It Could Have Been Worse in Scottish Meanderings

I will admit that wasn’t exactly my first thought when I initially saw the awful news about Prosebox! Like many of you I was shocked, my heart sank and I felt physically sick but I realised many of those feelings were a direct result of my particular prisonlike situation right now where I’m relying heavily on the Internet for communication and a connection with the outside world.

It’s been really interesting watching the very varied reactions to the news though - I’ve been quite amazed at the immediate desertion on the part of some folk - the ‘setting up house’ somewhere else almost instantly - and I’m not talking about people who have gone back to reinstate their diaries on OD as a precaution.

I know there are those who are convinced the whole thing about OD coming back and Prosebox going down the tubes is One Big Conspiracy but if you disregard that, OD reappearing is actually somewhat of a silver lining when you think about it. Many of us have (albeit grudgingly) pretty much decided that’s where we’ll head to if this place disappears and although it’s not ideal, think about what would have happened had OD not reared its head once more? We may have ended up scattered all over the place, greatly dissatisfied with where we landed, desperately trying to start all over again and scrabble about anxiously locating our online friends.

At least with Open Diary being re-established, many of us have diaries already there and waiting and are able to use the diary names we had here, making the whole process of finding everyone much easier. Yes we have to fork out money for the privilege if we hadn’t had a Lifetime Subscription previously (and in some frustrating cases, even if we had!!), yes it will probably struggle with a mass influx of folk all arriving at once, yes it won’t be the seamless effort we’ve become used to here - but at least it’s there, ready and waiting for us.

Perhaps I was lucky that first day reading the sad news because almost straight away I went into a diary which had a note from someone saying they and their partner were willing (and had the necessary skills) to keep Prosebox afloat and 10 minutes after that I was reading another diarist in the same position, also willing to do what was required, so, very quickly, the situation didn’t appear quite so hopeless after all.

I was going to make this entry a placeholder and ask everyone to provide contact details, their diary name on OD, where they’re migrating to & so on so that I would have all that information in one place and could print it out to be referred to later if needed. But I don’t feel there’s so much pressing need for that now so all I’ve done is print out a list of my Diary Friends so that if the dreadful day comes, I can search for the same names on OD.

And it’s made me continue with a project I was doing on days when I felt a bit better where I was sorting out the Photobucket débacle, going back over entries and re-inserting photos from Imgur once I’d found them on my pc and uploaded them there instead. Although fiddly and tedious, it hasn’t been the mountain I thought it would be to climb, and once done, I intend to print out each entry (with notes) as I have all my Open Diary entries printed out along with private journal entries as well in titled folders so that everything is in chronological order.


It’s been a really rough month. I’ve had a real hacking cough which just refused to go away and which I’m not sure was a symptom of a natural setback in this process (unfortunately there can be many) or was something else entirely which my body just couldn’t cope with.

Lily goes to a drama class every week and her drama teacher was putting on a show in a local theatre in March. Tickets went on sale in December and were instantly sold out so Nikki made sure she bought enough so that family and friends could come and see it. The one she bought for me was for the 22nd March.


Great thought I - months away - I should be a lot better by then.

Ha!

At the start of March I started to go downhill and by the 22nd I was so ill and shaky I couldn’t even sit in a normal chair for any length of time.

That almost broke me.

I’ve missed so many family events in the last year, tolerated so many God-awful days, endured so many hours and hours and hours of interminable misery - this was one goal I honestly thought I was going to make and it was just too much and too cruel to have to watch other members of my family tripping along to it and not be able to see my own granddaughter in her very first experience on stage.

Nikki had gone along on all 4 nights of the show so that Lily would always have someone there for her and on the last night, she’d taken an extra seat for Lily so that she could watch the second half as she was only performing in the first half. So she asked if I wanted to try for that night instead and if I could get someone to pick me up at the interval that meant Lily could still get my seat. As luck would have it, my brother Ian and his wife Margaret, were through because their first grandchild’s birthday was on the Saturday so Ian said he could take me down just before the show started and get Nikki to come and meet me then he would come back at 8 to pick me up.

I wasn’t feeling that much better on the Saturday but was at least less shakier so I finally got there! And I wish I could say I enjoyed the experience but the flashing lights, loud noise, amount of movement and general sensory overload really did a number on my ailing central nervous system - I felt really sick and dizzy and actually thought I was going to be sick in the first 5 minutes but I kept quiet and after about 40 minutes it started to decrease slightly. Lily had worked out where Nikki was sitting which was opposite the wings she stood at before coming on so I was rewarded with some frantic delighted waving when she realised I was there! And I was able to see her at the interval as well and give her a proud hug when Nikki picked her up to go and see the second half of the show while my trusty chauffeur, Ian, sat and waited in the car!

Here she is at the stage door all set on the first night of the show -


I had to miss Matt’s birthday (Ian’s grandchild) on Saturday but Ian took me round on the Sunday afternoon and I was able to give him his present which was a crawling bear -


the same present I’d given to Lilah to encourage her to crawl - and then I discovered he’d just started crawling that morning!! However he was only doing more of a sort of backward shuffle than anything else so I think the bear will still come in handy😊.

I’m glad to say the cough seems to have subsided a good bit these past couple of days and I’m subsequently feeing better as a result so hopefully I can get back on track. And I thought I was going to have to miss Lilah’s 3rd birthday party on Sunday as I still can’t drive any distance in the car but even if I could, the wipers have packed in so I wouldn’t chance it with the weather we’ve been having lately. It was supposed to have been in the garage this week but because I couldn’t drive it there, I had to rely on the goodwill of the garage owner who was going to be picking it up at the beginning of the week. When I got back in touch though, he was too pushed to do so and said he wouldn’t manage until Monday now.

My friend Janice had planned to take me out in her car on Sunday for a drive and was quite happy to let me pop in with Lilah’s present on the way but she hadn’t realised it’s the Easter weekend and her kids want to go out with her so we’re having to postpone that to the following weekend now. However Nikki‘s just texted to say the party she’s having in the house for Lilah is in the morning so they can come through for tea so I’ll still be able to see her which is great.

And I’m thanking my pre-emptive organisational skills which saw me, on a TESCO (supermarket) trip over a month ago, buy 2 sets of PlayDoh and other bits and pieces for Lilah’s birthday - just in case I wasn’t able to get to any toy shop in the following weeks. Phew!

Just seen Simple Mind's latest entry - couldn't be happier!!🤗