Was #BeKind ever more than a trendy hashtag?

 After the death of Caroline Flack, it was everywhere - social media influencers, celebrities, and the (wo)man in the street, you name it, all exhorting us to “be kind” along with - of course - the trending ever higher hashtag to ensure maximum exposure. I’m absolutely certain that some of those who talked at length about Flack’s sad story genuinely were devastated by it, meant every word of what they said and have learned from it and lived by it since - but equally, there were a lot of folk who jumped on that bandwagon purely for the hashtag. It was trendy - everyone wanted to use it. That it was for a while at least the most trending tag on social media inevitably means that people actively look for a reason to use it - hot topics equal more followers, and that, for some folk, is the holy grail. 

Shortly after Flack’s death, the Covid pandemic hit, and for a while, it felt as though we were “all in it together” - pretty much everyone was immersed in their own fears about the virus, rumours of lockdowns and preparing for what was rapidly starting to feel like the world sliding out of our control. The kindness held - party politics, usually such a hotbed of vitriol, was even effectively suspended for a while as everyone focused on what we could ALL do, together, to try to defeat this insidious foe that was running rampant through our communities. That side of things was never going to be a permanent state of affairs, indeed, politics can’t operate effectively without a degree of animosity at least, but the suspension of hostilities was exactly what we needed at the time...

 Since then, the kindness seems to have seeped away. Perhaps the most recent example of quite how much - at a public level at least - was the fallout from the Oprah Winfrey interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, when Meghan’s discussion of her mental health issues lead to a torrent of  abuse and suggestions that she was lying.  As someone subsequently pointed out, the Duchess won’t see all those people on social media claiming she was “attention seeking” - but any friends of theirs who may have had suicidal thoughts in the past, will. Closer to home, a few weeks ago I found myself on the fringes of a conversation about the wording people are using about their feelings towards the ending of lockdown restrictions. One person ventured the view that they really disliked people saying “I won’t be rushing to go out!” - suggesting that instead they should simply admit that they are scared of the virus, scared to emerge from behind their front doors. My first reaction was that it’s far from that straightforward - I for one am looking forward to meeting up with friends,  going to the rugby club or a pub for beers again, but after a year of relative solitude, the thought of going back into bigger gatherings or crowds currently fills me with panic. Nothing to do with the virus, everything to do with social anxiety, made worse by a year of not having to put myself in positions which challenge that. Much as I probably should have challenged the broad-brush assumption that everyone feeling apprehensive about a return to the old normal is a covid-paranoid coward, I bit my tongue and stepped away - this person has “form” for turning on people who disagree with their often strong views on particular subjects, and turning in them in an underhand way at that, while still aiming to maintain their facade to others. Quite honestly at the moment I don’t feel mentally resilient enough to risk that - much as I feel slightly ashamed for not having been prepared to make the point. 

Both the examples there indicate to me quite how far we as a society have to go with discussion and acceptance around mental health issues, too. While things like Mental Health Awareness Week have gained traction with much coverage on social media (back to that question of the trendy hashtag again, perhaps!) when it comes to real life confronting us, people are much more cynical and reductive. Fine for depression and anxiety to exist, fine to say “people should talk about it” but suddenly not fine when people DO talk about it, or when it doesn’t fit the comfortable mould that they feel it should. If people really want to be kind, rather than extending their unsympathetic opinion, they could simply keep quiet. And rather than generalising and passing judgement on the way someone chooses to phrase things, they could just accept that there are all sorts of reasons people might be feeling a bit phased by things at the moment. And if #BeKind was more than a way of making yourself look good on social media, that’s exactly what would happen... 

Robyn 

This week...

 

...has been fairly emotionally heavy. The unfolding news about Sarah Everard since her disappearance last week, culminating in the awful news that remains were found that have been confirmed to prove that she was murdered. The arrest of a serving Metropolitan Police officer in connection with first her disappearance and subsequently her murder**. The standard reaction of countless men, lower lips hanging petulantly out, reminding us that “#NotAllMen”... 

For the majority of my 40-something (c’mon - a girl has to have SOME secrets!) years, I’ve lived with the usual warnings that women simply accept. Don’t walk alone at night. Don’t wear the wrong clothes. Don’t walk in really secluded places. Tell someone where you’re going, tell someone when you get home. I’ve altered my hair to make it less grabbable from behind, I’ve changed shoes to some I can run in, should I need to. I’ve walked home with my keys clutched between two fingers “just in case”. I’ve switched to listening to podcasts when running or walking because it means I can hear more of the sounds around me. I’ve doubled back on myself when walking in the dark, and got around a corner and run full tilt until my lungs have said enough, and sped up because I’ve heard the footsteps behind me doing the same... If you’re a man, reading this, pretty much all of your female friends and relatives have done all or most of here things at some stage. Does that surprise you? Shock you? I bloody hope so - because if you consider that to be nothing to be shocked about, you can leave, right now, and never come back. (And give your head a wobble - we’re talking about pretty much EVERY woman being scared, and it’s entirely down to the behaviour of some men.) 

Sarah Everard was walking home. Simply walking from one location, to another. It was a walk she’d likely done before. She did all the “right things” - bright clothing, a well lit route...the things we’re reminded, as women, that we “need to do” for our own safety. Our own safety from men. If you’re a man, reading this, I hope that makes you ashamed. I hope that also makes you spark a conversation with your male friends. That’s what’s needed now. Ridiculous, I know, that men won’t listen to women, on the issue of women’s safety, but they will listen to other men. Sigh. 

If you are one of the “good guys” - there are things you can do routinely, to make us feel safer, more comfortable :

- if you’re walking behind someone else at night, cross the road, give that person space. If it’s a woman this will make her feel safer. 

- if you are aware you’re walking behind  woman, pull your hood down if you’re wearing one. Being recognisable makes us feel that you’re less likely to do anything we might need to recognise you for, later.

- don’t speed up to get past us faster. That simply takes the situation from “there’s a man behind me, and he’s catching me up” to “there’s a man behind me, and it sounds like he’s chasing me”. If you’re naturally gaining on us, maintain that pace, and cross over. If you’re simply keeping pace, drop back a little.

- if you do need to pass us on the same side of the road, consider how we might feel safest. Try not to trap us between a building and you, and of we’re clearly following the pools of light from street lamps, respect that’s what we need to do. 

- if you’re standing with a group of mates, maybe having a smoke or a vape outside a pub, don’t split into two groups to force us to walk between you, instead move back to the wall or fence behind you - let us have the clear space to take as much room as we want to pass. 

- if you decide to approach a woman in a pub, or bar, read the body language. If she’s uncommunicative, or monosyllabic, that probably means she isn’t interested in your attention. If she responds to your overtures with “no” - or anything approaching that, this is a rejection - not an invitation to negotiate. Retain your dignity, say “nice meeting you” and walk away. 

We KNOW it’s “Not All Men” - we KNOW it’s a small minority that deliberately make women uncomfortable, and an even smaller number that are actively aggressive or violent towards us. The problem is, those men don’t carry that information around on neon signs over their heads, so we have no way of knowing whether you’re one of them, or not.  This means you’re all a threat. However, consider this - if you are a man who has ever walked down a road, at night, behind a woman, without even considering that she is petrified wondering whether that is going to be the moment that her luck will run out, then you HAVE- even without meaning to - been guilty of frightening a woman. It’s time to take responsibility for that, listen to the women in your life, learn from what they have to say, and then take up the cudgels on their behalf. 

Robyn

** During the time I was writing this it has been confirmed that the Police Officer arrested for her abduction and murder has now been charged with those offences. **

February

 

Well that was quite a varied month! From freezing temperatures and even a bit of snow, to glorious spring-like days of sunshine, thank goodness! The focus for February was on keeping up the strength work and the yoga, as well as lots more walking. I finished my “Walk The Thames” challenge well ahead of the cut-off, and got my nice shiny medal through the post in the middle of the month - and then promptly signed up to another distance challenge in the shape of the RAF Museum Lancaster challenge - which requires me to walk or run 500km between the point ai registered and mid May. 

I finally managed to track down and order some heavier dumbbells - 5kg ones - as well as a proper yoga/exercise mat which has proved to be a bit of a game-changer. Turns out poses like downward dog are a lot easier when your hands and feet aren’t slipping away from you! I managed 11 strength workouts in the month which I was really pleased with, and nearly 11 hours of yoga - finishing the first Adriene 30 day challenge I’d started in January and starting on another. I also managed 179.2 miles of tracked walking - beating last month by just a fraction in spite of it being a short month, averaging 6.4 miles walked each day. 

So - what is in store for March? Well first and foremost I’m desperately keen to be able to get back to running again now. The issue with my left foot is better, but still not better *enough* I don’t think - while I do have days when it gives me no problems at all, there are also still others when it’s really still quite painful.  So - more strength work, still plenty of stretching, but probably slightly less walking overall - I plan to keep my monthly target at 170 miles but not aim to exceed it. I also want to focus on sleep - I’ve been making efforts to get to bed a little earlier and try to get at least 7 hours a night, and it really does make a difference. Listening to my body and what it needs is key here - goi g to bed slightly earlier and dropping off the sleep almost right away is better than going slightly later and then taking a while to settle.  A good bedtime routine helps here - something I’ve been working on. 

I’d like to end the month with:

8 strength workouts minimum

11 hours of yoga

170 miles walked

4 proper rest days - just a short walk plus yoga, at most.

An average of 7hrs 25 minutes sleep per night across the month. 

Bring it on! 

Robyn 

That’s Odd...

 Quite a few years ago we had a brilliant local veg box scheme - a small company run by a nice chap who really cared about the produce he sourced. Sadly his attention to detail and fresh, high quality produce actually made him too successful in some ways - he built up a sizeable customer base at which point he got an offer he couldn’t refuse from another established box scheme company, and sold to them. Rapidly from our perspective prices went up, and quality down, and we stopped ordering boxes soon after.  

We’ve said for a long while that we’re not in the least fussed about our veg being organic - we don’t buy that normally, and so there’s no reason for us to pay for a box of organic veg either, but pretty much all the schemes running currently trade in the basis of being organic. The exception to that is London based Oddbox - and I’ve been keeping a regular eye on them for the last little while in the hope that they would start covering our area, two weeks ago I popped our postcode into the box on the website and voila! “We delivery to your area on a Saturday” - hurrah! 

Oddbox work on the premise of “rescuing” fruit and veg which would otherwise go to landfill - items that don’t look right for the mainstream stores - or are the wrong size, or are just surplus to requirements. They buy it up, then sell it on to people like us who don’t care that the peppers have a few blemishes, or that I’m getting potatoes because there were more of them than the supermarkets wanted this week. 

You get your box of veg - ours was the medium Veg only box - they also do a fruit and veg combined and a fruit only box. It comes with a leaflet with some recipe ideas for some of the items in the box, and a list (above) confirming why all the items you’ve been sent are there. From my perspective the delivery time (Oddbox deliver overnight to save on emissions) plus the fact that you can see what is expected to be in your box ahead of time means that I can always be sure of fresh veg for Sunday lunch. Just getting the box means we’ll increase the amount of veg in our diet - and we were no slouches on that front in the first place.  Although this week’s offerings were fairly “usual” for us, I’m also hoping that we get some different stuff here and there to shake our meals up a bit. As for this week, there will be a stew,  a stir fry, and some salad with an omelette, as well as some spinach thrown into tonight’s risotto, and I’m looking forward to planning to use up every last scrap! 

Robyn 

Thoughts for the day...

 Today...has been grey and drizzly all day. It was damp while I was walking this morning, damp throughout the day, and as far as I know still damp now. It’s been a day for snuggly, cosy winter jumpers, copious cups of tea, and p quite handily, considering lockdown, for staying indoors. 

I’m being inspired by... thoughts of Indian cooking following listening to a BBC Good Food podcast this morning. It was an entire 40+ minutes on the subject of Keema Pav - a spiced minced lamb dish served with soft, buttery Indian bread rolls. The lady who was enthusing about it was so descriptive about the flavours, textures and the spices involved that even while still listening my head was whirring with thoughts about similar types of dishes I could cook. Planning needed, I think! 

I’m feeling nostalgic about... The good old days of photo albums - or indeed the slightly more up to date equivalent of photo books. When we had our big decluttering session at the end of 2019/early 2020 we pulled all the various albums and books together and stored them in the same place so we knew where everything was, and inevitably that also lead to much looking through them and reflecting on old memories. I’ve got albums from my early days of vaguely serious photography when my main subject was speedway. Albums of shots taken at concerts. Albums of pictures from myself and MrEH’s first few years together including early visits to the Hebrides, and later photo books of Hebridean adventuring too. It’s been a fair few years since I put together a photo book though - in fact the last time would be my Red Arrows project “#CircusAtWork” from 2014 I think. It’s probably high time I did another one, isn’t it! 

Right now I’m loving... Multi-use headbands! Basically a tube of fabric with oh-so-many different uses. I use them while running in the winter as a headband to avoid the painful cold ears I get otherwise. They can be used as a hat, in place of a scrunchie for holding back a ponytail, as a scarf, and, relevantly at the moment, as a face covering. To my delight and after a bit of mind-over-matter and working up from very short times I have discovered that even I can cope with wearing one of these little beauties over my mouth  and nose while the air is cooler as it is at this time of year. So far I have managed in every situation I’ve tried it out in, although there have been a few panicky moments, and my hope is that I might be able to get myself comfortable enough with wearing a covering that by the time the weather starts warming up, I’ll be able to continue doing so rather than returning to my face shields. 

Something small, but productive... some time this afternoon cleaning up my email account. Junk Mail folder checked, repeated nuisance domains blocked, any obvious scams reported. Also a review of my inbox - unsubscribing from a few bits I am no longer interested in, which should reduce the amount of traffic in. This time round was half an hour or so, but 5 minutes each time I log in should do the trick from now on. 

How’s things been for you today? Feel free to use my Thoughts for the Day prompts on your own blog with a link back to here, and post in the comments to let me know so I can read your post too! 

Robyn

2020 Won...

 (Oh yes - didn’t it just!) I loved this take on the new year number when a friend mentioned it last week - the play on words just seemed so apt! 

The symbol of 2020 seen on the first day of 2021!

So here we are at the start of another year,  a traditional time for looking both back and forwards at the same time, although I think a lot of people would agree that just shutting the door on 2020 would be what most folk would prefer to do. I’m a bit undecided on that - it was a pretty crap year in so many respects - being unable to do the things, and spend time with the people that most of us choose to usually. Having our everyday freedoms restricted for the good of everyone as a whole - and the frustration of watching others kick against those restrictions because they feel that their rights trump everyone else’s. Having events cancelled, seeing so many people struggling with disappointment after disappointment- and indeed feeling that struggle ourselves. If we’re honest though - I bet most of us have learned a lot from the last 9 months or so. From my perspective I have enjoyed the time I’ve gained - just small things initially like not having to do battle with the traffic on the M11 daily. The difference in MrEH too - while the drop in income caused by my furlough and his three day week early in the original Lockdown was problematic on one level, those two days each week were something we treasured and tried to make good use of. Also the opportunity to explore our local area far more than we ever had done before - we’ve walked round almost every area of the town now and a I have even resurrected my documentary “Recording Harlow” blog as a result. Feeling a greater sense of community too - although sadly a lot of that didn’t seem to last long beyond the end of the lockdown.

Some things have also surprised me too - how well I coped with the restrictions of the first lockdown, and being unable to leave the house for exercise more than once each day for example. Having to make the choice between a walk with MrEH and a head-clearing soo run was often really difficult but I managed it pretty much throughout. Also quite how much this definite introvert has missed socialising. With friends scattered across the country, and so much of our socialising involving beer festivals, pubs, and the rugby club, plus for me airshows of course, we had our options to socialise completely ripped away - and that continues now. Zoom took the place of meeting the gang at beer festivals, and socially distanced chats with rugby club pals whilst walking locally became the go-to places to catch up on the news. I didn’t miss things like the enforced jollity of New Year’s Eve - but I did miss spending time with the people I love. 

So now we look to the new year - hopefully brighter times on the horizon, but with a few tough months ahead before that. We already know that many events will be cancelled for this year as well - Yeovilton have already said that they don’t expect to run an Airshow, and many beer festivals are either deferring events until later in the year, or admitting defeat for this year entirely. As usual I’m not making resolutions - but I am giving some thought to things I want to look at, and work on. One thing got resolved early on - a person who several years ago I made a conscious new year decision to step away from due to their toxicity and repeated two-faced behaviour - not only did I not like that behaviour, but I also didn’t like the person I became when I was around them, getting roped into an unpleasant cycle of constant bitching about people behind their backs while being pleasant to their faces. I’d been beginning to wonder if I was being a little harsh, and whether I should reconsider - however, no - they have recently proved all over again that my decision was entirely correct and that they are not someone I want or need in my life. This time the break will be pretty final and very conclusive. This person is someone who I did once consider to be a good friend but I can now recognise that the “friendship” wasn’t a healthy one at all - and on that basis the removal of it can only be a good thing. The moral of this one is that someone who constantly needs to tell others how ‘Nice’ they are is very likely anything but...!

First two missions for the year then - I have a virtual distance challenge to get working on - it’s 217 miles, the length of the Thames Path, and can be covered running or walking over the first 7 weeks of the year. I was initially planning on trying to run quite a lot of it but the foot injury I’ve been struggling with probably now makes it more likely that in fact only a small proportion will be run. I’m intending to try to do with a few distance/movement challenges this year as I love the incentive to lace up and get out there. The second is a small silly one - to tackle the contents of the freezers in order to make the space to order a whole lamb again - we loved this when we did it before and this seems a good opportunity with more time for cooking and being inventive with recipes to do it again. First though, space needs to be created, so operation freezer-clear is on! 

Do you have plans or challenges to tackle for the year ahead ? Are you blogging about them if so? Pop a link to your blog in the comments so others can be inspired by your focus! 

Robyn 

A restriction free zone...

Sourdough bread - who wants to restrict this?! 

 I’ve made some interesting discoveries on my path of trying to improve my relationship with food. The first thing to say is that I have never - thank goodness - suffered from an eating disorder. I’ve got huge sympathy for those who have, or do - I can’t even imagine how hard recovery must be in these days of so much “nutribollocks” being spouted on social media and a print media that seems to prize the “slim ideal” above all else.

When I first heard the phrase “disordered eating” I presumed that it was the same as an ED - but that’s not the case at all. Disordered eating can cover anything from refusing to allow certain foods in the house because you know you’ll eat them in larger quantity than you feel “acceptable”, to repeated to-yo dieting, to feeling guilt around eating certain foods because society deems them to be less worthy. Disordered eating though - it definitely seemed that it was something that would affect other people, not me, right?

My first dieting effort was probably in my mid-late teens when I decided that I needed to be smaller. At the time saturated fat was the particular villain of the piece getting coverage, so I decided I needed to eat as little of it as possible. Quite sensible in some ways, but it did lead to my first venture into obsessively reading food labels and classing foods as “good” and “bad”. I lost some weight, came off the diet, and of course had learned nothing so returned to my old eating habits and promptly put the weight back on...along with a bit more. 

Fast forward a few years and Weight Watchers were running their first points-based plan. At the time I had a close friend who was obsessive about her weight, constantly telling me how much she weighed and how “awful” it was - at the time she weighed about 4 stone less than I did. Disregarding both the fact that we were VERY different builds, and that she was almost certainly borderline underweight at the time, this triggered me to feel that I needed to change my body shape. WW taught me lots of things - that exercise is something you do to earn your food, that it’s all about numbers, that food isn’t protein, fats and carbohydrates, but instead a number of points that means you can either stuff yourself silly on it, or pretty much never even think about eating it, and that a binge immediately after being weighed is what everyone does...WW also set you a goal weight. They told me mine was 7stone 9lbs - which I now know would have been at the very lowest end of the healthy range of weight for my height. Allowing that I’m naturally quite a solid build, this was wholly unrealistic. This lead to probably the most important thing I learned from WW - that no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get “thin enough” - at 8 stone 2lbs I looked dreadful - drawn and ill, and my poor Mum was worried to the extent that she begged me to stop. I admitted defeat (while secretly feeling I had failed),  stopped trying to lose more weight, realised that a lifetime of counting points and restricting food seemed rather joyless and dull, of course had learned nothing about actually eating a balanced diet so returned to my old eating habits and promptly put the weight back on...along with a bit more...

Another few years and a spiteful comment from a fatphobic colleague lead to me renewing my acquaintance with WW - more points. Well, it had worked last time, no? (Spoiler alert - no) Same again really - lose weight, learn nothing about the principles of healthy eating, stop the diet, find the maintenance unsustainable, put the weight back on again blah blah blah. 

Of course now I know that the likes of WW, Slimming World etc work on an unsustainable model - by forcing people to use their own system to keep track of what they eat even in maintenance, they can be quietly confident that the majority of people will put weight back on as over time it just becomes impossible for most people, who then put weight back on and so end up as return Customers - the rhetoric being that the plan works, because, look, you lost weight! You just went wrong afterwards, so do the plan again, but better. The fault is always with the customer, never with the plan. 

It was beginning to register by this stage - diets simply teach you about restricting various foods that are deemed “bad” or “naughty”. The rhetoric sinks in though - guilt, shame, you mustn’t eat this, eating that is disgusting, and so by extension YOU are disgusting for eating the wrong foods... I had a  brief skirmish with avoiding refined sugar - blame Chris Evans and his food-demonising for that one, but it had no discernible affect aside from making me quite grumpy so I gave that up. 

Finally, towards the end of 2016 I decided I simply wanted to get fitter and healthier. To introduce more movement into my life, not to earn my food, but because actually I’d learned to love it for its own sake. I started learning about portion sizes, and that actually, no foods needed to be off limits. I let myself buy peanut butter again - one of my favourite foods, but one which previously I almost never allowed myself. I learned that I didn’t need to skip lunch because I was going out for dinner, and most importantly I learned to listen to my body, to take its own cues as to whether I was hungry, or full. Most importantly I learned about disordered eating, and realised that ai never wanted to go back to it. My size has now naturally stabilised at a point that suits me - I get a bit bigger sometimes, and a bit smaller at others, but now mostly longer beat myself up for it. The last few months have been hard though - SO much focus on weight, SO much emphasis on making people feel that they “should” be running, or doing PE with Joe, or whatever. It’s incredibly difficult not to get caught up in feeling that you should be jumping on that weight-loss bandwagon. I’m as comfortable in my own skin as I have ever been now though - even if quite sad that it’s taken 30 years for me to reach this point. I’ve still got plenty of learning to do - finding ways of not getting triggered by friends who are still on the yo-yo dieting journey for a start, simply trying not to engage is a good start but not always easy - but then the most worthwhile things often aren’t easy, no?! 

Robyn 

WT Actual F?!

 ** A post on a serious topic which may prove triggering and upsetting for some people - trigger warnings : Cancer, death ** 

Listening to a podcast yesterday whilst out and about, a guest was being interviewed and got onto the subject of people with cancer. “Of course...” she said “some of them battle it just brilliantly and pull through, and others, well, don’t...” I waited for her to continue with something along the lines of, don’t make it in spite of everything, but no, she stopped where the quotation finishes above, and went casually on with her conversation. I was totally knocked sideways, and then utterly UTTERLY incandescent with rage.

I’ve lost two close friends to cancer in the past few years, and, some years earlier, my lovely Great Uncle Bob. Lesley had breast cancer - she underwent extensive treatment, surgery and chemotherapy and thought she had it on the run, getting the all-clear for several years before it came back to have another go. She fought alright - the cancer fought harder though. Paula battled for years - countless surgeries, radiotherapy, chemo (long term) - to ensure she got as many years with her son as possible as he was growing up - she eventually died just a few months short of his 21st birthday. Ironically it was as much as anything else her weakened health due to all the treatment that killed her in the end - in other words her “battling” proved too much for her. As for Bob, he was repeatedly misdiagnosed in the first instance - what turned out to be bone cancer being dismissed as muscular damage and even a possible stress fracture I believe until finally the right scans were done and someone said “oops...”. Surgery was not appropriate for his particular cancer - he had radiotherapy and chemo though - his chemo being a spectacularly miserable few months for him - but still he continued and bought himself a precious extra 18 months to spend with my Great Aunt getting his affairs in order and ticking a few “must do” items off what would have been a bucket list had those been a thing then. Had he been diagnosed sooner we would very likely have had him for substantially longer - but even when he knew that all he was doing was extending his life, not saving it, he still chose to fight on. 

And THIS is what makes me so damned ANGRY with this thoughtless woman. Presumably she feels that they all deserved to die because they “didn’t battle hard enough” or “weren’t quite as brilliant as they needed to be” Three of the VERY bravest people I have ever had the privilege to know, dismissed out of hand because some entitled journalist feels it’s ok for her to make a flippant judgement about how people deal with a cancer diagnosis. 

I’ll be avoiding anything featuring the woman in the future - that’s for sure. The anger I felt kept me awake for a chunk of last night - indeed this post pretty much got written in my head during those hours. I’m not going to name her - it would benefit nobody and would simply give her more coverage than I feel she deserves, similarly I’m not going to name check the podcast either - I’d hate to think it might get any more hits as a result. Please though - be desperately careful how you word phrasing  around such an emotive subject - for the most part someone’s survival of cancer has less to do with “how hard they fight” and more to do with what sort of cancer it is / how early it was diagnosed/ how effective the treatment for it is. Some people will make a conscious choice not to even HAVE any treatment beyond pain relief - should they be judged for that? I think not. Please, let’s be careful what message we put out there. 

Robyn 

Frugal Friday...

 ...or - spending money wisely! 

It’s been a spendy few months. I mentioned before needing to replace our laptop as the old one (8 years old, and heavily used!) was threatening to keel over. We researched, chose - not the cheapest, but the one within our chosen budget that best suited our needs - and purchased on the cashback credit card (while it still pays cashback - that is changing soon) and then MrEH applied for a 0% balance transfer card, we threw the cost over onto there, and will pay off a chunk each month over the period of the 0% interest. The bulk of the money stays in our savings for the time being - it won’t get spent on anything else but it IS earning a teeny bit of interest still. 

The latest thing to need replacing is my mobile phone. My iPhoneSE is 4 years old, again, very well used, and now at the stage where the battery dies in a very short time indeed if I use it for anything at all, and even more so if I use it to take photos. Now, you know me...! I’ve been delaying looking at a replacement because Apple have been making the iPhone progressively larger and larger for years, and they are simply too large to use comfortably in my fairly dinky hands. Even the new SE is substantially bigger than the old one was. And yes - to quote Martin Lewis, “iPhones are never MoneySaving” - but I like them - I find them intuitive to use, I like the way they perform, and I do, after all, get my money’s worth. I also don’t have an expensive phone contract to add in to the equation - my EE SIM only deal costs me under £9 a month for unlimited calls and texts, and more data than I can use. When Apple announced the release of the new iPhone12 mini I decided it was time for a straight comparison between that and the new model SE, released a while ago. The new SE model appealed on price - no question, BUT it did fall short on a number of other factors - not least size and weight, the 12 mini being substantially smaller and lighter. The 12 is also of course an absolutely bang up-to-date phone - all the technology is the most modern I’m going to get right now, whereas as with the original SE, the technology in the SE2 is based on an older model of phone. Both would demand new headphones - no headphone jack on either model, and a new phone case too. I did my usual pros and cons - and eventually came to the conclusion that the only “pro” of the updated SE would be the far lower price tag... In any normal year that substantial difference in price might have been enough to convince me (although ai suspect I would have regretted it later) but 2020 has - as we know - been anything BUT normal, and I have a fair fund of airshow savings from events that were cancelled during the summer, of course, so the decision was made. Use the money I already had stashed aside, with subsidy from the airshow savings account for the price difference. The new phone was pre-ordered last week (just after our credit card statement date!) using the cashback card again, and the cost will shortly be transferred onto another 0% balance transfer card and paid off in the same way as the laptop will be. 

Neither of these purchases were frugal in the traditional sense - but in the case of both we will get value from them, they were carefully researched, they will almost certainly last longer than a cheaper alternative, the money was already saved ready and waiting for the point when it was needed, and most importantly for us, the purchase is managed to leave the money with us for as long as possible AND earn us a small amount of cashback in the first instance, and interest in the longer term. The use of credit, meanwhile, will cost us nothing. Being frugal isn’t always about spending nothing - but rather about choosing carefully what to spend your money on, and so far as possible, making it work well for you while doing so. 

(The new phone arrived earlier in the week and early impressions are excellent - the camera in particular being a real step up from my previous model. As, these days, my phone also takes the place of a compact camera in my everyday life, this was quite a consideration. The shot at the top of the post gives an idea of the quality even in very low light.)

Robyn

For Today...

 

It’s been a good while since I have done this - indeed I had no idea if the Blog hosting it continued...it does though, so I will follow the guidelines as always. 

Looking out of my window

It’s raining, and breezy. The beautiful golden autumn leaves of the birch trees are dancing and every now and again a particularly strong gust of wind sets the falling like snow onto the grass...

I am thinking

Random, scattered thoughts. The weather, that there is little nicer than being cosy indoors on a wet, chilly day...

I am thankful

For a day with no pressure to do anything in particular - we may go for a walk, there is a jigsaw to be done, sent by a friend, so if the weather doesn’t improve boredom will not be a threat!

One of my favourite things

Starting the day slowly, quietly. Tea, toast, a good book...

I am creating

I’m spending much of my time during the week currently working through the many old photos I have on backup drives - airshow from years ago where I ran out of time to go right through the shots before the next show came along - enjoying both the memories and also that I am producing new shots to share with those who appreciate them. 

I am wearing

Right now? Pyjamas still!

I am reading

I’ve been working my way through Diana Gabaldon’s marvellous “Outlander” series again from the beginning - wonderful characters, beautifully written. 

I am hoping

That we soon start to see better news relating to the Covid 19 virus which is still giving the U.K. as a whole such problems. The second wave is now gathering pace - England has been in our second lockdown now for just over a week - that is due to end in Early December but we can only wait, and hope, that it does...

I am learning

Better ways of doing some of the things I do to process my photos. I have an updated version of Photoshop - necessary because of our replacement laptop and it has some features which are new to me. 

In my kitchen

The slow cooker has been on overnight with a beef stew which we will have half of for lunch - the balance will be eaten during the week. We also have a full bag of red onions to make red onion marmalade with...once MrEH has tracked down the recipe we have used previously to good effect!

In my garden

The growing season is mostly over, here. We did well this year from our tiny space - a good crop of tomatoes from a few potted plants on the balcony. A steady supply of runner beans for several months - the last of those were eaten just last week. Kale - the plants are still there but they have now been rather badly attacked by a small but determined greyish sort of fly so we will probably get no more from those. 

Shared Quote

Not a quote as such, but just perhaps, some wisdom. 

You are enough as you are. You are not a work in progress. 

A moment from my day

A slow start...

Closing Notes

It’s a tough time for many of us at the moment. Shaken out of our usual routines - in some cases for quite literally months, and with little idea when (or indeed, if) we are likely to resume any sort of normality. A dismissive, “snarky” comment from an acquaintance this week brought home to me how important it is to recognise now that the shape of everybody’s stress looks different - for one person yes, it might be a stressful job, but for another it might be not having gainful employment. In the U.K. many people are like me, still furloughed - being paid a proportion of their working wage but effectively giving nothing in return - not a comfortable way to live, for most of us. At this time of year there is seasonal work out there for sure - but assuming we can live on our furlough wages, should we take that purely for occupation allowing that we know there are many more out there who need that employment to live on, and we would be taking opportunity from them? THAT doesn’t feel comfortable to me, either. Be kind. If your only response to something is to say something unpleasant, catty or spiteful, then please, just take a breath, step away and leave it unsaid. If someone makes such an unpleasant comment to you remember that it says more about them than you. Take note - reconsider that person’s place in your life, and consider whether it requires a reaction or whether you are better just to ignore it, and not give the perpetrator the attention  they are clearly craving. 

Robyn. 

Inspiration from The Simple Woman’s Daybook...

Here we go again...

 

Today England starts its second period of full lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Numbers of cases have been rising across the country and with people starting to look towards wanting to be able to spend time with families over Christmas, it was felt by Government that the sacrifice of a months lockdown now might enable an easing of restrictions over the festive season. We will see if this proves to be the case - currently we are being told that once the lockdown finishes on December 2nd we will all be returning to our previous "tiers" which for a good many across the country means no mixing of households indoors, and for a good many more means no mixing even in private gardens or other outdoor spaces. For us here, in Tier 2, this will write off any chance of seeing family over the Christmas period - much as I would love to be able to spend time with my parents, and MrEH with his, our respective parents are all in either their later 70's or 80's, with varying levels of health issues, and a Christmas spent outdoors in very probably low temperatures and possible inclement weather is not something that would be practical for them.

Elsewhere in the world the Americans have been given a chance to redeem themselves for their ludicrous choice of president 4 years ago, and from reports it would appear that record numbers of them turned out to try to do just that. Currently votes are still being counted (I believe because of the higher than usual numbers of postal and ahead-of-time voting where people wanted to avoid the risk of attending polling stations on election day itself, this process is taking longer than usual). Meanwhile Trump is - as was inevitable - bouncing wildly from overconfidence (he made a formal address on election night claiming victory!) to toddler-tantrums, threatening legal action to any state where it looks like a majority might have voted against him. Terrifyingly in some states which are looking like going in Joe Biden's favour but counting is not yet complete, he is trying to get the counting stopped (it's reckoned that a higher proportion of the ahead/postal votes are likely to be for Biden). Even more terrifyingly, rather than stopping to think, and asking how the hell THAT would fit with democracy, some of his supporters are taking to the streets in support of his viewpoint. I'd like to say that you can't imagine a situation where that sort of anti-democratic behaviour would happen here in the UK, but to my shame after those who tried to overturn the will of the majority (and regardless of which side you sit on, that is what it was) on the question of leaving the EU, it would appear that the gradual Americanisation of many in the UK continues apace, as depressing as that thought is to many of us.

Anyway - Lockdown 2.0 as it is being called by many has a few key differences from the previous one. Schools and colleges remain open this time - it's been decided that the continuation of education must take precedence, and I have to confess that I can very much see that point. Losing substantial amounts of school time - particularly as a teenager beginning to work towards exams, is incredibly difficult to come back from, as anyone who was at school during the teachers strikes in the 1980's will acknowledge. The big issue with the schools and universities is the sheer number of children who having been brought up by the media and in a few cases, their parents, to believe that their rights are surpreme, are now deciding that even when outside their places of learning the regulations around social distancing etc are something that they are unwilling to adhere to. It's not all of them by any means, but it is in enough numbers to ensure problems when out and about generally at the times that schools are arriving and leaving for the day. Also different this time are the rules around exercise - the "one form of exercise per day" ruling of the first lockdown has now, thank goodness, made a reappearance. This time the benefits of being outside in the open air for movement are being recognised - something which is key at this point in the year too.

For me, I plan to continue working through old photos - any aviation fans reading may recognise the shot at the top of this post as one from 2014 - and the "stripes" Typhoon that the RAF Typhoon Display Team used for some of that season. I'm finding a surprising amount of shots to play with - mostly those that didn't get processed at all at the time, probably due to lack of hours in the day, but also some that I had processed previously and now feel I could make a better job of. Just looking back at some of the old memories is great in itself too - and more particularly allowing that it may well, from the look of things, be a fair few months before I get to socialise with  my aviation pals again. I suspect there will also be more baking, by some fluke of fate we purchased a jigsaw, some DVD's and some books from a charity shop on Saturday, and some more longer walks might be happening as well. As the days shorten, the temptation is more to curl up indoors anyway, so rightly or wrongly this month of restrictions don't feel quite so stressful as the first time round. 

Robyn

Pressing pause...

 

I’m not good at admitting when I need to step back a bit - this applies generally, but all the more so when it comes to running, and especially when I’ve been on a bit of a roll with consistency and distances. 

Last month went well - 3 runs per week, 11 in total for the month. I exceeded my monthly target of 50 miles by 7, increased my distance to beyond 10k, ran the Virtual Vitality London 10k, and got myself to within 50 miles of my annual mileage target too. I also did several strength sessions, a fair bit of stability work, and a LOT of stretching, however, I also aggravated a bit of a niggle in my left foot and ankle, and ran on when I knew I wasn’t really feeling “right” which has lead to me feeling rather out of sorts and under the weather for the past week. And of course in spite of THAT I ran some more... Add in quite a lot of walking and general time on my feet, all this on top of a LOT of mileage covered walking in September too, and frankly, my body is crying out for a bit of a break.

This week then is a re-set. No running for at least the first few days - instead either a strength or a stability session each day, and a longer yoga/stretching session too. Walking to get my daily aim of 5 miles in, but not too much more. Plenty of fruit and veggies, lots of water. Listening to my body and giving the niggles a chance to settle. All being well I’ll get a run in on Friday - just possibly Thursday - but I’ve suspended any weekly target for this week, and won’t be putting myself under any pressure to do too much until things feel right again. With what is now being referred to as “Lockdown 2” approaching, I think it’s likely that I’m going to want to be able to get out and run or at least walk plenty over the next few weeks, so a bit of stepping back now should help to put me in the best possible place to allow that. 

While I’m not spending too much time on my feet this week, I plan to turn my attention back to some of my old unprocessed photos. I’ve got airshow stuff going back years that I want to look back on - from the 2 Lancasters flying together in 2014, through to the various classic jets that we no longer see fly for various reasons, there is plenty of stuff to be working on, and the new laptop is proving to be an absolute delight to work on, too. Slightly more up to date software is also meaning I can get far better results from my processing, so that in itself is proving an incentive to work on some stuff that I ignored or just simply missed previously. I’ll maybe post some of the results here - but in any event a fair number will appear on Instagram (@robyn_pf) or Twitter (@EssexHebridean) and as usual everything will land up on my Flickr account (Photozone72) so pop over there and take a look! 

Robyn

Opportunities missed?

Readers in the UK will be aware that our government has recently- with great fanfares, bells and whistles - announced a "fight against obesity" - and yes - it was inevitable that I was going to talk about it on here at some stage wasn't it! We're told this has been prompted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson becoming convinced that his weight was a factor in him ending up hospitalised when he contracted Covid-19 a few months ago. Plenty of others have already covered the fact that there is NO reason for him to think that - so I'm not going to go into that too much aside to say that the stats do NOT back up his thinking there. 

I'm going to stick a hand up and suggest another possible reason for Boris being so badly affected though - stress. He contracted the virus but continued to work. Even when clearly pretty unwell, he was still  working including appearing on TV briefings etc. One thing we know for certain is that one of the major factors in giving people the best chance of successfully fighting off viruses is rest - stepping off the hamster-wheel of work and indeed just everyday life if they possibly can. Stress impacts on the immune system - and if we contract something like Covid-19, or even standard flu, we need our immune system to be firing as strongly as possible. This would have been a wonderful opportunity for the government to normalise people taking time off work when unwell - which surely should be a given, but let's face it, clearly isn't, in the UK at least. Ask the majority of people how having to call in sick to work makes them feel and the answer will be guilty, awkward, and in some cases downright scared. Of course most people don't want to let their colleagues and employers down, but equally we're not giving ourselves the best chance of a swift recovery if we're spending time stressing, feeling guilty and worrying whether there will be implications to being off, generally followed by feeling pressured to return to our desk before we probably should.  One thing that is going to have to change now is the reaction that some employers give to someone with a heavy cold for example - that high temperature and cough that most people would simply have worked through now is going to be something that employers should be actively insisting that people stay at home with!

Having roundly missed the chance to do something to tackle the huge amounts of stress that so many people in the UK are under a lot of the time, even when ill, instead the government has decided to play the full guilt card on those in bigger bodies.As usual it takes a broad-brush approach - referring to "people who are overweight or obese" based on BMI, rather than instead focusing on health. And using the emotive "protect the NHS" tagline - suggesting that those in bigger bodies are single handedly responsible for threatening it. (This may be a good time to mention that malnutrition costs the NHS more each year in the UK than obesity does). On a personal note the BMI approach means I am classified as overweight - in spite of the fact that I'm fit, healthy, and pretty much nobody looking at me would suggest that I need to lose weight. I'm not going into numbers here because that can be incredibly triggering for those struggling with eating disorders or disordered eating - and goodness knows there is enough in this whole campaign already that seems designed to adversely affect those people! 

Anyone who has done ANY research into diet culture should be aware by now that it is incredibly harmful - the tendency for people to "go on a diet" and lose weight rapidly (something that the Government has gone on record as saying they are looking for) only to then "come off the diet" and put that weight back on again - plus more on top quite often. That yo-yo effect has been shown to be harmful, yet currently we don't seem to be seeing anything to explain how that will be combated. It also totally ignores the other factors involved with why people may put on weight, and why they may struggle to lose weight, too. Poverty is a prime driver that may see someone eat a less nutritionally dense diet - the oft repeated fallacy that it's cheaper to eat heathily is, for many, just that - false. A single example - I buy a couple of packs of apples per week - costing me usually around £3 and providing 12 apples. Those last us - a household of 2 - a little over a week, however if we added even a couple of children into the mix, that spend might only last a few days. In comparison, a bag of 30 packets of crisps costs that same £3 and yet might see that family of four covered for snacks for a full week. Clearly in an ideal world most people consider it better to eat an apple than a bag of crisps, but not everyone has the financial privilege to enable fruit being constantly available. A bag of 5 donuts comes in cheaper than a bag of 5 oranges. A meal of salad with some protein and carbs added is going to prove far more expensive for that family of 4 than fish fingers, chips and beans, and will probably not fill everyone up as much either. It's important to acknowledge that there is absolutely nothing wrong with ANY of the foods I've mentioned here - fish fingers, chips and beans is a firm favourite tea in this house for sure - but we tend to eat that once a month as a treat, not weekly as a staple because it fits in a tight budget.We buy the crisps as well as the apples, and yep, LOVE a donut from time to time as well! All that stuff can fit perfectly well into a balanced diet - but shouldn't in an ideal world be the main components of someone's weekly diet. 

It's all well and good to ban supermarkets from doing "buy one get one free" offers on high fat, sugar or salt foods, but you also need to provide them with an incentive to instead do those offers on more nutritionally dense foods. Otherwise all you are doing is increasing the profits of the supermarkets from the shoppers who can afford to buy those "healthy" foods while isolating those whose budgets simply will not stretch. The irony here is that the government's own policy document acknowledges that those children growing up in deprived areas are twice as likely to be "overweight" as those living in the richest areas - yet they do nothing to explain how their new policies will tackle this disparity. 

You don't have to get very far through the policy document before the good old "eat less, move more" rhetoric raises it's head - again something which anyone who has done that research into diet culture knows is an over simplification. For full disclosure - on a very simple level, yes, if you take in less calories than you use in a day, then yes you will lose weight. It's the method I used when I decided to get healthier a few years ago - note "get healthier" NOT "lose weight" - and yes, it worked for me, BUT I have the privilege to be able to afford to buy nutritionally dense foodstuffs, to be able to cook my meals from scratch, possibly most of all for me to be able to educate myself about portion sizes and for some foods even use scales to educate myself what those portion sizes look like, and to be able to spare the time and afford the kit to get more active. I could chuck on running kit and go for a run after work - because when I finish my working day my time is my own, this is not true for everyone. I have cooking facilities at home - not true for everyone. I live in an area where there is a good choice of supermarkets from the mid range to the budget, and I have a car, meaning I can buy in bulk and prices tend to be fairly low. And this brings us onto food deserts - and yes, even in 2020, these DO exist! Those deprived areas we were talking about earlier tend not to be the sorts of places where too many supermarkets feel a huge urge to put their stores - and many of those living in those areas do not have their own transport to get to the larger stores further afield, so can be reliant on little local convenience stores. In turn, those stores don't have the competition that they would if they were in the town I live in for example (5 branches of major supermarkets plus 2 budget stores all within a 3 mile radius) and so there is no incentive for them to keep prices low. There is also a tendency for those sorts of stores not to stock a great range of fresh fruit and vegetables,what they do stock may not be good quality or at its best due to slow turnover, and that lack of transport may well mean that frozen is not an option either. 

There is a lot to be said on this subject - but for me it just feels incredibly sad that the focus here is all about appearance, and numbers on a scale, and that there is no acknowledgement that you can be fit and healthy while still having a number on the BMI chart that doesn't sit neatly between 18 - 25. I dislike the disingenuous references to excess weight making someone more likely to be more severely affected by Covid-19 - in a healthy individual this is simply not true. "Unhealthy" is about so much more than what someone weighs or what they look like - and this is a point that seems to be roundly missed here. So many opportunities to educate people on what healthy really means, the benefit of movement, making better choices where that is possible and also to reduce weight stigma (which in turn may well mean that moire people actually DO lose weight!) but all of them missed. 

Robyn

On the subject of Face coverings...

Face coverings became mandatory in shops in England from yesterday. Everyone must wear them unless you are exempt - there are various reasons why you might be, some physical conditions can make it impossible to wear a mask, and also some mental health conditions. Small children are also exempt due to the risk of them not wearing their face coverings correctly - as this could increase their risk of either contracting the virus or carrying it and passing it to others, however from the number of tiny kids we’re seeing wearing them, it doesn’t seem as though that one has quite sunk in for many parents!

The purpose of the face coverings primarily is to prevent transmission of the virus to others, they are not intended to protect the wearer and are not considered to be PPE (although there may be a small benefit to the wearer). Wearing a face covering does not replace social distancing either - again something that seems to be passing a fair number of people by!

Surprisingly, in spite of the simplicity of the idea - wear a face covering if you can, help prevent spread of the virus to others - there are still those who refuse to wear them because they see it as an infringement of their human rights. Other claim that a Covid 19 is some sort of fallacy, and others that  that lockdown should never have happened and that the vulnerable should simply have been rounded up in some way, taken to places of safety, and everyone else allowed to carry on with their daily lives as normal. It’s interesting that these people are focused on their own human rights, while apparently being completely immune to the rights of others - maybe this should tell us a fair amount about the sort of people these are? It is reported that some of the anti-mask brigade are also being abusive to shop staff when they are asked to either wear a face covering or leave the store - forgetting, or perhaps not caring, that the staff have not made the rule, they are just being asked to enforce it.

Also provoking a nasty response from many is the subject of those who are exempt on mental health grounds -  many of whom have faced a torrent of abuse on the subject on various social media platforms. Public shaming is the order of the day in some  cases - people sneaking an illicit phone photo on a bus or train, of a fellow passenger not wearing a mask, and then posting that on Facebook or similar for the waiting hordes of similarly minded friends to judge, regardless of the fact that the status of that individual regarding exemption is entirely unknown by the person choosing the start the  kangaroo court. Hidden disabilities are being disregarded or scorned by many - those explaining that they suffer from anxiety which prevents them wearing a mask being ridiculed with phrases like “if my 5 year old can wear a mask you could if you wanted to”. It’s to be hoped that the 5 year old in question would not be suffering from the same level of anxiety that might make mask-wearing impossible, you would think, so the only possible reason for a phrase like this is surely to suggest that the exempt individual is simply being “beyond childish”. Others choose to suggest that those exempt are choosing to be selfish,  or that those unable to wear masks should simply “stay at home” - never mind that those people still need to get food to eat, and in some cases use public transport to get to their workplace! It truly baffles me why some people are using this subject as a chance to be spiteful, or cruel. It feels almost as though this is a backlash over the way mental ill health has been brought into the public eye and de-stigmatised over the past few years - these people can no longer acceptably scoff at the idea of depression, say things like “people should just pull themselves together” or claim that conditions such as anxiety don’t exist - but now they have been given a gift - a way of mocking those with mental health issues “acceptably” - in the name of “being concerned about those that might be infected as a result”. That of course also begs the question that if they are so concerned about some people’s well-being,  why do those they mock not elicit the same concern?

I’m pretty sure that nobody reading this would fall into the camp of choosing to be cruel to those with exemptions just to make themselves feel good, but just in case - please be kind, you have no idea of anybody else’s story or experiences. If you see somebody being judged or shamed over this issue online please try to be brave enough to step in and call out that behaviour. If you see someone using phrasing like “everyone should wear a mask” take a moment to add “if they are able to” or “unless exempt”. A comment like “anyone can wear a mask if they want to” can be balanced by a simple reminder that this is simply not true. If all the fair minded mask-wearers start speaking up against the unpleasantness around this, those determined to get their kicks by behaving so viciously will crawl back into their holes again like the bullies they are, knowing that no longer are those they are attacking easy meat - that they have their defenders now. We all stood together against the virus - we can all stand together against online bullying, too.

Robyn.

Starting again...

A face full of red jet at Scampton back in 2016.

I've said before that when I am stressed or anxious one of the first things to go is the "good habits" - I neglect things like stretching, forget to drink my water, and spend a lot of time fretting about all the things I "should" be doing and losing sight of whether any of them are important or not. My planning goes out of the window, and I spend too much time feeling guilty about just sitting reading a book for example, to actually enjoy it. Last week was a bit like that - and in the end I just decided to cut myself some slack over it as worrying about that stuff was just adding to the anxiety. on a day when just getting out of bed, showered and dressed feels like a bit of a challenge, that's often the best thing to do, however, this week, it's time to re-set and re-build.


My main aim for this week as far as exercise goes is lots of walking - I may run if I feel like it, but no pressure on that one and I’m currently feeling a slight niggle in my left ankle which I want to be sure is OK before I run too much on it. I’m rounding up our walks in the morning to 4 miles plus trying to add an extra walk in later in the day as well. Plenty of strength work - I’ve been trying to keep up with that since the gyms closed but inevitably it’s not as easy to motivate yourself at home, without much in the way of equipment - so I’m trying to focus on the stuff I can do using a pair of light dumbbells, resistance bands, body weight and one heavy dumbbell. HEAPS of stretching and mobility - I’m aiming for most days on this, with a few sessions of foam rolling thrown in too. (Ouch!) Aside from exercise, sleep, hydration, and reminding myself that I don’t have to be doing something ALL the time! I’ve got an aviation photography trip planned for later in the week, weather permitting, which should be fun, and Claire and I are also plotting some trips for the future too - we might not have air shows but we’re damned if this is going to stop all our fun!

Other planning is taking place a around our Hebrides trip - ironically enough the changes in the ferry timetables because of the virus might yet mean that we get an extra day and a half across there. It has also meant that we’re having to look into an extra night’s accommodation though, plus having to make the decision to make the long drive up to Mallaig in one go without our usual overnight stop. The accommodation thing is further complicated by the bunkhouse where we usually spend our first night being unable to open for multiple occupation at present - however the owners of the bunkhouse also have a couple of cute little “hobbit home” glamping pods, so have allocated one of those for us for the two nights instead! Now all we have to do is to hope we can actually get booked onto our desired ferry - the alternative means an even longer drive up at an even worse time, so fingers crossed!

Robyn

Constructive...

Parndon Mill Lock

The plan for today was essentially to "Get stuff done" - too often of late I've felt like I was drifting rather, and that doesn't help with the feelings of anxiety around everything that is going on. Last week I just needed a more gentle week, but enough is enough and now it's time to get back to some rather  "better used" days.

I started off this morning with our usual morning walk - as far as the town centre with MrEH as we needed to drop a letter in to the Civic Centre, then I waved him on his way home to start work while I popped into a couple of shops to pick up some needed odds and ends, then an amble back with a slightly extended loop on the last section rounded off the walk to 5 miles. After yesterday's 12 miler in the afternoon that felt more than enough to start the day off, too!

The rest of the morning was mostly spent completing a job for our volunteer role with the Great British Beer Festival - although the festival itself is obviously from necessity cancelled this year, there is still stuff going on behind the scenes and there was a sizeable task which needed completion before emailing across to our Festival Organiser. All good, and we will now be able to return to lurking in the background for the next few months before getting a head start on things ready for next year's event which we are all very much hoping will actually go ahead! It feels very strange to think of not gearing up now ready to head to Olympia in just a few weeks - we've both done the festival for so long it feels completely alien without it in place. On the other hand, having not had to spend the last couple of months doing stupid levels of work around it isn't being missed quite so much...

Some pottering around watering plants, washing up, tiding the kitchen and putting washing out followed, before the mammoth task of sorting out my email inbox. For a while now I have followed the practise of dealing with emails once a day - deleting stuff not required, replying to those that need it, and filing everything in assorted archive folders should they be needed in the future. Over lockdown though I have got out of the habit of this, meaning that things were in the most almighty mess. Lesson learned - spending best part of 2 hours painstakingly deleting, sorting and filing is not the greatest fun, and I have without question remembered why doing it as you go along is by far the better option!

I have also done a few bits of life admin - some emails sent about various holiday arrangements (fingers still crossed on that one) and also a tentative enquiry about plans around Christmas. We have also established that MrEH's firm will be allowing a roll-over of a proportion of unused holiday time, meaning we might be able to squeeze in an additional trip with friends either later this year or next spring. Meal planning for the week - I had a sketchy idea of what we’d be eating but hadn’t matched meals to days, so that is now done. Possibly my most practical task today was to shift a couple of FB contacts to my “acquaintance” list plus also unfollowed them. These are both people who make my heart sink if I see any form of interaction from them, but “politics” means that unfriending them would be potentially awkward. Acquaintancing means they will not see my content, and unfollowing means I won’t see their content in my feed, either! A win!

All in all, a fairly successful day!

Robyn

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The Red Arrows flying “Tornado” on Monday. 

Mental health is always a tricky subject for me to deal with "out loud" as it were. Some people are quite happy baring all on social media and face to face with others - I'm not one of those people. For me, talking about my mental health - or specifically mental ill-health - is  something I have to take a big deep breath and steel myself to tackle and that I am only comfortsble talking about in what feels like a “safe space”. It's something I've been working on - I've been fairly open on here about the fact that I have suffered from depression for over 10 years now, and anxiety for a little over 5. The majority of those I consider to be friends will be aware that I have had my struggles, those who are closer have a bit more knowledge, but beyond the very occasional oblique reference I rarely reference it on twitter or facebook for example. For me (and I stress "me" here - this an entirely personal point of view and relates purely to what I choose not to share) it all feels as though it is undeservedly self indulgent, as though I should just "get over myself" or "pull myself together" and even as though if I did go into any further detail, someone would tell me I was attention seeking or making it all up. Almost worse is the prospect of having references met with sympathy - something which is meant with kindness but I find extremely difficult to know how to react to (which is why comments will be disabled on this post, too!). As a result the easier road has been to find my safe spaces elsewhere - this is where the blog comes in as here I can write about what I like, nobody can try to "edit" me. Even here, I struggle to say much - this post, like others where I have referenced my MH will take an age to write and probably just as long to get the nerve to post, too.

I said when I posted for Mental Health Awareness Week that mental health looks different for everyone - and what affects one person might be very different for another. Indeed everyone has their own triggers for things being less than great, too. For me anxiety can arrive in a few ways - at the start of the current Covid-19 crisis the constant flow of drip-fed bad news proved to be a gentle slope that I slipped down almost without realising it - almost learning to live with the constant heavy, dragging feeling of trepidation after a while. The cancellation of so many events at things unfolded was more of a "progressive loading"- one thing after another dragging me down slightly further each time until suddenly I had arrived at the bottom of the black hole. At other times it can be a single traumatic event that lands with a bang - and even being aware that this sort of event is likely to cause me problems doesn't always help to ward off the descent. For me, a really bad anxiety attack is almost paralysing - it affects my appetite, my sleep, my ability to function at all, to be honest even though that might not be immediately obvious to the outside world - and that is where I've been for the past few days.  I referred a few days ago to something that had happened completely out of the blue with someone I trusted, considered to be a friend. In a single sweep that trust was gone, and I was left questioning why I had been so stupid as to feel that I could speak freely in front of that person, why I should feel that I have the right to state an opinion, and most of all why I was too stupid to spot the warning signs that had in fact been there previously. (That last is an interesting one - a good friend said something similar about herself and a situation she has been dealing with recently and of course I reassured her that she wasn't stupid at all...apparently it's not possible to apply that reasoning to myself, though. Sigh). Initially I couldn't stop shaking, feeling sick. My heart rate shot up and I found it impossible to breathe other than in short gulps. Yes - that is indeed a panic attack I'm describing - horrible things as anyone who has had one before will know. Being able to recognise it as a panic attack can help - at least you then realise that it's not something physical - but making it go away can be something else altogether. Further messages arrived on my phone - each one adding to the feeling of panic; what was going to be said next, how was I going to be attacked further. I wanted to run away, block the number from my phone to stop any further contact. After a while I got the nerve to read the further messages, initially a qualified apology, then, subsequently, a more genuine one. I couldn't reply at that point - firstly my hands were shaking too much to text - a message to another friend took me a ridiculous amount of time to type out - and in any event I simply didn't know what to say. Eventually several hours later I simply said that I thanked the person concerned for apologising, that I needed to work through how I felt about things, and that I would appreciate being left to sit with that for the moment. Then the guilt kicked in - a mutual friend who also knows what has happened said that the message sender was feeling dreadful about it. My knee jerk reaction was that the easiest thing to do would be to just accept the apology and let things go back to normal - that would let the other party feel better about things, and genuinely, I hate to think of them feeling so bad about it. BUT. And it's a huge, pretty much life changing "but" in this case - things can't go back to normal, or at least certainly not the same normal as before for me. This event has ripped away a support network that I have had in place for a long while - the thought of being able to speak freely in that setting again is now impossible. It feels as though everyone else in the group is allowed to have opinions - but for some reason, for one person, the rules are different for me. Simply because they don't agree with those opinions it's fair game to attack me for them - but privately, where nobody else will see, rather than openly as part of the (group) conversation that the opinion was voiced as part of. I can't get past the fact that it is going to be a very long time - if ever - before seeing that person's name flash up on my phone doesn't make me feel incredibly anxious and panicky. At the moment at least, self-preservation has to come first - I'm starting to climb out of the worst of the anxiety symptoms now - a bit more sleep the last couple of nights helped massively (having to drive about 300 miles on Monday on just over 3 hours sleep wasn't the best thing I've ever done, bluntly, but I was damned if I was letting the event affect me even more by meaning I cancelled something I had planned a fair while ahead!), also being proactive as far as social media is concerned.

Sadly I suspect I may lose other friends from within the same social group over this which I would be truly sad about - it's inevitable I suspect that it will be seen by others as "Robyn has flounced" as I'm not going to share what was said more widely even though probably it would be reasonable for me to do so in the circumstances and it would certainly put a different light on things. My only hope is that me not opening up doesn't lead to anyone else being attacked in the same way - there are others in the group who also have fragile mental health and would probably struggle every bit as much as I am if not more if it happened to them, and I would feel horribly guilty if that did occur. I'm also feeling horribly guilty about being unable to just let this go and say "it doesn't matter" - but that would really be selling myself short - it DOES matter, and I am entitled to feel hurt, upset and incredibly vulnerable over it too - this was a message that was designed to wound, to hurt, and to create guilt - and those feelings can't be banished overnight or those words unsaid just by way of an apology. More guilt around even writing this down and posting it - indeed had I thought there was even the vaguest possibility that the other party would see it there is no way it would ever have seen the light of day! I actually do feel calmer for having written it all down though and now read it through too. I can also now acknowledge that no, I did nothing to deserve or invite the message that was sent to me or the allegation that was levelled at me. That I’m not ever-reacting - people who’s opinions ai trust have reassured me of that. That yes - it's ok to feel as though I can't just brush it under the carpet. And no - it is not my job to behave in a particular way to assuage someone else's conscience either.

For now - deep breaths, self care (that always sounds cheesy to my ears!) remembering that I CAN still allow myself to trust people, and above all time to take stock and re-set things, then to start tentatively feeling my way towards a new sort of normal.

Robyn.