Day 180 – The wondering
Though this is always something I had a niggling suspicion about it turns out that festivals are generally better on a smaller scale. When the boy and I went to Glastonbury a few years ago it was admittedly awesome but we had to cross fifty fields the size of football pitches to get anywhere. Though there was loads to see the set up was such that one often felt like a metaphorical car trapped in gridlock traffic during rush hour. Crowds were constant, mud was unavoidable and the amount of times I tripped and landed up to my backside in mud though funny was really just far too many for anyone with a delicate deriere and skin not suited to mud baths.
Latitude however is so far a really rather lovely place. Though I heard rumours and saw pictures it turns out that it is in fact true, they do dye the sheep a range of rainbow colours and though some may think its cruel I think its practical. One no longer needs to dye the wool post shearing plus the sheep look pretty pleased with their new near peacock status. There are showers and everything is wonderfully close together. Though there are a lot of aspects to it which are a little hooray henry to my liking; they sell oysters, venison and ostrich in the arena; overall the atmosphere is rather pleasant.
My only major issue with the place is that due no doubt to their la la land mentality their ability to handle logistics is shameful and to get into the camp the queueing demands are in disarray. After queueing for two hours I get told by a rather rude woman with a microphone that only people with children may progress to the check in desk. Though to this point I have tried to follow the practice of compassion to those that make one angered at this point I rather lose my cool and loudly say that perhaps I could borrow someone else’s child for the time being or maybe make sure I got knocked up in time for next year.
I was being a bit naughty but the people with children have extra labour to carry all their kit and I only had the boy who kept moaning that bringing two home-made quilts and my duck feather pillow was a tad excessive. I referred him to my rear and told him to kiss it or face finding himself another residence for the festival. The heat and hauling baggage makes it might seem for a rather tetchy lady in a dress.
After setting up camp in the wind we are impressed to find that the boy’s lovely friends from Letchworth have brought a marquee and inflatable chair. Plus they are all lovely and have the kind of humour I love which has no holds barred and nothing which is not open to taking the mick out of. My old flat mates used to be like this and it meant that I had minimal emotional melt downs all year as I had to harden up.
Though it turns out that Tom Jones is hanging out in the woods we decide after a wonderful amount of cider to take a wonder. The boy, James – the bassist of the boy’s band and I take a wondering around the camp site. The boy spots the romantic restaurant by the lake and hints that it may be nice to go which is nice as soon he will know that I have sneakily booked us in weeks in advance. It rather feels as though we are in a magical dream, along with all the coloured sheep there is a forest where one is set upon by fake paramedics, a bubble and fire blowing shop and a piano in a field where one can play. After my brief recital at the country hall a couple of weeks ago I take again to the keys with glee and make all in the vicinity glad with the only ditty I know – Twinkle Twinkle. There are still a lot of children around whose parents are keen to stay up late so I feel that I played to my audience well.
After bumbling about and trying to extract a giant ball from its resting place while putting on posh accents just because we find the many hoorahs in the site rather funny the boy convinces me that without our bedding we may well freeze and or break or backs. We set out instead then to find the car. As far as we remember this should be a fairly easy task being as it didn’t seem too far away and that after all how many cars could there really be. It turns out that there were a lot and that in spite of having a key which unlocks the car in the pitch black finding a Peugot is near impossible.
The boy insists that it is near a dead tree but as there are only living trees it is not long before our tempers flare and we have a little dispute about why there would be a dead tree in a field where there are only lush trees. He, I say, must have imagined dead tree and as a result we have been wondering round for two hours (this is no exaggeration) to find a fantasy tree.
When we eventually find it I take great comfort from the fact that he does not point out there is a dead tree nearby though this could be as much to do with my threat that as there was no sofa I would sleep in the car if he continued to be crotchety. We eventually return to the camp-site and after a few ciders and some wonderful warmth our hippy glow is restored and the wondering in the desert of the dead tree is forgotten as the sobriety slips away.with them a Marquee. Admittedly
- Today’s dress is from Abby Evans who I used to work with when I was a teenager at the market cafe in Market Harborough. She was a total sweetheart and often it was like having a little sister one day a week. She dropped it through my door after reading the blog and it is from a website as I understand it called BooHoo. I had to wear it with a crop top as without it revealed a little too much of my lady bumps. And though this is a festival and free love is the name of the game one has to have some standards at least on the first day. The cowboy hat and the wellingtons are pretty much the only items of clothing to have survived Glastonbury apart from my hot-pants though sadly I cannot wear these festival wardrobe staples.
Day 179 – The thrill of the chase, being a bit naughty and the reversal of the ageing process
Today has been bloody brilliant. Not only am I off on holiday tomorrow to see all kinds of wonderful people including the lovely Florence, Belle and Sebastian and Everything Everything but I have also had a day as a little paparazzi. Harborough town had a very exciting event happen over the weekend after a real life celebrity came to town. Mark Owen his very self was spotted in Homebase buying of all things rope.
The tweeters of Harborough and in turn the sites and the sound waves of the town were a buzz with the gossip and by Monday it was established that he had been here but we had no real idea why. After some digging, some calls and some sourcing it was discovered that little Mark had come here to visit a new festival called Lubstock. For anyone with families let me say that by the look of the photo’s this will be the place to go next year. It is very small, hundreds rather than thousands and by the looks of it involves a lot of camp fires singing, select acts and children running round the fields blowing bubbles with their faces painted all pretty while parents relax round the fire.
Now all of this information including a wonderful quote I got from the organiser about how helpful Mark had been was ll good and well but without a photo it all still seemed a bit far reached. After much searching on facebook twitter and the Harborough forums I came across a photo of little Mark with two other fellas. It turned out that one of the bands who had played, the Little Night Terrors had their photo taken with him and they very kindly sent it our way. It is shameful but it is all so tongue in cheek that it is one of my favourite articles so far and it was just so much fun to research and write.
We also found out that on the same day as Mark went to homebase he also bumped into Harborough’s tribute to Robbie Williams, a man called Dave Napier. We’ve done stories on Dave before and though he looks nothing like Robbie the idea that on the same weekend that Take That reunited Robbie and Mark met up in the car park of homebase is quite sweet really.
- Today’s dress is from Florence and Fred but it feels extremely fashionable and the thickness of the material and the structure means one could be forgiven for thinking it was designer. I had to go and see the psych today and the appointment actually went rather well considering where we were the last time we met. the serum is obviously starting to have an affect or perhaps being happy makes us look younger as he said I looked as though I was 30-years-younger. As I am 26 this is perhaps a tad worrying and I think I might cut back on applications or risk falling into dark matter.
Day 178 – Power to the planners of Harborough and to my heels which made it through the day
For the uninitiated; thanks to soaring house prices the closer most of us come to property ownership is the storage we rent so we can peacefully co-exist in a home to let with not enough room to swing a small sweet fluffy hamster let alone a cat; a garden grabber is a planing issue where developers seize on little bits of land ir gardens where they can plonk on additional homes. They buy these plots then apply for permission to place more homes into the back gardens often blocking the light or invading the privacy of the surrounding neighbours. Thus the term garden grabbers.
The other issue at large is the, nimbys, otherwise known as the not in my back yard members of the public. Most of you will have heard before about residents kicking up a storm over things like airport flight paths being extended and sadly in the not too distant past about council’s locating mental health units to nearby towns. These groups of people who protest to erections of unwanted dwellings are often referred to as nimby’s because there is the belief that they wouldn’t have a problem with it had it been placed elsewhere in the town.
- Today’s dress is one of the one’s given to me in the beginning by Lara. It was probably a little warm for today as it is woollen but I love the A line cut of it though sadly it did not manage to streamline the water off me when a rainpour started as we left for the meeting thus leaving me looking more drowned hamster than Jackie O. Today for the first time since they cut my feet to ribbons I find myself able to wear my beautiful shoes. I was under the impression that today was to be a day of office work thus wearing 7″ heels would be quite a sensible move. Sadly I was sent to court making mini steps all the way there and later had to totter my way to the planning meeting and with not a lift in sight all the way back up the hill to home. They are gorgeous but my God I am starting to understand why celebrities need limousines to pull them up to the door of the party, how would they walk there otherwise?
Day 177 – Productivity, pride and principles
I think I am generally a little bit loopy. After a particuarly touch and go weekend where if I’m honest there were a lot of things in the balance including my general ability to continue to function. Today though I find myself not only an able bodied member of the work force but also in a really rather good mood. One of the constant questions one gets asked by numerous consultants, psychiatric nurses and other doctors of the head when diagnosed* is what thoughts were going through your head just before you began to feel depressed.
Well quite frankly this is one of the most frustrating questions in the world of medicine and should be shelved along with the equally irritating where did you last see your keys before they went missing. At this point if I was the type of person to use emoticons, which I am not, I would attempt to convey my displeasure at these questions with an appalling yellow face with about as much ability to express emotional complexities as a cotton wheel wrapped in magnolia wool.
The question is so annoying because when one begins to feel depressed it is not like having a little light bulb moment but a slow pull on one’s resources. In the way it works its way through one’s system it is so subtle that when you fall, though you may have had a number of negative thoughts or experiences before you tripped all your poor head can focus on is the fact that you are lying flat on your back.
In this position of vulnerability and slightly altered perspective any attempts to pin down the point at which you pierced your way through the rabbit hole can leave you lying lower as you try to focus your thoughts in on the negative and more often than not with a rather ferocious headache. I stress that this is the case for me though I imagine this technique has the potential to work well for others who are maybe more analytically minded or lovely and logical.
In the same way then when I try to apply this thought process in reverse to work out why today I am okay whereas on Friday I wanted to fade into nothing I honestly do not know. On the plus side however and in the interests of focusing on the positive it is days like today, when I love my work, feel happy with my body, the boy and just life generally that I wonder whether these other days, the darker ones are even real. How is it that in the space of a couple of days I can go from being near bed ridden with melancholy to borderline high.
Earlier in the post when I was talking about being diagnosed with a mental health condition my fingers initially hovered over this sentence: “For those who are suffering from”. I do not quite understand why but there was and has always been something I find troubling in the use of the word suffering to describe a person with a mental health condition. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying, it is not because people with mental health conditions do not suffer it is perhaps because there are times like today when I am doing okay and so to describe myself in terms of suffering makes me feel passive and overly sorry for myself. Though it is a strange thing to admit on days like today when I wake from slumbers at 6am having had only four hours sleep and still ready to roll I actually feel as though my illness does not always have to be described in such negative terms.
One of the things that has always struck me about my sleepless nights and existence at times on one day’s worth of sleep in any given week is the wonder that I can function so well for so long. One of the things that always stood out in my mind from history is the fact that Sir Winston Churchill survived the war on 4 hours sleep a night and generous helpings of liquor. Though I may be kidding myself that I am functioning at this time and that everything I am turning out during these times is shoddy today I felt happy with my copy and even while not even searching for any dark or sunny feelings, I felt the slightest twinge of pride.
- Today’s dress is from Principles and is one the boy bought me back when I was working in McClelland. It is a bit of an odd dress as I link it to a place of work where I was unhappy, the boy’s brother’s wedding where I wore it but felt seriously overweight (though that is hardly unusual) and a bit of a mixed memory when I was walking home in it from work when I noticed my ex-boyfriend was walking over the other side from me. I looked ahead and got on the next bus as soon as I could so never knew if he saw me though it still irks me that had he turned his head it would have been the first time he had seen me in trainers. In a dress that is perfectly linen and carefully pressed a sporting accessories is just not an option one should even consider being seen in least of all by an ex. Do take note of my advice potential dress buyers this sad tale is not one I would happily hear repeated.
Day 176 – Nature take two
One thing that will never fail to amaze me about bipolar is how quickly one’s mood changes. It literally is like being dangled by a rope which swings randomly back and forth in the wind never really staying still for more than a few minutes before it gets caught up again. It’s a silly thing to say I know but the truth is the highs I can cope with and when faced with the alternative I welcome it with open arms when it comes to lift the darkness away and see me soar to the stars.
Today though I am feeling like the self that I am most comfortable with. Sarcastic and cynical but up for a giggle, a bit of a minx with a soft heart and a shamefully sensitive side. The boy and I have seemingly rectified our differences, it seems that talking about things is not always the best course and there are times when things are best swept under a rather attractive but robust antique Persian rug.
We wake fairly early, well I do and use coffee and kisses to wake his truly and decide to head off on a picnic. The weather is perfect and I want so desperately to make the most of this time right now where the world seems like a good place. There is a place we used to go to as kids near Corby called East Carlton Park. We ran riot playing Billy Goats Gruff and the troll on the bridges, climbing trees, clambering up steam engines and chasing one another like deranged ferrets around the grounds with no thought to calorie or cholesterol, only fun.
The boy and I have never been before. If I was in an analytical mood I might conclude that it is perhaps because my family memories are so precious that I am protective of them, fearful they will be corrupted or merged in with the mediocre rather than remaining in the soft focus monochrome of my mind.
The other reason could be of course that I’ve just never got round to it. either way the park is beautiful, there is play parks for the children which keeps them to a minimum elsewhere, a little museum about the estate’s function through the ages, a craft shop, tea room, ice cream parlour and streches of green stuff and fields to play in. Ever since we had our Oak Tree cut down, apparently two years ago but I only noticed last year there have been a sad lack of squirrels so when we kept catching sight of them here it made me smile though I felt rather sad and somewhat tree-sick. Silly foundation destroying residential root issues.
We have the most gorgeous picnic using a set my parents got given on their engagement. It is still in near perfect condition with the same flasks, Tupperware and china cups and saucers they had back then. My mother admits that they had to replace two of the cups but as that was 30 years ago now its survival is still impressive. I am rather impressed at our country living as the last time we tried this as my regular readers will be aware we were chased away by pesky flies which made me think that perhaps all this hippy living in the fresh air really wasn’t for me. I feel today has been good practice for next week when I will be in a tent at Latitude festival, all very exciting and as I understand it unlike Glastonbury this place has toilet attendants and lovely showers which aren’t crowded out by soap dodgers taking their annual bath.
I am rather concerned about the blog in my absence, hopefully pictures wont be a problem but I don’t really want to have to spend hours updating the blogs themselves. If anyone fancies writing a post on mental health issues or even a review of how dreadful you think the posts or dresses have been of late it would be a great help. If so please do send them to ellie_lenor@hotmail.com. I know some people have offered to write them in the past but several months later I’m not holding out any hope that they will be arriving till 2012, along with the four horses of the apocolypse.
- Today’s dress is from Danielle Star an old friend of mine and technically my first ever best friend in the days when these things had to be written in ink or crayon. She dropped me off a huge bag of dresses a month ago and this is among the first of them that I have had the chance to wear. It was rather short and also somewhat windy so I managed to flash plenty of country squires and half the shoppers at Sainsbury’s in Harborough. The boy found it very funny, I wearing red frilly knickers with a bow on them did not! The dress has no label so I’m going to assume its Prada, one can usually tell from the distinctive markings around the tailored line.
Day 175 – The Sicilian Sainsburys scandal
So apparently from time to time miracles do happen and prayers do get answered. By the time the boy arrived last night I had managed to, in the words of a 6ft 7″ boy I used to have a massive crush on, “pulled myself together woman”. I was still a bit teary but was trying and so when the boy suggested going to Pizza Express, a crowded place full of the good, great and of course the truly shameless of Harborough town’s Friday night crew I relented and said how nice that would be.
To be fair it wasn’t bad and by focusing my attention entirely on the positive I managed to make it through the whole meal without offering one critique. What matter if I had to nearly bite off my tongue or chew my cheeks after waiting 45 minutes for a bruschetta, for once we had a meal of peace and harmony though I think the boy was secretly wishing I would complain when our profiteroles came out looking like the rest of our meal in reverse.
It was here while at Pizza Express, which was overall very lovely and most importantly at this time of instability and well being quite broke as a whole they take vouchers. The best thing about the vouchers as well is that when people reach for them they do it in the same way one used to pull out a £50 while at a bar to grab the attention of the waitress; do note I never did this for two reasons, one I used to be a bar maid and know there is no surer way of not being served at that station ever and two because I have never in my life possessed a £50 note. I did however once own two £20 pound notes though, ah those were the days before financial frugality and back of a pizza box buy one get one frees.
Anyway as I was saying the vouchers, one no longer presents a voucher like a back door secret but as a sign of pride. Vouchers these days do not say I am tight, well maybe a little bit but they also say “I too am cutting back”, “I too know about the strange site where said man tells one how to save money in new and interesting ways such as not spending as much”. Even the staff it would seem are resigned to this new bill paying method and ask us prior to payment whether we would settle the bill by voucher, visa or plain old fashioned dirty cash.
Here then we shall return as it were to the scandal of the Sicilian Lemonade. Now I can only imagine you must be thinking what I first thought when I saw this truly dreadfully named beverage on the menu in Lake Garda many years ago. What kind of jumped up over priced waste of water that would be, I’ll take a cognac Bellini thank you very much and don’t spare the horses on the cognac.
It was not until the other day when back in the UK and feeling sorry for myself about my inability to drink more than a glass of wine without turning into a sentimental bubbling wreck that I came upon this drink once more. Again we were at pizza express; new place to be when mother is having a sulk and refusing to cook and rest of us not hungry enough to do it ourselves; and just to be different I decided to order the shamefully bumped up jumped up drink.
It was delicious! Seriously, Coca Cola could be in for a tough time if this stuff gets out on the market. I drank it like an alcoholic on a desert island drinks diesel. I did not even notice its lack of alcohol content as it was so darn yummy. By the time the boy then suggested Pizza Express though I had reservations about feeling so delicate being surrounded by so many people it was the thought of the lemonade that got me there along with important issue of saving relationship.
Boy noticed my addiction quite quickly, may well have been my assault on his own lemonade by secret straw attack that gave me away and as he was still in a bit of a grump he said it was probably from Sainsburys anyway.
Well I was a little hurt and his comment sowed the seed of doubt in my mind. Where I asked myself after all was the pretty little glass bottle one usually gets with jumped up over priced beverages, indeed where in fact was the napkin and the beer top style opener. And why indeed did I think did I like it so much, could it be that it reminded my tingling sugar filled taste buds of the old fashioned lemonade we used to get when we were kids. But no I thought, it can not be, after all that drink is a mere 60p even after all this inflation and this drink is £2.20 for a glass which contains less than half a pint.
It wasn’t until the end of the meal when we had received the bill – drinks cost same as our individual main courses that I got up the courage to ask our surly waitress, “From where dear madam do you import your lemonade?” I was being a bit of an arse, obviously I thought with a label like that there can only be one place the lemonade could come from. ”Sainsburys,” she replied. I turned to the boy to see a look of triumphant glee and giving him my voucher I managed to just about hold my tongue.
- Today’s dress is another of those sent by HP and co. Thank you ever so much as it really is quite classic New Look, back in the days when they weren’t trying to emulate the cheap and depressing business model of might as well bin it six weeks after buying it Pradamark. We went to my lovely girl friends party who had a BBQ and though it was a little chilly the boy lent me his fleece lined grey hoodie so as the game of cheat (children were temporarily present) got going I looked a little silly but warm nevertheless.
Day 174 – The prayer
Sometimes I wonder how healthy being in a long distance relationship is. All those goodbyes and hours spent apart are not so good for anyone’s heart. Yet the truth is no mater how many tears I cry when we have to say goodbye I struggle to imagine a life without the boy.
He is coming down this evening and though I have been counting the hours till he arrives I have also been praying that I will be better by the time he steps on to the platform. I still have an hour and as I understand it miracles though rare do happen so God willing by the time he arrives the tears will have stopped, the sadness that has gripped me will fade and somehow everything will be okay.
- Today’s dress is from Marks and Spencer and though I have not warmed to it at all, bad length for a short ass like me, particularly when heel situation is still critical and having to wear god awful flip flops (yes Elly I know you wear them all the time but they are still smelly slippers albeit more attractive than Uggs). The boy however really likes it which makes me slightly nervous as I think he maybe wants me to turn into a Conservative, based on their current need to strip back the NHS to the bone there is little chance of this happening. Oddly enough this is another dress from the mysterious dress donor who I believe to be the Polish Princess in spite of her denial. It had a BHF label on it and was a little too big but certainly did the job even if I do look a bit like a frumpasourus.
Day 173 – To be happy and jolly and gay, oh please God if you could only take it away
There are days like today when the depression seems to poison my mind. It gets into every corner and it turns every thing bad. I try, I really do, to focus on the positive and the good. I try to start small, the cool breeze, a pretty flower, having enough food not to go hungry, a home, a family and someone who loves me.
My mind though in this state is ruthless in how quickly it can ruin all of these things. It turns them not into blessings but into a list of things that I am ruining by being this way. In this sense I cannot appreciate the home, the family or the love that is given to me because I think that I do not deserve it. How can someone who is so miserable, so melancholy all the time expect or even deserve to have love.
I know that all of this sounds crazy but today has been a very black day and I am afraid, so very afraid that it will take hold of me once more. I am so lonely and though I know there are so many people who support me and care for me I feel as though I am fighting this alone.
Part of the problem is that when these truly wonderful people ask me what they can do to help I have no answer I can give. The only one I have I cannot say but sometimes I just want to cry out and sob and ask them to please take it away, to make it stop, to please please make it stop. I cannot ask them this though because they do not know how to. If all the medical professionals in the world cannot find a way to stop it how could I ever ask them to? Whether I like it or not the truth is that there is no quick fix, no magic pill and no solution which will mean this will be over tonight and that tomorrow I will wake up just like everybody else.
But still regardless of reality wouldn’t it be nice if there was? I am not particularly keen on the way things are at the moment and if anyone has a solution please do share because if this would stop it would be so nice. I hate feeling this way, I just wish whatever it is would go away and let me be normal and happy and in the old meaning of the word be jolly and gay.
- Today’s dress is from Next but I think its quite old school Next. It was in a bag of dresses which was sent over from HP and which I believe were collected up from her sister and friend. It’s very pretty but I feel as though it would have been better suited to a wedding than the work place but needs must.
Day 172 – Holding back the tears
Do you ever have days where you just think my God I can’t do this, I actually am not going to be able to make it through this day. I feel as though I am having one today and every single little thing has taken the most monumental effort to complete. I was actually walking home while having to physically tell myself to put one foot in front of the other. It seemed as though all my body and maybe even my mind wanted to do was to sit there in the middle of the street and weep.
Is it coming off the duloxetine, the devil in disguise which lifts the blues so quickly that people decide it is working too well. I don’t know but I’m scared that it’s coming back and that if it does I wont know how to handle it. For the first time in weeks I went to bed last night with the same old dreadful feeling that hopefully come the morning my mood would shift. But this morning came and it was still there hanging over me like a disease and I still felt the same.
The self doubt and hatred seems to be seeping in again and when I look at the photos I am repulsed by how I appear. I wonder on days like these what it would be like to be free of this as sometimes it leaves me feeling so lonely. I know there are others going through this, thousands in fact but I feel so isolated and though I try to stop it I’m struggling to hold back the tears.
I’ll have to stop now it hurts too much.
- Today’s dress was given to me by the boy’s mother who is an absolute treasure. It is from Per Una which I wouldn’t usually look to due to my preference for all things neutral and black but it is quite nice to wear something so girly and hopefully the big flower print will have made it easier for people to avoid looking at my miserable mug.
Day 171 – A thank you
- Today’s dress is from Florence and Fred it was sent to me by my mysterious dress donor. I do wish she would come forwards so I can thank her as though perhaps I do not always emphasise this enough I am so grateful to all of you who have sent dresses, supported the project and just understood. It means more than I can say, thank you, all of you.
