Tag: Blogging

Posted in Welcome to my world

It’s still raining in England (Share your world week 33)

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being fine, thank you very much. If I had a complaint it would be with the weather but, like all good Brits, I know that complaining about the weather is an activity reserved solely for passing the time of day with people you’d rather not be passing the time of day with. And you guys definitely don’t fit into that category…

Anyhoo…. it’s week thirty three of Cee’s share your world challenge thingymadoodle which is why I’m here, so let’s go!

  1. What are some words that make you smile?

I’m something of a logophile: I love words for the way they sound and the way they feel and of course, for what they mean. Lots of my favourite words make me smile, including these ones:

words

—–

Sunday started with a bit of a KERFUFFLE (I can’t imagine what the neighbours made of the HULLABALOO) because he didn’t even have the GUMPTION to bring me a cup of tea. I kid you not: the RUDDERLESS SKINNYMALINK had the cheek to wake me up at 7am on a Sunday without so much as a by your leave or, more to the point, a cup of tea. I called him a SCUNNER and worse besides and, get this, he had the brass neck to take UMBRAGE and call me a CANTANKEROUS old COWBAG. I’m willing to concede that I was INCANDESCENT with rage but who wouldn’t come over a bit BILIOUS if an IDIOT-FACE-FEATURES who didn’t even have the good grace to arrive with tea woke them up at 7am on a Sunday morning?!

—–

Before you ask, yes. That is based on a true story……

  1. You’re given $500,000 tax-free. What would you spend it on?

By my reckoning $500,000 works out at around 320,000 of our Great British Pounds, which isn’t quite enough to buy a modest three-bed family home (with a garden I can grow roses in) here in the South East of England.

Thusly, since I wouldn’t be able to do the sensible thing with the money, I’d be forced to blow the lot on sex, drugs and rock n roll. Or maybe just loads of really nice speciality tea.

Rock and roll

  1. Would you rather be stuck in a small plane with bad turbulence for two hours or be a passenger in a car racing in the Daytona 500?

I have to confess that I have no idea what the Daytona 500 is. I could Google it and find out, but it has something to do with dudes driving fast cars, and I really truly couldn’t care less if I tried. Therefore by default I’d plump for the two hours of feeling nauseous and concerned for my life….. On the upside I could be in Lisbon in two hours and it might not be raining there.

  1. What are you grateful for from the past week and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

This week I have been particularly grateful for my umbrella and I’m looking forward to the sun coming back out next week.

That’s all from me folks.

Love you all lots like Jelly Tots,

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in Share your world 2015

Do not adjust your set (Share your world 2015)

Posted on by WeeGee

Hello, good evening and welcome to my cosy little corner of the Internet where it’s all sunshiny and sparkly and CAPITAL LETTER AWESOME.

Please don’t worry – your eyes do not deceive you and there is no need to adjust your set: it’s another WeeGee post already. What can I say? You spend months waiting for WeeGee to get around to writing a post and then two come along pretty much at once….

Since last I wrote I have mostly been doing grown up things like roasting gammon, and buying duct tape, and re-potting plants, and going to the bank and generally being out and about in the world playing at being an adult. I do a pretty good impression of one when I put my mind to it.

Bank adult

I’ve also been hatching plans to blog more often, because it’s something that I LOVE doing (or at least, something that I used to LOVE doing) and I’m putting a lot of my effort in to making sure that I’m using at least some of my time to do the things that I LOVE.

I expect it’ll take me a while to get back into the swing of this whole blogging thing again, so I thought one of those challenge thingymabobs might be a good way to get me going on my jolly little way.

I came across Cee’s Share Your World challenge by way of the super duper awesome Bipolarcalico and thought, ‘do you know what? I’m going to give this a bit of a whirl’

—–

Here’s me, giving it a WeeGee style whirl:

Are you a collector of anything?

I collect a great many things, some of them deliberately.

My largest collection of all is books mainly because I CANNOT STOP buying them. I’ve recently started a side line collection of antiquarian and ‘collectable’ books which is growing more quickly than I anticipated because I CANNOT STOP buying them either. Here are some of my treasured books:

Books

My smallest collection of all is art pottery – currently a handful of pieces, including a rather beautiful Poole Pottery vase:

Vase

My favourite collection of all is my collection of vintage jewellery. I tell myself purchasing vintage jewellery is an investment and that the pieces I buy are the antiques of the future. This may, or may not, be true.

Jewels 1

What is your biggest fear or phobia?

More than anything, I fear endings because they mostly break my heart (which makes me wonder if what I really fear is a broken heart……)

Do you prefer reading coffee table books (picture), biographies, fiction, non-fiction, educational?

I prefer reading to almost any other activity in the world and I read a fairly even mixture of fiction and non-fiction. I suppose if I was backed into a corner and forced to choose, the non-fiction would probably just edge the win. But I might answer differently if you asked me again tomorrow.

read all day

Complete this sentence: if I must be reincarnated, in the next life I want to be….

If I must be reincarnated, in the next life I want to be a penguin. Because PENGUINS.

Penguin

What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up

Last week I was grateful for the book I’m reading: The Burley Cross postbox theft by Nicola Barker because it has taken me into a quirky little imaginary world and helped to keep the real one at bay.

Next week I’m looking forward to getting my hair cut because it’s beginning to take over my head and it’ll be nice to be able to see again.

Haircut needed

———

That was fun, wasn’t it?

Meanwhile in other news I’m seriously considering ordering me some cheese on toast by post because I NEED TO KNOW what turns up in the mailbox when you order cheese on toast by post. Nothing else to report save that I can’t help wondering WHAT(THE FUCK)EVER NEXT.

Love you all lots like Jelly Tots

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in About today

Things not to do…..

Posted on by WeeGee

I’ve learned an awful lot of valuable lessons in my time but none more valuable than the lesson I learned recently about not accidentally taking anti-histamine pills instead of broken brain meds for almost a week.

It’s an easy enough mistake to make, especially if you’ve got things on your mind and your focus is on keeping up the early morning routine that goes ‘open drawer, take meds, close drawer’. It’s also an incredibly stupid mistake to make not least because when you start getting mild withdrawal symptoms when you’ve got no reason to expect them it’s really rather easy to convince yourself that you are, for once and for all, going slowly but surely off your not-so-jolly little rocker.

Thankfully it’s an easy enough mistake to put right so my little rocker is starting to get back to its jolly self. That said, I’m trying to take myself with a ginormous pinch of salt at the moment, at least until the chemicals are back on an even keel.

Aside from the anti-histamine affair things are fairly standard here in WeeGee land. By and large I’m well by which I mean that even though I’m a little bit wobbly I’ve got no plans to jump off any tall things any time soon. One or two rugs have been yanked out from under my feet in the past month or so. On the one hand the fact that there are so many changes afoot feels like rough justice but on the other hand I know that change is inevitable. I also know that sometimes you don’t get to choose what the changes will be or when they’ll arrive. I’m doing my best to take everything in my stride….

That’s about it from me. This post wasn’t really about saying anything – I just wanted to take the time to write something. I guess I wanted to see how it felt to write again, and to figure out if there was still a space for me here, and to understand whether or not this was a routine I could get myself back in to. Needless to say, I don’t know the answer to any of those questions yet.

I hope you’re all doing well. I miss you all tonnes and of course – I love you all lots like jelly tots.

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in Moving forwards

Happily ever after

Posted on by WeeGee

Although it probably seems otherwise to the untrained eye, I didn’t really stop blogging – I just stopped publishing my posts. I don’t exactly know why, by which I mean the hiatus was never intentional. For every single day where there was no post, my thoughts were full of How do you eat an elephant?

In many ways things have been exactly the same. I still spend my time filing my little notebook up with ideas, I still fall asleep turning the ideas over and over in my head, I still march through life trying to find the words that will make it make sense outside my head. In short, I’m still telling the story of myself to myself – day by day, week by week, and sometimes, of course, just hour by hour.

In other ways, things have been entirely different, not least because I’m well. I’m grounded, more interested than obsessed, capable of insight and, perhaps most importantly of all, happy and contented with the place in the world I’ve landed and the person I’ve managed to become. I know what my strengths are, and I recognise the things that hold me back. I’m prepared to say ‘no’, step back and take charge of things for myself. When there is pressure in my life its because I put it there – the agenda is entirely my own. I’m not selfish, but I’m not selfless either and I’m not ashamed to say that it’s taken me 35 years to figure out where that balance lies.

Since last I wrote, there has been life. I got engaged* and finally decided what my ‘career’ is all about. I started a new job, made new friends and made new promises to myself. There have been births and deaths, but no marriages. I’ve read one hell of a lot of books and rediscovered my passion for indie bands that nobody seems to have heard of. I’ve watched all four seasons of Game of Thrones, despite swearing I never would**. I’ve reached a point in my life where money doesn’t really matter and know how lucky that makes me. I’ve completed a crossword almost every day and decided that life is too short for suduko.

Its just life, and it marches on. I don’t dread it anymore.

My difficulties are ‘recurrent’*** and I won’t be well forever. I know that. I also know that my difficulties are not occurring at the moment and, if life is only a series of moments joined together to make a story, I’m going to make the most of the moment I’m in. Like I’ve always said, I love stories – with their beginnings, middles and endings – and the moments of calm you find in them.

I used to think it was all about happily ever after, that it would only be okay when it was okay forever. As for what I think now? I think its okay right now and I’m content with that.

Love you all lots, like jelly tots,

WeeGee xoxoxo

* I know, right?!

** High brow, it is not and misogyny it very definitely is. A right ripping yarn though….

***Grammatically, I think it should be ‘recurring’ but who am I to argue with the white coat people?

Posted in About today

I don’t care

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being disassociated. That’s not necessarily the way I would describe it, but you know, sometimes you have to put your trust in the White Coat People because at least they’re trying to make you better.

If I had to choose a word, I’d be forced to break the rules and choose three because I DON’T CARE and that’s the only way I can think of to put it. Christmas: I DON’T CARE; new job: I DON’T CARE; my life is infinitely better than it ever has been*: I DON’T FUCKING CARE…… (granted, that’s four words)

All this not caring is difficult to explain. I can say the words and people seem to understand what I mean but I can’t seem to make them know how it feels. I can’t help thinking that I’m just supposed to shrug it off, that somehow what I’m feeling isn’t real or if it is real that it’s just something that everyone feels and that everyone somehow manages to get over. This is the news: I can’t get over it. Trust me. I’m trying.

I know that I’m going to get through this mostly, I guess, because I’ve got through it before. I also know that things aren’t nearly as bleak as I think they are because I’m still out there in the world putting one foot in front of the other. I suppose what I’m saying is that it doesn’t really matter whether I care or not – all the things that are going to be will be and I’ll be there and I might still feel the way I do now or I might feel a whole lot better.

The sun will rise, the tides will ebb and flow, life will go on, and things will be. It doesn’t matter whether they feel good, or bad, or indifferent – because sometimes just being is the best you can hope for. And the best you can hope for is very definitely enough.

I’m trying to set myself targets at the moment – nothing big of course because I DON’T CARE and because it’s important that I don’t ‘overwhelm myself’. Little by little, bite by bite and all that. I’m also trying to connect myself, or re-connect myself, with the things that I care about: books, politics, music, blogging…… Here we have a blog post which is a target met, a pat on the back, and another step forward. Whatever happens, I’m planning on taking another one every single day.

As is traditional I’ll leave you with a song, for the sake of fun, and for the sake of a smile, and for the sake of songs that lift your heart – because those are the songs that matter the most.

http://youtu.be/5w7huOZuZ3M

Love you all lots, like jelly tots,

WeeGee

Posted in About today

Life by increments

Posted on by WeeGee

I’d love to tell you the story of the last three months – you know, start at the beginning, flesh out the middle, and take great pleasure in getting to the end. Sadly, it isn’t going to be as easy as that, not least because I’m not entirely convinced that the end is in sight.

Truth told, I’m not completely sure when it even started. That’s the thing about unravelling: it happens so silently, so slowly, and so subtly, that you really don’t have a cat in hell’s chance of spotting the first stitch getting picked unloose. The fact that it happens RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE is just your broken brain’s way of ADDING INSULT TO INJURY.

There I was, bowling along in my little life quite happily thank you very much. I’d moved in with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five, I’d started a new job, and I was making a whole lot of progress with that whole being alive thing that had proved so difficult for me in the past. Let’s not make any bones about it: life was good.

And then I was struck down by a severe and chronic case of AWAKENESS. In hindsight, maybe that’s where it started.

I’ve written about my propensity for insomnia before – many times before, in fact. Insomnia is as much a part of my life as the sun setting and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember. Which is really just to say that I’m not going to lay the current bout of the doomy gloomies entirely at its door. But you know, being awake for all but three hours a day FOR WEEKS AT A TIME hasn’t exactly helped matters.

And then there was the winter. Or, more accurately, there was the clocks going back.

If winter was nothing more than five months of shitty weather punctuated by the useful distraction that is Christmas that’d be just fine and dandy by me. It’s the shrinking hours of light – the getting up in the dark, pootling around all day in the dark, coming home in the dark, the fact that the WHOLE OF YOUR LIFE IS DARK – that does for me. Thing is, I can make things dark enough for myself. I don’t need the actual dark filling up the corners I didn’t manage to get to.

And then there was the fact that, and I’m loathe to say it, I miss my old life.

I can’t bring myself to write a whole paragraph about that one. It speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Basically what I’m talking about is nostalgia. Mostly it breaks my heart.

—-

I’m going to call time on this instalment – I’m finding it exhausting and I’m frustrated that my words ran out so soon.

I’m reminded that there were times in my life when I approached the EVERYTHING in increments. Out of bed. Kettle on. Cup of tea. Shower. Clean Pants. Endless trivial tasks, one after the other, and every one of them an achievement.

Life by increments.

It seemed so pointless to me at the time but, hey – it worked. There’s no reason that finding WeeGee and her voice can’t work that way too right? Little by little, step by step, bite by bite. After all. How else am I supposed to eat the elephant?

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment of WeeGee losing herself and then spending AGES trying to find herself again…..

—–

Meanwhile in other news Frank Turner has a new album today which gives me the perfect excuse to indulge.

Nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots. Like lots and lots of Jelly tots.

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in Moving forwards

Little black submarines

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being awake but, looking on the bright side, I have at least been awake at all the usual and required times as well as for THE WHOLE REST OF THE TIME when all the sensible people were fast asleep…..

My last post was one of those bleak affairs that I’m wont to turn out every once in a while. For a while I felt bad about writing it but I’ve had one of my little thinks and decided that if a gloomy post every once in a while is the worst thing my brain can come up with then I’m probably doing fairly well in the main scheme of things. Of course that’s more looking on the bright side. What can I say? Welcome back to WeeGee Land, I guess….

Safe to say my blog has been a little quiet of late. For the most part it has been the worst of times. And it has been the worst of times. And, put simply I couldn’t be arsed to turn my computer on. My broken brain has been misfiring all over the place and I’ve felt like my whole life was under siege. I got to the point of thinking that NOTHING WOULD EVER BE OKAY AGAIN. But it will, in time. I know that because I didn’t spend all the time I spent learning all the things I learned about living with a broken brain to go and forget that when it mattered the most.

When the chips are down time stretches until you think it might never end and you think that’s the problem: time marching on (and on and on and on). The thing is, when the chips are down, the only thing you need is time. Of course it marches on AND THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF IT. The next chapter is just around the corner and I’m starting to remember that I’m going to get to it whether I think I want to or not.

This is yet another toe in the water. There have been a few in recent months but eventually, surely, one of them will be just bold enough. I’ve been living in my own head, hiding from the world and from all the things that are very definitely better in that out. I’m yet to find a better remedy for my hiding than blogging so I happen I might stick with it this time. Or at least try to…..

I thought I’d try and revive an age old tradition and leave you with a song. It’s a whimsical song that doesn’t really mean a whole lot (except of course, those are always the songs that mean the most)

Until next time.

Love you all lots and lots like jelly tots

WeeGee xoxoxo

Posted in About today

I don’t know what to call this…

Posted on by WeeGee

I don’t blog like I used to. Things have changed and time has moved on and no matter how hard I try I can’t find the space anymore. Sure – once in a while I pop up, mostly to lament how much time has passed since my last post, but it doesn’t seem to matter what I write because it’s just not like it used to be.

More than anything I wonder what happened to WeeGee because WeeGee seems to be conspicuously absent from my life right now. I won’t make any bones about it: I made WeeGee up. She wasn’t real. She was a figment of my imagination, and a representation that I wanted to make, and I completely made her up. That said she was as good a representation as ever there was and now she’s gone and it feels a bit empty. I don’t how that happened.

Truth told, I’ve lost myself and I’ve lost myself in a way that only I seem to know how. I’ve somehow managed to build a whole world around me and that sounds great, right? Except it isn’t because it strangles me, and stamps on me, and makes me small: it makes it so that I’m lost and silent and resigned to the dullness that surrounds me. You’ll have gathered by now that my tendency for melodramatics hasn’t quite left me….

You’ll also have gathered that This Is Not A Good Time.

I’m writing because I don’t know what else to do. I’m writing because – once upon a time a long time ago – I wrote a lot and it made it right. I’m writing because somehow, in amongst it all, I still desperately hope that I’ve got something to say. I’m writing because maybe it’s just what I do when the chips are down, and the hope has gone, and there’s no other place to go.

More than anything I’m writing to say ‘hello’ to my much loved mental friends. I know that whatever I say here that someone out there will say ‘I get you’. I don’t think too many people in the real world are getting it right now, so, you know.

It’s a tough old path isn’t it? And I’m still treading it. I think I’ll be back tomorrow for some more emotional vomit, which is what you got tonight and I apologise. In the meantime I could sure so with a hug.

Love you all lots like jelly tots,

WeeGee (Gail) xxx

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

It’s been a wee while

Posted on by WeeGee

My goodness, it’s been a while – so long in fact that I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve gone and forgotten all about me. I’ve been absent for months and months, for lots and lots of different reasons. In the end though, if I had to sum it up, my silence has really come about because I realised that some things in life deserve your absolute and undivided attention……

The last time we spoke I’d just moved to my new flat and, I think, I was getting ready to start my new job. Neither of those things seems very new any more. Such is the nature of time I guess but I’ve been surprised by how quickly I’ve settled in to things. I used to have one life and now I’ve got another. In many ways, it really has been as easy as that: things change, life moves on, WeeGee does her little thing. Yadder, yadder, yadder.

Of course, WeeGee doing her little thing is never REALLY easy. You know me of old and you know that I ALWAYS have to do things the long way round. I think I’ve learned that I’m a master of ‘keeping up appearances’, of being okay when I’m really not, of holding it together when everything starts to unravel. I suppose what it’s really all about is contradictions. I can be absolutely fine at the same time as being absolutely not. Increasingly I think that I’m the only one who knows the difference even though I’m the last person you’d trust to be in charge of stuff like that.

Anyway….

Let’s cut a long story short – if haven’t already cut it too long. The thing that needed my absolute and undivided attention was little old ME. I needed to take time to work out how it all felt, and what it all meant, and how on earth it was ever going to come together. Maybe you remember that I spent a long time figuring out what being ‘me’ was all about when I moved to Surbiton. I guess this past few months has been about me doing the same thing for the next chapter.

I shouldn’t hide it – there have been some pretty grim moments of late, because that’s just how the difficulties I have manifest themselves. My alien brain has been in over drive and it feels like a small miracle that I haven’t jumped out of any windows. Then again, I’ve learned to take my miracles wherever I find them.

There have been new meds. I tell you something, when it comes to the doomy gloomies they’ve been an absolute chuffing miracle – mainly because for the first couple of weeks I felt so UTTERLY NAUSEAUS that I couldn’t even think about the doomy gloomies and ever since then the raging heart burn has been pretty effective in keeping my thoughts focused on other things. Maybe it’s worth mentioning the couple of days when everything was AWESOME. Because that was AWESOME…..

I feel like I’ve checked in to say ‘Hey! Everything is just as wibbly wobbly as it was before’ but I haven’t really. I think maybe I’ve checked in to say that it’s been just as wibbly wobbly as its been before but that all the things I’ve learned up to now made it significantly less awful than it once would have been.

I think perhaps that you have you have to learn to live with yourself, and I think perhaps, that despite the mishaps, that’s still what I’m managing to do. Is it perfect? Well no, its mostly mental. But day by day I’m learning that there is a way to content yourself with that.

Meanwhile in other news it’s going to take me at least three million years to catch up on all the blogs I know and love and another squillion to discover all the new ones. Bear with me….

Love you all lots like Jelly Tots,

WeeGee xoxoxoxo

Posted in Welcome to my world

IRL Update

Posted on by WeeGee

 

I can’t believe how much time has passed since my last post. I’m not entirely sure what I’ve mostly been being in the time that’s intervened apart from maybe busy and very definitely not blogging….

One thing’s for sure – it’s been all go here in WeeGee land, which seems to be the norm all of a sudden. In the few short years since I started blogging I seem to have transformed from a small, quiet, insignificant person who just wanted to hide in her bed into a small, quiet significant person who occasionally wishes that she actually had any time to hide in her bed. Maybe that’s the only difference between me when I’m well and me when I’m not well. I don’t know, I guess I’m still trying to figure that one out.

The move seems like a dim and distant memory – we’ve been here almost two months now but if you told me we’d been here FOREVER it wouldn’t seem like an outlandish claim. Fleet became home without me even realising it, and living with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five hasn’t really been the challenge I was expecting. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had our moments, but for the most part we’re just rubbing along together the way we always did. I can’t imagine a time that’ll ever change but I can’t help being on my guard against things suddenly changing. On the one hand that could be a bad thing, but on the other hand all it really means is that I’m aware and that I’m willing to put the work in. I think he is too. So that’s all right then, isn’t it?

Of course there’s the new job to mention. What can I say? Starting a new job is one of the oddest things you can do because for the first few days EVERYTHING is odd. The people are odd, the technology is odd, the office is odd, even the tea making facilities are odd. Of course it’s only odd because it’s different from the old place and in no time at all it’s the old place that seems odd. Such is the nature of change I guess. I’ve only been in the job for a couple of weeks and it still feels new and it still feels odd but I also feel like it’s going to be AWESOME and not just because they use SharePoint properly and have some excellent records management software for me to play with….

Anyway – as far as the IRL update goes, that pretty much covers the headlines. I’m aware that I should think about doing an ‘in WeeGee’s head’ update at some point soon but I don’t think I’m quite ready yet. For the most part everything is absolutely fine, mostly because of the IRL stuff. But there’s this other part, it’s only a teeny tiny little part – the broken part, I guess. Recently, I’ve been thinking that it never goes away. There’s a hole at the heart of me, and it’s always there, no matter how small…..

Meanwhile in other news there is nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots like Jelly Tots.

WeeGee xoxoxo