First frost

Seven years and life is just so good

 There is five years between these photographs. I wanted to find a photograph taken seven or six years ago, but I was avoiding the camera back then, so the photo with short hair is the first one taken of me after I'd been treated for breast cancer. Last Sunday was the seventh anniversary of first being diagnosed. On last Friday I was dreading hitting the anniversary, worried about falling to pieces on my own. Got phone calls from mates lined up to protect me if needed.

But I shouldn't have worried, cause what I felt was victory of having got here. So much has gone on in the last seven years, some far more traumatic and frightening then I would ever want to deal with again. And some pleasurable,exciting  and challenging.

I've had cancer, had a mastectomy, learnt to love my body as it looks without a breast (still hate the middle age spread though!!!!) Learnt to have a full range of movement in my arm. Learnt to vacum. and  iron with my left hand. To carry my handbag/purse on my left shoulder. Took drugs for five of those years, that have put 14lbs of weight on me. Learnt to walk miles and enjoy it. Learnt how to dance salsa and rock' n'roll and love it.

I've had a blog for five of those seven years and have written in excess of 180,000 words (Gawd, I have so much to say for myself!!!) I've written 15 chapters of a self help book, five chapters of a novel, run a photography blog for a year, that produced work from around the world. I've more or less run out of things to say ( no comments needed here, thank you!!)

I've been sad, lonely frightened,

I've been loved, cherished and cared for

I've had two relationships since cancer and sex with three men.

I've been out of a relationship (and sex!) for four years now.

I've gone through absolute hell with my youngest son.

I've seen the same son grow up and become a man.

I have two wonderful sons, who both have strong relationships with their girlfriends, successful jobs and are an absolute pleasure to know.

I have kept my best girlfirends throughout.Gained and lost  others some along the way.

I have kept my job as a psychotherapist and grown in confidence in my knowledge of human nature.

I have become the chair of governors for three schools, a position I work really hard with to get the best education possible for the children in the town I live in.

I have worked really hard to get my damaged and aggressive rescue dog trained to now be safe with people in my home..... Walking is still work in progress!

I live alone with the same dog and I love it

I am HAPPY, CONTENT, SUCCESSFUL,TALENTED,INTELLIGENT, PHYSICALLY FIT, AND HAVE GOT HERE!!!!! And as my beloved mate in Cornwall said on facebook, I don't look too bad for my age!

And of course all this has come about as a result of life's journey. Which no matter what has happened so far has been dealt with to the best of my ability, and lessons have been learnt from. Who knows where the next seven will go, but frankly my dear, what will be will be. And as long as I keep living in the moment the adventure will  take care of itself. So I can have one or two ambitions, but more importantly, just knowing what's in my diary in the next few weeks is more than enough to live my life with.

Cause as  one of my favourite quotes goes........ Whilst we are remembering yesterday and dreaming about tomorrow, life is happening right now. And I like living with that.

Trix's tough life!!!

Ok, I'm bored now, you've done all the decorating and I want a walk!

Off into the woods, yipee!

 Oh not more arty photos, when I'm sure there are squirrels round here somewhere!

 So how far are you going to take me today.

 Oh good water for me to play in!

 Right I've had enough now time to go home.

 So my place is now in front of the fire.

And later I'm going to sleep here, just cause you think it's the guest bedroom. I want my blanket put on here and I suppose I'll let you use it occasionally when I have to put up with your friends.

GGGGGGGRRRRRR!!!!!!

I've come here to type to keep my fingers warm. I've got no heating, the boiler apparently has a gas leak, so 'they' have turned it off. I called 'them' up cause I had a gas leak elsewhere in the house and didn't know about the second one. It's a cold and wet day and I'd really have liked the heating on. I'm having a days holiday. To get optimum fun out of that I've been trying to phone British Gas to get them to fix the boiler. So at the first extremely long wait for nothing of the three calls I've made I got informed they are so busy that to get my call answered I'll have to be on the line listening to tinkly tinkly music for....... 1hour and 28 minutes. But no worries they'd do callback..... Oh no they don't. I've tried twice more. I've listened to all the bloody tinkly tinkly music. I've heard all the adverts on the loop twice. I've had the phone picked up twice in the second call and put down straight away. And in the third call more fucking tinkly tinkly music and  the phone picked up once  and put down again immediately.

I know it's not really that cold, it's only one t shirt and two jumpers cold. I know I've got my extremely expensive convector heater in place for later when I watch some TV. I know I can heat my water with an even more expensive immersion heater.

The rest of the house is okish, the kitchen heats up when I use the cooker. And upstairs because my loft is so well insulated it's warmer. And I know it's better to have discovered before the bad weather really sets in but ....... ggggrrrr!

I think the only solution is an afternoon nap then a trip to the supermarket to keep warm!

Whose got time to be vulnerable.... certainly not me!

The Guilty Culprit!

I have now lived on my own for one whole week. In that time I've learnt how to decorate, thanks Ellie!
Have moved furniture upstairs and downstairs. My house looks marvellous.
Spacious, tidy, with a fabulous guest bedroom and an upstairs study.
So for the first time I sit here typing looking out at the trees in the garden. The huge climbing rose is full of sparrows hoping on and off  down to the bird feeder. The Russian Vine is full of bees getting nectar. And the clouds are skudding across the sky. So different from the wall I used to look at!
It's been a really busy week,( when aren't mine busy?) And on Thursday I got elected Chair of Governors for three schools, Which I guess means that busy just went stratospheric.

That's the good stuff......

So I got back in on Thursday and was stepping over the dog conveniently positioned between living room and hall! When she decided to stand up. I fell completely over her. Landed heavily on my knees, smacked my wrist into the vacuum cleaner and wacked my head on the radiator, and heard my back pop.
I'm now the proud possessor of many bruises and an odd lump on my back which shouldn't be there.

I was okay up until 5.30am this morning, when I woke up and started being frightened. Now I know as an ex nurse what's what. Logically I knew I had nothing to be frightened of. But I become super aware of my new vulnerability of living alone. I lay there for two hours being ridiculously scared, till I got bored with myself and took dog for a long walk. And as soon as was almost civilised on a Sunday morning I texted my mate in Cornwall who has gone through what I'm doing at the moment. Plus she was also once a nurse. I just needed another voice of reason to add to my small voice to tell me I have soft tissue damage and will not have my legs drop off anytime soon! Bless her she phoned me straight back and reassured me on all counts.

It's a salutary lesson in coming to terms with living alone. Cause however much Alex was a pain, he was always around at some point during the day. And now I'm aware that if anything happened to me I'd go unheard until someone noticed I wasn't  following my usual routine.

I know this anxiety will recede over time and I'm in the thick of it this weekend. And it sure beats missing Alex that was last weekends stuff!

Other than this hiccup to be overcome I'm enjoying been alone. And my plan is that with the chaos of the week I'll be really pleased to shut my door on Friday evening until Monday.My eldest son visits next weekend. My friend Jenny from Devon is coming to stay early November. Then it will be preparing for Christmas. Then the bad weather when I go nowhere. And before I know it it will be March and I'll be going down to Devon for a week to start checking out property down there and putting my house up for sale.

That's the plan anyway, so I haven't time for paranoia or neurosis round here, gotta a life to be getting on with.

sky

Birds,babies, furry friends and other adventures

Not the best way to spend time!!!!

Well this wasn't quite how I'd planned to spend my afternoon!
I'd been on my way to Derby to meet my colleague for supervision,an appointment I have to keep once a month to fulfill my professional registration.

So there I was in the inside lane behind a lorry on the A38 just after the Markeaton roundabout. Beside me was a huge lorry.I remember thinking to myself .... He doesn't know I'm here, he can't see me.
Fortunately about 10 metres after the roundabout there is a pelican crossing, and the lights were on red so we stopped to let the people cross.

We all started driving on when the lights changed, and I found out I was right, the driver hadn't seen me.

The next thing I know is the back of my car is hit and I'm forced off the road. Fortunately the speed is only about 20mph at this point, and therefore my life is saved.  And my car is playing ten pin bowling with foot high wooden posts as my out of control car ploughs through them.

In front of me looms this lamp post, I slam on the brakes and try to start moving the car from hitting the car and me head on. I succeed and hit the wing and embed it into the wing of the car. The other wing smashes into a final wooded post.

I sit there for a moment thinking ..... will the lorry stop or am I on my own with this.

I get out of the car taking the keys with me.... although don't think anyone would be moving it in a hurry.

I know that I have to take measures to stay emotionally healthy so I make the decision to scream. I'm not screeching more yelling out my emotional pain.

Two cars stop and the first of two lovely ladies check out how I am.

The lorry has stopped in the slip road ahead and the lorry driver is coming along with two other women, one of whom is on the phone. She is phoning for the police and an ambulance.

It's suggested that I go and sit in the lorry cab to keep warm till the ambulance arrives. I can't get into it the climb into the cab is just beyond me. The ambulance arrives and I'm checked over, with at that time no worries about my body. Now my body feels frightful and I will be visiting to docs in the morning just to get checked over.

The police arrived and told me everything I had to do. My supervisor who I'd phoned from the ambulance to tell her I wouldn't make it, turned up to offer me support and a lift home.

On getting home I've spent hours talking to insurance companies and all related companies.

I've been telling my friends and family and now here.

If there's one thing I know it's how to reduce the affects of trauma on myself psychologically, doesn't mean I won't suffer flash backs but I've done all I can to help it taking over.

But now my beloved pride and joy is broken, probably beyond repair, although I won't know that for sure for a couple of days.

I know that it's only a car and that it is me that matters. But this car of all the cars I've ever owned meant a great deal to me. It was a symbol of my survival from cancer, it was bought with my critical illness insurance. It made me feel endless joy in the summer with the roof down. Okay the down side of that was my frightful fear of dealing with snow in the winter! I'd bought it from new, it had never let me down, it loved been driven hard, and it looked so damned sexy.

Hey ho.... another thing in the list of stuff I'm having to deal with. Thank God for friends who'll listen to me!

River Thames Walks

 Went to stay with my eldest son on Thursday, it was a warmish evening so we set off to the South Bank and walked. First up river to as far as the MI6 building, where the river path stops. Walking back I loved the juxtaposition of this shed against the backdrop of one of the worlds most famous building!

 Continued on back past the London Eye back to the restaurants around the back of Festival Hall and I was taken to a place called the Canteen, which only produces good quality English food, like roast beef, fish and chips, pies or bangers and mash (sausages and potatoes!)

 My son has worked in London now for three years and I've never seen where he worked except as close I could once get on a boat trip. So Saturday was the day, we decided, cause he said it was only an hours walk, to walk from his office back into the centre for lunch. This was after already walking a couple of miles around Highgate to meet my cousin and his wife for breakfast.

 I was blown away by this part of London, it could have been anywhere, New York, Hong Kong, incredible to be walking through this part. There were very few people around, when the city isn't working then the streets are more of less deserted. There were a few cafebars open with a few tourists. I can only imagine the difference during the working week.

 My son's office is on the Isle of Dogs, next to Canary Wharf. He works on the 15th floor of the blue glass building behind him. The water is not really part of the river here or in the other two photos. These are the old water pools that made up the docks in years gone by. Hence the name Docklands now!

 We walked back as much as possible beside the River Thames. Everywhere at  this end of the river is modern,very little of the original remains. Many of the warehouses that once loaded and unloaded cargo from all four corners of the globe are now extremely expensive apartments.But now and again along the path there are staircases that have been there since Victorian times, as in the case of this one. We had to keep cutting back up by these steps and allyways as the apartments own their stretch of path and not open to the public and then down the next one....

..... this one is a lot older and is next to a very old pub. The pubs along this stretch of the Thames have been here since Elizabethan times. One of them still has a gibbot hanging over the river where once criminals hung. Although the current rope I think is more for tourists to photograph then to be actually used! I believe that you can still be hung In Britain, but only for treason and it hasn't been used as a punishment since the beginning of the 1960s

When we saw this view we know the end was almost in sight. This is another wonderful juxtaposition of the very old Thames Barges, Tower Bridge and The Shard, a building in progress that towers over the landscape. And does to me look out of place. The buildings in docklands are tall but they are together. This one stands alone in it's great height and there is no more building land around it so I think, if you pardon the pun, sticks out like a sore thumb!

From Tower Bridge you pass the edge of the Tower of London, photographs impossible at this point the crowds where enormous, and it felt like walking in a flock of black crows, with the occasional flash of colour from someone being brave enough not to wear the uniform black of winter coats.

On we walked past St Paul's Cathedral, down Fleet Street, into the Strand. Stopped for what we hopped would be lunch but the place we had in mind was heaving with people, so it was an emergency coffee and sandwich then carry on walking up to Trafalgar Square, along Piccadilly, past the Ritz and so to Green Park tube. Once off the tube my son lives five minutes walk from the station. So all in all I think we walked close to nine miles from one side of London to the middle. We were exhausted......

Neither of us could cook we had no energy left, so an Indian take away was ordered from the shop across the road from the flat. But we were too far gone and neither of us managed to eat half of our very lovely curries.

I did have very sensible boots on for my trip, but it is amazing how much more effort walking on pavements is compared to hills. I did realise that when I am out walking in the hills I have a rucksack on my back rather than my handbag on my shoulder, which got heavier with every mile!

So after breakfast in Kentish Town Canteen with my son and his girlfriend  on Saturday morning it was time to get back on the tube and then train and come home to the lush green hills that surround where I live.

Recent Walks

 

Lligy Beach, Anglesey

                                   
Welsh lambs

 River Dane, Staffordshire

Cliffs at South Stack, Anglesey

Stream in Macclesfield Forest, Cheshire

 Industrial heritage,canal side, Stoke on Trent

More cliffs at South Stack, Anglesey

  View from Shutlingsloe over the Cheshire plain

Been doing plenty of walking recently, (computer doesn't want to put my pictures in order ,or let me write at the edge of the page!, but that doesn't matter. )So ten days ago I spent a blissful weekend in Anglesey alone just catching up with myself. It was incredibly warm and on my walks I'm in a t shirt. It continued to be really hot on the walk from Shutlingsloe to Macclesfield Forest the following Wednesday, I'd even got the shorts on for this walk. 

Today there can be no walk cause after 10 days of unseasonally warm weather we are now in the middle of a hooley! Gale force winds, snow, rain and below freezing. So I have a morning off ,so all outstanding office like chores are done, and new photos are loaded finally on here

Each walk featured has been somewhere between 6 and 10 miles, I wouldn't recommend the one up Shutlingsloe unless you like climbing steep seemingly vertical hills!!

What has happened to world weather? It will mean that it won't just be the British who will talk about it all the time anymore!