Clarity

I've been working, cycling, sleeping, camping, working, cycling, sleeping, camping, trying to write, working, cycling, sleeping in a treadmill that goes on and on for the last few months. I think I might be depressed. I certainly have a serious problem with my internal dialogue that I really must sort out. Time to take myself in hand again and force myself to think at least two good, positive things for each negative thing that pops into my head. I have a whacking great self-esteem problem that has been giving me serious grief (some people who know me will be surprised by this, but to some it will be no shock at all!).

I'm wondering if going to the doc's and getting some sort of happy pill might be a plan. I wonder how I'm going to cope now that the darker evenings are closing in.

I've not wanted to see or talk to people for months now. I do find though that sometimes doing what feels good in this regard helps my anxiety levels to reduce fantastically. Maybe I'm naturally just not very sociable. I wonder how my few friends put up with me, I must seem very callous and neglectful. I can't help it though.

After this post I'm going to make a serious effort. I'll make sure that I spend a few minutes before I go to sleep and before getting up in the morning thinking about nice things. I'll make my internal dialogue more positive and helpful instead of self-condemning and dour. I think I'll find that I have more energy if I do this. Maybe it's time for me to ask Ian to charge a nice stone for me and keep it with me as a comfort amulet.

Look at these, I'm such a wretch, these are the kind of things that I see when I commute each week on my bike. How can I possibly be depressed when I am so lucky?



I mean, honestly.



I stopped off in St Nicholas' Church (lovely old, old stone church) for a few minutes on the way home last week. It cleared my head nicely. I think I'll do that more often.

Jessica and I decided that it would be a laugh to combine tents, bicycles, Baileys and classic ghost stories this weekend. I chose a lovely campsite in the Surrey Hills with basic but very clean facilities, and headed there with Jess' Palatial Mansion and my 3-man Coleman, Saunders Spacepacker and Vaude Bivi for testing.



I think we chose badly where to pitch as it took us much, much longer to get the tents up than we expected. We could get the tent pegs in by about 4 inches with some effort, but after that the ground was like concrete. Consequently, I decided not to pitch the Saunders this time. We shot off in the car to a local country pub for supper instead of cycling there. We had thirty minutes before the pubs stopped serving and we were knackered!

After a nice supper we returned to the campsite as it was starting to get dark and explored the facilities. The loos and showers were very clean and with plenty of toilet roll. Very reassuring.

We decided to move the show into Jessica's tent so I made the Coleman ready for me to collapse into later and took sleeping bag and lantern into Jess' rather spacious sleeping area. There we had three ghost books (two fiction, and one Ghosts Of The Cotswolds) and a bottle of Baileys waiting! We poured and I started to read. One of my best memories of the evening is that I was partway through reading a nautical tale that was really more gothic horror than ghost story and I noticed that the wind had blown up somewhat. The white walls of Jessica's inner tent were billowing and the lantern suspended from a small hook at the top was swinging to and fro and the whole effect gave the impression of a ship's cabin in uneasy seas. Very suitable for the story we were reading and the Jolly Roger that was flying outside!

So we read and drank and Jessica booted me out at about two-thirty in the morning. It was blowy and a bit rainy but not cold at all. I snuggled down into my cosy Coleman Phact X3 and was warm enough to be able to sleep on top of my bag covered by a light fleece blanket. I dozed off very quickly.

My night's rest was messed up by two things, but they are lessons to be learned and I won't forget them. The first was that my right arm woke me up aching ferociously; using a 2.5lb lump hammer to put the tent pegs in was obviously not the best idea and had strained my arm. The second issue was that I had stupidly forgotten to make sure that I had something to drink in my tent, and therefore had to dry-swallow two sets of ibuprofen gel capsules which promptly got stuck part-way down my gullet! As I was only half-awake and it was very dark, I didn't fancy having to get dressed and get into Jess' porch to try and find the water.

It rained a few times during the rest of the night, heavily on occasions, but the tent did just fine and did not let in a drop. I found the sound of the rain oddly reassuring and gave me a real sense of wellbeing! I felt very contented snuggled under my blanket listening to it patter, then pour, then patter again.

Some time close to morning it got colder and I wriggled into my sleeping bag and dropped off again.

We dragged ourselves up at about nine am for a wash and some breakfast. I trained Jess in the art of eating single-serving boxes of cereal and milk with no need for a bowl....! My tiny 0.8 litre kettle provided the perfect amount of water for two teas at regular intervals. Having my old, beaten-up garden chairs was a very good idea. A serious luxury for a camp, a chair.

We tried out my new bivi at this point. Had I not drunk so much Baileys, I probably would have spent half the night in the Coleman, and half the night in the bivi. But, ho hum......



I have a claustrophobia problem that I'm trying to overcome with this piece of kit. I am fine in it with a Thermarest, pillow and blanket, but my sleeping bag is just too big and lofty - there's no room left for me once it's in! This may end up being a piece of summer kit that is used with a fleece blanket and with clothes on by the side of a bike trail. I'll test it properly next time I camp.

We didn't want to leave, but Jess had to be leaving by three pm. We unpitched and packed the tents without too much hassle as the wind had dried them out nicely by this time. I need to repeat this experience as soon as possible! I would highly recommend this campsite, especially as you are allowed to have camp-fires there and the owner is extremely welcoming. If you want the location and contact details, leave a comment here and I will send you the details.

I'm having trouble staying calm at work at the moment. I don't handle monumental change very well, especially when it appears to threaten something that I've spent a long time building and perfecting, which adds a lot of value to the service provided to a lot of important people. (Not blowing my own trumpet here unduly, but I can't give detail as a policy is about to be released stating that all references to my place of work must be removed from all blogs, Bebos, My Space pages etc. Luckily I saw this coming a mile off and have never explicitly mentioned where and for whom I work.)

I'm telling myself to hold my nerve and to not react until at least the next day or even the day after to things that are happening. Being horribly hormonal does not help.



This does though. Munching a nice piece of cake for my supper whilst soaking up the evening sunshine next to the canal, watching the boats go slowly through the lock and being examined at close quarters by hoverflies. I love hoverflies.

I was lucky enough to be invited to an Anne Sudworth exhibition at Strawberry Hill House yesterday. I love to see original works that are so large and vibrant and in such evocative surroundings! We were lucky to be able to go as I am told that the refurbishment work will mean that the property will be completely closed in August of this year for some time. I know who I am going to ask to create the jacket cover for my book if (or when, as Marijke would insist!) it is accepted for publication! Fantastic work Anne, it was a privilege to see it.

This week I was so utterly fed up with the loss of fitness caused by weeks off the bike that I decided to cycle in anyhow, and wash up in the loos if I must with a flannel. The ride in was hard but not impossible, but the hill was a monster. (520 feet up to my office in not a lot of distance along!) I have some way to go before I can cycle up it all in one go again.

I stowed my bike in the usual place and dragged myself up to the office wondering what had possessed me to think that a wash in a toilet was going to be in any way sufficient. I got my washbag out of my locker and went in search of suitable facilities. Imagine my relief when I found a shower in a unisex disabled loo that looked like it didn't see a lot of use. There were also hooks on which I could hang my cycling gear to air out. I felt a twinge of guilt here - if I was wheelchair-bound, how would I feel about a cyclist using my facilities in that way? I examined my feelings, decided that I had no idea whatsoever as to whether what I was doing was acceptable or not, and decided to continue until I either had an opinion either way or there was a complaint. So, I showered, packed, breakfasted and made it back to the office for 9am.

Imagine my delight to find in my Inbox an email advising me that all shower facilities were now open again, and not only that, but that regular cyclists, runners and walkers were to be assigned their own locker in the actual shower area! To top it off, cyclists were to be given first refusal on them before anyone else got considered!

So, after having headed to the Estates Office double-quick to pick up my key, I now have locker number 1 and it has all my wash stuff in it, leaving room in my office locker for clothes, bike spares and wet-weather clothing spares. No longer do I have to carry lots of stuff from office to shower room and back again. Unparalleled luxury.

As if to underline this new encouragement to green travel, the evening was warm, sunny and my ride home was luxurious and relaxing.



Again I found myself riding through clouds of Spring perfume from the extravagant blossom.



Life is good.

.... if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I was out cycling yesterday evening in glorious 17 degrees and golden, summerlike sunshine. I chose some very quiet backroads through the fields and farmland and came across this:



It amused me to the level that I needed to stop and take a picture.

Well, that didn't work terribly well, did it? I won't go into great detail as to what has happened between the beginning of this year (and those well-meant resolutions) and now. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of it has been distressing, stressful, sorrowful and has caused me to go into a retreat deeper than any I believe that I have had before.

This period of time spent in reflection and recovery has been useful however, and has resulted in a number of positive things like the big photo printer has been sorted out and is now in use, a lot of decluttering and tidying has gone on, some photography has occurred (!) and I have had an idea and have started to write again for the first time since the early nineties. This is very exciting for me.

I have not had nearly as much time out on the bike as I would like due to an illness that I have had and the fact that there are no showers available at work at present, but I hope my mileage will increase again soon. I have started to take short rides out in the evening now that the clocks have changed and will ride some more at the weekends too. The weather has been a factor in this too - look at the following piccies. The first was a gloriously warm seventeen degrees at eight in the evening. I sat on a hillside and had a picnic that evening. Less than two days later there were two inches of snow on the ground.

I've made two resolutions for this year which is unusual for me - I don't usually do resolutions. I think there's a need this year however, more to keep myself in line than the usual wishful thinking that people employ. They sound very simplistic, but will be very hard to stick to, I think!

1. I will try to look after and increase my own happiness

2. When asked to do something I will stop and think about it and, if I don't want to do it, I will think about why I am accepting, and make the decision again if necessary

In one of our latest Geocaching forays, Ian and Ruth and Jon and I went to find some church microcaches. It was a lovely sunny December day, about 5 degrees with sparkling blue skies and cool clear air - lovely day to be out and about. I was very interested to see that there has been some new carving done around the church's door - not the main entrance with the porch, but the door shown on this picture:



It's lovely to see such sympathetic workmanship of this quality on this piece of heritage.

I don't think I've ever had such a lazy and enjoyable Christmas Day. It was decided that Jessica would host the dinner this year ably assisted by her partner Neil and my Mum. Despite repeated requests, they did not want any assistance, and especially no assistance with the clearing up afterwards! So we spent our time playing with Cameron and Spike the little dog whilst hard work was going on in the kitchen.



It was all wonderful and extremely festive. Everything came together beautifully and tasted delicious. The best part was the sheer volume of vegetables - all cooked to perfection, not a soggy sprout to be seen.



Binky apparently has a love of roast dinners despite the fact that they're still pureed for him. He was very well behaved and had a lovely time - my favourte memory will be of him crawling around the floor after Spike the dog, laughing his little head off at goodness knows what.



Opening pressies between dinner and pud was fun - we all had a great haul and Cam had some excellent toys. A good time was had by all.