Middle-aged dread

As a rule I’m generally a happy person. I don’t really stress about things I’ve no control over and am happy with my lot. I’m not wealthy, don’t own my own house. My car is a 14 year old people carrier but I do have 6 healthy children, a husband who drives me round the twist, I mean really (the subject of a half drafted blog actually haha!) but he is entirely the right fit for me!

I have faith that everything’s as it should be and the sense of mind to realise things could be good deal worse.

But today I am in the worst mood, there’s a underlying anger buzzing in my soul. Chris aforementioned beloved husband had his CBT (motor bike proficiency test) cancelled for the second time this week, having driven the 12 miles to the airfield to take the flipping test only to discover it was too icy to be messing about on motor bikes (again). I waited to see if it would be cancelled again which was my first mistake if I’m honest, I should’ve just got on with it and not procrastinated, turns out he went for breakfast and that was why he took longer than anticipated. Thinking I was good to go I was trying some kick boxing training to help with my coordination which is terribly poor and trying to push the envelope out of my comfort zone where training is concerned when he came back through the door. I was only 10 minutes in! I think this was the start of it, the bad mood. I’m a creature of habit. I like to make plans and stick to them, this put me out of whack. I also like to be physically active most days, for my mental health if nothing else and it upset both apple carts.

My oldest daughter (27) moved home with her partner and kids a few weeks ago, I’m finding that hard too, not in the practical sense. I take her children to school with mine, collect them with mine and all is well with the world. My oldest son is 9 and has gone to play with his nephew (7) today, I dropped him off while Emily (15) has drama. He was a bit reluctant to go at first because Javiah is on an Xbox ban but having dropped him there, taken Em to drama, picked up Ellie’s (17) wages, and friend and dropped them back to her house (she has lived with her Dad for the last 2 years but stays whenever she feels the need) I bought some paper for art, bread and chocolate spread for sandwiches and took them back for the boys he was happy enough. I need to pry Jenson away from technology as often as possible or he’d literally sit in the same space on the sofa for the rest of time with YouTube on the tv and tablet at the same time!

The same goes for Lewis (6) and Daizy (4) in my day tv was going to give you square eyes, there’s a proven correlation between hours watching television and weight gain over the generations (I won’t be using the Harvard reference system or any other btw 😉) now it’s mobile phones, tablets pcs etc.
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old fart. When I was young we went out to play, in the street with our friends, on our bikes, to the park, we came home when we were hungry or the street lights came on. No one could check up on you, call or text, if you were late you were in big trouble.

I don’t believe any more terrible things are happening now than they were in my day. I remember my mother telling me stories about men talking to her and her sister when they were young (they’re in their 70s now) on the tube to school, trying to grope them or peek at their knickers while climbing trees. She said matter of factly they were men damaged from the war, my grandmother told them not to talk to strangers and stay together so they didn’t and they did. Today there’s so much more publicly about these things, we want to keep our children safe. In my mother’s day it was inconceivable the abhorrent things we now know happen. If a child needed to go on the train unaccompanied you just asked someone in the same carriage to watch them and tell them which stop to get off at. Social services would take a dim view of that now!

I live in the UK, we have Brexit to deal with, don’t get me started on that farce! A homeless population we should be terribly ashamed of but no-one is bombing my country at present. Education is free, health care is free, social housing exists, free money is provided if you’re unable to work for whatever reason. Real contentment has very little to do with money (although a lotto win wouldn’t go a miss) I might be moody but my spirit is content and grateful.
Have a wonderful weekend folks A x
#Happy #contentment #grumpy #middleaged #gratitude #family #life

For the third year running I’m doing “sugar free February for cancer research. I seriously don’t know anyone unaffected by cancer on some level.

Personally both my parents had it, my mother fully recovered from bladder cancer a few years ago, caught early she barely lost her stride. My father passed away when I was 6 after a battle with a sinus/brain tumour. Despite initial positive indications following radiation it eventually came back to claim him. My step father had bowel cancer but is fully recovered, both his mother and Aunt had it too (also making a full recovery,) although Bessie was found to have a brain tumour years later which was to be her undoing. His sister died 5 years ago following a decade long battle with cervical cancer. Another of his sister’s had to have a kidney transplant following cancer. I should stress I’m not supplying a wo is me list, death comes to us all, it’s the only certainty in life and the majority of these people I wasn’t in close personal contact with.

My mother’s best friend died of breast cancer when I was 21, that was traumatic, she was like another mother to me, it was her & her family we (my brother and I) stayed with when my father was in hospital having treatment and also them I lived with when I was at college in Oxford after my mother had remarried and moved to Pembrokeshire. With Nuala I was at an age where it hurt, not to say losing my father didn’t hurt but I was six. He’d worked full time as an architect in the next county, spent the best part of a year in Bristol having treatment or in Sobel house hospice dying so I was accustom to his absence.

Some families it runs through like wild fire, whether something in their genes or an environmental/social ingredient we’re unaware of currently. I believe while we’re beginning to gain insight we’re yet to know the true implications of our impact both globally on the planet and physically to our health with pesticides, pollution, poor diet, genetic engineering and who knows what else.

So wish me luck, although day 1 was easy in comparison to Veganuary, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I cheated about day 28 (cheese.) I take my hat off to vegans, just for managing to consume enough calories to maintain muscle mass without being the size of a barn. I gained fat mass and lost muscle over the month. It will come off, I generally default to a norm when I’m not obsessing about food another topic entirely.

Happy Saturday.

A x

#life #sugarfreefebruary #middleage #cancerresearch #cancer

I’m at a point in my life where I’m trying hard to learn acceptance. Acceptance of ageing, all the daily imperceptible changes that added up to change that youthful smooth skinned girl into this middle-aged crepey skinned woman!

I’m struggling and can’t pretend I’m not. It didn’t happen over night. A lot like gaining or losing weight ageing is a bizarre process of perception. Possibly because we can’t see ourselves from the outside as we do others we build up an idea of how we look in our head’s. Only catching a fleeting glance in mirrors, windows and other reflective surfaces here and there to add more details (new hair colour/cut etc) not taking in the real picture every time we see ourselves.

I wonder if people surrounded by mirrors all day like hair stylists, clothes shop assistants or double glazing agents have a different view point but for me at least; I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t have a lot of time and don’t wear make-up or have many mirrors in my immediate environment but I rarely actually study myself. When I do ‘poof’ 10lbs heavier 10 years older seemingly over night!

I’ve documented my struggles with my weight, but a brief synopsis: I was a short, chubby, muscular girl when the fashion for women was tall and lean, after my first child I was obviously still short but quite slim my mind like that of many people who’ve lost weight still believed I was fat.

Most of my adult life I haven’t had a weight problem I’ve rarely gone above a UK 12 (US 8) even at the cuddly end of my personal spectrum but my mind has tortured me. When I’m at a point where I should be happy I’m always striving for better. On the one hand I can look and see improvements and am happy but at one and the same time I can see what else I could/should change/strive for.

I’m driving myself round the bend. I know I should be grateful for genes that haven’t let me get morbidly obese despite times of comfort eating. I’m strong and able to train effectively for functional fitness. I’ve Improved in the sense I no longer see training as a punishment for eating but as something I love, that’s entirely for me and an antidepressant to boot. But even the guilt at my lack of gratitude can see me comfort eating.

This body has been knocking around for 47+ years, in that time it’s been through a window seriously damaging a wrist and requiring extensive rehabilitation and physiotherapy,been addicted to drugs,all be it a lifetime ago, been home to 6 small humans over the course of 23 years, gained weight, lost weight,run hundreds if not thousands of miles, lifted weights, torn ligaments, strained muscles and repaired itself. Logic tells me it’s in remarkably good shape for all that but and this is the hard bit, 47 years have passed, I’m not getting any younger and baring a lottery win (I have the cosmetic procedures to do list) I’m stuck with this crepey skin, middle age spread is looming. If I wasn’t happy at 30… I’m getting older nothing is going to change that in all other areas of life I am positivity personified, the challenge as ever is to learn to live with myself, my ‘failings’ and be content and grateful for the privilege of life. A x

#ageing #middle-aged #middleage #life #perception #weightgain #middleagespread #gratitude

I had to nip out earlier, breaking up a bit of a duvet day if I’m honest, on the radio was a discussion on the concept of Death Cafe’s, now I must say I haven’t Googled an explanation and came in on the tail end of the conversation but I gather the idea is to provide an environment where it’s socially acceptable to discuss death. This got me questioning if there was a need for such a thing but as such a thing appears to exists that essentially answers the question!

To me death is the inevitable conclusion of existence, it’s sad and I appreciate the sense of loss and sadness for those left behind but it is the one sure and certain end for us all. That is not to say I don’t believe in an afterlife and am unashamedly God squad but it quite another topic and even if I’m right or I’m wrong and there’s nothing to follow, we will all die.

Now I’m unsure if this is an unusual standpoint or the result of losing people in early life but apparently my late father had a similar feeling and expressed as much to my mother at the demise of my grandfather, his father, before I was born. My mother seemed to think this was odd but I totally understand. Interestingly my father had lost his sister Marjory when he was young an event his mother never really recovered from.

In any event death and dying still seem to be a taboo subject. Parents quite rightly try to discuss the practicalities of their deaths with their offspring, funerals, wills and so on all too often only to be shushed possibly because we find the idea of the loss of our parents abhorrent. Jokes are made about death to lighten the mood. Genuine conversations about death make us fear our mortality or that of our loved ones. I’m personally not afraid of death it’s the idea of leaving my children without my input and love that I fear

I have personally lost my grandparents, father, twin brother and some close friends but it’s very definitely not something I discuss often, people are uncomfortable with the emotions that surround death and loss, again probably for the reasons stated earlier and pain, while I don’t fear dying I certainly don’t relish the idea of dying in agony.

For whatever reason it can be very hard to discuss death, it’s affect on us whether it’s the loss of a loved one, our own mortality or the idea of or journey towards death. Harder to broach the subject with those whose death will affect us most.

So while death cafes initially seemed a peculiar notion the more I think about it, the more I find the idea of talking to a stranger who can empathise because of similar experiences or whose attitude and viewpoint to death is similar to mine or vastly different and can challenge my perception the more intriguing I find it and believe it could be some thing therapeutic.

#deathcafe #death #dying #taboo #foodforthought #life #middle-aged

A snapshot of emotion, lost in a fleeting glance but no less real than love, compassion, lust or anything else..whether you believe they’re caused by hormonal interaction, electrical impulses or some other fanciful notion emotions rule you!

However in control of them you appear it doesn’t mean you don’t experience them.

For the most part I adore my husband and children, the vast majority of them time we’re a happy family but…

The boys and Em are on the autistic spectrum (Daizy has potential too if I’m honest.) They’re vastly different though in the way they exhibit it.

Contrary to belief this doesn’t mean they lack emotions but they feel and express them differently. Once a melt down is underway there is very little point in attempting to quell the tide of tears, anger, head butting the floor or swearing dependant on which child is involved. It’s all about learning to surf the wave of emotion.

A child or anyone having a meltdown is struggling, in the case of my children it’s often from over stimulation, under stimulation creates it’s own different response. Generally all of them appear to cope with new situations and activities really well, it’s in the quiet time following the event, during the processing of it that situations can become difficult for them and us with the ripple effect.

That said the title of this blog and my first moments of writing weren’t about them at all but as I wrote my thoughts expanded as they do and I went off on a tangent. I was angry at my husband for something trivial and for that second I felt such rage but equally quickly it subsided and here we are.

So if you can take a text message one of two ways, take it the nice way. It’s difficult to interpret the written word or the mood at the time of it’s inception, live positively, spread joy and if you can’t be kind, be quiet, or better still be absent!

Have a great Saturday A x

I was a teenger in the late 80s early 90s, the era of The original “Karate kid and Footloose,” (it must’ve been a good decade for film because they’re remaking them all!) Daryl Hannah was a mermaid long before she was a one eyed assassin. Jane Fonda was “feeling the burn.” Women were tall, lean and willowy. I was a short, plump, muscular girl.

My wonderful mother and her friends were always expressing their desire to lose a few pounds, if not actually on diets; and tanning, not so much my mother who has the palest of skin, freckles and mousy hair like me. (I’ve always hated my freckly arms) but this was the era of the sun tan too, before there was as much knowledge of the different elements of UV and fake tan made you look like an orange Z list reality tv star. Many more people still smoked too probably because of the era before them when all the film stars smoked.

We’ve always been subliminally bombarded with subtle messages, them and us, successful people do this, so we all do this too. Attractive people do that so we all do that, generation after generation far before the deliberate introduction of advertising.

It’s no secret body types come in and out of fashion like hairstyles and clothing, from Rubenesque rolls to Twiggy’s jutting collarbones but when you’re a dumpy prepubescent chubba in the decade that created “The Truffle shuffle” to ridicule a fat kid, your Mother and her friends are always criticising themselves (none of these women possessed an ounce of fat btw!) It’s easy to develop a complex.

This complex didn’t see me eating less however or trying not to eat pound after pound of sugar. I should probably point out I was well fed by my mother, she was born in 1940 and remembered the years of austerity after the war, her Mother was an amazingly adept woman, she kept house, made, bread, clothes, had an allotment where she grew her own vegetables. She never seemed to have a down day. She worked for Channel before she met my grandfather, long before women routinely worked so always had an impeccable sense of style too. Hearing that it’s no wonder my Mother was and is to this day hard on herself, she has a lifelong depressive illness, it must have seemed so much to live up to. The point I am rapidly losing was, she cooked our meals from scratch. My lunch box contained fruit, sesame snacks, ryvita and natural yogurt, not kitkats, coke and crisps like my peers.

Along came “Heroine chic” Kate Moss and her generation of super models gray eyed and gaunt, peering moodily from the pages of every magazine. A horrific incident with a purple velvet dress from Miss Selfridge, I’d seen in Just 17 magazine, I loved it, saved for it and bought it. I still remember the debilitating crushing feeling of self loathing when I looked in the mirror and saw a 5′ 2″ chubby girl looking back at me. The sting of the tears and wave of nausea when I didn’t look like the 6 ft size 8 (4 US) model in the picture. All these things just underpinned my feelings of inadequacy about my looks. I was flat chested, pale skinned with freckles. Short and plump to boot.

It was the decade after punk where goths came in (in Oxford anyway) I was a didi goth, floaty fringed black tassel skirts, black spikey hair and liquid eye liner, hidden behind a mask of make up and a sullen expression.

Various experiences added to the feelings of negativity towards my body. A local teenage skin head chanting at me, “I’m a goth, I’m a goth, what kind of goth am I? A fat one!”

Goth moved on to faded ripped Levi jeans and brogues with Grolsch bottle tops in homage to ‘Bros’ I’d catch the Oxford Tube by myself and go to American Classics on the King’s Road in London & buy second hand Levis 501s, kept the black hair and make up mask but toned down the kicks and pattern to my liquid eyeliner. And I still gorged my feelings of self loathing with sugar and fat.

My lifelong friends, my mother’s best friends daughters were, of course, tall and willowy too, another incident with rara skirts, my short muscular, corn beef legs compared to their long lean tanned ones were another blow to my confidence.
All these little events plus many more subconscious blows created an insecurity about my body and intrinsically my self worth.   
The value of an individual has no baring on their appearance but society, social media, magazines etc tell another story. They drip feed fat means lazy and ugly while slim is successful and sexy.  I guess at least now muscular is becoming something women can aspire to too, rather than the assumption you’re butch or taking steroids.

Where was I going with all this you may ask?
I’m 47 and fully aware of the value of the soul not the outward appearance. I try not to judge others for theirs, although as a human being have to admit this isn’t always possible. We all judge second by second without necessarily being mindful of it. I’m not in bad physical shape, I’m not a cross fitter but I train regularly and am pretty fit and I’m not usually overweight perhaps a few pounds over what is ideal for optimum health in the winter but this could be the body dysmorphia talking. To quote my mother I look wonderful for “a woman of my age.”

Despite this I’m still unable to separate insecurity about my body image from my emotions. To this day if I’m angry or sad I fight it down with sugar; usually chocolate or gummy sweets. I celebrate with sweet food, reward myself with sugar. Any excuse.

I fight the urge to gorge in secret because of the shame I feel eating something perceived as fattening. I started hiding food, usually in the form of bags of cadbury fun size, after I went interrailing round Europe, mostly Italy with my first serious boyfriend at 17 (before he went off to York University leaving me in Oxford heart broken) He told me if I lost two stone he’s marry me, an off the cuff remark he undoubtedly wouldn’t remember making. I was probably only about 9 stone 10lbs – 10 stone. The relationship died when he went off with a girl he met at freshers week but for me the need to lose 2 stone remained.

I lost the 2 stone and then some, following a pregnancy and subsequent birth of my beloved eldest daughter who’s 27 today, and various means not all of them healthy or sensible to be the subject of another blog but I’m still a slave to sugar, I don’t care if people say it’s not addictive, I’ve given up smoking and various other highly addictive substances (that other blog again) and for me it’s the worst!

Happy Saturday

A x

Yesterday my wonderful neighbour was unwell, he was pooping blood and too embarrassed to talk to me about it, his wife is kind of like my other Mother and he is more like my Father in law.
My husband and he have a very close relationship for men. I don’t mean I think men can’t have close relationships but rather because the nature of those relationships is very different to the ones I have as a woman.

I usually get up at 5.30am to find a little quiet space to myself in a busy house-hold but yesterday I didn’t, I got up put the washing in the dryer at 4.30 went back to bed and wasn’t up until more like 6.15am. As soon as I put the kitchen light on I heard the familiar tap of Cath’s broom on the back door.

It didn’t occur to me it was early when I opened the door. She was standing in the drizzle the other side of the fence. Pete had been unwell since 3am, she’d waited for one of us to get up to see if Chris would run him to A & E. As I said, he didn’t really want to talk to me so I got Chris up it was about 6.20am. Pete had called Drs on Call, after about half an hour the on call Dr rang him back and told him to go to his GP at 9am. He couldn’t drive and was in excruciating pain, he was also loosing blood; concerned at the level of pain and blood loss assuming the GP would have just sent him to A&E Chris drove him in.
After a long wait he saw the registrar and was released with antibiotics. Having not eaten most of his symptoms had subsided.
When he got home he ate half a banana and took an antibiotic because it was suggested not to take  them on an empty sromach. 
Within half an hour he was in excruciating pain and passing an egg cup of blood every time he went to the loo, which was every 15 mins or so (sorry tmi!) This time he called an ambulance thinking it would be quicker than going back through triage, 3 hours later a 1 man crewed ambulance turned up to take him back to hospital about 7.15pm. Ambulances were queuing outside the hospital, waiting to allow patients in because they were so busy and there were no beds! Eventually he was seen still losing blood, barely checked over, he was told to continue with the antibiotics and released, they told him to “find his own way home” It was 10.30 pm 14 miles from home in a rural community, the last bus is at 7.20pm his wife doesn’t drive, a 73 year old man..
I was really shocked, not at the treatment he received from a medical standpoint we’re very fortunate in the UK to have a free health service, I’ve said before they do an incredible job with the limited funds available in this time of austerity with an ever growing population but wow an elderly man having to find his way 14 miles home at night while bleeding and in pain!

This experience shocked me, except for the autistic spectrum thing, asthma,eczema and Lewis’s allergy to eggs, we’re very seldom unwell. Our experience of Hospital is generally an accident usually involving my husband something like arch eye or a screw driver in the hand (he’s a mechanic, enough said!) Or Lewis’s regular appointments with the allergy specialist.

Recalling the experience and my feelings about it to my sister in law, she was completely underwhelmed.. she works in a care home for the elderly, apparently this is quite normal, they frequently refuse to take their elderly residents at all and equally often having been taken away by ambulance following a fall or whatever, they are returned for the staff to deal with.
It seems the elderly are deemed less important, their ailments less readily treated. The majority in care home have ‘Do not resuscitate’ orders on them, the label speaks for itself.
More and more people are reaching greater ages than ever due to better medicine,nutrition,housing,sanitation etc.

With an ever aging population where will the resources come from to look after them/us when we get there?
It’s frightening to see the treatment of the elderly here in the UK, I can’t speak for other countries but imagine they’re not so different in the 1st world at least!
It seems over a certain age, once you’ve served your purpose, out lived your usefulness, you really are waiting for God!
#waitingforgod #middle-aged  #life #aging