekend away. I’m thinking of getting one of them printed in supersize so I can paste it on to my bedroom window and then I will have the same wonderful view that I had at the weekend.

View from the cottage

Crummock Water

More views over Crummock

My niece exploring the fells

Scale Force waterfall

Bubbling water

Ooh, I love a mountain

Back from holiday

But not in the mood for writing tonight. Still, I thought I should write at least a few words to say I haven’t forgotten about my blog. My long weekend away was good, could have done with a few more days. Still it was nice to get away. Again, I had days of feeling fine and dandy and days of feeling wobbly – my nerves are shot as the saying goes. One day at a time, though I’m getting tired with all the worry and wobbliness that I feel on bad days. It can’t go on like this forever so something has got to give – the worry will stop, get worse or maybe I just need a new job or a new location. Fresh air and mountains seems like a good idea to me.

I’ll write more about my weekend away over the next few days plus the vegetable patch is doing well so I will update everyone with that soon as well. More fun blogs to come… I hope!

Blogging on holiday

Not on your nellie! Well, not on my forthcoming long weekend away in the Lake District but that is mainly because of the lack of wifi in the area. Which is most probably a good thing for a holiday but sometimes it is handy to quickly check something online. So, I’m having a blogging holiday for a few days which hopefully will kick start my writing on here when I get back. I feel it has been a bit boring… all about me worrying and not enough exciting things.  I haven’t been expressing my views on current affairs or talking about music as often I as used to. Now I can see why people stops writing blogs after about a year or so (even months for some)… the ideas and the enthusiasm just stops.

It’s at times like this I wish I had a more exciting job with lots of travel – like being in a band. I could write about travel, music, new experiences, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. That isn’t going to happen as I can’t sing for toffee and my piano lessons are going slowly. Elton John is safe for the foreseeable future as a famous piano playing singer! Saying that I might be going to Dublin and Paris for work in October and of course I have my holiday to Minnesota, in which I am really looking forward too! Not really looking forward to the flight but I can get past that by thinking of all the good things that will come my way on holiday like rest, laughter, friends, drinking, eating (lots of it), sightseeing, fresh air and driving on the wrong side of the road.  Holidays are great – just the anticipation of them is enjoyable.  Bon Voyage!

Feeling weary and in need of some courage

I’m sitting on the sofa with my laptop and an old episode of Poirot on TV with the feeling of weariness. It’s not even like I had to travel on the train today as there was severe delays and after spending 40 minutes on the platform I decided to call it a day and walked back home. That is the beauty of the internet as I can work at home if needed. Still as I wasn’t planning on working from home it took me a while to get sorted. But this post isn’t about working from home, it’s about my mind which is very tired at the moment.

My friend sent me this link to today about anxiety and it made me realise that I need to face my fears or learn from my anxiety. I’ve decided that I need some courage. Courage to face my fears and anxiety. Courage to do want I what and feel. Also, this is who I am – I will also worry, I have always done so but I need to learn on how to manage it. I know that tiredness makes it worse, lack of support from those who should help the most, boredom, lack of social fun, lack of food. I only need one trigger to start the ball rolling. I need things to take my mind off the worries. When I was busy doing nice things at work this time last year and something made me worry I would soon forgot about it because I had a good network of friends at work – in the office as well as friends in the States. I’m just a social person and the thought of working in an office on my own or just two people is depressing. I’m just glad I still have friends in the States. There are two solutions for this: a new job or work from home more often and get a dog for company. So, I’m off to get a lion suit and wander the streets looking for some courage (and friends for the office) or do I just follow the yellow brick road!