WeeGee

Seven weeks of weird – week one

Posted on July 2, 2014 by WeeGee

Hello, hello. How do you all fancy a little bit of weird for not much of a change?

My good blogging buddy, none other than the very esteemed Mental Mama is hosting an awesome little challenge that goes by the name of ‘Seven weeks of weird’. You can read all about it here, if so you wish.

Needless to say I decided to take part – mostly because I like weird, but also because I’m so good at weird I’m not entirely convinced that seven weeks is going to be enough to fit all of my weird into….

Anyhow – for my first prompt I’m required to tell you all about the weirdest food or food combination that I like that everyone else thinks is nasty.

Here’s the thing, and the thing is a bit of a confession. I LOVE the Toby Carvery and I love it even though I know that it’s mostly nasty. For me, the Toby Carvery is the pot noodle of eating out. It’s cheap, it isn’t always cheerful, but man does it hit the spot…. Look! This is what you get!

I’m assuming my overseas readers will have no idea what the Toby Carvery is? Put simply it’s an all you can eat roast dinner buffet type place. You grab a plate choose from beef, chicken, gammon, and pork (or any combination therof), and then pile on whatever random selection of potato and vegetable accompaniments takes your fancy. IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER IF THEY MATCH.

Best of all, you get to mix up your sauces in a way that is normally scorned upon in polite society. My personal preference is to take chicken gravy and cranberry sauce with beef…. JUST BECAUSE I CAN.

So yeah – I love the Toby Carvery. I love the freedom to eat stuff you aren’t meant to eat together IN PUBLIC, and I love the fact that you can eat EXACTLY as much as you want to (even if that happens to be a child sized portion) and I LOVE the fact that most sensible people hate it….. because it usually means I’m the most sensible person in the whole place. And when do I ever get to say that?!

Love you all lots, like Jelly Tots

WeeGee xoxoxo

Some thoughts about my journey

Hard work, but good work

Posted on June 29, 2014 by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being busy. I have also mostly been being without broadband – for TWENTY WHOLE DAYS. I swear to god you cannot begin to imagine how TRULY AWFUL that actually was. I spent days and days of my life trying not to be sarcastic to the tech dudes on the phone, but they were TOTAL freaking idiots and they were VERY VERY lucky not to get a poke in the chuffing eye….

Anyways – I’m back online now*, I’ve written my highly sarcastic email of complaint, and I’m starting to run out of busy so I decided that now was as good a time as any for a little update from WeeGee land.

I suppose the headline is that I’m all moved in and pretty much settled here in the new place with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five and, to cut a long story short, it’s AWESOME. Don’t get me wrong, the unpacking was a right royal pain in the backside, and there are still a few stray boxes kicking about but, you know, it feels a lot like home and he and I are rubbing along quite nicely together. We’re a pretty good team when all’s said and done.

I won’t lie – all this living together stuff is making for one heck of an adjustment. I knew I’d gotten used to living by myself, and I knew living with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five was going to be a HUGE change and a HUGE challenge. I’m working hard to mitigate, to make allowances, to compromise. I’m also working hard to look after myself and to give myself the priorities and space that I need. The thing is, it feels like working hard is worth every single ounce of effort it takes at the moment. Put simply – I’m having to work at life right now but life is good regardless.

It’s been a while since my last post and I’m a little rusty at this blogging lark so this was only ever going to be a short one. Will it do?

I’ll be back again in no time at all, just you wait and see. In the meantime, here’s a pretty little song:

Love you all lots like jelly tots

WeeGee xoxo

*Praise be

Welcome to my world

A teeny tiny post from my new home

Posted on June 16, 2014 by WeeGee

Since last I wrote, a little over a week ago, I have mostly been moving into my shiny new flat with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five. It’s been a funny old week filled with mostly highs, a couple of lows, and the occasional outbreak of wibbly wobbly wobbling…..

As it turned out, leaving my old flat behind wasn’t anywhere close to the emotional roller coaster I’d prepared myself for. In the end I pulled the door shut behind me and stepped out into my new life without so much as a second thought. Yet more proof, I think, that fear of ‘the thing’ is nearly always worse than ‘the thing’ itself. As for how I’m feeling now we’ve been in the place for a little while? I suppose it’s a fairly standard mixture of nerves and excitement.

I’m excited because I’m in my shiny new flat and sharing my life with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five and I’m nervous because, you know, I have no idea how this is going to turn out and if it turns out badly I might not be able to cope and if I can’t cope I might get unwell again and if I get unwell again I might not be able to get better again and……blah blah blah. It doesn’t matter how awesome things are the same old worries swim around in your head if you let them.

Anyway – the headline for today is that we’re in, we seem to have managed to get in without any major mishaps, and we don’t seem to be driving one another mad yet. There’ll be more soon but for now, I’m afraid the only thing I’ve got going on here is happily ever after (so far).

Love you all lots like jelly tots,

WeeGee xoxox

About today

All the things

Posted on June 5, 2014June 5, 2014 by WeeGee

The eagle eyed amongst you have probably noticed a sudden glut of posts here on How do you eat an elephant? I don’t know what’s gotten into me all of a sudden although I must confess that hitting the five hundred follower mark has spurred my blogging mojo on a little* It’s also fair to say that I’ve got time on my hands at the moment mostly because I went into super organised mode and I’ve pretty much packed the flat up two days ahead of schedule. This is a remarkable feat of achievement, particularly when you consider that I’m always spectacularly late. For EVERYTHING.

Anyway…. it turns out milestones are catching because after discovering my little blog had 500 followers the other day we’ve only gone and reached another. This post here, the one you’re reading right now is post number 250. This is another remarkable feat of achievement by the way because it means that blogging wasn’t just another of my many passing obsessions. Two years ago I started something AWESOME that I’m still doing today which, given the way my brain usually works, is pretty AWESOME in itself.

So. To celebrate all of these milestones I’ve decided that it’s time we shook things up a bit. Of course How do you eat an elephant? is, and always will be, primarily about WeeGee’s adventures in being a mental person. But there’s an awful lot more to WeeGee and I think it’s about time those things got a look in too. To be honest, I’m thinking I might take a leaf out of Mental Mama’s book** with some regular features and one or two writing challenges***. I think it’s also time I shut my other blogs down and brought all of the content under this one umbrella: brace yourselves for recipes, food porn, book reviews and the occasional political rant.

It’ll be great, sorta like How do you eat ALL the elephants…… Who’s in? Oooooh. Which reminds me: anyone out there interested in guest posting here. I think that would be a lot of fun…..

Anyway. I’m pretty sure this is going to be my last post before the move**** and possibly for a while because I’m going to have NO INTERNET for a couple of days*****. What can I say? I’ll see you on the other side. It’s going to be AWESOME.

Love you all lots, like jelly tots.

WeeGee xoxo

*I’m still super excited about that.
**Y’all know the Mama, right?
***But not the Daily Post. Definitely not the Daily Post.
****Fuckity fuck this is actually happening.
*****Please pray for me.

Recovery?

What the heartbreak left behind

Posted on June 4, 2014June 4, 2014 by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being sentimental because when all’s said I’m done the WeeGee is nothing if not a sentimental old fool….

As I write I’m sitting in my packed up living room, trying to come to terms with the fact that it very nearly isn’t my living room anymore. It’s worth mentioning, I think, that tonight is the LAST EVER night I will spend alone in this little flat that I’ve come to call home.

I moved in here a little over three years ago at a time when (and I don’t mean to be melodramatic) it felt like my whole life was falling apart. It wasn’t just that a relationship had come to an end – although with hindsight I know that the grief that came with that was a large part of it – I’d lost friendships, support structures, routines, every single reference point that I thought I could rely on. I was all at sea and there was no shore, or at least no shore that I could find. I’d been lost before, plenty of times in fact, but when I moved here I was lost in a whole new way – mostly because I was lost alone.

Of course the heartbreak subsided because that’s what it does – it was that thing that people talked about when it first happened ‘time’. I didn’t believe them then and if it happened all over again I still wouldn’t believe them because the heart doesn’t learn lessons nearly as well as the brain does. I guess you need the time to happen before you believe it’s going to help.

Once the heartbreak was over I didn’t feel like I’d been left with very much – a silent flat and a WeeGee who not only had no idea who she was anymore but who also didn’t really care was pretty much all I had in my head for the longest time. It was the worst of me – the worst of who I’ve been and worst of who I can be. Everything was nothing and it wasn’t so much that I wanted to be dead. I just didn’t care one way or another. My brain has taken me to some spectacularly awful places but this was the first time that I didn’t feel that I had anything to get better for. I’d been unwell before, sure, but there had always been people around to save me. This time, all I had was myself and I’d never much cared for her

Needless to say, I’ve learned an awful lot since I moved to Kingston. I learned how to be with myself, and how to let myself be who I am, and, to a certain extent, how to forgive myself. I’ve learned how to put one foot in front of the other JUST FOR ME. Most importantly of all, I’ve learned how to save myself from the worst my brain has to throw at me.

I thought I was going to hate living alone, and for a long time, I did. But eventually I realised that I needed to be alone because I’d become so used to fitting in around other people that I had no idea how to be me when the other people weren’t around anymore. On reflection, maybe that’s the most important lesson I learned here: I matter. And I matter whether there is anyone else in my life or not.

—

At this point, it seems worth a bit of fast forwarding because the time I spent alone, coming to terms with myself and working out who I might be if I ever grow up put me in a new place. It put me in a place where I was ready to meet Mr Awesome Thing Number Five, who, I would like to put on record, is the love of my life. I don’t love Mr Awesome Thing Number Five because he loves me and I don’t adapt myself or lose anything of me in loving him. I bring as much to his life as he brings to mine – I’ve never had that before because I never cared enough for myself before. I’ve always been too willing to please and too quick to compromise no matter what the consequences. Who knew that you had to learn to love yourself before you could make space to love any one else?

—

Living in this little flat gave me my life back and helped me to learn lessons that I might not otherwise have learned. What it also did is give me the opportunity to move on sensibly in a grown up and deeply loving relationship that has a future. Being heartbroken seems like a lifetime ago but it gave me things that I never thought I would have. Nothing you ever feel is wasted; everything you survive is significant. Hope is the most important thing of all.

Lots of love, WeeGee xoxoxo

About today

Thank you from the very bottom of the bottom of my heart

Posted on June 2, 2014 by WeeGee

One day in April 2012 I decided to start a blog. I called it ‘how do you eat an elephant?’* and I had no idea WHATSOEVER how much it would come to mean to me.

When I started writing I was in a pretty bad place and I was trying to find a way – any way – to put my life back together. Here’s the thing…. 26 months later and I’ve managed to put my life back together and them some. In your face my broken brain: IN YOUR FACE.

Blogging has taught me all kinds of things – perspective, and how to be engaged, and how to reflect on the things in my head. Starting my blog has been the single best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health. Ever, ever, ever. I’d recommend it to all of the mental people….

Anyway – it’s late and I don’t have an awful lot to say apart from the fact that I woke up this morning to discover that FIVE HUNDRED whole people have clicked the follow button on my blog since I started writing.

FIVE HUNDRED!

So yeah, thank you to each and every one of you from the very bottom of the bottom of my heart. I’m feeling very proud of myself tonight, and very grateful to each and every one of you for your support. My favourite thing about blogging is all the wonderful, super, brilliant and AWESOME people I’ve been lucky enough to get to know because of it. That’s you lot, by the way. So thank you, lots of love and hugs and…. did I mention you are AWESOME?

Normal service will be resumed shortly….

Love you all lots and lots like at least a million jelly tots

WeeGee xoxox

*Bite by bite

Some thoughts about my journey

Guacamole

Posted on May 31, 2014May 31, 2014 by WeeGee

Since the last time I wrote I have mostly been being wide awake.

To be fair, insomnia and I are pretty well acquainted – it’s been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I suppose it started during my late teens and took firm root when I was at University, but I’m pretty sure it was present even before that. Then again, I’m not sure how much of that was only a little girl who loved her book so much that she didn’t want the story to end just yet….

Sometimes being wide-awake when the rest of the world is asleep is whatever the opposite of AWESOME is. Sometimes it feels like the biggest injustice that you’ve ever been dealt. Sometimes, most notably when your brain is in “I know, let’s jump out the window” mode, it feels pretty bloody dangerous. But sometimes, insomnia isn’t really as bad as all that. So long as you manage to get enough sleep to function* being awake in those silent, threadbare hours can actually be something of a blessing in disguise. Then again, maybe I’m only saying that because I’m a seasoned insomniac who knows the wide-awake club drill inside out.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about dealing with sleeplessness. Warm baths, cool rooms, calm and quiet bedrooms: there is NOTHING I can’t tell you about ‘sleep hygiene’. And of course there’s self-soothing and mindfulness to throw in to the mix because is there anything mental that doesn’t need a spot of self-soothing and mindfulness throwing at it already? Sometimes one of those things, or a combination of those things will work but other times there’s only one thing for it – you just have to accept that you are awake and put the time to good use. Which is what I’ve been trying to do these past few days.

My brain is busy at the moment. I’ve got all kinds of things swimming around in my head – stuff about the move, stuff about work, stuff about the past, and stuff about the future. Stuff, stuff and triple stuff. And as much as I know that it’s the stuff that’s keeping me awake, I also know that I’m not going to sort the stuff out during the day what with the people, and the noise, and the life going on around me. So, when you’re tucked up in your bed sending up the zs? I’m busy putting my head in order and lining up my ducks. Trust me, the thinking time insomnia gives me is what’s keeping me sane at the moment. Plus, if I run out of thinking to do, there’s always the Internet.

Anyhoo….. Apart from the whole chronically awake thing, I’m doing remarkably well. The move is now ONE WEEK AWAY, there are still a million and one things to do, and it’s just starting to dawn on me that I’m leaving my beloved Kingston behind. I’m still monumentally rubbish at endings, and I still feel slightly tearful every time I remember that this particular chapter in my life is coming to an end. I came to Kingston to put myself back together so it does, and always will mean an awful lot to me. That said, I keep reminding myself that I wanted to put myself back together again so that I could go about living my life again, and this move, is the first big step on that particular journey.

Meanwhile in other news I’m pretty sure that once I’m all moved and settled** I’ll finally have the time and space to get back to regular blogging. At the moment I only manage to pop up every once in a while to let you know that I’m still here, that I’m still mental, and I’m still doing an AWESOME job of coping with stuff – there’s SO much else I want to share with you but right now, I just don’t have the space. Nothing else to report today save that I’ve been struck by how FANTASTIC and AWESOME my SUPER LOVELY blogging buddies are:

Oh – and just in case you’re still wondering where the title of this post comes into it I refer you to this song. It’s about insomnia. Sorta:

Love you all like lots and lots of jelly tots

WeeGee xoxoxox

*And believe me, you’d probably be surprised how little that is

**Next to no time, I’m sure

About today

Down but not out

Posted on May 22, 2014May 22, 2014 by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being down but not out. Truth told there is one hell of a ginourmous mess going on in my head. My brain is loud, and chaotic and out of control, but somehow, I’m still managing to put one foot in front of the other, because that’s what the WeeGee does when the chips are down….

Everything really ought to be fine and dandy but perhaps the fact that I know that is the biggest frustration of all. Instead of planning, and hoping, and getting super excited about our shiny new flat I wake up in the morning with that huge ‘NO’ surrounding me. My thoughts flutter around in my head, resting on one thing, and then the other, and then another thing entirely. I can’t seem to make them settle on one thing for long enough to do the slightest thing about any of it. It – if IT’S not one thing IT’s another thing.

One thing is what happens in my head when the big guy doesn’t play fair with the little guy, when someone says one thing and does another, when people hide behind the men in suits. In short, it’s what happens when there is an injustice of one sort or another. I’m facing a choice – do I take on the big guy, even though I am the little guy, and even though this particular little guy isn’t exactly the most adept at dealing with the kinds of stresses the fight is likely to bring with it? Which is really just to say do I stand up and insist that I’m right, and that they’re wrong because that’s what I believe you ought to do OR do I take care of my mental health at all costs because that’s also what I also believe I ought to do.

As you can see, I’ve thought my way into an impossible conundrum there.

Another thing is what happens in my head when a political party comprising entirely of idiots, racists, sexists, homophobes and every other kind of unpleasantness is somehow and suddenly viewed as a mainstream political party on the country I live in. It bothers me. And I mean it really bothers me that we’ve somehow come to the position that significant portions of my compatriots think it’s okay to say they’d prefer not to live next to a ‘migrant’ family. It’s under my skin and it’s making me dismayed and angry and hopeless. Mr Awesome Thing Number Five thinks I’m stressing myself out about nothing. And who knows, maybe he’s right. Or maybe I’m right because you have to care, and you have to stand up to it. UKIP stand against EVERYTHING I believe in. I can’t ignore it, but I can’t think of anything sensible to do about it.

That there is impossible conundrum number two.

Yet another thing is the absolute chaos that is my living room at the present time. I’d post a picture but I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it. Now – on the one hand it’s an inevitability that there will be a certain amount of chaos when you’re moving house but on the other hand I can’t seem to find a way to deal with chaos. When things are messy my brain gets messy and when my brain gets messy it starts to think about giving up on me. I’m managing to keep myself out of the pit, but it sure does feel inviting. I could pull the covers up over my head and hide from the world in a heart beat but I’ve got stuff to do and I’ve got my regular life to go about living and I know only too well that once you’re in the pit you have to stay there for a very long time.

It all feels a bit doomy and gloomy doesn’t it? That’s just the way my brain works. Some days are better than others, and I know that all I really need to do is put one foot in front of the other and hold on tight for the better days. I know that they always come, eventually, in their own good time. I know that I want to be ready for them when they do.

Most of all I know that at some point in the future I’ll read this post and wonder what all the fuss was about. This is how I feel today, these are the things that matter now, but the future isn’t very far away at all and in the future feelings are different and things have moved on. I can’t help thinking that the future isn’t anything more than the past that happened yet which means you’ll survive the future, because you’ve always managed to survive the past.

Nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots like jelly tots and flower pots.

WeeGee xoxox

About today

No-one knows

Posted on May 20, 2014 by WeeGee

I think it’s safe to say that I’m one of life’s natural born worriers: worrying is what I do, and, when I come to think about it, I do it pretty well. Perhaps I ought to call it a skill because, you know, it’s nice to have a skill.

For me, worrying is deep rooted. I’ve always done it, and therefore worrying has kind of become who I am. I can’t imagine me without worrying because me without worrying doesn’t make any sense. There’s always something to worry about, and, as those who know me well enough have joked in the past, I’m not happy unless I’m worrying about something.

In my mind, I don’t think worry makes me happy. Then again I know that making plans, and writing lists, and getting things organised makes the worry go away and, when the worry goes away I’m pretty much happy. I’m led to believe that ‘happy’ is what I’m searching for.

It sounds a bit like happily ever after doesn’t it?

Here’s a song

Love you lots, and all that stuff xxx

About today

I didn’t expect perfect….

Posted on May 8, 2014May 8, 2014 by WeeGee

Hello there you lovely people you – how’s it all going? I hope it’s all happy and shiny and sparkly, or, at the very least, calm where you are?

Before we go any further I suppose we should get something out of the way. It’s the middle of the night where I am as I write. I’m guessing that all the sensible people in the UK are already asleep, or at least if they’re not, they’re probably not writing blog posts but hey – nuts to convention. Insomnia does as it pleases and I’m not in the mood for arguing.

I think it would be fair to say that I’m a little bouncy and excitable. I also think it would be fair to say that my bouncy and excitable demeanour is playing at least a small part in the fact that I’m still awake. On the one hand I know that’s a little bit of a problem. On the other hand, if you’d been to see this guy tonight, and you loved him as much as I do, you’d probably be just as bouncy and excitable as I am. Forgive the crap acoustics:

My last few posts have been a bit miserable haven’t they? Thing is, as miserable as I might have been at the time of writing those posts I don’t think ‘miserable’ gives an accurate representation of what’s been going on. Not really. I mean I’ve been up against my brain, and things changing, and some kind of massive and irrational fear of being happy….. But then there’s the other side of the coin to consider.

Looking at things now I think that maybe there are things to worry about* and things to be unsure about** and maybe even things that I wish I’d done differently*** But all of that aside there are many things to be glad about, and to look forward to, and generally not get all bloomin miserable about. This by the way is me looking on the bright side and ABSOLUTELY meaning it.

The exciting news is that I’m moving in with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five. I know, right?! Of course it’s scary to go from where I am, in my own little flat, with my own little cat and with no-one to interfere to actually living with another human being. The thing is I really feel like we’re building something together. We’re not just getting ready to share a place, we’re kinda getting ready to share something bigger than that. Thing is – I’m easily scared and so that seems very scary, but before that, if I can just let myself it feels very exciting.

I suppose that sort of sums up the other side of the coin. I really am struggling to find my way through the fog but I’ve a reason to get through it and so I’m definitely going to do my best. I think I’m learning that when it comes to being alive perfect really doesn’t exist. But actually, that doesn’t matter too much at all anyway.

Perfect is something you didn’t expect it to be.

Meanwhile in other news – oh bums I’ve got nothing. Nothing else to report save that I love you all lots. Like jelly tots.

WeeGee xxx

*aren’t there always

**which is just the same as worrying.

***as is this