And The Beat Goes on in Scottish Meanderings

I can't believe we're at the end of October already - despite the events of this year it does seem to have flashed past very quickly. Or maybe I'm just at that time of life!

COVID
Our numbers are rising along with the rest of the country but not at the same rate - for some reason up here and further north are doing better but I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe we’re sticking to the rules more?

My nephew, Malcolm, living in Sri Lanka has been over in London to see his Dad and was joined by his girlfriend, Kate, (also coming from Sri Lanka). They wanted to take a trip up north so that Malcolm could show Kate Skye and the west coast of Scotland and were very surprised at our rules being much stricter than England’s and that no-one was supposed to be crossing the Central Belt (of Scotland) unless it was necessary.

So they just decided to come anyway.

And that’s the attitude that seems to prevail all round and why we can’t get out of this mess. I have to say it gives me some pause for thought that during WWII, people’s lives were restricted in all sorts of ways for FOUR WHOLE YEARS but for the greater good, they just bloody well got on with it!

Nikki
The situation with Nikki trundles on. I keep telling myself I'm so lucky to be able to see my grandchildren regularly especially during a pandemic and while I know that's definitely true, I also recognise that there's a huge loss being felt between the way the relationship was and the way it is now and I'm grieving that loss in a sense. Plus it's really done a number on my self-confidence and makes me question everything I thought I knew about myself.

And of course I caused myself some extra stress by not renewing my MOT for the car in time at the end of last month so that when I was pulled over by the police for going slightly over the speed limit down at the beach, the lack of MOT was flagged up. They kindly let me off the speeding charge but I was fined £100 for the MOT and then only allowed to drive the car home or to a garage to get the MOT done.

Which would all have been fine and dandy but 3 days later it was this not-so-little girl's 8th birthday -


and I was supposed to be driving out to Pitmedden to go to a trampolining place (birthday treat for her) and then back to Nikki’s for a birthday tea. Normally I would just have asked Nikki to come in for me but with the situation the way it was, I knew it would give her plenty ammunition to say no and I didn't want that. However by 5.45 a.m. the next morning, after a night of no sleep, and having come up with no other solutions (the bus took 2 hours each way and would have meant returning home in the dark from the centre of town, a taxi was going to cost £45 and I couldn't ask anyone for a lift because of COVID), I finally gave in and texted her.

She made a big song and dance about it - only being able to if Joel brought the girls back by 3 on Sunday afternoon (they were going to his for the Saturday night) and even then it was touch and go because she wanted Lily to open her presents before they left for the trampolining place which was booked for 5. She said she would ask him when he came to pick them up on Saturday morning and get back to me. She didn't of course - she waited until 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon before she texted me back.

And that might have all made sense had it been true but I happened to know there was already an arrangement made that the girls were coming back at 2 p.m. which was no problem from his end so when she texted me on Sunday continuing with that pack of lies the girls were already home! However I was just glad she hadn't used it to make things worse.

She's made a few passive aggressive comments in general which Lily does a wonderful job of upending without realising what she's doing - I've had to hide a smile on several occasions - but the best one was when she was taking me home after the trampolining. A police car passed us on the other side of the dual carriageway and one of the girls said "Someone must have been bad." Without missing a heartbeat, Nikki immediately said "Yes Granny was bad"!

I thought oh here we go she's really going to milk this so I began to tell them all about the car and every few seconds Nikki would interject with "That was really bad of Granny to drive without that special piece of paper wasn't it?" or "It was very dangerous of Granny to drive too fast down at the beach wasn't it?" etc etc - you get the gist!

So after about twenty minutes of this, there was silence and then this little voice comes from the back

"I don't believe any of that".

I had to turn to look out of the window because I was dying to laugh so much and I knew it would just make things worse if I did! Clearly the thought of Granny doing such terrible things was just SO incomprehensible it was completely out of the question :)

Nice one Lily :)

So at the moment I go out on a Wednesday and a Saturday afternoon and stay until the kids go to bed then head for home. The weird thing is she shows little signs of wanting rid of me at that point - she'll often start a conversation as I'm getting my boots and jacket on and on Wednesday this week she asked me about a job she'd applied for which turned into a short discussion for which I had to sit down for about 20 minutes. And then last night I was out there and she chatted for a good half hour after Ruari was in bed, almost as though she wanted me to stay longer. I do find that quite bizarre, especially as she will also do stuff at the same time to make me believe she's doing all she can to avoid having to spend hours with me - it's all very confusing.

I had to laugh though when I put my birthday cards up in September and realised the 'Mum' centre bit of the one Nikki had given me had fallen off! Very telling!


Not her fault I hasten to add - Ruari took a shine to it when I opened it at Pitmedden and had destroyed it before I got home :)

One thing that’s helped a bit with the whole thing has been an old boyfriend getting back in touch in July - I very much doubt anything will come of it because he’s just a bit too Victor Meldrewish for me but he messages me every night for about 3 hours and we chew the fat and banter back and forth. That’s been a very welcome distraction I must admit.


Counselling
There's been a little bit of progress on the counselling front. When I had the pseudo counselling session with another volunteer back in March, it went really well with good feedback and the only downside was that the Agency literally closed 10 minutes after the session ended! (I don't think the two were related :) I waited until we were out of lockdown before contacting them again and my supervisor let me know they were only offering telephone counselling at that point - which I didn't feel would be nearly as effective or as satisfactory so decided to wait until they were back to face to face counselling.

Of course that situation didn't happen - well not completely - they ARE offering a mix of face to face and telephone counselling now but I discovered the telephone counselling can be done at home. This would make a big difference to me as, because it's a more intense process, a shorter time is offered (40 minutes instead of an hour), thereby using less energy. It would also be a lot safer not having to go and meet people at the Agency. But also doing it at home means I could do it in my bed in my jammies!!

I have to admit I don't think I would have the guts to do that - I just wouldn't feel professional at all - but it does open a slightly bigger window of availability - which means it might be possible to take on two clients a week instead of just one. (I had resigned myself to having one and probably never increasing that).

After we trained, the Agency very much encouraged us to increase to two clients as soon as possible because you can get a bit obsessed with just the one. Of course as a newly trained counsellor none of us agreed with that - it sounded very scary having ONE client, never mind two! And I was no exception. But once I started with my second client, I was gobsmacked to find out they were totally right - somehow it works far better to have that whole process diluted.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. I have several health and safety protocols I need to do first and some forms to complete and then once that's all done, Christine, my supervisor, wants to have a final chat with me to go over a couple of things then I'm good to go and it's just a case of being matched up. Christine is off on leave at the moment though so that will all probably take another few weeks to happen.


Christmas
Every year I always think I have plenty of time to sort out my Christmas shopping and every year I end up with about 3 weeks to spare doing it all at the last minute! So this year I was determined that wasn't happening and set to last week to at least make a stab at figuring out what to get everyone. I have 16 kids plus one adult to buy for plus 6 extra presents for birthdays between now and the end of January so it's a lot. I've just about got everyone sorted now though I think - just a couple to make final decisions on but the presents are now in various online baskets at least!

The mistake I often make is thinking the buying is the worst part and relaxing after that's done - and then rushing around like a blue arsed fly in a flurry of wrapping presents at the last minute or ending up posting Christmas cards first class because I missed the second class deadline. I'm determined to be more organised this year, especially as I have a lot of presents which need posting and two which need to go to New York. I was therefore delighted to read a comment on someone's diary this week from Cosmic the Cat saying Royal Mail are now rolling out a scheme this year whereby posties are picking up parcels to be posted from folks' houses at a cost of only 72p per parcel. I might very well avail myself of that service to try and avoid the long queues at the Post Office as we get nearer to Christmas.


This entry was supposed to be posted before Hallowe'en because I wanted to include some photos of some of the decorations I was seeing when I was going on walks - I think folk were going a little bit more out this year perhaps because kids weren't going to be trick or treating? Anyway this was my favourite - cheered me right up when I saw it!


And although the news is generally bleak these days, in this house I've been catching rainbows!


Please excuse a bit of my flesh on show.


Courtesy of a crystal my aunt Nanna gave me absolute yonks ago for my birthday one year which has given me literally years of pleasure as it catches the rays of the sun when it shines :)