Not really actually, properly, really, truly in the mood to
write this week, but I am going to try. I have the LOTR soundtrack on and so I shall power through.
I am still working part time and furloughed part time.
Mental Ill-Health
It really is a roller coaster.
High functioning depression (which is what I got) means that
I can function quite well and appear fairly ‘normal’ and ‘able’ and ‘healthy’
when in actual fact, I am far from it.
I had my two week catch up with the doctor a couple of weeks
ago and he was very impressed with my progress. “I don’t care what you’ve done
to be better, but keep doing it”. Two weeks later and I spent six hours on the
sofa curled up under a blanket, bawling my bloody eyes out. My head is just
empty. I am trying to distract myself, and trying to keep busy just to stop my
mind whirring and thinking and doing and getting away with itself. Lots of
thinking space leads to bad things.
I am in the scatter brained phase of being ill. I want to do
ALL THE THINGS but not the things that require concentration and time and
patience and skill and non-anxiety and work and effort. Flitting between lots of things and not settling.
I have been making bread – something to do but means I get
something to eat, too. I burnt the first lot and the second lot is rock solid. It’s
softening up now it’s in a plastic bag but that’s because condensation is a
thing. It’s alright toasted tho.
I had a break from bread making and made a batch of cakes!
Lemon & raspberry, and blueberry cakes. They even had colour coded cake
cases. They looked SO GOOD. Two hours after them coming out the oven and I was
laying in bed thinking, “Did I put margarine in? I don’t remember margarine? Surely
I am supposed to cream margarine and sugar? Did I do that?”
Of course I didn’t.
So the cakes are edible, just a bit weird and chewy and doughy and not really cakey. I have
since bought some margarine and more fruit. Also some choc chips. And vanilla essence.
And desiccated coconut. And now I am dreaming up new flavour combinations!
The upshot of all this is that my brain is fucked. I am all
out of tears. I didn’t know I could cry for that long, I certainly haven’t done
it for quite a while. Though I suppose I haven’t been this ill for quite a
while.
In terms of mental health, this week has been truly shit.
Work
Can absolutely do one. Not the work itself, just some of the
people I have to deal with. Two steps forward, eighteen bazillion steps back. On
the plus side I have seen two of my volunteers this week which means I have seen
people I know who aren’t momma, poppa, or David.
Homelife
I’ve not been hula hooping. I’ve not been doing the jigsaw. It
is still there, on the floor, staring at me. I want to put it away but I already
see it as a sign of my own failure and it’s only about half done, and so am
reluctant to give in and tidy it away. I also decided about a month into furlough
to use this time to FINISH STUFF. Finish the granny square blanket, finish the
anxiety squares blanket that I started, finish a cushion cover, finish the
crochet bunting. Finish the damn jigsaw. I am potentially part time furloughed
until the end of September, so there is still time.
The cakes have been a right adventure involving a new mixing
bowl and a new hand mixer. I have missed baking, I used to do it a fair bit, I think.
David wants dinosaur biscuits next, but I hate making biscuit dough. It’s too
wet. Can't make shortbread for shit either.
I am slipping back into not leaving the house because I am working from home three days a week and after work I tend to slob out on the sofa and watch a chick flick on Netflix so David isn’t there to judge my poor taste, and then I start dinner.
Part of the bawling-like-a-baby business is related to
physical health things as well as mental health things. It’s a barrel of bloody
laughs in my body at the mo. Lots of things going on and all I want to do is spend
money because its ok because I have an overdraft!! The overdraft will save the
day!! Checks bank account.. oops no it won’t. Bugger.
The dead houseplant has been replaced with two more. How long
until I kill these ones? Why I am so good at killing things? The avocado stone hasn’t
done anything yet.
This week also marks our (or rather, Mommas) two year Taffy-versary. We brought her home two years ago! But now I’ve moved out and she HATES ME. Utterly hates me. This is another reason as to why I am so miserable and sad. I just want her to love me. I am so sad about it that David has adopted me a snow leopard from the WWF and it is going to be imported next week so that it can live out the back along the river. I wish. Would help keep the rats away tho.
My new face mask has come. It has flamingos on it. Obviously. I like it because it hides my face, my treble hairy chins, and the tufts of nose hair, and I can legit hide AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME. I hate it because it makes my face look bigger than it already is. But it has flamingos on it.
We went out out this week too! For a walk in the sunshine (in tight black jeans - guess who). We had ice cream and it was nice to be out, even though I was all out of puff within minutes. Went to an antiques shop where David found a new hat and I got a new old dibber.
Garden
The sunflowers are starting to open! I love them even if
they are tiny. Out of 26 plants in the back I have 5 flowers so far and lots of
buds getting ready to open. One of the flowers out the front is teeny tiny.
I have pulled our first garden carrots! I sowed these at the start of April. The second day of furlough. Not massive, but perfectly sized for whole roast carrots on Sunday.
Next door have been constructing a shed thing behind their other shed thing, to replace the hedge they ripped out when ratty boy was visiting. They’ve been so noisy with all their tools so I haven’t really wanted to spend much time in the garden, and there isn’t a lot to do. It’s so small that tasks can be done in an hour or less. I did tidy and sweep it to take photos for the letting agent.
The herb hanging baskets are looking ok. The salad seeds are growing really well so I should be harvesting leaves from this within a week or two.
The titmatos are growing well; they’re even joined at the top. Wonky too, just like real boobies.
Allotment
I’m not quite managing my prescribed three days a week at
the allotment for one reason or another. Mostly laziness. I have been a couple
of times to take the compost waste from the kitchen and I have done small jobs
up there. I still have no motivation to do anything big. Not much point digging
over new beds as they all need timber etc so it’ll be like doing the job twice.
When I get paid I am going to see if I can get some timber because then I can
paint it and it’ll be something to do and a reason to get out of the house. I have
been mentally planning my new polytunnel and how it is going to look, so maybe I
could build the raised beds for that.
The borage bed is GLORIOUS and full of bees. I thought I had
pulled out most of the borage but it is probably in half of the bed. Will have
to pull it out a bit better next year, eh? The sunflowers all needed tying in again
so they are growing well. Tying them in helps to support the weight of the
heads, especially when the birds land on them to get the seeds later in the
year.
The first batch of homegrown garlics are dry and have now been lopped short ready for using. I picked a load of salad from mommas plot and we had it with fish cakes.
So in summary, this week has been quite shit for a variety
of reasons. I’m just not in the mood to do anything, I have no motivation, it’s
taken all my mental brain energy to write this, my brain is numb, I don’t
particularly want to go back to work because I know I have a 9:30am Monday
conference call with the team and I just don’t want to face them and pretend to
be all happy happy joy joy. We have been having weekly catch up chats every
week since furlough started but since being back at work I have stopped joining
them. I see enough of my colleagues in the first three days of the week now
even though we’re all working from home, and I want a day of not seeing them!!
Technology is great and all, and it has been useful being able to video call
people instead of email, but fucking hell does it make it easy for people to be
irritating. Fuck off and let me get on with stuff.
