One hundred year old man

After a week or so lay off from walking I am pretty shocked at how difficult it is to get back into. It really is like starting over which is frustrating the life out of me. All year I have been building my walks and surpassed the highest levels set in previous years. It has been a massive positive in the year and yet a one week knock and I am back at square one struggling so badly with fatigue that its causing me a lot of anxiety.

Just today I had a short walk with my son after he finished nursery and was dropped off by another mother. A distance I used to take in my stride. But halfway into the walk I felt very unsteady and my vision was blurry giving me that feeling of unreality I could not snap out of. The legs started turning to lead which started to cause me panic because I really believed I was not going to make it back home with my son. So this kicked off shallow breathing which had me hyperventilating to myself- can't show it. In turn this gave a greater sense of unreality and didn't make my balance any better.

Like the old days about 10-20 minutes after a walk I am experiencing after effects again. I had forgotten all about them as my body adjusted slowly to the longer walks. After a short stint out of the routine they are back with a vengeance. Its like a wave of fatigue flattens me. I get restless. The breathing feels very shallow. I feel grey- images in my head of grey skin and purple bloated lips. I don't know why there is the delay but there is. So its making things very difficult at the moment. I know from experience I must put up with it as only by doing so will I eventually get through. Its not easy. Not easy sitting down with the girls to do their homework with them after being out and then being hit with it and trying to cope and stay sane and not running off to bed to crash out.

At times like these I have to remind myself this is not unusual. And I will say again if you read current anxiety self help book then you would think it was unusual as they make no mention of fatigue. Furthermore if you go on to anxiety forums there is not a lot of mention of it either. Its strange. But then anxiety is such a big umbrella. A person may say they have an anxiety problem yet need a normal life but experience moments of nervousness which are not nice but they put up with. A person may also say they have an anxiety problem and cannot leave their bedroom for fear. I once spoke to a girl who had trouble even getting to her toilet in the house as she was totally bound to the bedroom crippled by agoraphobia. All anxiety problems are not the same. But the lack of mention of fatigue on forums and in self help books would normally lead me to think I have some other problem outwith anxiety.

That is if it were not for Dr Claire Weekes, a pioneer in the field. In 1984 in her book "More help for your nerves" she wrote the following:

"At this moment, while reading this, you may be bewildered by what is happening to you. Perhaps the task of facing today, tomorrow, seems too much for your exhausted body to attempt, too much for your tired mind to think about. And yet it may only be a few months since you could have done that, and much more, so easily. 

You may have reached a stage where you feel you would rather close your eyes and never open them again than have to open them tomorrow. All this may be so unlike your old self- indeed may be a reversal of the former self- that your bewilderment may be extreme. 

When I explain to some bewildered, nervously ill people that their suffering is based on nervous fatigue, they are at first dubious that such strange, disturbing symptoms as theirs, such as utter exhaustion, could have such an apparently simple cause. However, when convinced, being nervously fatigued seems less frightening that the 'mental' illness they were beginning to suspect  was theirs. The picture of mental illness has so many dark, mysterious places."

One thing that should be noted here is the language. It can be a scary read because the terms are so archaic and I know it has frightened a lot of people off reading her books. Once you see the terms for the modern day equivalent it actually makes a lot of sense. Nervously ill for example means a person with an anxiety disorder which is not an illness and not really nerves as such. Sure its to do with the nervous system but the scary tags hide a simple less frightening meaning.

Now she explains fatigue at length. People writing self help books today have taken her ideas and passed them off as their own but also at the same time dropped the fatigue. Why? Well I personally have come to think it then appeals to a wider audience. It appeals to those who have nervous issues but not a disorder and then some of those people that don't actually have a disorder come to believe they do. I know one man in particular makes a great deal of how many people he has "cured" and yet from what I have seen many of these people didn't have anything to "cure" in the first place. Its marketing.

Dr Weekes is the only person I have seen explain the fatigue and the fact that she goes on about it at length must have meant it was an important factor. This is a woman who when she started writing had her own practice where she used to deal with people with anxiety disorders (or breakdowns as they were then known). She then went on to deal with 100s of people world wide and in those discussions still made a great deal of fatigue.

The reason I say this is I have to keep reminding myself of this. If I do not refer back to her and just read the modern writing I then start to think the fatigue is something outwith the anxiety. As she explains it begins with worry- excessive worry. Obsessional worry. Worry over little things. The body reacts to this worry by tensing and depleting resources and over time this has a snowballing effect because the fatigue gives a person more to worry about and a mentally fatigued person finds it harder to see clearer and resolve the worry. And so on. It then seems clear to me how easily the mind can deplete the body and only by dealing with these issues can we over time start to get the fatigue to lift. Also though as I am finding out at the moment I am struggling mentally to deal with the fatigued body when I see old people walking about outside and wondering why I at half their age at least am too fatigued to do the same. I feel 100 years old and mentally cannot get my head around it and because I can't that anxiety will have me feeling 110 this time next week when I should be celebrating a birthday in double figures.

The escapist

I don't think I could stick another pic of a gull or that church hall outside my living room window any more than you could but still have nothing to offer in the way of visual display, as an introduction to the post. I remain though as I have from the start determined only to post what is rightfully my own and not swagged from someone else. And unbelievable as it sounds that above is my own. The unmistakable London Eye or whatever they call it now- Millennium Wheel? According to the EXIF data 20th November 2001. That can't be right or maybe it is. So long ago. When I was free and could travel. When Jack Kerouac had my feet itching. A stop off in London there and back on the way by Eurostar to Amsterdam via Brussels. Another time.

Anyways enough about the pic and on to the post. Good things possibly. Well life at least is much improved on my last post. Pain free and starting to climb up the mountain again slowly. It has given me time to reflect. Maybe for the first time since this all started I am being honest with myself and have identified a major flaw, a glaring fault. I think in all this time I have flatly denied any wrong doing and placed the blame on "something else". Something outwith my control. I have read this disorder happens to lots of people and so I should not be alone. As comforting as that is, and it is comforting when it all begins and you feel you are the alone in a madness, it is a comfort blanket. It allows you to pass the blame. This is not my fault. This is outwith my control. There is nothing I could have done about it. In this short period of short contemplation I find the truth is that this is all my fault. Its all my fault and I can take as many medications as they want to feed me and CBT and other therapy and still this will perisist. It will persist until I wake up and realise firstly where the true fault lies and secondly by changing those ways.

Reluctance is not so bad. Reluctance implies some sort of DOING against your will. "Doing" being the important part. As much as a person does not want to do it they do it reluctantly. And whether you make a show of the reluctance or not it matters not as long as the thing gets done. Its not the same as actionless aversion. Yes I just made that phrase up because I couldn't think what else to call it. Basically its a reluctance so strong that you do not do. An aversion to something so strong you do not take the action required.

Now here is the thing: this then becomes a habit. If you get away with it then you continue to do it and it is very unhealthy. You don't want to do something so strongly you shy away from it. You flatly refuse to do it. You make excuses and then worst of all you go deep inside your world to hide away deep in distraction. This is what I have been doing. Its not good. Its not something I want to admit but I am afraid if I am honest I have been doing it. My only saving grace possibly is that I have not until now realised I have been doing it. But that will only be a saving grace if I now do something about it.

Let me though say that I do not sit idly refusing to do anything unless I want to do it. There are lots of things I do not want to do but I do. There are though some things I refuse. Silly things. Things I let fester and they are constantly eating away at me making me restless.

One example. Debt. I have a letter to write to the lender. The first draught was typed up on the 27th January 2012 and still sits there. I keep saying I will get it redone, printed off and then sent. Still it sits there. Nearly a year passed and it still sits there. Ridiculous. Why am I so reluctant to do it? Why do I keep putting it off?

Another example. There is a packet of straws sitting in a drawer in the kitchen. My wife bought them at my request about 6 months ago. In December last year I promised the therapist I would start a series of exercises to eleviate the symptoms of anxiety and they involved a straw for one. Still I have not done it. I keep building up to it every so often and breaking off.

Since this realisation I have noticed more and more instances. I have created a bubble to escape to away from these things. I lose myself in distraction rather than face them. For some reason they really weigh heavy and I have created problems from them where there should be done. It is good that I am noticing this now but its only good if I take steps to remedy them.

So what do I plan? Will the escapist follow his urges to escape or finally face up to things? I honestly cannot say, I hope its the latter. I make no more promises I may break so easily. I do though have a plan. A simple plan which may be too simple to work. I have decided that each day I will think of something I have an aversion to and put off and it will be my goal to do it the following day. I will keep a record of these, an honest account. I am challenging myself. If I can pass a couple of challenges it may give this escapist the heart to stand and eat into more. Past form says not but we can all change. Even me.

Sliding down the side of the mountain

NOTE: I know the images do not relate to the content but not getting out of late anywhere to take photos so apologies for that.

Its been a hell of a time but not, I am afraid to say, in a good way. There is nothing to be gained by going into details so I won't but its been the hardest of times. It happens every once in a while. Once, twice or maybe three times a year. Maybe not as often as thrice. Just not sure. My walks have stopped dead in their tracks since Friday and this has had a massive knock on effect. In this period the one thing I have learned is that I have been actually making more progress than I realised but all too late. This enlightenment has come about ironically because I am starting to experience a lot of dark things that I used to experience but had not realised over the last few months had all but gone. This is all down to being virtually incarcerated again in this shitty little flat. Lots of fears resurfacing and pulling back old nightmares. Little did I realise at the time but I have actually been climbing up the mountain and making more headway than I thought. Only now that I find myself sliding down fast with smoke belching from the seat of my pants as I go do I see how far I had come.

As I said I won't go into detail but suffice it to say I have been, and continue to be, in a great deal of pain. Pain that I cannot escape. Pain that means I cannot even rest comfortably. Pain that disturbs my sleep and leaved me feeling more shattered every morning. Pain with a cause. A clear cause. A cause that would send most to their GP or the hospital but that is not a luxury I have- being an agoraphobic. Any way not to worry. As I said I have been here before and as bad as it is I know its a temporary state and will heal with time. This though is the longest episode I have had and still there is no sign of it ebbing but it will ebb eventually. All I can do in the meantime is put up with it and treat the cause. Also as well as not being able to seek medical advice I cannot take painkillers as they do not agree with me so I just have to accept it. If I could I would take them but I cannot deal as easily with the side effects I experience- though I never used to. And there are two little bottles of whiskey in the kitchen that have been left at various times by my father-in-law. God I have been tempted and they would probably both be empty by now were it not for the fact I know it would really play on my anxiety the day after.

So that as where I am at the moment and as bad as the pain is I really have to say the most frustrating thing for me is that the walks I have been building all year have been wiped out. That depresses me because I know now from experience when I start them up again it will be like starting over again. And this has had the biggest effect on my anxiety. I am still managing small walks but very restricted and like the early days after I come in I experience bad after effects. Its like a heavy fatigue where I feel grey and my lips feel bloated and my eyes blur and my breathing is not good. Just feel horrendous. Not straight away. It takes about 20 minutes and then it hits. But as I said I used to experience this regularly and its a testament to how well my walking has been going that I have not experienced in a long time up until now.

It really does have a knock on effect. Time anxiety is creeping back and I never even noticed it was gone. I am starting to look at the clock again when I get up and counting the hours left in the day with a sense of dread. Yet before this period I was getting up early with no conscious thought of the time and going out for a long, by my standards, walk without any problems. So you see I was making progress even if I didn't think so myself.

As I said though this is a temporary state. It will pass. And when it passes if I have to start over then so be it. I now know I can do it, have done it and can get back there again. I have proved it to myself. Time does not matter. I just need to let things run their course and then start the journey back over again knowing I will get there and that if I don't push things I might even get back there quicker than the last time and beyond.

Imaginative

Kids have such fantastic imaginations. Its unspoiled by life. Unsoiled by reality. It blooms free in their protected environment. Well, unfortunately not all kids. I don't even want to go there as its the stuff of terrible living nightmares.

In the case of my own kids they are very imaginative, creative and expressive. This feeds off each other as it does with most siblings. I wouldn't claim they are any more imaginative but it pleases me, pleases me more than being academic. Maybe that's wrong but its honest. The youngest to express this side of themselves mainly in game and stories told orally. The oldest expresses her side artistically and this isn't to do with age- it has always been the case. It reminds me much of myself at that age getting praise for drawing not drawn from memory but copied. Still good all the same. As well as the drawing though she also writes. She writes plays and acts them out at school with her friends. Writing is something that I didn't do at that age. In fact I didn't start reading for leisure until my late teens and only started writing a few years after that which lead me eventually into blogging.

Every year from nursery to school the oldest has been praised by teachers for her artistic attributes as well as her imagination. In many respects it has been encouraged. That has always been a good thing. Last week my wife went to the parents night at the school. The youngest two had glowing reports, the oldest not so glowing. It would seem that from having her imagination cultivated for years it is now time to curb it. Its all come a bit sudden for her. Its all a bit too sudden for me too and I don't like it.

Don't get me wrong I can understand the reasoning but that doesn't make me accept it any more. She is at an age now where she has to stop all the foolish mind wanderings and buckle down in preparation for hard work and exams. Imagination is now outlawed. No drawings and plays. That artistic police are patrolling with batons at the ready.

Of course I understand she needs full concentration now for the acedemic side of things but I do wish they had blended it better rather than a sudden stop. And I don't like the idea of this part of her being stifled. I don't like the duty to conform. Maybe I don't like the prospect of my oldest finally having to face reality and worried that all the beautiful things will shrivel and disappear.

This takes me back to myself. As I said I was the same at that age and I had my dreamworld razed to the ground as reality came crashing in. And even all these years on I think I am still trying to get my head around it. One of my earliest memories of anxiety came with this reality- though I saw it as dread but dread is anxiety: fear of something yet to happen. I left school, went into accountancy, left that for a job in electronics and found myself jobless as the job I was sure I had after first an interview and then a medical was not offered. So I was at home with my parents looking unemployed and my dad decided that I would work for him. After a week of it I had intense dread every day after until he finally let me off the hook. I hated it. Being stuck in grimy dirty places and working with dust and steel wool and going home soiled in dirt and sweat knackered. Its not that I had an aversion to work. I had an idea of the work I wanted to do  and it was expressive. I really couldn't handle that kind of work.

That leads me into thinking about employment and how all my working life I moved from here to there. From accountant to eventually electronic test engineer to then IT and from that to programming and finally to database management. Never satisfied with any of them. Always seeking something new. Even when I left the last job I started working towards a job in web design. And its not that I am lazy. In all of these lines of works I have had to study hard at the same time as working- in my last job I sat no less than 10 exams and came away with 3 qualifications already to look into something new where though qualifications were worthless. Always restless for something new. Always seeking fulfillment and never finding it. Forever trying to appease that part of me they locked in a dark room and never finding it. I wonder if in the end I just burned out in the search.

As much as I agree with the logic in what the school are doing I think that deep rooted fear is surfacing that by stifling my daughter's imaginative side it will lead her to a restless life like my own. I just want her to be happy and follow, eventually, a life that makes here happy regardless of how much she makes from it financially. I just worry that blotting out her imaginative urges will lead her to feeling something in her life is always missing and never being able to find it.

Sparklers

Finally we have cracked, or the wife has. I got up yesterday morning to find not the frozen damp air of old but a toasty surprise. My wife is always first up on a weekday and she'd turned the heating on complaining that she was physically shaking so had no other choice. There was no arguements from me or from the kids. The fact is we should have done it earlier because we are all still feeling poorly but less poorly than a few days ago. Hopefully the heat will help us back to normality- or abnormality in my case.

Last night it was a biting bitter wind that came around tea time so no desire to venture outdoors. Even less so considering my wife was working at night. So I was happy to turn the lights off and watch the fireworks and there were many. But my wife had other ideas. She had bought sparklers for the kids and despite it being freezing she was determined that not only they get used but I take some photos too. I was reluctant as I was already chilled to the bone.

We did though. The kids enjoyed it. I still not have gotten around to learning how to use my camera properly and so the shots were all pretty poor. When I used to use the little compact although it was restrictive, especially in low light, I used to always know what to do and how to get the best out of it. With this knew one though I don't and it should be no surprise as I have not spent the time learning.

I think it is because even though its smaller than a DSLR it is still to big to fit in my coat pocket. With a pancake lens I could get away with it but cannot afford one of those or any other lens at the moment. And as I cannot take it out like I did the compact then I am less keen to learn as there is nothing indoors to take photos of. Also because the car is off and on the road I don't have that. We would take the car to places and I could get out and photograph new things and that gave me an appetite. After wanting one for so long and getting most of the money for it for my 40th and then saving until I finally had enough it now sits virtually unused. I must try to get back into it again.

The kids had a great time though with the sparklers. While I struggled with knobs and buttons and jittered the whole while they laughed and seemed uneffected by the cold. When it was over and I was ready to shoot indoors they wanted to stay out. In we came and we did watch some great fireworks light up the sky. Last year with the little compact I managed to capture the fireworks. With my new camera I gave up trying.

Bad Samaritan

Its dark around 4:30 in the evening at the moment though in some days its hard to tell day from night such is the dark gloomy weather. When the clouds part though the town in lit up ultra-bright but those days are few and far between. Still we are battling the cold with hot water bottles and fleece blankets reluctant to give the energy man any more than we need to. Reluctant to add to his quarterly billions of profits as he yet again hikes up the tarrif.

At some point though we must relent. Not for the luxury of warmth but for our health because the past few days we have felt poorly with all sorts of things but I am sure down to the cold damp air. Its no way for kids of between 4 and 9 to live with their coughs and feverish tempretures. Spiting Scottish Power is one thing but not when the cost of the children's health.

As I said its mostly dark, cold, skyless, grey and gloomy- nothing new for Scotland. Bitter at times. Come around 5 its pitch black and I usually don't go out for a walk but yesterday I did. Not because I wanted to but because I had to. My wife and kids were with a friend at the shops and they were coming home so I was to go and meet them to carry home the shopping as I always do unless my wife takes the car. So I met them in the dark and the kids were giddy as it felt to them like they were up past their bed time and on a midnight journey .

We were walking back and not far from home. I actually got annoyed. A car slowed down on the road we walked past and he appeared to be looking out. What the hell was he looking at? Like some kind of weirdo and then he drove on. Very strange. As we turned the curve in the path in front of us blocking the path was a figure lying sprawled on the path. Although lacking in light I could tell it was a man and older than me. I had walked past their 5 minutes previous and he wasn't there. Just lying there.

Cars were driving by. Slowing and looking but always driving on. And I'll be honest and say that is what I wanted to do. I am no good Samaritan. That gives me a strange mix of feelings. I take no pride in that and I do feel guilt. I felt a hyprocrit if I am honest. Just the night before my wife was telling me about a girl she knows who comes into her work and how she'd been working in a take away when 5 teenagers came in from a bad area and battered her senseless before wrecking the shop. This was not 5 boys but a mix of boys and girls. And she had said a few people were standing outside the shop watching while this went on. That angered me. How could someone just stand and watch that. Eventually the police arrived- 3 hours after the dust had settled. I wouldn't have stood and watched that happen. Would I?

I remember hearing raised voices and then a lot of banging coming from the back of our home. I quickly went into the bedroom to see what the distrubance was. A flat across the road had its door kicked and the main window was smashed and I could see silhouttes of people inside. No voices now. Just banging and cracking and smashing. Then they all came running out and I quickly moved away from the window realising no one was actually hurt, they were just smashing the place up. I moved to the front room but not close enough to be seen but someone outside was seen because just before the screech of tires as they sped off I heard one say to someone outside: I know your face. You say anything and you'll get fucking done it.

Lovely. So there we were with a body slumped on the path. As we moved closer there was groaning and movement. Still I wanted to walk on. Anxiety, feeling ill and unsure of this. What if? What if this guy had been stabbed and needed help and if we had not walked by he could have been saved? What if the people who done it were lurking in the woodland to the right of us and came out charging and my kids' safety was compromised as a result? What do you do in these situations?

My wife doesn't think things through. She went over and started talking to him, asking if he needed any help to get up. By this time it was clear there was no blood. He wanted up but was a bit of a lump. I grabbed one side and she grabbed the other as we got him to his feet and I could smell the drink off him. Then the cursing started. Not at us but as his head. Effing and blinding as we say. I looked at the kids and moved them on. Awkwardly he was going the same we were and was wanting us to give him a hand home. I ignored him and walked on. By now I was angry. Self indulgence, he gets help and wants more. What about those that really need help and people walk or drive by?

So yes a Bad Samaritan I am afraid to say. If I stumble upon the same scenario again I will most likely walk on by like all the others too unless there is clear evidence someone needs help.  

Melon

Yep another set of melons this year and that is not right out of "Carry on Halloween". Again this year its a pumpkin-less festivity where the pumpkin is usually the main stay. My wife started it last year but I have to say I am inclined to agree. I mean apart from carving what do you do with the pumpkin? And if you don't get rid of it quickly it rots to buggery into a mush similar to mashed turnips though- and I can't believe I am saying this- less appealing.

Do people eat pumpkin? I remember when I worked up North the canteen, it was a big one for 1500 people or there abouts, used to do great breakfasts but their lunches were poor. Mind you you can't really go wrong with hot rolls though my work place after that did putting. Even the thought of it gives me the dry boak. I remember standing in the queue one day starving, the smell of cooked breakfasts always is appealing to the tum in the mornings bringing a hunger that is not usually there, and looking at a tray of square sausage. They was about 30-40 all lumped on a metal tray not given any space and just a big meaty pile swimming in a sea of artery clogging fat. And I watched a burnt sausage being placed on a roll noting that an over lapping part was actually raw. Oh no. I walked away that day because up until then I had trained myself not to look and when I had a roll not to inspect to the point where I didn't even put sauce on it for fear of seeing pinkness. So I walked away as I said and never had morning rolls again for the duration of my employment.

But back to the work place before that. As I also said they did good breakfasts cooked through and not dripping in as much fat. On that point I would like to point out that I never fry cook anything and have not done for years. Between that and tons of salt on everything else I don't know how my gran' boys grew up to be healthy young me but as she told me when she was alive people worry too much and as an example she said in hospitals staff won't digest anything left for them which is not covered and in her day everything was out in the open and no one suffered- at this I refrained from mentioning that in her day life expectancy was not great or at least down on what it is now. This was a point that always irked her. Partly from working in a hospital all her days and so finding fault in the domestics of today and partly because of her nephew. My gran took 3 bags of chocolate treats to give to the nurses looking after her sister in the hospital and returned to find them the next day not only still there but in bowls with her nephew stuffing his face to which he replied he put the out in bowls for the nurses but nobody touched them and so he didn't see the point in them going to waste. Given that he is a scammer and a cheat and an all round cad of some notoriety within our family I suspect he knew what would happen and couldn't wait to stuff his greedy face. I mean this is the guy who among other things used to buy E240 (4 hour) blank VHS tapes which he used to take home, dismantled, swap the reels with one of his old 1 hour or 2 hour tapes and then take back to the shops and get them refunded.

I have gone off on a tangent yet again. So this last but one workplace did good breakfasts but the lunches were dire. It wasn't so much they made bad food but what they made was bad rather than how it was cooked or prepared. I never went near the stuff. It was they had a stockpile of all the Heston Blumenfeld inventive dishes that didn't work and were looking to get rid of them. Experiments of gastric roulette rather than culinary delights. So I lived off chips and coleslaw in the main. If I was really hungry I added one of those things that is like a square of spam with a boiled egg in the middle and pastry around the outside- don't know what its called.

Not that I am immune from experimentation and know first hand its dangers. I remember many years ago when I stayed with my gran and I was out with my friends at the pub. I was starving but the take out place was by the late hour we left closed. So when I got home I raked about the kitchen and put two things together that I likes as an experiment and to fill me up. So as I fried the paella I oven cooked a garlic pizza. When then paella was ready I took the garlic pizza out, topped it with paella, covered it in cheese I had grated and then put it back in the oven. I felt ill for days and of course never finished it. Even in my long gone inebriated state it was too much for my stomach.

Back in the work canteen on the even of Halloween waiting in the queue for my coleslaw and chips I joked that I would not put it past the caters to serve pumpkin curry the following day. Even the thought of it brought back all the tummy gurgles of that past disaster of my own. And of course that is what they did. I came in the next morning and a couple of collegues laughing asked me to guess what he special was. Of course I didn't need to answer.   

No one I knew tried it. Maybe it was nice- though I doubt it. Someone would have though. Its a macho thing eating something no one else will eat. Someone would have stepped up to the plate. But it wasn't me.

Back at our little Halloween the kids enjoyed the pumpkin replacements. They drew the faces and my wife carved them. And as she carved they lined up for fresh melon bits enjoying every one of them. There wasn't too much more than that apart from dressing up and some treats. The customary ducking for appels but this year we used apple slices. Halloween is a non event in comparison to my own childhood. I remember my mum buying lots of monkey nuts, sweets and things for when the guisers came calling while I would be dressed up and with other friends going from door to door collecting treats. I have stayed here over a decade now and not once at Halloween have I heard the door chapped. Sad really.