A Couple of Better Days in Scottish Meanderings

Despite yesterday being Friday the 13th I had a pretty good day all round.

I’ve been enjoying feeling better since Wednesday lunchtime and had bust a gut desperately trying to catch up with housework which I hadn’t been able to do in the previous weeks.

I was getting my hair cut that afternoon which is always a bit of an ordeal because the mobile hairdresser who comes to the house is one of those people who talks AT you all the time. She will literally yap from the second she comes in to the second she leaves, hardly drawing breath and it completely exhausts me! Worse than that though, she stops working when she’s telling me a story so the hair cutting gets done in fits and starts, making it a somewhat tortuous process.

It was so bad last time that I had to put on my Big Girl pants on Wednesday and mention it to her and I don’t think it went down too well. It certainly didn’t stop her talking but give her her due, she DID try not to stop working - for about 5 minutes - then we were back to Square One again - and my Big Girl pants were in the wash by that time so I didn’t have the guts to point it out😁

Anyway that’s why I was delighted when I felt things change around noon that day (she was coming at 3) because it made me a bit stronger in order to cope with her. And of course getting my hair tidied up made me feel better as well.

After she left I got the hoover out and hoovered downstairs, washed the floors then cleaned the bathroom and after tea, changed the bed then collapsed, exhausted, into it! On Thursday I was delighted to find I hadn’t plunged back to the depths again (up to now I’ve only once had 2 consecutive good days in 9 months) which allowed me to chat to my niece at the door for about 40 minutes when she popped round with something (she’s allergic to the cats so couldn't come in) and get a bundle of smiles from one year old Matt. Then I shoved a couple of loads of washing on and had a quick bite to eat before my friend, Janice, came round after work for a short visit. After she left it was out with the hoover again and the stairs and upstairs got done this time after which I turned attention to the ironing basket.

Only to discover one of the other inhabitants of the house had different ideas.

This wasn't a bed for me?


Too bad!


So I let him have a snooze while I had tea then turfed him out (gently) and got all the ironing done.

On Friday Nikki texted me to ask if I wanted to go with her and the girls to see the Peter Rabbit film at the cinema. I decided to give it a try as I was still feeling ok. I was really really nervous though because the whole experience of getting to Lily’s show in March had been so awful and watching the show itself had made me terribly sick and dizzy. I also had no way of getting home quickly if things did go pear-shaped but at least I could go and sit in Nikki’s car in the car park if it didn’t work out. As I was trying to work out any way of reducing the sensory input, I hit on the idea of taking my sunglasses with me which would at least reduce the glare a bit and we managed to get an aisle seat so that I could get out quickly if need be.

It was absolutely fine! I was so pleased I can’t tell you.

The girls loved the film although Lily was in tears at one sad point and had to go and sit on Nikki’s knee to be comforted. I scored there because, Lilah, not to be outdone, then wanted up on MY knee and I was delighted to oblige!

Strangely there was absolutely no advertising whatsoever for the film in the foyer of the cinema when we arrived then this appeared as we were leaving. Lilah took a while to cotton on to sticking her head in the right hole being more interested in chatting to Peter :)


She got there in the end though.


Afterwards we had a dander round The Range where I bought them both a small toy just so happy to be doing normal Granny stuff.


Look what I found the other week!



Not very clear I know - it's my old Open Diary front page and it was thanks to the lovely Jamie - alias Brickpaver - who pointed me in the right direction to find it. I wasn’t prepared for the wave of nostalgia it evoked when I saw that page again in the old crazycoloursandfonts format and all the Bookmarks names down the left-hand side. Some of them even worked which was an added bonus! None of my own entry links do but a few of the diary names did and seeing some of your old diaries again was just lovely.

I thought the pic of books was a pile of my own books but have no idea who Leo Walmsley is so realised I’d just nicked one off t’Internet. I was really hoping I’d see the lovely picture I used to have on the front page by Deborah DeWit Marchant but that must have been in the earlier years. Nevertheless it was a great trip down memory lane.


I’d been looking for a holder for my earrings but could never quite see one I liked when I hit on the idea of using my Smiley Susan gonk - a present from Joel to Nikki many years ago which she kindly (!) left at my house when she moved. She is now Punky Susan and all my earrings are in one place instead of all over the shop. Perfect.



Today I can feel myself heading back downhill again but I got down to TESCO for a bit of grocery shopping this afternoon then went for a half hour's walk afterwards because it was a beautiful sunny day. Drove the long way home to get used to the car again as it's been out of action for a couple of weeks and am away to have a lie down now before tea.

I'm hoping these recent couple of ‘normal’ days will be enough to shore me up when the next onslaught of hell appears. It’s one of the cruel things about this process - it’s not a linear progression - you get a day or two of normality then are plunged back into the depths again for weeks on end.

A tough business and I have to admit my resilience was at an all-time low at the beginning of this week so those better days were very much needed. What was also nice about getting to the cinema yesterday was the fact it was my 6 month anniversary of stopping Diazepam so a celebration of sorts.

Onward and upwards!😊