Waiting and watching

For me graduated exposure doesn't do what it says on the tin. But I have also noticed although I make little progress when I have tried it in the past what little progress I did make disappears when I don't. So I started again 2 weeks ago and mapped a journey to the nursery in 10 stages. So far I had only managed stage 3 but this week I managed stage 5 without even thinking about it.

I got down there without too much trouble considering I have not been there for so long. It is about one third into a park yet two years ago I could walk the length of the park and this part was no problem at all on a regular basis. That is what I want to get back to. But it was a good achievement if you want to call it that. I managed to do half the journey. The full journey is something I have never done in foot.

There have been times in the past when I have got close but only very sporadically. If I can eventually get that close again I hope I can keep it up even if I never get there in the end. But I did panic. I panicked when I turned around to go home. My phone had gone off and I answered without looking to find my mum on the other side. I am not the best at phone calls as they agitate me. Suddenly I couldn't get any air and I couldn't get my mum off the phone as I walked back. Over 10 minutes later she was still on the phone but at least I was home. I did overdo it and won't do that for a while but its a point of note. No photo though unfortunately as between my mum on the phone, the panic and a lack of anything there to snap I got nothing.

The week has been reminiscent of two weeks ago, the last time my wife was on day shift. Home alone. All OK and then suddenly feeling ill. Coming on strong, ebbing away and then another crash. Jittery, feeling like I was going to throw up, weak, unrealness, etc. Again it was waves of panic. Again it caught me off guard and had me thinking I was ill and when I saw it for what it was it subsided but that was after a couple of days and I fear I might be premature with that particular prediction. That aside I didn't want it to hold me back regardless of how hellish I felt.

In this image when it was nearing time for my wife to finish work I made a couple of cuppas after making and feeding the boy his lunch then we both went over to her work. I waited outside with the boy who was eager to run in to see his mummy. Sometimes my wife is delayed and it can be anywhere from a couple of minutes to twenty minutes or more. Although I was right outside I stayed there. Going over the threshold would mean no escape and having to wait it out even though I managed it outside- such is the logic. At least I had an escape route if I needed it. So this is where the above was taken, outside waiting. I seem to do a lot of waiting.

Hurricane bawbag

The boy and I were nearly blown away at the start of the week out walk. A storm has arrived off the back of hurricane Katia. Online in places like Twitter and Facebook Scots started to call it "Hurricane Bawbag". I won't explain what that means as its a bit rude but I am sure you guessed that. I wish they hadn't. A national newspaper picked up on that, the one my wife buys. I refuse to read it as its full of mince and social networking sites seems to be their primary source of information. Like a child sniggering to himself as he looked up dirty words in a dictionary or when we as kids at school with calculators realised with great delight that typing in 80085 looked like 'BOOBS' they couldn't help themselves. Every day I was in the kitchen there was another headline referring to the hurricane. Tiresome and about their level.

Back to the hurricane. The boy and I couldn't even walk up our own street. So it wasn't a long walk. Here you can see a tree almost bent over by the wind. The boy was crying the whole time, didn't like it one bit. So apart from the pressure barriers of walking too far it was not right to keep the boy out. Can't remember winds like this.

Its broken off now but god it was strong. Anxiety on the whole has been OK, manageable. I did have a bad bout of breathlessness which alarmed me as it always does but it has passed. I actually went out when the storm was at its worse to try to prove to myself there was nothing to worry about. Apart from that not much to say. Hopefully better to come as the week goes on. I really must try harder. Not much light was a bit out of focus. Very cloudy and a bit dark as a result.

Another bug photo. Less unattractive, if that is a phrase, than the fly but not by much and not something you want to look at over breakfast. A couldn't bring myself to say it was attractive. Again like said photo its a need to get a variety of photos and some on the outside rather than always indoors but still within this tiny radius. On a sunny day however. Able to get out for a walk about and look for bugs of the mini variety rather than the ones that lurk in hooded tops around this area. The boy was patient. A lift in weather helps lift the spirit.

No idea what this little critter is. Something in the back of my mind says green shield beetle but not sure. Never was any good with identifying things of a leggy kind or any other kind that is not inanimate. Just a reminder to myself that I was out and about. My wife is good at that sort of thing- knowing the names of creatures and things. I always go to her for plants, fauna and animals when I need an identification. I've known a lot of people like that. I had a mate who didn't seem very clued up, liked a fight but knew everything there seemed to know about birds. Always found that kind of thing fascinating.

Earlier in the week I took my son for a walk despite the change in the weather. A good old wet and windy Scottish day cold to the bone. Not surprised to see a load of clothes dumped on the pavement not far from our front door. People just don't care. They have no pride at all. They just dump where they feel like dumping. They piss on churches in broad daylight while kids are going to school and kids walk about at lunchtime throwing their unwanted food cartons to the side while the gulls hover and swoop. No pride at all. Someone no doubt has been found out and kicked out. Not the first time I have seen that around here. But it will be left until kids kick it in bushes out of view or into someone's garden who then decides to bin it. God I hate this place.

Friends and family

On a lazy Sunday indoors. Weather too crap to venture out so a day of rest to gather back some energy- if only we could syphon it from the kids. The oldest to her credit got creative. She made herself a friend and then wanted me to take a photo of it with her and her siblings. They have a thing about being naked which obviously I don't want photographed- they are just kids. The boy agreed to cover up but his sister didn't so she was left out the photo. I had to shoot this blindly on tiptoes pointing down at the floor. Looks like a right little character. She is inventive that way. A child's imagination- wish I could syphon that too.

Being indoors its very grainy. I had to take the shot on automatic due to the way I was having to take it. Could have done with one of those flip out screens a lot of new cameras have. That would have been simple. Here I just had to take a number of snaps and hope one of them had everything in frame regardless of the composition.

On the anxiety side of things I have had a return of a really annoying things which is panic cycles. It masquerades as illness, feels like illness. I was sue it was illness until I seen it was coming in cycles and then examining further saw that it was in fact adrenaline. No idea what sets it off but its not nice. Its like rough seas. Kept hitting a peak of panic and then it would ease and then it would peak again and so on. Just kept going but eventually went. I just wish I knew what the catalyst was for some of these things then at least I could try to prevent them because when they start they are very hard to get out of. It gets confusing in there.




Anyway this one is one is actually two blended images. All bar the helicopter is the original but because of perspective it was a dot in the original. Luckily I also took a zoom shot of it so I added the zoomed to this image in place of the dot. Helicopters are forever flying over my sky. No idea what kind this one is. Usually they are police ones looking for someone and spending hours circling or hovering with the search light on if the time of day requires it. This one though was just passing by.

Nothing great about it except its something different and trying to vary these photos as much as I possibly can. It was actually taken from the passenger seat of the car after we had parked outside the home after a drive. Looking at it the helicopter is probably closer in the photo than it was at the time but more like my eyes saw than the original photo.

In focus

A fly. I hate those little disease ridden things. Not what I would like to look at, apologies in advance. It was though the only bloody small creature I got in focus such are the problems I seem to have with the autofocus on my little compact camera like I said yesterday. The macro does work but it takes a lot of mucking about and luck to get it in focus. If something is moving even slowly then its a bugger to get.

Still patience was never my thing so maybe I need a bit more of that. I personally don't think practice will make any difference as its a bit of a lottery. And self consciousness doesn't help. Crouched with a camera as cars full of peering eyes, in my head at least, drive by doesn't do much for my paranoid android instincts to flee or look inconspicuous- I blame the local rozzers for that- twats.

But I wanted to try to move outside and looked about for something that someone hadn't dumped, wasn't a shopping trolley or a broken bottle of alcohol and this is all I could find in focus. Many other better looking living things out of focus mind you. Maybe I am doing it wrong. I'm not one for reading a manual.

A lot of anxiety this week, no more than usual. No panic which is good except for the fleeting instances of it quickly stubbed out. Some other irritations of a varying variety. Like yesterday when I woke with a really sore eye. No idea why. Don't know the cause. But it hurt all day long like it was straining and about to burst. Very uncomfortable. That's a new one but there are so many of those accumulated over time. At least as I write this post the day after it has gone as quick as it came. But like so many another day written off to worry over something in my endless rumination.


A busy start to the week. Not like me at all. Up and down the loft a few times after we had cleared out our one and only cupboard which was packed to the rafters. Halfway through having lain everything out and then sorted through it into piles, or bags, of keeping, charity and dump the room was a state. Feel like I should join the community and go toss all the rubbish we don't want up and down the street or in someone's garden. No one would care. Visually you wouldn't know if you looked around. Depressing really.
My body is not used to it but I'm sure given time I will shake it off. Muscles twanging having been dormant for so long and breathing struggling to get oxygen to them for the heavier than usual workload. Mind you I don't see it getting much time to right itself as I think my wife has more days like this planned for the coming week and beyond. But as shit as I felt before it the occupation did me good. Maybe I need more of it but maybe breaking in slower rather than like throwing someone who has been asleep into the middle of an ocean to swim home or drown. God that's a bit melodramatic.