E … is for Experience

E … is for Experience and Excitement and Exhaustion and Endurance

I never thought I would be able to write this post. Hence the BIG MASSIVE gap in my AlphaBlogging so far.

Maybe you didn’t know I was off to India in three weeks and a few days?
Maybe you don’t know me or anything about me to know that this trek is something that terrifies me to the core?
Maybe for you a little trek through the Himalayas, and a few days working in the glorious* heat of Delhi, would be your idea of fun?

*I don’t do 40º heat.

It’s just not for me. I have never been away from my children for more than five days (I’ve not left them for that long even, they have left ME for that long), this is a 10 day trip.
I don’t enjoy flying without them, though I have done it a couple of times.
I haven’t really travelled outside Europe, unless you count America – which I don’t, because it’s not culturally that different.
I have done a little semi-rough camping, but I’ve always had access to running water and a loo, this will be a newer experience for me.
I’ve never been away for 10 days with a group of strangers.
This is all alien to me.

Such is the extent of my anxiety in relation to this trip that I have buried my head in the sand with regard to getting myself ready. I have been fundraising, and training but I have evaded the essential step of purchasing the necessary gear.
Now that we are three weeks from departure, I know that I must buy my kit. So I tried to go and do that after work yesterday.
Only I failed.
I don’t expect anyone who has never suffered with their mental health to understand this. I realise that this level of anxiety is completely unfathomable to most. I also see that I put such a brilliant mask on my own illness that many people who know me relatively well would find it hard to get their head around me not simply ‘getting on with it’. Because that is what I do isn’t it? I simply GET ON WITH IT.
Not yesterday I didn’t. I drove all the way over to the other side of the city, negotiated the industrial estate, parked the car, and walked into the giant store. Part of my anxiety was definitely exacerbated by my existing fear of overwhelmingly large shops. I remember first being aware of this in ToysRUs when I had KidA in utero. I guess that’s when a lot of my anxieties started to become out of control.

Anyway, there I am, in a BIG MASSIVE outdoor shop, with a list of items that I need to buy. I stand near the entrance, compose myself, and walk to the shoes at the back of the shop. It’s no good. I can’t concentrate. I cannot hold a thought in my mind. I need to get out. I go back to the front of the BIG MASSIVE shop (did I mention that it’s a big massive shop?). I stand once more. Telling myself that I have done so well to get there, that I don’t need to bail out now. I got there. I got all the way there, on my own, with my list, without incident. I breathe for a bit. I text a friend. Nope. It’s no good. I go and look at three items that I really do need to purchase. Somehow though, I can’t do it.

I would struggle to articulate the degree of ‘lost’ and ‘helpless’ and ‘hopeless’ that I felt as I stood in the shop. Then the overwhelming feeling of ‘failure’, the intensity of the ‘anger’ I felt with myself for not achieving what I needed to achieve, the ‘frustration’. I could have cried. I didn’t. I just took my sorry arse home and cooked some dinner, collected my kids, and hid in bed for the rest of the evening.

I don’t even understand my mental state at times, so I have absolutely no reason to think that you, reader, will be able to make any sense of this.

The main reason I wrote this was because I have found that sharing my
(E is for) experience of being a total nutter has often paved the way for others to be more open about their own battles.

Obviously my other motive is to demonstrate how far outside my ‘comfort zone’ I am pushing myself with this trek. I am hoping that someone will read this and share it, and that maybe, just maybe, someone will feel compelled to donate: http://www.bmycharity.com/TrekkingDee

D is for DESPERATE

Yeah. It’s been a while. Because D is for Desperate.

I’ve been having a shitty time with my D is for Depression. And I didn’t want to blather on about it here so I just waded through the D is for Darkest time before choosing to revisit this alphablogging thing.

So why am I back now?
I am back because I am D is for Desperate for your help.

• In less than 9 weeks I am going to abandon my family for 10 days *weeps*.
• I am going to board a plane to India *shakes with fear*.
• I am going to witness extreme poverty in Delhi before heading out on an overnight train into the mountains *cries like a baby*.
• I am going to trek miles, up hill and down dale, through the breathtakingly beautiful Indian Himalayas, for four days *feels exhausted at the very thought*.
• I am going to rough it under canvas, have a hole in the ground for my loo and not wash properly for FOUR DAYS *holds breath* *gags*.
• I am going to transfer back to the 40 degree heat of Delhi to do some DIY type work on a homelessness project *sweats like the proverbial boar type creature*.

Why am I doing this? Why am I spending £66 on insurances, £218 on airport taxes, £80 on a visa, £75 on vaccinations (which hurt like you would not believe), hours and hours training my body for the endurance of 4 days of mountain trekking, £1800 on the tour costs, untold £s on my kit? Why?
Why would anybody who is family centred, a home bird, who has not really travelled outside of Europe, who doesn’t undertake extreme challenges, who isn’t sporty at all, why would someone like that undertake a challenge of this magnitude?

I shall tell you why.
I love people. I wish I didn’t a lot of the time because it’s my love for people that so often breaks me. But I care deeply for the people in the world around me. I know that I am fortunate and I have a deep desire in me to redress the balance. I have a very good life. Many people don’t. I have been educated, I have always had a roof over my head, I have never wanted for food. I am employed, I am part of a family unit and part of a wider community of friends and contemporaries.
The people who the Society of St James work with often have none of that.
By sponsoring me to put myself through the agony and trauma, YOU can support the Society of St James to help those vulnerable to homelessness to transform their own lives. Not to mention, you will be boosting my personal morale and ensuring that I give it my all while I am out working in India. I will do hands on work there to make a homeless shelter a more inviting place to be, the money I raise will have a similar impact here in the UK. All told, this trip is a win/win, unless you happen to be me. For this is not just outside my comfort zone, it’s so far beyond anything I imagined I would ever do that the very thought of it stirs up a panic in me.

Please, if you read this, know that I actually am D is for Desperate for your support. Your sponsorship and your little messages on my page are what will keep me trek training, keep me walking, keep me working through the sweaty heat in Delhi … Frankly team, I can’t do it without YOU.
Sponsor Me Here.

C is for Cold

Cold, and clean, and crisp, and crunching under foot. Yep. You guessed it. Even ‘equatorial Southampton’ (as I like to call it when the whole of the UK is white with snow and we don’t have so much as a flake) had enough snow for sledging and snowman building and the like.

Now, I don’t mind people disliking snow. I understand that it represents a national inconvenience for a couple of days annually. I understand people who don’t like being cold, or who are isolated when they are snowed in. So I never tell people not to be miserable about snow.
With that in mind, why do said miserable people feel the need to tell me I can’t or shouldn’t be excited about the white stuff?
I am like a child. I absolutely love the snow. Not just playing in it. I love watching the snowfall from the comfort of my home, I love looking out over snow covered rooftops and snow filled trees, I love the stillness, the silence, the beauty of virgin snow. I love listening to children laughing and fighting in the snow. I love that random kids knock on and ask your children out to play at the crack of dawn. I love that, after playing out for a while, you have to strip a frozen, soaked child, wrap them in fluff and warm them up, before they go and repeat the whole scenario. I love that, at night, it doesn’t get properly dark when the world is white around you. I love hearing the dripping and falling of melting snow from the trees. I love the creaking crunching sound that snow makes as you stomp about collecting piles of the stuff to build snowmen.

Up on the roof.

Living in ‘equatorial Southampton’, and having a hardcore head teacher at the primary school, my children have often missed out on ‘snow days’. This time though, both of their schools were closed, and Friday is my day off work. They are both old enough now to go out and enjoy the snow with friends, they don’t need me, I cramp their style. So I enjoyed the snow in pj day mode, from the comfort of my home, and with the luxury of my new wood burning stove.

However, day two of snow and I could not resist getting out to play. I told the children I was going to build a snowman, whether they chose to join me or not. KidA preferred to play FIFA on the PS3 (fool), but KidB was up for the challenge so we donned a million layers each, and set out to our virgin snow filled back garden to build a snowman as tall as her.

Look at her excited little face. This was actually half way through the build, hence the distinct lack of snow around her.

She’s SO excited.

Once he was assembled to her satisfaction, she hugged and kissed him. She took a shot while she made me do the same. She’s a cutie.

We almost rose to the height challenge too. Surely there are mere centimetres in it?

Are we freinds?

B is for Burner

My love of fire, my pyromania if you will, stops safely short of criminal damage.

I’ve had a passion for flames from a very young age. My father used to be angry with me for having candles in my bedroom but, while I did used to play with them, I was never unsafe or careless.
Since we became a camping family, the enjoyment of fire has been reignited <- do you see what I did there?

Anyway, this is leading neatly in to something that I have been saving for since I started working last October.
Our last house had an open fireplace in the lounge. This house had a victorian style fireplace but without a useable chimney. So I’ve waited five years to be able to afford the luxury of a woodburning stove.

In that bit between Christmas and new year that people sometimes call ‘Crimbo Limbo’ or ‘Twixtmas’, I bought hearth tiles (multi-coloured slate), adhesive, grout (in a lovely putty colour), sealant, and a gorgeous Aga Little Wenlock stove.
The installation had been booked for mid-January so the old fireplace needed ripping out in readiness for the new hearth and for the beautiful little stove.

Old fireplace less mantle …

And rip it out I did. I donned my best vest and pants (to entertain the husband), cleared the mantlepiece of it’s usual paraphernalia, got rid of some Christmas recycling and rubbish, pulled back the rug, and set to work. I had originally thought it would be a case of unscrewing the mantlepiece and pulling out the old fireplace. Oh no no no no no. No. I unscrewed the mantlepiece to find it stuck to the wall. Properly stuck. No more nails type stuck. After umming and ahhing for far too long, I whacked it until there was a little gap so that I could prize it away from the wall. I was past caring about plaster and such, I needed to get this baby out. Once the mantle was off, I dismantled the fireplace until I was left with this … cemented in …

Cemented Firm

I worked SO hard to get this piece out in tact. I knew a rec. yard would take the complete fireplace so it was worth the effort. Once I’d pulled up the tiles and concrete you can see in the hearth, the next step was to put in a new concrete base. Thank god for my Kid Brother at this stage. He also tiled the hearth for me with my lovely new slate. Obviously it was down to me to clean the tiles down after adhering, to seal the tiles before grouting, to clean them thoroughly (three/four times) after grouting, to seal them again … all while working four full days, feeding the family etc etc. I felt like Cinde-bloody-rella I’ll tell you. I got absolutely zero assistance from my darling husband. However, it’s kind of my burner, and it is me that loves fire, plus … look … the end result is SO worth it.

My wood burning stove.

A is for Alpha B is for Blog: AlphaBlog

A … is for AlphaBlog

Or A … is for Alphabet Blogging?

A is for Alpha, B is for Bites, C for yourself they taste just right.
Anyone remember this? I have not been able to get it out of my head since I decided how I was going to approach my Inexpert little blog in 2013.

I couldn’t decide what to do with this little corner of the internet that belongs to me. I couldn’t quite work out who I was writing for. But the conclusion I have come to is that I write for me. And I sleep much better when I write. So I am continuing to cathartically empty portions of my brain here at The Inexpert, hurrah. To help me on my merry way though, I have decided to Alphablog for 2013. That’s to say, I will write 26 posts, one a fortnight (or thereabouts), one for each letter of the alphabet.

I’m afraid that, with A being for Alphablog, this post is simply an introductory post to the year. This is something of a shame in writing terms, because A could have been for so many things. A … is for Arsehole was a suggestion that came up, followed with choice words for B and C.
Another suggestion was “adult” AlphaBlogging, but I suspect that is one for a slightly more deviant audience than The Inexpert attracts.
Further alternative options included A … is for Arson, A … is for Abundance, A … is for Absolute Adoration.

Tell you what, to lighten my first Alphablog, I will share a little story about Absolute Adoration.
A long time ago I was in love with a man who didn’t know it. I was engaged to a lovely guy but I was not in love with him. I had been gradually falling for the man in question for a period of about five months before one night, when a mutual friend of ours was having a party because he was leaving the country, I decided I wanted to know if he’d noticed me.

Let’s be clear, vast quantities of alcohol had been consumed, it was an all day/all night party and lips/tongues were definitely loosening. I had spent the evening (for I missed the daytime  portion of the partying) chatting with the man I had fallen for. My fiancé had long since retired to bed, and what I was about to do would initiate the end of our relationship.
[Don't think for a moment that I am proud of how I handled that relationship, I am not.]
So, chatting with the man I had fallen for, hook line and sinker, desperate to know if he had even noticed me. We were alone in the kitchen of our friend’s house, he was talking about an awkward relationship with a girl in our friendship group, and I just butted in with, “but how do you feel about me?”.

I was 19 years old. So brave, and so naive. But the question was asked. He took me in his arms, I looked up at him and he said, “I absolutely adore you”. We shared a kiss that was so much more than a kiss. And that was the man that I married.

I Absolutely Adore You

A Late #SilentSunday from me … The Inexpert :D

So this is #Christmin

If you have ever read my blog at this time of year before now, I pity you. It’s a really bloody miserable place to be as my brain starts to spill out in a vague attempt at maintaining sanity through the depths of despair and depression.

(Really want to re-write the above to fit the theme; So this is Christmin …)

In case you didn’t know already, I am a nutty woman. A woman who battles depression. Sometimes winning, often losing, never killing myself … this is good.

Historically Christmas has been, shall we say, awkward?
For years I have struggled with all manner of obstacles that bring me lower and lower to the point where I cannot wait for it all to be over. Which is sad. Because I am also a mother.
We’ve tried all sorts to overcome the problems. Spending the day as a little family unit, renting a country cottage in Norfolk to get away from it all, making an effort with extended family, hosting Christmas at home for family … all sorts. But we’ve never quite pulled it off.

Depression isn’t a choice by the way. So, what I am about to say must not be taken out of context. I am not defined by my illness, I live with it. But there are active decisions that I can make which affect me and can make small differences to my state of mental wellbeing.

SO cuuuuuuuuuuute!

Not so long ago, I was in ‘Sainos’ with my good buddy @imcountingufoz. She love love loves Christmas and everything about it. The TU decs had reached the homeware department and she was oo-ing and ah-ing while, being an aesthetic person, I quietly admired the beauty with her.
Inwardly, I made a decision at that moment. I decided that I was going to enjoy the build up to Christmas. That I was going to deal with all of the little niggles for the first time EVER, instead of trying to escape them, and that I was going to follow my heart and get into the spirit of all that I love about the season of goodwill.

Virtually simultaneously, with me making this silent promise, we (imcountingufoz and I) started to talk about last Christmas. And the fact that she’d offered us to come and share Christmas chez Laing/Chapman. We declined at that time, but that was largely because I couldn’t read quite how genuine or serious the offer was.
Knowing the family a whole year longer, and a whole year better, I  now know that the offer was 100% genuine and that we’d have been welcomed with open arms as if we were part of the crew. It made this year’s decision much easier.
“Would you like to spend Christmas day with us?”
“Yes, we would absolutely love that.”

Call me Bubbles dahling, everybody does …

And so it began. The talk of how we’d spend the day, divide up the labour, the cost, the fun. The reminiscing about family traditions, the hopes, the dreams, the differences. The ideas, the creativity, the fun. We’ve dubbed this process (totally stolen from Miranda), #Christmin. Christmas Admin. To date it has involved online chat, sharing of links, purchases of paperchains and matching napkins, evenings of pink bubbles and chat, purchasing of very expensive wine (nothing but the best for MY friends) …
Yeah, this #Christmin lark is fun. We’re both great cooks, our husbands are both wonderful at clearing up the aftermath. Our children, while very different in age, get on really well, and for my two, it will be the first Christmas they’ve ever spent with other children.

Loooooooooooook …

I’m putting to bed some of my old triggers. Husband is helping me with that side of things as some of them are dependent on him speaking with his family. A portion of my historical problems were challenged back in the summer, so things will be different with my biological family too.

I am quite prepared to say, with only a small amount of tentativeness, that this Christmastime WILL be different.

Thank you to everyone who is making such a difference in my life right now so that I can leap hurdles that have stood in front of me for years.
You may know who you are, you may be oblivious, but I thank you all.