Where next?

If I am honest I put too much hope in the election result, in a change of government, in a change of culture and approach.  The exit poll and subsequent results have knocked me flat: I am honestly not sure how I am going to cope with another five years of Conservative government.  Another five years of being described as a "scrounger" and a "shirker", another five years of the poorest in society suffering the most, another five years of fear and blame and divide and rule.

It is not that I hate the Conservatives per se, or that I hate Conservative voters.  I do hate the campaign they ran, filled with fear, fear of the Scots, fear of the economy, fear that if you do not grasp all you have you may lose it.  I hate the idea that all that matters is you, you and your hard working family, nothing else matters.  I hate the idea that the poor deserve poverty, that it is a matter of personal responsibility, if only people tried harder they would not be poor.  This is blatantly untrue: it ignores all the structures that keep people poor.

I am filled with dread of what £12 billion of welfare cuts are going to mean to my community, to the disabled, none of whom chose their circumstances, what is going to happen?  How are we to live?  What is it going to mean for the increasing numbers of children growing up in poverty?

There is so much that concerns me, scares me, angers me, I feel so passionately about what is happening.  But, but, I am ill, I am exhausted, the anger and anxiety make me more exhausted and sore and ill.  How can I make a change?  How can I get involved and fight and campaign?  To be sure, if I were well, I would be out there, doing everything I could to make a difference.  Instead I feel like my arms are tied behind my back, my feet tied together and my mouth gagged: I feel silenced and made invisible by my illness.

So where next?  I am at a loss.  I am trying to keep an eternal perspective, trying to pray, trying to find hope in God, but the present feels so overwhelming.

I may head back to the Psalms, it feels like a time for lament.

More on change

So it's been over a month and I have managed to miss last month's book, though it could be rather dull, I have mostly read technical booklets lately, on thrilling subjects like how to work the oven or what insurance covers.  But I thought an update was long overdue.

I am finally living in my new house, after a long period of doing things and sorting out, it is not totally sorted yet, some of my furniture has yet to arrive and the books have yet to make the big move.  Although I never thought I'd manage to pack them all up, took nearly 40 boxes in the end.  There have been hiccoughs like the heating breaking down twice and rodent related issues I wish I did not have to deal with, let us just say that Rentokil are expensive but lovely.

All the work involved has been horribly hard on my health, ME, fibromyalgia and moving house do not mix well at all, I have been more tired and sore than in ages lately.  Emotionally it is weird too, I am not some who deals well with change: last time Waitrose moved stock around I nearly had a panic attack.  So a major life change like moving out on your own is good, but also feels odd, weird, strange and scary.  There simply is no turning back and going home and being the same, I cannot let myself and there were lots of reasons I needed to be out, but staying means being brave again and again and again.  Of course there have been happy times I have enjoyed, being able to welcome a friend to my place for the first time, exploring a new area (fantastic greengrocer up the road), being able to shut the door on the world, meeting a friendly local cat who insisted on exploring the house for himself.  There are things I am looking forward to like planting the garden or having friends over for dinner for the first time.  But there are also times when I start at every noise (not helped by aforementioned rodents) or wonder, "what next?" and "what am I doing here?".

Throughout the long process of finding, buying and moving in I have been praying about this move, there have been a lot of questions about whether this is right and am I doing the right thing?  And prayers that I would use this house to God's glory, to bring his kingdom here, to make people feel welcome and bless others.  Even now I am having doubts about the whole thing: leaving the familiar, even uncomfortable familiarity, is unbelievably hard.  I feel so shook up and strange, sometimes I look around and wonder what I am doing here and when the real owner is going to come home.  On top of this I am beyond exhausted and having to take a couple of days' off to recuperate.  Yet other people are so excited for me, which is lovely, but makes it hard to articulate how I feel at times.  In a way it seems ungrateful: this should be fantastic, instead I feel all mixed up inside.

I am trying to pray, to lean on God, to let him be my stability in rapidly changing times, prayer can be such a challenge sometimes.  He brought me through to here, he will keep being with me, I know he will, even though I feel a bit lost now.  The best way forward I suppose is to try keep praying and to take each day at a time and if that seems too long, take each moment at a time.  It will get easier, right?

Christian Community and the Sick

When I first heard about the Community of St Anselm, the new community of prayer being established at Lambeth Palace for people aged 20-35 to “spend a year in God's time”, I was terribly excited and ready to sign up right away. I have been increasingly interested in the ideas around community for some years now and the practises of regular prayer through the day, although I have been less successful always in establishing that discipline at home on my own. It sounds like a fantastic opportunity to grow, learn and experience God. Most of all I thought, “imagine not being lonely for a whole year, not being a Christian alone, being with other Christians”. Being sick, unable to work and coming from a non-Christian family has been intensely lonely, both from a general point of view and from a specifically Christian point of view.

But then reality kicked in, the reality that this community needed energetic people, it was there in the language of discipline, rigour, discomfort and hard work. The reality that someone like me would never keep up for a week, let alone a year. The reality that being around people can be draining. The reality that being chronically ill has made me something of a hermit, unable to be around people, too tired to take part in so many things, not a willing hermit, but one because of circumstance.

My natural reaction to this is to be thoroughly fed up at seeing yet another opportunity go out of my reach, being shut out again because I have no energy to be busy and active, feeling useless yet again. Yet although these feelings are valid and need expressing, it does not have to end here does it? So I cannot be part of this community? It does not mean that I and others like me are shut out of all expressions of community?

I hate to think of there being others out there like me, each isolated from the wider church, feeling outside and being unable to connect with one another. Although things are easier now, I have been through times of intense isolation and still feel too isolated from and out of step with other Christians my own age, and I cannot be the only person in a similar situation? Beginning to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together has provided a challenging view of community and I have been especially struck by his view that to live in community with our brothers and sisters in Christ is a privilege.

“So between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God's Word and sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible fellowship is a blessing. They remember, as the Psalmist did, how they went 'with the multitude... to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday' (Ps. 42.4). But they remain alone in far countries, a scattered seed according to God's will. Yet what is denied them in actual experience they seize upon more fervently in faith.”

So community is not only a privilege, but also a prophetic way of living that foretells the way things will be on the new earth. However, as we are still being remade and are not yet fully perfected, living out this calling is a tremendous challenge as we need to be able to leave behind our own needs, priorities and concerns in order to love one another and live together in harmony. Do the demands that illness make upon my body leave enough energy and strength for this challenge?

In myself certainly no, but in God's grace and with His help who knows what may be possible, always bearing in mind that as things stand I am not healed. Therefore maybe my challenge is to consider other means of living in a degree of community, looking for a way for people like me, who are shut out because of sickness, to come together for fellowship, be it virtual or visible? Prayer is one of the few things you can still do when you have next to no energy, so there is no reason for the sick to be shut out of Archbishop Justin's call to prayer, but the challenge is to find ways of enjoying the privilege and blessing of praying with others. Paradoxically this illness has been the means by which I have learnt to value prayer and to rely on God in prayer, because I have fewer of my own resources. I have learnt that prayer takes incredible perseverance, some days just concentrating enough is a massive struggle and of course there are days when the prayer is the simple, primeval, “help!” and no more. God is gracious and helps me when I ask Him to help me with prayer and reading the Bible. But being able to come together with other Christians daily for prayer continues to be something I dream about.

It seems, therefore, that I will be sitting out the Community of St Anselm, but perhaps it can prompt me to fresh thinking about community and its different forms? And of course I can pray, for the Community itself, for the wider church and that we can find a way for people like me to take part in a community of fellowship and encouragement, virtual and face to face. I have no idea what form this will take or what it will look like, or even if it will happen, but for now I will keep reading, praying, hoping and waiting on God.

New Year's Resolutions?

At the end of my last post I wrote that I would be back with some goals or aims for the new year; however, when I came to think about it being a New Year (the words seem capitalised in my head) and thinking about what I wanted to achieve in those 12 months I ended up overwhelmed.  During the closing month or so of last year I had many ideas about how the New Year was going to be, changing my life, being bolder, doing various things better, the usual sorts of things.  Then the New Year came, in its usual underwhelming style and over the first few days of the year I have felt a sense of disappointment, that things are not immediately better, that I am still making some of the same mistakes and failing in some of the same areas as before, that each day feels the same as it did last year.

My expectations both of myself and of an arbitrary division in the calendar were vastly over-inflated.  Surely I should have remembered how overwhelming it is to look at something as big as a whole year in one piece?  And I had also failed to remember that my body has not magically got better overnight, the succession of headaches that has marred the first week of the year should be a sharp reminder.

So instead I am rethinking the goals and aims and what I want to achieve and breaking things down into smaller, more manageable chunks.  Overall this year I want to live more boldly and be more prepared to try new things and take risks, albeit carefully calculated risks.  But I do need to start where I am, more rest needs to be on the agenda and my first big goal is finishing my dad's jumper, which is becoming something of a struggle due to lack of motivation.  Fellow knitters will understand when I say that I am on the sleeves, often a dispiriting section of a jumper.

On I go, step by step, taking the year day by day, with my usual slow dance of two steps forward, one step back, trying to keep trying and not get discouraged.  After all an arbitrary change of date is not enough, on its own, to change life.

An Insomniac's Miscellany

Once again I cannot sleep.  No matter how relaxed I try to get before bed as soon as I lie down I get tense and my jaw clenches and the more I lie there, the worse it gets.  So I find it best to get up and potter gently about, listening to quiet music, doing a little simple knitting, reading, anything to try to relax as I sit in the lamp light.  This being unable to sleep has been going on for a few months now and I have reached the point where I am sufficiently fed up that I have made a doctor's appointment, so that is Tuesday's fun outing.

So lack of sleep is making the rest of life harder and I have little to report.  Dad's jumper is coming along nicely and my thoughts are increasingly turning to Christmas, a festival I love.  All those sparkly lights and hope in the darkness and familiar rituals; I love Christmas in all its infinite variety.  Although I do need to get realistic and try to curb my desire to make everything for everyone.


Puddings pre-cooking

A few weeks ago we made two Christmas puddings, as we had got down to only one left in the store cupboard and the puddings really are best matured at least a year.  It was a nice family occasion, my parents and I each took tasks and shared out the work; Dad managed to get himself the job of adding the brandy!  I must try to write down a recipe as my mother pretty much carries it in her head, which would make it tricky if I ever wanted to try making one on my own.  Next on the agenda is an attempt at a Christmas cake, which I have less experience at and past attempts have not always been a great success, however, I have been reading up and gathering tips.  How do you decorate your Christmas cake?  My family are not keen on the traditional marzipan and thick icing so I am looking for ideas.

For now, back to the task of trying to relax enough to sleep.

Crash

Right now I am in the middle of an ME and fibromyalgia crash, caused by trying to do too much and not saying no enough and things just happening that I have had to deal with and not enough sleep over a number of weeks.  It seems a cruel irony that a fatigue causing illness should come with the inability to sleep.

I am trying not to feel sorry for myself, or blame myself too much, although I know that this is what happens if I overdo things; neither am I asking for your pity.  But there might not be much interesting blogging going on for a bit while I regroup and keep practising resting.  I am trying to teach myself to see resting as constructive, not simply wasting time or achieving nothing, this effort is in its early days so far.

For now I shall go back to bed, in between short times knitting, I think having something restful to do is so important with any kind of chronic illness.  It provides something else to think about outside oneself and helps pass the time.  Certainly I have become good at finding low-energy things to do, perhaps one day I shall have to write about it here, when I have rested that is!


A gratuitous picture of some roses because they're beautiful.

52 Weeks of Happy - week 9 (belatedly)

Life has somehow overtaken me and I am now two weeks behind in "52 weeks of happy", it may be challenging remembering what happened in the week before last so you will have to bear with me!  I did consider doing weeks nine and ten in one post, but that seemed somehow to be cheating.

1. Camomile Tea - recommended by a friend because I was so stressed and tense I could not relax, to the point where I was rigid with tension or shaking.  It worked almost at once, unlocking the tension enough that I could then work on relaxing and could cope again.  Since then I have had some every day and while I am not completely sorted, it is helping.

2. More signs of spring - some more tree prunings, this time from the magnolia tree outside the house.



3. Marking Time - the second of the Cazalet novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard.  It is ages since I was so lost and absorbed in a book, or a series of books.  They deal with the life of an extended family in the years surrounding and during the second world war, there is so much skill in the way she tells the story from different perspectives and managing to produce an ensemble work in which there are no weak or under-developed characters.  I have ended up caring about these characters intensely, truly caring what happens to them.  The novels are being beautifully dramatised on radio 4 across this year to mark Elizabeth Jane Howard's 90th birthday.

4. Apple loaf - from the Edmonds' cook book, essentially a soda bread with grated apple added.  It was moist and tasty with a dense but not heavy crumb.  Even better it was not hard to make so hopefully I will be able to make it again soon.  I am considering whether some spices and sultanas would make good additions, sounds like experiment time!

Time to look up

When you cannot sleep for at least two hours after going to bed
And then wake up over an hour early,
After bad sleep, so tense you are almost rigid
And then a concrete cutter starts up in the street outside

When you feel worse than usual
And life seems bleak, painful and pointless
Problems overwhelming
The past haunting and shifting

When you want to cry but you cannot

Then it's time to look up; I am so glad of music, of the reminder to turn again to God, who does not shift or change, in whom there are no shadows, who understands and cares, who listens and grants peace, who is all powerful, strong and loving.

Then for a while I can focus on the truth and on how loved I am and how one day all things will be new, no tears, no pain, then everything falls back into its proper perspective.

Then I am so glad that I put the worship CD in the kitchen yesterday, so it was there when I needed it most, when the music broke the blow as the newspaper headlines hit.

Thank you Father, help me not to lose your perspective and your love.

This is a simple song, but it never fails to remind me of what matters.

Come on my soul... let down the walls... it's time to look up.

52 Weeks of Happy - Week 8

Posting a day late this week because I have been a little (more) under the weather (than usual), nothing major, just a low level virus I think but enough to be annoying and make me even more tired.  It is also increasing my brain fog so that I am finding it hard to think clearly or focus on things at times and I have felt a bit down about it at times.  However, I am trying not to let this take over, so I am writing this post for a start, although I do not appear to have taken many or any photographs this week so you will have to excuse the blog's dull appearance for a bit.

1. Talking - talking to someone wise with whom you feel safe to say how you really feel and who makes you feel like you are not doing so badly after all.  The sort of conversation that leaves you with a lot to take in, think about and pray over.  Oh that there were more people like this in the world and oh that I could help others in the same way one day.  Such a precious opportunity.


From a previous year but still delightfully sunny.

2. Potato farls - where have these been all my life?  They feel like the perfect food for this grimly cold weather.  I got the recipe from this brilliant feature in The Observer by Miss South of the blog North/South Food, not only is the recipe simple and effective, there are a number of the other recipes on my "to try" list and the piece is thoughtful, thought-provoking and well written.  Do go and read it, then try the recipes.

3. A gentle, silly film - this time a 1970s film-of-a-sitcom: Bless this House starring Sid James (who also came up last week), which was on Film 4 this week and is bound to be on again.  It was just right for an afternoon on the sofa knitting.  I am considering checking out the original sitcom.


Again not this year's, but I am beginning to see snowdrops and crocuses and must get some photos of the primroses.

4. Friends - I have been lucky enough this week to have a couple of social engagements, which I managed to fulfil despite feeling under par, and there really is nothing like sitting around a table eating and talking.  I can see why Jesus is so often found eating with people in the Gospels, be it up mountains, beside lakes or after inviting himself to someone's house, it can be one of the best ways of getting to know people and deepening relationships.  There is a special warmth and vulnerability to sitting down to eat together, like the Vikings leaving their weapons at the door when they sat down to eat or King Priam going to eat with Achilles when he goes to him to ask for Hector's body back in the Iliad.  What made this dinner even nicer was that it was utterly unexpected, my neighbour called around and invited me that afternoon.

My other social occasion this week was having coffee with a knitting friend, a form of socialising I enjoy very much and we had a good chat about stranded colour work and other knitterly topics of conversation.

So, on with the rest I think.

Doing enough

Last night I was having another of my guilt-filled panics with God about "the future" and whether or not I should be doing and achieving more.  This is a frequent thought, which derives from a vague sense that I should be doing something, regardless of how I am and it seems to be a deep seated idea as I have struggled with it for a long time now.  I see all my friends and contemporaries getting PhDs or married or having children or careers or travelling, or a mixture of the above, and feel like a failure, an idea further engendered from my family, where to have a BA degree is to be somewhat under-educated.  What am I doing?  What have I done with the last six years of my life?

Then something like this morning happens, a sudden crisis in my mother's health and all these thoughts fall away as the central business of existing suddenly takes over and consumes all my energy and thought.  Thankfully my mother is recovering and I am gradually recovering from the shock, although things are not entirely back to normal.

In the midst of this I read Ruth's post on her excellent blog One Little Drop this morning and then read the blog posts she had linked to and they gave me back some sense of perspective on myself, the first article in particular.  All this time that I have been ill I have felt under a pressure from others to be doing something, or that it was time to move on from being ill and do something, as though it were that simple, when so many days are spent simply managing to get through the day, when being consumes all energy.

And yet, and yet... I still lack the confidence to say that I am doing enough, that just being and getting through the day with grace and the minimum of self pity and bitterness is enough.  Jesus help me, give me your perspective.

Holiday excitement

The past couple of "WIP Wednesdays seem to have drifted past me, never mind, these things happen and I have been feeling worn out and really rather out of it, as though the world were quite a long way off.

But, excitingly, on Saturday I am off on holiday for the first time in six years.  Previously I have always felt so tired and just could not face travel, but I have decided to take a step out and be brave and go away for a week.  So I am going with my parents to spend a week on a farm in Sussex.  Hardly a huge adventure or trekking in the Andes, but for me, who has not been outside London in a number of years and lately not even outside Croydon, it is a huge step.

When you are so tired and ill your world does tend to shrink, to places you have to go (hospital appointments etc.) and places you feel safe going and know you can manage, which tend to be repetitive (I can get anxious about new places) and close by.  So a distance that my parents would not turn a hair at as a day trip, becomes for me a trek and entirely new territory, new places to explore.



Naturally I am anxious about being away, about a different bed, new places, there are lots of unquantifiables, and so I am trying to quell my anxieties.  If I have been on the website of the place we are staying once I have been on a dozen times; I have examined the location and the surrounding areas and even looked on Google Earth!  I am packing things that help me cope with all eventualities such as hot water bottle and a fan and will have the internet while I am there so that I can stay in touch with my ravelry friends too.

But despite all this I am genuinely excited, I am looking forward to peace, quiet and green - being able to see the countryside and see beautiful things instead of grey pavements and tower blocks.  I know there are limits to what I can do while there, my world there will be small just as it is at home, because I am not well enough to travel miles or go for day trips in the car.  But I plan to make the most of what I can do, seeing the animals on the farm, sitting with my knitting looking at a beautiful view, enjoying the fresh air and freedom from the Met Police's helicopters.  And I have a couple of little excursions I want to make, notably to Lewes, a town I have not visited in years, but used to love going to.



If blogger's interfaces and my little Android tablet get on then I hope to blog from Sussex; if not then I shall do a post (or two) about it when I am back from my great adventure.  For now I need to finish packing (itself a tiring, anxious process) and try to keep my fear and excitement under check, now I come to think about it they are rather linked emotions; for me this has all the emotions of a ride at Alton Towers.

The photographs in this post were taken at Coombe Wood, one of Croydon's hidden gems and well worth a visit.

Little Donkey

Aren't the weeks and days leading up to Christmas manic? Though my "manic" is probably most people's fairly ordinary, but that's par for the course. I have socialised, wondered why I don't do this more often as it's really fun, then spent the next week slowly realising why as I gradually recover (still not quite there and it's been more than a week now). I have baked, since naturally it is not Christmas without home made gingerbread, among other things. I have done a lot of finishing on knitting projects, knitting is just delayed sewing, it gets you making the fabric, then the sewing sneaks up on you. I have yet again discovered that much as I adore choosing and giving presents, I'm no fan of wrestling the wrapping paper into submission. And I have helped rescue a fallen down Christmas tree, among other Christmas preparations.

There has been so much I have wanted to do but been unable to manage and I have found it hard telling myself to slow down and stop and admit that there are things I just can't do. I haven't made it to a single church service which is disappointing and even dozed through most of the "Carols from Kings" on the radio. This is the struggle I live with day to day but somehow it is twice as hard at Christmas. In an ideal world I'd like to hold a huge Christmas with a table full of family and friends, while I cook up a storm in my perfectly decorated house. Reality can be so different sometimes! Though not necessarily worse, I am trying to learn to celebrate what I have got and make the most of the present momentI think I must be a slow learner because I'm shattered and have had the same headache (from over doing things) for a good week now. Today I cracked and took the good headache pills so I can at least have Christmas day headacheless (I hope!). I am doing better than earlier in the week, when I had made myself so stressed and anxious that I could not sleep.

A number of times in all of this I have looked up at the little wooden decoration a friend sent me a couple of years' ago which shows Mary and Joseph travelling with their donkey and it has refocused me on the why of Christmas, which I find easy to loose in a welter of anxieties and preparations. Thanks to that reminder, a number of times I have been able to say that it does not matter, whatever it is I am worrying about, Jesus matters. He came and stooped to meet us and because He came we all have hope: hope for now and hope for the future. I will do my best to focus on that hope this Christmas and for the future and be glad that at least my Christmas does not involve a seventy mile donkey ride.

I wish you and your family a peaceful and joyful Christmas. I'll leave you with this lovely and local carol:

"Then why should we on earth be sad,

Since our Redeemer made us glad:

When from our sin He set us free,

All for to gain our liberty...

"All out of darkness we have light

Which made the angels sing this night"

Autumn

Time slips on, complicated hat has made way on the needles for complicated mittens, while in the past few days I have been enjoying finally being able to wear the complicated hat. When I finished it we were in the middle of our intense Indian summer and I had to unearth my sun hat instead. How glorious that was and how cold it felt yesterday by contrast.

Stepping outside today, despite the comparative warmth, there is a definite smell of autumn, of falling leaves and damp lawn and cooling earth and decay. It is the sort of day which inspires me to want to put on some wellingtons and do some digging or other essential autumn job in the garden. If only I had the energy.

Sometimes I regard this slow slipping into winter with dread, all those dark, cold days, but in my saner moments I just take each moment as it comes and watch all its changes and moods. This is a better way I think, it feels calmer. Watch the leaves slowly change, the birds, who all vanished during the heat of the Indian summer, return to use the feeders so lovingly set up for them, wash and drink in the bird bath and chatter and preen in the bushes, hopping around the branches of the big holly as though it were a green stair case, up and down, up and down. Watch a robin sitting apparently doing nothing, looking casually about him before diving to the ground for some grub smaller than I can see.

That robin is delightful, he always comes down when I am outside to see what I'm up to. I'll look up from my magazine or book, having heard the flutter of wings, to see him sitting on a branch two feet away watching me. I love the look of triumph in his eye when he has a particularly juicy worm or a good berry, a look that says "this is mine, back off". The blackbirds are just the same.

These trees were so golden, lit up by the sun, I half expected Aeneas to turn up, guided by doves, for his golden bough.

In between there have been blacker moods and darker times, part of chronic illness I suppose. But I am writing this almost to prove to myself that it hasn't all been bad. And time slips on, flowing past, while I nap and knit and watch.

Radio silence

I haven't posted for a while because there hasn't been a lot to say. It's just more of the same, more feeling awful, more waiting for appointments, more impromptu trips to the doctors', more things I need to do piling up undone, more depression, more antibiotics, or antibirockets as a fellow raveller put it.

I feel truly pathetic for getting so down, other people have things far worse than I do and manage to live with far more grace, although I know depression doesn't help me to do this. Life is just so hard, unrelentingly so and I'm trying so hard to hope. Being so isolated doesn't help either, particularly spiritually, being an isolated Christian with depression isn't easy, I'm trying to believe, trying to keep communicating with Jesus, keep worshipping, but not succeeding very well.

At least I've got an appointment later in the week to see Father Andrew, a lovely retired vicar or priest (he wears a dog collar so he must be something like that?) who is wonderfully understanding and one of those people who is so Jesus-like. Crucially he is also easy to talk to; I find even when I do see people that it's really hard to open up. I guess you're never sure how people will react and it's rare that any one's got the time and inclination really to listen. And I don't know how to start or what to say and I don't really have the energy to socialise anyway. It's that catch-22 situation of being lonely but not well enough to see people.

However, before this all gets too depressing for words, there have been a few other things going on. The loaf of bread I made overnight in the bread maker has come out very nicely, a light wholemeal loaf. But I have had to undo ten days' hard work on a cardigan I have been working on because of a simple mathematical error that means it was working out far too small. One of this afternoon's tasks will be to start the cardigan all over again. Such is knitting I suppose, one blessing is that the yarn doesn't seem overly bothered by being undone, some of it for the second time. It is a bit disheartening to see ten days' work reduced to a pathetic huddle of bundles of yarn.

I am going to go outside into the garden now, since the weather has changed once again, from November back to proper August weather.

Oh and while we're on the subject of the radio - Radio 4 has just started another of its modern production of lost Paul Temple serials, past ones have been superb, truly the BBC at its very best - you simply must listen!

Thought for the day

"...I will be flesh and blood;

For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently,

However they have writ the style of gods,

And made a push at chance and sufferance."

Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 1

Avoid direct sunlight

Warning: this post may contain traces of self pity

So after a couple of years of recurring skin infections, over the details of which we shall draw a delicate veil, I have been put on a three month long course of antibiotics to see if we can clear up the problem. As usual the leaflet accompanying these pills is thoroughly terrifying, though comfortingly death isn't listed as a side effect, which I have seen before, so that's a start. However, aside from the stern instruction to drink a full glass of water when taking this pill (why? is it that bad for the insides? And what exactly is a glass of water - how big?), the instruction that has thrown me the most is "Avoid direct sunlight".

This is written on the pharmacist's label on the box and repeated inside and given it is now May and that the three months will then take in June and July, dismays me considerably. You see, until a couple of years ago any sort of warm weather would leave me limper than last week's lettuce, trying not to move and seeking out coolness where soever it could be found. However, bizarrely at the start of the winter a couple of years ago I suddenly discovered that I could not get warm, a problem that has continued subsequently, to the point where the woolly sock and fingerless glove season now stretches from September to May, with the summer months only offering temporary respite. Great news for opportunities to knit, but not so good for pain levels or comfort.

Conversely now I find that not only can I tolerate really quite warm weather, I even enjoy it, soaking up sunlight and warmth like a salamander or lizard, loving the feeling of relaxed comfort it brings to my muscles and joints after the painful cold of the winter. I have loved the sunlight of the last month, sitting out when I can and letting the heat soak into me, while being careful to avoid sunburn and skin damage. Sunlight has become one of the simple pleasures of my life, even in winter when I enjoy it streaming onto the sofa in the bay window.

Now it seems that this pleasure too is gone and I have to admit to feeling sad. In fact I have felt sad all day, ever since reading this pronouncement, even the purchase of a new covering up linen/cotton blend cardigan from Boden in an eye-wateringly bright turquoise has done little to alleviate my sadness. Yes, this is self pity: I admit it. However, it is also yet another adjustment to new conditions, yet another loss to mourn, albeit hopefully only temporarily. There are things I can do to ameliorate this situation - linen long sleeved tops, high factor sun cream, discovering what exactly avoiding direct sunlight means, shady hats, pretending I am a high status ancient Greek lady using my paleness to advertise my wealth and freedom from having to perform outdoor work in the sun. (I was scraping the barrel rather with that last one I know). But it will reduce the amount of time I can spend in the garden, a much needed haven, since sitting in the direct sun has been the only way to stay warm enough while sitting outside; in the shade certainly so far this year I have often felt too cold. It feels at this moment like the one time of the year when each day is not just about staying warm and trying to get through the day, the time of year when I have a slight chance of living a little, has been taken away too and I'm left with nothing to make up for the misery of winter. Melodramatic maybe, but it's how it feels.

So I will try to adjust and hope and pray that I escape the side effects of this medication and that it works to solve the problem in hand. I will try to remember that in the context of the suffering going on all over the world at this moment this is nothing. And of course I shall seek Jesus, who is as good, patient and kind as when I got up this morning, who has not changed and who ultimately offers true hope that things will get better, sometime.

Day seven (extremely belatedly) - your knitting and crochet time

Sorry for the delay in this post, still better late than never? I wasn't quite feeling up to blogging.

I do have an extraordinary amount of time available for knitting and crochet, although often very little energy - mental and physical - for it, which means that my actual output is not a great deal higher than many prolific 'well' knitters out there. Most of my knitting and crochet time is spent at my desk, where I have a big comfy chair, ravelry open on the computer, something from radio iplayer such as comedy from "BBC Radio 4 extra" (the artist formerly known as BBC Radio 7) to listen to, a glass of cordial to my left and vital items such as tape measure, scissors, pencil and tapestry needle close on hand. My desk, due to a mixture of exhaustion and "creative working practices", is much, much too messy to photograph. You may think you know untidy, but I tell you, you would be genuinely shocked.

My second modus operandi is knitting on the sofa in the sunny bay window of the living room, with or without the television or a DVD to watch. This bay window catches the sun brilliantly and is a delightful spot on a sunny day - had we a cat this would be where you would find him or her - instead I bask alone. There are a variety of flowering plants here, including my beloved poinsettia, a nice big cushion to lean against, a blanket for colder weather and the vital kit of tape measure, scissors, pencil and tapestry needle on hand.

Since the weather started to improve I have begun taking my knitting

and crochet out to the garden, to bask in the sunshine, without the hot house effect of all that glass, and enjoy the relative tranquillity. I say relative since our proximity to the centre of town and in particular the police station can make it a little loud at times, but it's mainly a low hum in the background and happily drowned out in birdsong. Outside, without the distractions of the computer, or downstairs on the sofa, I do tend to get more done, than at my desk. In particular I will often take a dull bit of knitting, or one which does not seem to be getting anywhere, downstairs with me, to get it done while occupied with a good film.

Likewise I often use meeting up with people, either at knitting group or just out and about in general as an opportunity to get simple garter or stocking stitch done, enjoying the process with my hands while my brain is occupied socially. Indeed I have found it folly to take anything more complicated with me to knitting group, as it inevitably leads to disaster. As women have done through history I keep my knitting with me most of the time to fill in those little gaps in the day - while the food is cooking, in the doctors' waiting room, on the train etc. - which would otherwise be idle and dull. The sheer portability of knitting and crochet is a major factor in my adherence to these crafts rather than others involving more setting up and preparation.

My knitting and crochet time is of infinite value in my life, it gives me interests beyond the bounds of myself and my illness to think about and an occupation, something that gives me something to do while consuming little energy. Through knitting even the worst day can have its achievements, however small, I can learn new skills, meet new people and gain a sense of purpose. It is something positive to think about and means that the days are not entirely empty, there are small goals to achieve, the turning of a heel, another inch on a jumper, another granny square. The very act of knitting or crocheting is positive, distracting me from pain, calming me, cheering me, distracting my mind from dismal depression.

Thank you to the wonderful Eskimimi for organising this week (or several weeks in my case) of blogging, it's really great, has been wonderful seeing the knitting and crocheting world from so many different perspectives and coming across new blogs. It has also been a great incentive to blog more: hopefully I will keep this up.

Spring, sparrows and shoes

You know how sometimes in life you think that you've begun to get something sorted out, you're doing better at it, then something comes along to prove to you that actually you aren't as sorted as you'd like to think? Something along the lines of "pride comes before a fall". That's happened to me over the past couple of weeks; just as I start to think that maybe I'm not so bad at this coping thing and at surviving feeling awful day after day, I feel worse than normal and struggle to cope at all. It's not been the best couple of weeks ever, I've had a nasty infection and it's taken it out of me recovering, lots of days of exhaustion and pain and feeling miserable and bored. And days of feeling so tense I cannot relax or get comfortable anywhere or sleep properly. I wish I could say I had borne it all with cheerful stoicism or beautiful and gently inspiring patience, but in reality I am all too human when it comes to these times. There have been tears, grumps, snapping, yelling at God, saying sorry to God quite a lot, misery, self pity and rather a lot of headaches. Thankfully God is very forgiving and understands me better than I do and loves me a very great deal and I am trying to lean on Him and just be with Him and rest and relax.

Hopefully things are looking up now though and it has not all been bad, for a start God is good and loves me a very great deal. For another there are small stirrings that spring is beginning - or to quote an ancient joke from I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again "spring has sprung *boing* [sound effect]". We have miniature daffodils open in a couple of the tubs on the doorstep, crocuses, cyclamen, primroses and miniature irises flowering in the gardens front and back and in various tubs and window boxes. Dad regards them with great pride and is forever calling my attention to the progress of this or that plant.

Meanwhile the birds are keeping things in the garden lively, a constant stream of blue, coal and great tits haunt the feeders, robins sing their hearts out and a pair of blackbirds scavenge on the ground getting rich pickings from under the feeders where food has been dropped. It is amazing to watch the way the birds learn means of finding food from one another - the g

reat tits have been hopping around on the ground picking over the leaves for food and systematically turning them over in just the way the blackbirds do. When they find something they differ from the blackbirds though, in that they pick up the entire leaf, take it to a branch and hold it in their feet, as they usually do with a titbit that needs a bit more work, and peck away at the food on the leaf, finally letting it drop when they are done.

God has answered a very small prayer to do with the birds this week; it's going to sound a little silly that I was praying about this, but anyhow... We have not had any sparrows in the garden for a bit, despite having one here for much of the winter, so I was praying that they would return and on Monday morning, after a horrible weekend, I opened the curtains just as two sparrows flew onto our back fence! They stopped there for a moment before one dropped down to the ground to peck about and they were around for much of the day. It was such a lovely, beautiful encouragement and precious reminder that He does answer prayer and that He can make things happen and bring change in this sad, broken world. Small but exquisite - as I was reading recently in Luke

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12.6-7

Such are the things that life is made of, the big, the small, the painful and the beautiful.

One last small excitement has been my new shoes, from Cath Kidston - with stars on! I'm not normally a shoe person, in fact I generally hate buying them, but these have stars on, it makes all the difference. Seen here modelled with my latest pair of socks - Duckies, in Trekking 6ply (for those who take an interest in these matters) I would recommend both pattern and yarn.

I hope you all enjoy the unfolding spring.

An inauspicious start to February

Today I reached the point in the crash from going out for dinner on Saturday night with some church friends where I was wishing I'd not gone. At the time I did enjoy myself and was pleased I'd overcome the anxiety about it sufficiently to go, though the meal went on for longer than I expected and involved all the usual stressors like noise and uncomfortable chairs. Now I'm utterly fed up, with it always being the same story, with always having to pay so heavily for so little fun, with myself for letting it get me down, with the world for there being so little sympathy or kindness in it, with myself again for feeling sorry for myself... I could go on, but I won't bore us all to tears.

To compound matters I got stressed about a discussion I was having with some others about sickness, work and whether one should just "tough it out" or stop. It's an area in which I am incredibly sensitive; I loathe that I can't work, I feel guilty about it, all the things I wanted to achieve that are not happening and that may never happen. I tried the "toughing it out" or "pushing myself" approach and did myself terrible damage. So getting into a discussion on the topic on a day when I already felt awful and low, was not the wisest decision. Getting into this discussion on-line, where all nuance of voice, expression and body language - was an even worse decision. Naturally being very physically stressed and unable to relax lead to the inevitable migraine. Mercifully the migraine tablet (once located, in the waste paper basket, to which I had consigned the box thinking it was the empty one), worked its miracle and I feel largely better except for the usual weird aching joints that accompanies them.

So what to learn from this catalogue of misadventure? Not to get into argumentative discussions because I simply do not have the strength to deal with them. To try not to be so over sensitive to every nuance of what someone is saying. That everyone is different, every situation is different, therefore what is right for one person is not necessarily right for another. That I still have a lot of things I need to straighten out. That no person is utterly reliable and that Jesus is still very much the one to turn to and cling to and trust. All the storms of this life seem to blow me in His direction, thankfully. Therefore repentance and receiving His forgiveness, love and understanding awaits and I'll try to learn from my mistakes.

Phew, quite a lot of moaning there, sorry. Got to "talk" to someone though and it has helped getting my thoughts in some sort of order and out of my head, instead of buzzing around inside. I'm going to listen to Ed Reardon's Week now, his curmudgeonly grumpiness will be just right to help me relax before bed!

Cold weather, good books and an unexpected parcel

Yet again it has been a while since I last posted and I feel like an update is more than overdue. I am currently most relieved that the weather has returned to something akin to its senses and is no longer so Siberian in its nature. The first week of snow felt like the longest week ever, with everyone cooped up in the house and everything cancelled, though the first of the pair of socks I was knitting for Dad's Christmas present made quite admirable progress. The post still hasn't caught up with itself which is infuriating as I am waiting for a lot of parcels, mainly Christmas related. Lately I've been finding the cold harder and harder to deal with and a trip to the doctor's on Wednesday confirmed what I feared, namely that I have Raynaud's Phenomenon/disease, a circulatory problem where insufficient blood gets to your extremities - in my case mainly my fingers are effected - meaning they feel the cold very badly and can be painful. My finger tips spent the week of the snow changing colour between white, red and blue, which was at the very least patriotic of them.

It is never pleasant to receive yet another diagnosis, especially when it is yet another condition for which nothing can be done, aside in this case from wearing gloves (what did the doctor think I was doing?!). Although I suppose it is good to know that I'm not just being a sook or a wuss: my body genuinely does find cold weather hard to deal with. Partly to "treat" this and partly to cheer myself up I have ordered some Malabrigo worsted to knit the Bird in Hand mittens by Kate Gilbert. I cannot think of warmer or softer mittens!

The good books have included Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol; although the story is a familiar one I couldn't remember whether I'd actually read the original book and having just finished it I recommend it heartily. Not only is it a great story exceptionally well told, it is also a superb portrait of Victorian London and a book that gets a great message across about Christmas. I would particularly recommend it to my fellow Christians, although it is not "a Christian book", it contains a lot of the spirit of what is best in our faith and speaks eloquently of the capacity for even the most calloused heart to change. For those who find the idea of Dickens daunting, I would add that this is a short novelette or short story, that moves at a fair pace and does not contain a lot of the slower more ponderous passages contained in many Victorian novels (mainly there for the purpose of stretching them to the prescriptive length required for the customary three volume novels of the time).

My other reading material lately has included The Deaf Sentence by David Lodge, the campus novel moving into retirement, a clever and engaging novel, and some more titles from Persephone books. Persephone is a company I cannot praise enough or recommend enough: their books never disappoint. This time I borrowed Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper from my mother's bookshelves, another comparatively short novel but well written, Cooper has the power to make you care about his characters and he writes from a perspective of authority on the period - during which he was a minister in Winston Churchill's government. He is writing of his generation, the generation George Orwell (in his novel Coming Up for Air) feared would be forgotten, a generation whose lives had been sandwiched between two world wars. Although this has not (yet) happened, the first war left a huge scar on the generation who fought in it and Operation Heartbreak provided an angle on this that I had never seen before. Now I have moved onto The Closed Door by Dorothy Whipple - more on that anon.

Lastly the unexpected parcel... I won a competition! Just a prize draw one, but the prize is enormous, the biggest parcel of knitting related goodies you ever saw! I took a photo of it (I'll try to get the photo onto here in the morning, for now it's on flickr). I'm still getting over the shock! Anyhow that is quite sufficient for now, I always get long winded when I get onto books! Hopefully next time some thoughts on 1 &2 Samuel and the life of king David, my recent Bible reading.