Red Hair

Done at Pimps and Pinups. I'm really happy with it!

What are you going to do?

This is what everyone keeps asking me. It's also what I keep asking myself. What am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do, like a train clikkity click clikkity click.

It is all absorbing and everytime I stop doing something else I come back to it. It's terribly annoying. Mum wants me to go down to hers in Exmoor and stroke the cat. 

I can't say I'm not tempted. But it's not like I'd be leaving the choo choo behind in London. 

It just seems like every mortgage advert or every woman with a pram is rubbing my face in it. I assume as a self-defence mechanism by brain has started associating things with older, safer memories. Writing on a flipchart at work I had the most vivid flashback of having a piano lesson at primary school. The teacher was telling me how important joined up writing was because it meant you could write faster. 

I can remember the uniform I was wearing, the room, the temperature, the piano, the weather - all so vividly. I must have been about 8. Or getting on the bus yesterday I was reminded of a time I saw an old man drop a glove from the top deck and dragged my sister off the bus 2 stops early much to her fury so I could call after him to pick it up.

Of course by the time we got off the bus someone else had already done this and Sian was absolutely outraged and complained to Mum when we got home. I guess I was maybe 14? There have been other things - none of which I had thought about for 15+ years but which are vividly flashing back to me at random moments. All completely and utterly pointless. 

To try and take my mind off things I've been ploughing on with the grid embroidery. This picture is pretty awful because of the lighting but you get the idea. 

When I last showed it there were only 2 squares - the 1 and the pretzel. The newer ones are fairly self-explanatory except perhaps the cherries. When I was in Covent Garden on saturday I stopped off at a specialists to get the best chocolate bar on earth. Cherry Ripe. 

I have actually emailed Cadburys begging them to start selling them here but no reply. They're only native to Australia. Anyway, hence cherries.

I really hate emotions. Really hate them. Bleh. 

Reality Check

I rather enjoyed yesterday. I was happy to be at the flat, knitting, embroidering and watching what proved to be a truly awesome Hell in a Cell. I ate a pie. I drank pepsi max. It was all good.

Today I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. I was feeling somewhat glum and decided that the answer to happiness, as so many of us have told ourselves, lay in shopping. I would buy a pair of trainers the colour of a solar flare. 

Now I'm not someone who has lots of trainers. I have one pair at a time. They wear out and I get another one. I'm not saying I don't have lots of shoes, but only one pair of trainers. 

So I ventured out and hit Covent Garden where there are eleventy squillion trainer shops. Turns out trainers the colour of a solar flare are hard to find. So I moved on to Oxford Circus which only has about 6 trainers shops and started on Carnaby Street. This was my mistake. 

You see Pooch's office is just off Carnaby Street so it is riddled with memory prompts. I thought it would be better if I went up to Oxford Street but that just made it worse. Because now I was getting memory flashbacks AND there were a million people jostling and also seemingly on a fruitless quest for trainers. My office used to be on the other side of Oxford Street to Pooch's and so we were forever meeting at different places round there, especially when we first met and everything was so amazing. It was an exceptionally hot summer and...bleh. All starting to sound like an early episode of 'The Wonder Years'.

So trainerless and wobbly I came back to this flat. I've been here a week which means there's one week less before I have to make a decision about what to do next. It's not like I'm going to be homeless or go without anything but it just makes me feel a bit panicky. And if there is one thing I do exceptionally well, even after years of meds and therapy, it is being panicky.

I don't want to give the impression I'm falling apart though and the 90 mins I spent on the balcony this afternoon knitting and listening to the radio was really good.

I'm not a sunworshipper and usually dislike sitting in direct sun but I guess as it is weaker at this time of year it was just blissful. Next weekend I am definitely going to be a bit more social, but I think the solitude this weekend - although sometimes uncomfortable and nervy - did me good.