Happy New Year 2018!

Wow, where did 2017 go? I know, I say something similar every year. It's true though! So here we are again, a new year before us, full of potential and possibilities. And of course, the now obligatory new year fireworks picture:

Fireworks around the London Eye, view across the Thames from the Embankment

There has been much discussion over gender equality and sexual harassment/assualt (#MeToo), and 2018 is the centenary of women being granted the right to vote in British parliamentary elections. To mark this, a female/Venus symbol was projected onto the Shell Centre tower building (left of the Eye in the above photo) while a soundtrack by various female artists played. It's a great milestone to celebrate, even though the Representation of the People Act 1918 only granted voting rights to some women (over 30 years old if they were either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register, a property owner, or a graduate voting in a university constituency). It took another 10 years and an update to the act to grant votes for all women over 21, providing equal voting rights with men. A number of commentators have hailed 2018 as 'the year of the woman'; by this time next year, we'll see if they were right.

More officially, the UK government  has announced 2018 as the Year of Engineering, part of a year-long campaign to tackle the engineering skills gap and widen the pool of young people who join the profession. The UK Space Agency will be supporting the campaign by funding a series of education and outreach projects designed to inspire interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The Scottish Government has made 2018 the Year of Young People, providing a platform for those aged 8-26 in Scotland and opportunities to explore and showcase their personalities, talents and achievements.

National Geographic has decided 2018 will be the Year of the Bird, and has launched a year-long campaign dedicated to celebrating and protecting birds. So the first of my resolutions will be to do more wildlife watching, starting with birds (RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch, last weekend of January!). More moths, more butterflies, other insects, spiders ....

Chinese New Year on February 16th is the start of the year of the dog, a male earth dog to be more precise.
I've seen lots of predictions that this will be a year of changes, but don't we all say that, every new year?

The first change for me was to change the layout of this blog a little - I was bored with seeing two sidebars, so back to a right hand side bar with all the usual bits and pieces, and the articles on the left. 

I was terribly untidy in 2016, with craft stash all over the place while I prepared for workshops in early 2017, so didn't put any decorations up. This Christmas, I loved rediscovering the various baubles, decorating the tree, putting lights in the window. My preference for decoration on Christmas Eve now feels like I don't get to enjoy my decorations for long enough, before it's time to take them down again. I don't like to see decorations up very early (certainly not before December 1st), but I've decided I shall put my decorations up earlier this coming December, and enjoy the sparkle for longer. And be tidier!

Another change for me will be to find a new car, not something which fills me with excitement. I've just put my car into the garage for some urgent work to shocks, brakes, exhaust and so on, only to find that the rear subframe is corroding and won't last another year, and would be uneconomic to repair/replace. Chatting to the mechanics, they suggested I buy myself some time by getting the work done, which will also give it some trade-in value. They said it was the sort of corrosion they see when a car has been used with a boat trailer, dipping its rear end into the sea. Of course, the original owner would probably not have owned up to that when he traded up. The corrosion isn't noticeable for the first few years, but it explains why the sump guard rusted through and gave up relatively early, too. It's only 10 years old, I've had it for 8 and the mileage hasn't even been that high.  Such a shame, as I've liked this car better than my previous ones.

So sadly, this is not the year for getting the central heating, soffits, gutters etc. done. Double glazing, replacement bathroom fan and shower and rebuilding the chimney all loom on the near horizon. As for fencing, new shed, greenhouse ... unless by great good fortune I win the lottery or some other prize. I don't know where the money's going to come from, so this is definitely going to be a year for trying to earn more.

In order to do that, it really is going to have to be a year to change my computer. I hardly dare type this, just in case it hears, but it has been making some alarming rattling, grinding noises.  

Looking back, 2017 was not as fabulous as I'd wished, but that's life, I guess. I learned a lot about editing, managed a lot of gardening (well, a lot of digging, and a certain amount of enjoying peas fresh from their pods) and did a lot of meditation. After a concerted effort to clean and move furniture and get a bit more sorted out in order to host a visit from my parents, I feel as though I've made headway, even though there is always more to do. I've decided that I like to have a selection of works in progress, and anything I didn't achieve last year I can continue to strive for; anything else can just have a veil drawn over it. Preferably one with sequins and beads along the edge.

2018 will hopefully also include more dance, yoga and exercise, regaining enough flexibility to sit in jazz 4th position on both sides; more beach time, more gardening and vegetable growing and crafting and blogging.
It's time to rouse myself from my inexplicable January funk, there's so much to look forward to!

Sliding Furniture Puzzle

Having guests to stay focuses the mind wonderfully on getting the house in order. Unfortunately, to do that, I have to move what feels like heaven and earth.

All of the furniture which ended up in the guest bedroom during the house move was put in the wrong place and then hemmed in with heavy boxes and trunks (including a box marked 'fragile' which was put on the bottom of a stack and now contains broken glass). I still don't have my bedroom sorted out to my satisfaction (it contains furniture which should be in the guest bedroom, but which they couldn't find space for, as some of the boxes in there belonged elsewhere), and the dining room is a mass of packed boxes and various chairs. The lounge is a mess of craft stash. There are even packed boxes and a worktop full of bits in the utility.

Add into the chaos finding that the shed has been leaking and the decorating kit boxes contained a few inches of water and a strange compost of slug/snail droppings and wet fluff from some rags which have been gnawed by a mouse hoping for a comfy bed. Then one of the cats threw up on my duvet, so not just the cover but the duvet itself needed cleaning. And the dishwasher stopped working.

And then the new mattresses arrived about 4 working days earlier than expected. (I've just seen a mail telling me the mattresses are on their way. Nope, they arrived two days ago! And another mail telling me that the old mattresses will be picked up next Wednesday, with a request to confirm the pick-up via a link which doesn't work.) I now cannot move for large, heavy boxes. There's no way I can get my double mattress up the stairs on my own, I'm going to have to plead for help from one of my neighbours.

It was a bit like this when I first moved, too. Like one of those sliding squares puzzles where you don't so much have an empty square as an empty half-square, and you have to be careful how you use it so as not to hem yourself in. Over time, the stacks in the lounge and kitchen disappeared, and some of the boxes in the dining room. I should have taken photos, some of the stacks were about 4 feet/1.2 metres high.
Just like the sliding squares puzzle, I have to accept that some of the pieces will have to move more than once before they're able to move into their final positions. Unlike the sliding squares puzzle, some pieces are rather larger than others, and so many smaller pieces will need to move to enable, for example, the single beds to go where they were originally intended.

And of course everything needs cleaning and I have a mountain of laundry too. The patio and garden are also a complete mess, as I haven't been out to sort out the growhouse and swingseat, damaged by the first storms of the season, let alone pick up scattered pots or any more digging and clearing. That's very low on the priority list at the moment!

Faced with this knotty problem, I've had to revert to project management planning to try to find the ends to pull, which squares to slide first. The task list is still very long and I have less than a week to go.

It will be great to have made a significant dent in the unpacking, cleaning and sorting, though I wonder if I shall ever attain my goal of having a clean and tidy house with a place for everything and everything in its place.

Class Plans

Planning classes is a difficult thing! Schemes of work and lesson plans aside, for part-time, 'leisure' classes in the current economic climate, finding or creating demand is key, achievable by tapping into the right demographic groups (whatever they might be). Then it's a matter of finding a venue which is available when you want it, at a reasonable price and then matching location, venue, day and time to the prospective students' availability (especially in low population areas such as this one). Without this, even free workshops won't necessarily attract attendees.

My class numbers are so low that I effectively have no class running at the moment. Even through adult ed, where the classes are charged in blocks of 10 and are really, really cheap, especially for those who get concessions, and still people will not commit or pay up front. (Some really can't - however cheap, it's difficult to find £30 or £40 in one go if you're on jobseekers allowance. However, some will still pay the equivalent of their concession-rate class to Costa coffee every week, grrr! But it illustrates that although many will cite cost as an issue, it really isn't about the money.)

After letting my classes stagger on until I was effectively paying for my teaching practice and the social contact with the couple of dancers who would come regularly, I've had to stop classes. There's no competition from other belly dance classes here, and it's not just belly dance classes which are closing. Only a fraction of adult ed classes are running, despite being extremely cheap and offering payment plans to take the sting out of paying in 10 week blocks. The main issues seem to be the perception of how much things do and should cost, and personal priorities. It's been noticeably harder since 2008. From the prospective (dance) student's point of view, prioritising time and money is a difficult thing for most, especially when weighed against the needs and wants of the rest of the family. Many people here are on very low incomes, suffering from health issues, have other responsibilities which take their time and energy (shift working, caring, parenting), and however much we think adults are in control of their lives, shit happens. There are a million and one other reasons why a dance class is low on the list of priorities. Some just don't want to be tied to a regular commitment (even if only for a few weeks) or are just apathetic or complacent (thinking that a class will still be there for when they feel like it, and if it's not, oh well!).

Having dropped in to other exercise-based classes, I've seen that many students want their leisure activities to be social and not feel like hard work. This can be tricky. It's good for beginners to join an existing, stable class, with enough people that they can be anonymous at the back, preferably in the company of a friend. But they are easily put off if most of the others in the class are no longer absolute beginners. There is a safety in being able to hide in a group who are all following the bouncing butt in front of them, being carried away by the music, without having to think or remember, and without being corrected.

Enquirers often don't turn into students for reasons which can be very difficult to discover (cold feet? but their lack of engagement often results in a lack of response).

I'm going to carry on trying, if only because other good, experienced teachers are having the same problems, so I can reassure myself it's not because I'm a crap teacher. Trying to stay positive that things will change is hard though, and because I'm scarcely earning anything, I'm having a hard time getting to haflas and keeping up my CPD. It's a vicious circle!
 
So I've kept the venue booking at Bloomfield House in Narberth, not least because the staff and welcome there are fantastic, and introduced a 'class card' of a block of (semi-transferable) classes at a reduced rate (upfront payment and some motivation) and a drop-in rate (for the occasionals) and created posters and flyers to advertise it, as well as social media and other online outlets.

So much work, all unpaid, and I must admit that it's because I love it so much that I do a lot of it 'for love'. My most committed dancer/student is using this to make improvements in her mental health and some challenging physical issues. She's been at this for about 3 years now, and managed a hip shimmy last night without moving her arms and shoulders for the first time. I almost cried with happiness.

If you're reading this and thinking about going to a belly dance class, but fear you have no coordination and just 'can't dance', remember - everyone is different. So it might take you a while to learn to shimmy, or you might get it first time. You'll never know unless you try, and it's never too late to start!

Happy New Year 2017!

Here we are again, how the years fly by! Time for another introspective, retrospective, New Year post, and the now-traditional picture of the London Fireworks.

I had more 'Christmas Dos' - meals and meet-ups rather than parties - in December than I've had in a long, long time. The food was very good, the company, chat and laughter all wonderful. I then had a very quiet, solitary Christmas and New Year, which suited me very well, as I knitted and watched TV, lazed in bed, cuddled my clingy cats and generally hibernated. The rest and relaxation had a practical side too; since the cold snap in November, my joints feel as though they have seized and my knees are especially painful. It's now two years since I took any pain meds and I'm trying to stay away from them and manage instead with targeted exercises, distraction, breathing, rest and so on. I've also been fighting off a cold, which so far has not really materialised, but every time I think it's gone, I wake up the next day with a sore throat and fuzzy head. It's just a mild nuisance, nothing compared to the fact that a couple of my friends have been quite ill with flu over the festive season, and my friend S spent Christmas in hospital after some more attempts to lower her intracranial pressure. Really, I've nothing to complain about! Still, the joint pain meant I really couldn't be bothered to tidy my projects away in the living room enough to put decorations up, and have to take them down a couple of weeks later. Not very festive, but I'd only myself to please.

The usual cluttered chaos of beads, yarns, fabrics etc. and general lack of progress getting everything ship-shape made me wonder how to change my habits and what, in fact, I'd achieved this year. Evidently not lots of blog posts. Or cleaning and sorting out. I couldn't remember what I'd done with my time, so glanced back over my diary and to do lists.

I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. I'd cleaned and placed several items of furniture and unpacked several boxes. I'd attended workshops, including 5 days of contemporary dance summer school, to maintain my continuing professional development. I'd updated my emergency first aid certificate. I'd trained as a LIFT (Low Impact Functional Training, in other words, gentle exercise) leader for Age Cymru and covered quite a few classes. Two dance festivals, two choreographies (not counting what we produced for the end-of-summer-school show). Then from midsummer onwards I spent a ridiculous amount of time preparing for a series of workshops which, in the end, didn't attract enough students to run. (I bumped into one of the other tutors just before New Year and we stood in the middle of Lidl and chatted, commiserating over our zero hours contracts and what this next year might bring.) A few other bids for jobs too, all unsuccessful. I  extended my Photoshop and Word skills. And ended the year (at Yule) three kilos lighter than I'd started it.

Actually, a few weeks on and my sedentary and indulgent seasonal holiday has left me almost back where I started. So my first resolution for this year is to call a moratorium on buying sweets, cakes, pastries, biscuits or crisps, a bad habit I've slipped back into over the past couple of years.

Apart from that, it will be a case of working my way through the list of things to do, as long as ever, trying to complete, or at least start and make progress on, projects which have been lingering in my imagination for too long. Some of those are for choreographies, so a lot more dance and costuming is needed.

And, after an appalling financial year, more paid work.

But I made a decision.
This year is going to be fabulous, whether it wants to be or not.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2015

Here we are again!
I had a very pleasant New Year's Eve, enjoying my own company. One of my presents to myself was a copy of Terry Pratchett's 'A Slip of the Keyboard', so I ran a hot bath, and lay in the overflowing bubbles, laughing at the wonderfully-written, funny anecdotes, until the cooling water reminded me that I had better get out and dressed (in new, snuggly pyjamas and gown). A growling tummy also reminded me that I hadn't had dinner, and couldn't be bothered to make anything much. I eventually settled for a jacket potato, baked beans and a strange salad of lettuce and beetroot, with the remains of a bottle of wine. I watched possibly my favourite Bond film, Goldeneye - the tank chase scene in St Petersburg has me in stitches every time. I cuddled up with the cats on the sofa and tinkered with a few knitted leaves while I enjoyed the London fireworks at midnight. (You get a much better view courtesy of the BBC - if I'd been there, I'd probably have been watching other people's backs and heads most of the time.)

Some may think this is very sad; the lonely, spinsterish existence of a Jilly-no-mates who should have been out partying with friends, scarfing down various little canapés while swigging fizzy wine, and singing Auld Lang Syne while sentimentally sloshed. Then, considering that you can't go anywhere around here without driving, a sleepover, rising late and in urgent need of a hangover cure the next day.
However, there's no need to pity me, as I really didn't feel sad or left out at all. Instead I felt grateful that I could have some quiet fun, had enough in the cupboard to slap a meal together, TV to watch, my cats, house and home and myriad other blessings.

I kept 'More' as my key word for 2014, and looking back, I wondered what I had achieved.
I managed to negotiate my way through a corporate tax return and company closure for the Community Interest Company in which I'd been involved. The dancing and teaching bit was fun; the company accounts and paperwork were not, but I like to think we made a difference in some people's lives - in fact, I know we did.
I applied for a few jobs (but only got one reply, and that was a no. Oh well. Some things aren't meant to be).
I dusted off and refreshed some of my existing knowledge to gain my ECDL and qualifications in text/word processing.
I made foot and knee physiotherapy exercises part of my daily life and started going to yoga classes.
I had my first sale on Zazzle.
I had my hair cut short, after years of wearing it long (the last time I had more than a couple of inches cut off was when I moved to Wales full time, 12 years ago!)
I learned how to knit socks and was astonished to find I had made 11.5 pairs (the half a pair was the frogged 'Origami' sock).
I introduced myself to lace knitting and learned new techniques for knitting and crochet.
I've extended my knowledge of belly dance, created choreographies and performed them. Class members resurrected the performance group for a brilliant performance at the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival.
I found my sewing mojo again, even if I am finding it difficult to hang onto it.

So, what is the word for 2015? Well, it's going to be a year of changes, the first of which is to find a new home! Yes, I have been bought out of the farm, and although all the properties I'd earmarked while waiting for the transfer to go ahead have gone, I feel hopeful that there will be something with capability out there for me.
So the word is 'Change'. Change is scary, demanding, exciting, necessary. Change is transformation. One of my friends bought me a little silver butterfly pendant as a Christmas gift and I am wearing it to remind myself to embrace the changes to come. Who knows, I might even throw a party this year!

So Excited About This ...

... that I just had to blog about it!
A little while ago, I had an urge to look on the government jobs portal.  As I am 'underemployed', I am registered on it in the vain hope of something interesting and flexible being available, and every so often it automatically sends me a mail with a list of jobs which theoretically match my skills and CV. (The type of jobs it comes up with makes me doubt their software.)

Browsing through, I found a job for a technical author at a local firm which manufactures and supplies medical equipment. Despite the key words in my profile, it hadn't matched me to the job.  I read and re-read the job specification and felt really excited.  I was a pretty good match!  It was some stupid o'clock, so I slept on it, then woke early the following day to make sure my summary CV was okay, and sent off my application. Crossed fingers, I waited.

I read the job spec out to my Dad, who said 'Oh, that's YOU!' Yes, I think so too. A couple of weeks after the application had been sent and I still hadn't heard anything, I started to worry, so I sent an email to check that they had received it.  They had, all was well and I would hear in due course if I had been shortlisted for interview.

Waiting to find out was a curious form of torture.  I found myself obsessively checking one of my email accounts and lying in wait for the postman. After a month, I got a letter inviting me for an interview. The next morning, they called to rearrange it.  That afternoon, it was rearranged again. No problem!

In recent years, my wardrobe has evolved to match my lifestyle. It contains lots of yoga and harem pants for teaching in, loads of T-shirts ditto, velour and sparkly evening-type things for haflas, belly dance costumes, grotty clothes for dirty jobs and some summer skirts and dresses (which all got an airing this year, disproving the idea that if you haven't worn something for a year, you should get rid of it.  What a waste!)

I hurriedly ordered a jersey dress which I liked the look of and which would go with an existing jacket and boots (luckily the toe has healed and become flexible enough to get shoes on, even though it's not really any better than it was pre-op).  As it still hadn't arrived after a couple of days, I also found and bought another jacket, trousers and pair of ankle boots.  The latter all arrived, and became my interview clothes.  (The dress arrived the day after the interview and is a lighter jersey than I expected, but will be lovely as a dress for Christmas.)

On interview day, I arrived early, chatted happily to the interview panel, made a hash of the grammar and writing tests (which then kept me awake and I'm still kicking myself!) and learnt that I have been shortlisted for a second interview.  I'm so happy, but also thrilled and terrified in equal measure; excited and stressed.

For the past ten days or so, all this has been accompanied by an earworm since a friend reminded me about the Moody Blues. I used to have several of their albums on tape, and played them over and again on long-distance solo drives while I sang along at the top of my voice, until they were eaten by the tape player or otherwise destroyed. For some reason, I haven't replaced any of them, perhaps because they reminded me of the groove I left in the M4 from all the driving, which I hated. Now this song, 'Question', won't go away, and I keep singing bits. By 3 minutes 30, Justin Hayward's lovely voice has turned me into a gooey mess. Everyone sing now '... I'm looking for a miracle in my life ...'

I've had wonderful support from my Facebook friends, all rooting for me, wishing me well and praying for me. Now I need to calm down, get some sleep, do some exercises to get rid of the almighty tension headache brought on by all this stress excitement and try to prepare for whatever might be thrown at me on second interview, whenever that will be.

The Joy of Movement

One of the most frustrating things I'm finding about my osteoarthritis (OA) is, amazingly, not the daily pain and limitations on movement (although that's bad enough), but the fine line between doing enough and too much.  It's unpredictable on any given day how much will be too much, but I still the need to move and exercise because I know that without it, I will seize up altogether and that will be even more painful. I had some physiotherapy for my knees, which woke me up to the need to strengthen my quad muscles and pay attention to my knee tracking. The Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) Workshop last year changed my view of somatics from a word which I read and puzzled over, to something real.  It awoke my curiosity in how I and others move and the links between movement and context, environment, emotional and physical states and the senses.  The realisation of how my OA is going to be a permanent feature of my life started a grieving process, of a sort.  Once over the initial upset, I knew I would have to start to listen to my body and rethink movement, learning to move in a different way.

After the success of the SRT workshop, a new series of somatic movement workshops started at Penpynfarch studio.  Unfortunately, the state of my knees and the timing of the operation on my foot meant that I have missed four out of the seven so far. Now my knees and toe/foot are improving, I'm driving again, and I need to dance and move!

Somatics refers to the link between the body and mind and its influence on movement. During the 20th Century, it developed into a broad field of approaches to awakening awareness and gaining a deeper understanding of the whole body in motion, using various techniques such as breathing, visualisation and various sensory stimuli. Some of the methods aim to reduce or eliminate chronic pain.  I can see how this could be the case for pain caused by poor movement habits, which can cause imbalances and tightness in muscles over time, pulling the body out of alignment and affecting posture and gait. I'm not sure how effective it could be for pain caused by OA, but it will make me think about the way in which I react to the pain in terms of body movement.

I love serendipitous coincidences!  As I continue my work to try and improve the function of my toes and knees, a fortnightly contemporary dance class started locally through Arts Care Gofal Celf.  It's really more of an extended warm-up and technique session for the youth performance group, but it is taught by a great young teacher who knows my background in dance and is happy for me to work differently at the back, playing with movements to adapt them to my capabilities, skipping those which would frankly be unwise. Each week I can safely test my limitations, explore the limits of my movement and do a little more.  I find that with a hot bath and an extra hour in bad the following day, I get a good 24 hours post-class reprieve from the worst of the OA symptoms and can feel the strength and flexibility creeping back into me, in a way that physiotherapy doesn't supply.

With the somatics workshops and the contemporary dance classes, there's a lot of floor work.  I'm suprised at how much I'm enjoying stretching, breathing, listening to and working with my body.  I've become fascinated with the healing process for my toe. Yes, it is highly subjective and apparently completely self-centred, but doing it with a group also provides insights into how others think about and experience movement. Who knew that rolling around on the floor could be so good for you?

False perspective, toe on window ledge; playing with extension of tree shapes

A Pain in the Neck

One of my aims or resolutions was to sort out some of my health issues, so while I was waiting for a date for my foot operation, I decided to chase up a date for the minor operation to remove a cyst from my scalp, behind my left ear.  It was a teenage acne type spot which didn't heal properly when I was about 15 and has been steadily growing since then.  Years ago, my then GP said that I couldn't have it removed on the NHS because it was cosmetic, as it was covered by my hair.  Since then, it had grown to a size where it was noticeable, uncomfortable to lie on, and got inflamed every so often.  Luckily, one of the doctors at my current surgery can do these sorts of minor ops and I had a discussion with him about it late last year - then nothing happened.
So I asked about it, and found that I had not been scheduled. The surgery were mortified to have missed me, and sorted it out as soon as they could, giving me a date in the second week of June.
The day came and off I went, and it was fine.  The local anaesthetic was the worst bit, as there isn't much skin to inject into and it stings abominably until it starts to work - and on me it seems to take longer than expected.  Still, once comfortably numb, the doctor got to work, removed the cyst (which was larger than I expected - at about 2 cm diameter, the size of a small cherry tomato) and sewed me up again. I had to sit quietly with a cup of water for a while, and it turned out that stopping me bleeding was a bit tricky. A change of dressings, with additional pressure from a crepe bandage round my head, and I went off home with instructions not to turn my head much, not to wash my hair for a week, and to return in a fortnight for the stitches to be removed.
I had nothing planned for the evening, but the nurse was a little alarmed that I was driving myself home, lived alone and wasn't taking a few days off work - as I'm self employed, it's not like I can call in sick or just decide not to work!  The doctor, bless him, called me a couple of times during the evening, to check that the bleeding had stopped, I was feeling okay and tell me I had his permission to just sit quietly on the sofa watching a DVD. The nurse called the following day to check up on me again, which was nice, although if I hadn't been okay, I don't know if they would have been able to send someone out or not - there doesn't seem to be much provision for home visits.

As it turned out, the bruising and stitches made turning my head really quite uncomfortable, but the incision healed well.  It was in a place I couldn't see, but I took a few photos to check on the wound. I debated adding one here, but decided no-one would want to see that, yuk!  Unfortunately, by the time the stitches were to come out, they had become infected. So I ended up on antibiotics and then antifungals to deal with thrush as a side effect of the antibiotics, and lots of probiotic yoghurt while I tried to re-establish my gut flora and deal with the side effects of the painkillers I was taking for my knee osteoarthritis flare.

Once off the antibiotics and with only a couple of weeks to go to my foot op, I decided I needed to do a bit more about my fitness, and went to the beach for a swim.  I had a bit of an earache, but after half an hour in the cold, sandy water with bits of floating weed and crabs' legs, I had completely had enough.  I went home, had a hot bath to get the remainder of the sand off me and went to bed with my ear no better. By the following morning, my ear was swollen and I felt a bit deaf. With the earliest available appointment the day after that, I went back to the GP, to confirm that I had an outer ear infection, and needed another course of antibiotics to knock it on the head, so to speak, and ensure it cleared up before my foot op, otherwise the latter would have to be postponed. It took the full week of antibiotics to resolve it, but at least I didn't have any other side effects this time.

All in all, it's been something of a pain in the neck, but with the weight loss as an ongoing work in progress, I think I can now say that the aim has been achieved!

Projects and Weight Loss - A Frustrating Lack of Progress

Three months ago, when I reached a low point, I was inspired to set a few aims to transform my life in three months.  Did I manage it?  No.  Am I despondent?  No.  Well, perhaps a little, but more frustrated at my lack of progress.

The Easter projects are still ongoing, long after Easter. The hall stand is still standing in the kitchen, waiting for a rub down and a final coat of paint. Then the hall will need some work before I move it into place. I am managing not to be a perfectionist about it - rough is okay, but not so rough that the wood catches my scarves or scratches my hands as I hang things up.

Rain has frequently stopped play/work in the garden. We had a month's worth of rain the other night, so the soil is horribly claggy again.  How can such stoney soil also be so claggy? Now that the weather is warmer, the areas I've cleared are greening up again and it feels as though everything is escaping from me! I wanted to cut back the pieris in the corner, but the advice was to do it once it had finished flowering.  Good advice, too - the bumble bees have loved the flowers! I'm going to lose the lovely flame coloured shoots, unfortunately.  It turns out the buddleias which I had to move and heel in have not survived the cold and wet from earlier this year.  Luckily, there are some more self-seeded buddleias around the place which I can move.  The idea is that I get it done so I can sit out there in the sun (hopefully) while recovering from my foot operation.

I'm still waiting for a date for my operation; I've just had a pre-op assessment and been told it could be another 6 weeks before I get a date, and in the meantime, I need to get my blood pressure under control.  The lack of ability to plan ahead is stressing me out in a very big way, I hate having my blood pressure taken because it's invariably painful (the one done at the pre-op assessment has left bruises), and I'm having another flare of the osteoarthritis in my knees (since doing lots of work on the garden).  No wonder my blood pressure is high!

For the past year, I have been trying to lose weight. I've exchanged various foods for low fat versions, stopped eating meat, reduced my intake of bread and dairy, hardly ever drink alcohol and do an average of half an hour exercise a day as a baseline. I have been trying to keep the calorie count to approx 1600-1800 calories a day.  Then I found some NHS advice which said that 1400 cals should be the target. I've tried having a day or two a week where I only eat up to 1000 calories. What I've found is that my weight bounces up and down by three or four kilos over a number of weeks.  The worst is when I do dance workshops.  I'm wise to the 'compensation' effect of wanting to eat more when I've been doing exercise, so I try to drink more instead.  I find I then am up by a couple of kilos.  Even if this is only water, it then has to go. It feels rather like two steps forward, two steps back, as on balance (sorry, pun not intended), I'm not losing weight!

The trouble is, I love food and don't believe that denying yourself what you love is a good idea. So while I don't have crisps, cakes, biscuits or sweets in the house (except possibly at Christmas), I will still have a biscuit or two when I'm out. Surely a pudding once every couple of months should not be a problem?  One of my danger areas is refueling the car, because it's too easy to pick up snacks and sweets at the same time.  Last May, I had ballooned to my heaviest because, although I was dancing a lot, I was also doing a lot of driving around and I often picked up sandwiches, crisps and Maltesers as I filled up the car and whizzed off to my next appointment.

I know I'm an emotional eater, eating when I'm stressed, upset, worried, tired, lacking in energy, procrastinating .... My other danger area is portion size.  In deliberately trying to lose weight, I feel as though I am denying myself and this is made worse when I see the size of some recommended servings (even in a small bowl, to try to trick myself with the resulting optical illusion that it's a bigger serving than it in fact is). I know that this sort of thing triggers me to binge. The usual advice to eat slowly so that the brain gets time to register and feedback that you are feeling full doesn't seem to work with me.  I can graze all day.  Similarly, the advice not to eat with the TV on, so that you can fully concentrate on and enjoy your food, doesn't always work for me.  If it's just me, enjoying what I'm eating, I might carry on eating until there is nothing left. Watching the TV or working at the computer can be distracting enough sometimes that I don't even finish my food. When I'm happy and busy, I forget to eat, but then have to be careful not to skip meals and over-compensate later!

I like to cook from scratch with whatever I happen to have, and calorie counting for off-the-cuff recipes like this can be very time consuming. I guess this is why people go for slimming clubs and their products, like Weight Watchers. How much easier to go for a calorie-counted ready meal worth so many points, and feel as though you're treating yourself with another little branded item?  The bread is thin-cut and mostly air, no taste, so ultimately dissatisfying, and no wonder it's lighter on the calories than an artisan loaf full of seeds.  My experience of organised slimming groups was brief. I dislike the cost in money and the time needed, and having to sit and listen to the lectures and quizzes, and most of all dislike the competitive and judgemental nature of the weigh in. Everyone is doing it, so it masquerades as support, but I'm rather anti-competition. It might be different with a group of friends all doing it, and then the support is not really from the slimming group. The weight and inches coming off are positive outputs, but the inputs (food and drink) need to be viewed positively too, for the nutrition, seasonality, taste. If the key to long term weight loss is a change in eating habits, relationship to food, and lifestyle, then demonising food isn't going to help. And while there are people who aren't that bothered about food and are okay with meal replacement milk shakes for weeks on end, I know that I am not one of them.

I was ranting on discussing all this with a friend in much the same situation last week (talk about preaching to the converted!) and she was inspired to start a little closed group on Facebook to provide friendly support, minus the slimming club. To raise our consciousness of what we are eating, when and why, we can record and share it, as well as ideas and recipes and it is free.  I feel like together, we can do this!

Despite the frustrations, I have found the mechanism of checking into my diary, breaking down jobs and listing them, microbursting, crossing things off, getting SMARTer about setting objectives, all works well for me. I am achieving my resolution of doing more. This week, I am resetting my aims for the next three months. I wonder how things will look then?

Easter Projects

Here we are again, having a dry, cold spring.  We've missed the worst of the snow here, something to be thankful for, given the devastating effect it has had on stock, especially ewes and lambs, elsewhere. The jet stream is on the wrong side of us again, and we might be looking at another washout summer.

A couple of months ago, I realised I was starting to feel depressed (again), overwhelmed by all the things on my 'to do' list, frustrated and unsettled.  It looks like we will be putting the farm on the market, and that raises questions about where I will go and what I'll be able to afford, as well as how I shall earn enough to keep myself.  I am also waiting for an operation on the osteoarthritis in my right foot. It may be in July or August, if I am deemed fit enough to have the op, but I don't have a firm date.  It makes it very hard to plan ahead or commit to anything. Over the past several weeks, I've been fighting my usual procrastination and lack of motivation but this time, I feel as though I'm winning.

I always have lots of 'projects' on the go, but decided to concentrate on two which would make a big difference to me.  One is a hall stand, so that I have somewhere to put boots, shoes and coats.  I've gone for years with the boots and shoes in a heap and the coats on a back of a chair.  There isn't really enough room in the small hallway, but considering that the loose boots and shoes create something of an obstacle course anyway, it has to be an improvement.

The second project is to transform the back 'garden' to this cottage. It used to be enclosed by various shrubs, but these were mostly cleared away a couple of years ago, which allowed a clear view out to the north and allowed more light into the cottage, but removed most of the cover and interest for wildlife. Since then, the rough grasses, nettles, docks, brambles, creeping buttercup, hogweed and ivy have had a free reign to turn the 'garden' into a weedy patch with a washing line in it. Last year I thought that I should clear it, construct a couple of raised beds out of old palettes and have a central area covered with broken slates. I allowed myself to be dissuaded, told that it was too much work and not worth it. It's not a big area - roughly the size of a mock-up patio you might see in a DIY or garden centre. Every time I looked out at the garden, with its dead stumps where the shrubs had been cut back so hard they died and brambles scrambling over everything, I compared what was there with my vision for it.  So, I've started work. It is proving hard going. The clay soil is still claggy, even after this dry spell, but there is a lot of stony rab and building rubble in there too, all bound together with a mass of nettle, bramble and ivy roots. It needs to be done now, before everything springs into life again. Still, it feel like good exercise and I am enjoying it. I also bought a cheap bird feeder stand and some peanuts and seed.  I've noticed the birds are very happy with that, and the bare earth I'm creating, so much so that every so often I have to take a break to stop them scolding me for getting in their way.

Coffee break over. Time to get back out there!