As one door shuts, another one opens ...... in Scottish Meanderings

My niece, (sister’s oldest daughter), Marina, has just produced a beautiful baby girl and called her Jessie Elizabeth Gertsen. The Jessie is after Mum and I couldn’t be more chuffed - just so pleased the name will be carried forward. Mum would have been delighted as well - even thought she hated the name with a passion :)

Proud newbie Mum and Dad.

Poor girl’s been waiting since Boxing Day.

And I sense trouble ahead ......

When I had got the new job at the University in February of last year, I had also planned, once I had settled into the job, to get back into counselling studies again if possible. It’s been a long time since I did the last lot of training and just after I finished it I split with Boyd so did nothing about using it. I wasn’t sure if I would need to start all over at the very beginning again so, as I’m part of a counselling forum and had attended several workshops over the years, at the next one I cornered my old tutor, Christine, who is now the manager of a counselling agency in town. She said she didn’t think I would have to go right back to the beginning again and in fact the agency she worked in had their own course which runs every two years (next intake January 2016) so she could send me details then I could just apply when the time came.

The details never materialised so at the next workshop I reminded her and she apologised and said she’d get onto it when she was next back at work. Again nothing happened and by this time the illness had struck in full force so I shelved the whole idea. However last month I was trying to think about how I could somehow fight this fatigue thing this year and wondered about trying to do some voluntary work. That made me think about the course so I went online to see if there was any info on it and discovered they’d sent out applications back in September. I thought I’d missed the boat. However I e-mailed Christine anyway and she of course was mortified that I’d slipped through the net so went and bust a gut to arrange an interview for this week as the course started this weekend.

I was absolutely sh****ng myself about it. How honest should I be? How much do I divulge about the drugs I’m on? And how do I expect to last out for a whole weekend at a time when I can’t get myself up and dressed at a normal time in the morning?

Anyway the interview was yesterday afternoon and, because the circumstances were a bit different and time so short, they let me know the result just afterwards. I’ve got a place! First training session is tomorrow, second one on Sunday, then the other 12 are on various weekends from now until June.

I thought I’d get a chance to recover on Monday but I’ve got to look after Lily while Nikki takes Lilah swimming. When I told her about the course and gave her the dates she said nothing. No encouragement, discussion, questions, nothing. And when I checked to see if she was taking Lilah swimming on Monday, (Lily was supposed to have a settling-in day at nursery that afternoon) she said she very definitely was. It was obvious there was no leeway with that.

So I’m going to have to dig up my Assertive Gene from somewhere deep inside and tell her I’m not going to be quite so ‘available’ in the next 6 months. She’s already miffed because she won’t be seeing me on a lot of Saturdays (I used to go out to Pitmedden on a Saturday) and while I’m fine about looking after Lily on a Monday I’m going to have to ask that it just be the morning because at the moment she comes back with Lilah just after lunchtime then it’s taken for granted that we spend the afternoon together and they generally leave around teatime. So basically it ends up being a full day.

And I just don’t think I’ll have enough energy for that.

Speaking of Lily, she started school nursery this week.

All dressed up ready to go in on her first day:

Apparently she bounded off shouting “Bye!” without a second glance backwards at Nikki who was then left to make a quick exit to the car to dry a pair of suddenly wet eyes!

We had some challenging behaviour from Lily over the Christmas and New Year holidays which Nikki realised appeared to have started around the time her playgroup stopped so we’re hoping that’s what the problem was and nursery will plug the gap.

Right, I should get myself off to bed to try and get a decent night’s sleep before this thing tomorrow. Every time I know I have to be up for something in the morning I hardly sleep a wink or I wake up at stupid o’clock and lie staring at the ceiling desperately willing myself to fall back asleep again. Which usually doesn’t work.

Send positive vibes this way. I need them.

EDIT
Haven’t got time to read any comments tonight - just wanted to say I had ABSOLUTELY NO SLEEP WHATSOEVER last night. Oh well that’s not strictly true - I had half an hour from quarter past 7 until the alarm went off at quarter to 8. Yeah that was fun. I hate my brain.

BUT!

Today was brilliant! I loved it. And I was only tired for part of the early afternoon (although I had a much-looked-forward-to nap when I got home).

Keep sending the positive vibes though cos if I don’t sleep tonight I will scream.

Last updated February 05, 2018