Challenges in Scottish Meanderings

The improvements continue.

That last couple of better days I spoke about turned into a wonderful FIVE half-decent days altogether during which I was able to drive down to the beach and have a lovely walk along the prom. I can’t tell you how joyous it was to be able to walk alongside the frothy waves again in beautiful sunshine just enjoying the natural movement of my limbs without forcing anything.


The day after that I made it into town which was quite momentous. I literally haven’t been in the centre of Aberdeen for almost a year so it was slightly hair-raising to make it that far in the car I have to admit but I managed to park for an hour, have a browse in NEXT, spend 85 quid I didn’t have and make it back in one piece which was rather wonderful.

Then on the Wednesday that week one of my nieces, Marina, came down to Aberdeen from Inverness with her husband, Stephen, who’s a sports coach - he was coaching at one of the Universities here so she took the chance to come with him and go and see my other niece, Cat’s, wee one, Matt. They were there all afternoon and asked if I would manage over to see them so as Cat only stays about 10 minutes’ drive from me I was able to do that. Not only was I able to visit but I was able to play with all the kids (Jessie - 2 and a half; Zander - 4 months and Matt - 1 year) for a couple of hours and even managed a small supermarket shop afterwards which I was pretty chuffed about.

But my pièce de resistance came on the Friday when I finally made it out to Pitmedden, the tiny village Nikki stays in, and startled the 3 of them who were sat in their car watching me stride up the drive quite the thing (I hadn’t noticed them in the car!). It’s only just over 14 miles out there but it might as well have been half way across the world in terms of reachability for me this past year. They were just going out but luckily only as far as the hairdresser just up the road to get Lily’s hair measured (see paragraph further down the page) so Nikki left Lilah with me while the 2 of them took off much to Lily’s consternation!

I’d only planned to stay half an hour because I was a bit worried about getting caught in the teatime traffic coming back but 2 little girls had other ideas so I ended up being out there almost 2 hours. It was absolutely fine though. Lily tried all her best stalling tactics, part of which was asking me to read a massive Star Wars book with 47 pages of very dense text interspersed with a million questions about anything and everything she could think of. She finally admitted she didn’t want me to go which was sweet - and then Nikki’s friend, Tracy, and her wee girl, Emily, arrived so that was me ousted out of the limelight!

It was nice to finally tick that box I must admit even though I was fit for nothing the next day and absolutely shattered.

My next challenge will be to go back into town but a bit further up this time, again trying for an hour or two staying power before heading back home. The counselling agency where I did my counselling is at that top end of town and they’ve been very supportive while I’ve been ill and have said when I feel I’m ready to just get in touch for a chat and if I want to come back they will arrange to do some observation sessions and see how I get on. I’m really grateful for this - I had half wondered if I would need to do the training all over again (and would have been quite prepared to do so if need be) but they assured me that this is all that’s necessary.

My dentist is also up that way and I really need to get my teeth checked out as they haven’t been looked at for more than a year. Not looking forward to that. But for those reasons I want to do a few trial runs of getting up there, staying in the area for an hour or two (there are several charity shops around there so that won’t be a problem!) then getting back home again until I’m doing it comfortably without any stress then I’ll organise the chat with my counselling supervisor.

And then the next thing will be driving in rush hour traffic which I’ve pretty much avoided up to now. And a slightly bigger challenge of driving out to a small town called Banchory which is about an hour’s drive away. It’s where my writing group meets every month so that will incorporate another challenge of getting out in the evening which at the moment defeats me.

My friend Janice took me out for tea on Thursday night and it was hard going and exhausting. I enjoyed being with her and getting out but I very much paid for it yesterday so it’s obviously a bit too soon for that yet. However at least I know - I'm not really going to be able to evaluate these things unless I try them - and I did have a rather nice pesto, butternut squash and sweet potato tagliatelle for lunch the next day as I had to ask for a doggie bag because I couldn’t finish it all!


Lily was very excited to get her hair cut last week. It’s got pretty long and I think has got too much to manage plus it’s probably not helping now that we’re getting warmer weather. But I love what she’s doing with it - she’s decided to donate it to the Little Princess Trust which provides real-hair wigs to kids in the UK and Ireland who have lost their hair through cancer treatment or other illnesses. If there is as much as 12” a wig can be made completely from one person’s hair - anything between 7” and 12” and it becomes a combination of more than one person’s hair. That was why she was getting it measured and was subsequently delighted to qualify for the whole 12”.


She loves the new cut as do I although it took a little getting used to.



I now have an official ‘before’ picture for losing weight - my niece, Marina, has just sent me pics from last Wednesday’s visit and I look like a sack of potatoes in one of them! I knew I’d put on a good stone and a half but that photo shocked me and almost had me searching for the nearest Slimming World meeting! However I did think it was a good sign that I was bothered about it in the first place - it’s not that long ago that I was delighted if I could actually finish a whole sandwich and dreaded every mealtime because I’d have to force food down my throat - so I’m trying to look at this as a positive. And I got off to a great start with a lovely dose of the runs for a solid hour a few nights ago (sorry) but sadly that’s all gone back on again :(


And my last challenge is a reference for an ex work colleague who got back in touch with me recently. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say and yes normally I would agree. But this one is complicated. It needs a bit of a back story though so as this is quite long enough I’ll save that for another entry.

I’m babysitting the girls for an hour or two this afternoon so need to skedaddle and get organised for that. We have some boxes of PlayDoh which need breaking open so I’m hoping that’ll be exciting enough for them for part of the time at least. There are also some gingerbread men in the cupboard who need decorating which I bought icing sugar for specially because the kits you get have a rubbish amount of icing and only one tube per pack. It is also ridiculously difficult to actually squeeze the icing out - especially for determined little 3 year olds - so hopefully the real thing will be much better. Wish me luck!