Saturday 12 October 2019

Struggling

Life is difficult for me at the moment - in the grand scheme of things when I look at what others are dealing with then this really shouldn't be an issue but I've been feeling low for some time now and everything together is tipping me over the edge.

My knee injury is now 1 year ago but I still have problems with pain and stiffness first thing in the mornings - I am still taking painkillers and I really want to stop them - nothing addictive, just NSAIDs but I really don't want to be taking them every day - I have an unspecified bleeding disorder and this adds to my bruising and spontaneous bleeding.

I am tired - this is nothing new, but I am managing some nights to get between 7 and 8 hours sleep and by lunchtime I am ready for bed again!

Hubby has a new job - he is so pleased to be out of his previous job after 10 years. By the time he left he was really hating it and the people that he worked with and the secret and excessive drinking had started again  - this really worried me but if I tried to discuss it, I had my head bitten off. He is still in the training period but was told that he would need to be away from home no more than 1 night per month. So far he has been in the job 12 working days and has been away for 5 nights with a further 3 planned for next week. It was meant to be 4 but when I said I was struggling with him being away so much, he told work he would drive home from Poole on Monday and then leave again early on Tuesday morning to get to the other side of London for his 8 am appointment. While I appreciate this, it means he will be more tired when driving and then I start to worry about that as well. I am hoping that once his training has completed, he will not be having to drive between Cornwall and Scotland all the time!

Work is hell - I am not working on a Saturday now, as Hubby is home every weekend. This in turn has increased my workload in the week and I am struggling with everything that is needed to be done. I was checking emails from September last night before I left that the Boss had sent to me and I have missed an important one that should have been sorted 5 weeks ago. And now I can't contact the person to arrange blood tests. The Trust is about to go digital and we will be using 4 different systems to cover all the areas, however, nobody seems to be thinking about VTE which needs to be used by all 4 systems and they are now realising that something needs to be done and they are close to being launched. Then trying to speak to the correct people about it is like trying to find a needle in a haystack - none of them have contact extensions, they can only be contacted via email and then take forever to reply, by which time the launch date is nearer and they are saying, oh it's too late to add this now - so my answer back is what are you going to do about it? This is essential to the running of the Trust and patient safety.This is actually making feel extremely stressed and I am at the point where I could just walk!

My weight - I cannot loose any. I have been following WW for many years and while it keeps me at the weight I am, I need to loose weight. The first two weeks of Hubby's new job, I came home and cooked good nutritious meals the nights he was away. This week I basically hit the junk food and have eaten absolute rubbish. I was at the end of September the lightest I had been for over 18 months, but that weight has started to creep back on again and that makes me unhappy.

The one thing that has really upset me and I think has pushed me to this tipping point is a close friend has stopped talking to me. A group of us went out a couple of weeks ago and this friend was at the same event. We all spent the evening talking and generally having a great time. When I left, she said that we would meet up the following week. Since then this friend has not answered any messages or texts and I actually feel abandoned. My best friend has tried to mediate and find out what is actually wrong and she won't talk to her either. What we both cannot understand is how everything was ok on the Friday and by the Saturday I was frozen out. We had a very close friendship and to be honest, this friend was the person I probably spoke to almost every day even if was just to say hello and to check that they were ok. They have been struggling themselves recently and having lost one of their close friends to suicide I had been supporting them even more. It actually feels like she has died - a bit extreme I know but maybe with everything else going on it is hitting harder than usual. It's silly as well as I can go weeks without talking to my best friend and I don't feel like this at all.

I am feeling sick when I wake in the mornings, I am fairly short-tempered at work although I am trying my best not to be  - my office colleagues are both lovely and pleasant to be with, but some days all I want is quiet around me. Ive taken to telling them I have a lot to do and not to be offended but I am going to put my earphones in and work without a distraction!

I don't know what else I can do. Maybe with Hubby away next week, I can try and only work until 6pm and then come home and try and be in bed by 10pm. Look to cook healthy meals again - cooking for one is not fun, I take my hat off to those who are always cooking for one. Maybe look to start the Happy Mile walking again in an attempt to at least give me some exercise each day. Keep my fingers crossed that Hubby's training finishes soon and he isn't away from home as much. My friend? I can only hope that she starts to talk to me again.


Sunday 24 February 2019

A dream job!

So, it's been a while my friends and lots has changed in my life - but that's for another day!

I have often said that Guiding is an amazing organisation for meeting people who you would never connect with in your normal life!

This is so true for me.

In 2010 I was fortunate to attend the Guiding Centenary Camp at Harewood House in Yorkshire. I had signed up as a general dogsbody and had no idea what I had let myself in for!

I ended up on my second day helping to put up a couple of large tents for a Guiding version of Ready Steady Cook! The person who would be leading this had yet to arrive, so a group of minions were left to do the hard work.

Just as we were putting the final tent pegs this leader arrived - she had a good enough excuse for not being there, she had flown back in from Afghanistan after ending her tour. She wasn't formally in the forces but had spent a period of time out there supporting them by working extremely hard in the background - living conditions weren't great but she managed it!

As I hadn't been assigned to anything in particular at that point, I asked if I could stay and help run the activity with her for the rest of the camp - she agreed and a friendship began.

We are similar in age and have the same sense of humour and you know when you meet some people that this friendship would continue even after the camp had finished. There were a group of 7 of us in total who helped to run this activity and apart from 1, we still try and meet up at least once a year. I am fortunate that I am in the middle of everyone and I do get to see some of them at least twice a year depending where I get to go with work.

This friend was then posted to a British Embassy for 3 years and I was fortunate enough to go out one year for the Queen's Birthday Party as her guest - another experience I would never had got if it wasn't for Guiding!

That posting finished almost 2 years ago now and she has been based back in London since then. She has floated between jobs as her next posting abroad was cancelled and to be honest she hasn't really settled into anything with the gusto she usually does.

20 years ago, she went out to work at Sangam for a year and she has always yearned to return to work there. Just before Christmas, she messaged me to say that the Centre Manager at Sangam job was being advertised and didn't know whether to apply or not - I told her she would be stupid if she didn't!

She applied and obviously got short-listed! Her skills from working for the Government make her perfect for the job. She then had a Skype interview and was given 24 hours to answer 3 questions in 1000 words. She submitted that and was then shortlisted to the final 3. She was then flown out to Sangam with less than a week's notice for her final interview. She loved being back out there and completed the interview and then flew back home on the Sunday and then the wait began!

She waited and waited and waited a bit more - then she messaged me to say that she had been asked to go into WAGGGS on the Thursday. She thought that they would let her know to her face that she hadn't got the job. She was so wrong - they offered her the job and she starts in June.

To her this is her dream job - she has so much to do out there though. The occupancy rate is below 36% and one of her first challenges is to get this increased but knowing her, she will do this.

I am so pleased for her as I know that she is perfect for this - she has so much experience at being the perfect host and getting people to work well together that I know Sangam has an absolute diamond coming to live there.

On the downside, her Rangers and Guides will loose out on a fantastic leader, I won't be able to hop on a train at 3pm and spend an evening in London with her just because we both need to have a rant about anything and everything and set the world to rights!

However, there is What's App and Messenger as well as FaceTime so we will be able to keep in touch, but I will really miss seeing her but hopefully I will be able to visit her at some point!