So cold

I can't remember ever feeling so cold, not in a long time. Maybe its age. Maybe its because I can't remember the last warm day. Its definitely a long time since we have seen anything that resembled a summer. Certainly not the summers I remember in my youth where t-shirt and trousers were the norm through those long days of adventures with friends. At the moment its just horribly bitter.

Today the world was white again. Something we have been hoping for. The swirls of little snow drops circling pathetically in the wind the past few days have been no indication of the actual temperature. A good snowfall usually takes that chill away but not this time, at least not for me. You see I had a walk yesterday and it was long by my standards and managed to get down a street I have never been down, never even contemplated. Despite a hat and gloves I my teeth were rattling by the time I got in. The face was numb with the cold. Back indoors should have thawed me out but I seem to have caught a chill and I spent last night chittering away on the couch wrapped in a fleece blanket and water bottle with the heating on but still chilled to the bone.

Just one of those times of year you look back and are glad to see behind you. That will come. All three kids have appeared during the night in the last week with the vomiting bug so not much sleep on top. The lack of sleep and the bug working on me probably allowed the cold to bite deep. Only my wife seemed to escape it but only until this morning when after a late rise she went back to bed ill where she still lies. Fun times!

Anyway, we should be thankful. Our kids seem to avoid the majority of bugs when they do the rounds and these occasions are rare. It may have stopped me in my tracks for the weekend but that is OK. Allows time to recharge the batteries and get back into the swing of things next week.

Things have been going surprisingly well. As I said I went down a street I have not gone down before- ever. And there was a change. I felt a change. Maybe fleeting but new and positive. As I approached the top of the street the bottom was out of view. Given that I was out of my comfort zone and already struggling this would have been the point where every time in the past I would have turned back and headed home quickly. But I didn't. That little battle in my head where I try to raise the positive voice only to be drowned out by the domineering subconscious, or at least automatic, one was not lost for once. The opposing warning was quieter. A lot quieter. So much so I gave it little more than a glance and a nod. I was going down the street and nothing was going to stop me. Furthermore I was going to take my time and not the usually olympic walker style to get it over with quickly. No point in swapping avoidance for endurance. And so I strolled down batting out the park any little doubts that invariably were tossed my way from the devious mind. And I didn't stop there. I kept going and headed all the way to as far as I can go towards the school. It felt good. Maybe a one off. Maybe not. Something positive to hold on to and try to build on.

Slowly I am creeping further to the school. Or at least I was. I seem to have plateaued at a road I must cross. In total I think I have managed to cross it 2 or 3 times. Maybe I am not trying hard enough or at least not being wise enough because I have started doing a different circuit from there. Really I should be trying to at least attempt crossing. I will. But all in good time.

My tactic at the moment has been distance. Every walk I do is at least the same distance as the school run. Usually its more. On a few occasions including this week it has been as much as 50% more. I have never had such a spell of activity since the agoraphobia started and doing things that I thought were beyond me me for so long. All that is positive. Its something I keep having to remind myself. At the start of the year I would not have contemplated this and I would have laughed had someone told me it was coming immediately over the horizon. A change. A positive change. So all good. Just wish it wasn't so cold.

DIY

Is it just me or is there a hell of a lot to moan about at the moment? OK, its just me. The grumpy old bugger that I am. Finding myself increasingly irritated by the smallest of things. Or maybe not that small. At the moment the Royal Mail are getting it in the neck. At one point a lot of people including myself thought this great British institution may be for the slide with the popularity, accessibility and zero cost of email and likewise texting. But to its credit it has stuck in there and no sign of it faltering. I for one was happy with that as it provides for a large workforce but no doubt its having to work hard hard. Apart from technology battle it also faces competition from any number of courier firms and even rival postal services.

So the gripe? The gripe is at the moment they are doing themselves no favours. In December my mum was surprised to find I had not received a birthday card from her but she was livid when my son never received one either protesting that she did actually send a card. Not that I ever doubted her but confirmation of the latter was recieved 2 weeks later in a letter from the Royal Mail stating they still had the card but basically a first class stamp was not enough so we'd have to pay another £1 to get it. What is the point 2 weeks after a birthday? Then it was my wife's turn to be angry. Knowing this my wife ensured she got a normal sized card and sent it to her mother for mother's day. Same thing happened. A week later this time her mother got a letter saying she had to pay to get it delivered as the first class stamp did not cover the postage.

Its a joke. For one first class stamps are extortionate nowadays and we find a card that that was fine before now needs more than a first class stamp. Jeez. I won't use them now- I will recieve but I won't send. That really gets my goat. And it leads me on to cards themselves and the whole process. I really cannot be bothered with it in truth. I never could be bothered with it and even less so now but have in the past only to appease the wife who thinks its important. For a simple small card you are talking anywhere between £2-£5 for what? A card that sits on a mantlepiece and is binned a few days later. Nah, no thanks. I am sorry to see the likes of Clintons go under but I can understand why less and less people are doing it. That money would be better put towards a better present. So I won't be buying any more cards and certainly won't be sending them.

Any more gripes? Tons, I could open an online store of gripes, irritations and agitations. It leads me to the kids school photos. When I was younger this happened once a year and consisted of an affordable class photo and an individual photo. Now its a mulititude of various sizes of photos, mugs, mouse mats, canvas, frames, DVD, USB and whatever else. And aside from that its no longer once a year but seems to be 2-4 times a year heaping on the pressure. What really pisses me off though is the pricing. These guys have exclusivity to the point where, as I posted about last year, they are telling parents they can't take photos of their own children in certain places where they have the right to do so. And the prices they charge are ridiculous.

What you have to keep in mind is a single person is taking photographs of class and individuals for every pupil in the school- and they don't just do one school. For our three kids we have 6 different prints to choose from. My kids' school and nursery consists of around 320 kids according to their website. That is a lot of photos but still equates to no more than a week's work. The cheapest print (its actually 2) you can buy is £14.50 for something that you can get printed off at the supermarket for 15p-25p. That is some mark up. You also have to consider that for every child it is not only the parent looking to buy but grandparents and other family and they also rarely purchase just one photo or one copy of it. Its a sickening mark up in my view. One that were I not agoraphobic I would contact the school and say I will do it for a fraction of the price and still contribute a percentage back into the school. And I would sell more photos because they would be more affordable and therefore more accessable to families where this is just too costly.

That will probably have the photography world up in arms but I have to say I am not devaluing the work of a photographer. In fact most photographers are plagued by people looking to have things done for nothing. I have a friend who is a pro and this is eternally the case much to his rightful annoyance. He posted a good advert from a photographer looking for people do work for him for free citing if they did they would gain experience, word of mouth and a ton of unpaying customers in return. He has had countless frustrations booking a studio and lugging his equipment there for someone not to even bother phoning to cancel but its the amount of young models that think they are doing him a favour if he shoots them for free that annoy him the most. So I get it and I know photographers don't need me, not even bordering on amateur, running them down too. I know there is a lot of work involved in this process involving setting up shoots, shooting, editing, watermarking, priniting off samples and distrubuting them, etc. Yes lots of time but still the markup is ridiculous. Its why I always talk my wife out of buying them.

So I have decided to do two things- one long overdue. I have decided to learn to use my new camera. "New" is actually over a year old but for whatever reason from having a real appetite for photography I just went off it. I have a good book with lots of tutorials and assessments so I have decided to work my way through it starting this week and hope to learn how to use my camera properly over the coming weeks. In a few weeks time I plan the second thing and that is to take a shot of the kids which may lack the quality of a professional but decent enough to pass- on the cheap. I won't though be able to do that until I get used to using the camera and remember how to do things.

For a quick start and a photo for the blog I had a trial run this morning with the boy after he finished nursery. Low key is not your usual kind of school portrait but they were included this time and these were the ones my wife and her mum seemed to like most. So that is what I am going to attempt. There is one with the oldest alone and one of the two girls together but none of all three kids together. That is my plan. So as I said a little trial run this morning. A long way off but considering I have never used this camera out of automatic mode and I had to rely on natural light its not a bad first attempt. Still plenty of work to do but I hope in a few weeks time I will have something nearer the original which I will post too. My wife is very critical so I will know if I have got it right or not.

Moaning over for now but I will be back! Off now for some learning and hopefully get my appetite back along the way. I am getting more around to the idea that to stop these complaints the only thing to do is to do it yourself. More self worth and satisfaction if you get it right.

White

I really am going to have to start taking my good camera out. I like the size of the compact but these blurry pics are doing my head in.

The ugly little town lies hidden beneath a blanket of white which sparkled first last night under the light of the moon and blinded today with the strong glare of the low bright sun. I read from a friend on Facebook that it was amazing how a shithole could turn into a thing of beauty with a bit of snow and he wasn't wrong- somewhere else I lived once and no better than where I am now.

In fact I have only been happy in one place I lived and maybe its not coincidence that my problems started when I had to give up my flat there to stay in this place. The biggest mistake of my life. I didn't see it at the time but then I didn't see what was coming. I was out of work, my then fiance had a job. But it was not as if she was not willing to move. She actually had a couple of interviews up North that came to nothing. And on top of that job opportunities for me existed almost solely around her area in the central belt. So as much as I didn't like it at the time I saw it only as a temporary measure. It made sense. Her flat was cheap, price up where I stayed were astronomical. She had a job and I had a better chance of finding work where she lived. So I moved in and we both looked to the future where not in the far too distant future we would move up North before, during or after starting a family.

That was the start of the century. I did find work and was there for 4 years until I was made redundant. Sandwiched in between that we married and our first child was born with the second being born a month after I was paid off. All these years later we are still here and the dream has died and it saddens me as I look out at this town I despise so much. Well not today. Today that hideous beast is hidden under the white satin veil.

The problem with an anxiety disorder, and other mental and physical problems, that have gone on for so long is that you cannot see it changing. Its hard to see it ever changing to the way it was before. I'd need to travel further than I can imagine, I'd need to stay out longer than I could contemplate, I'd need to then get a job, I'd need to earn enough to get a mortgage and finally we would then need to find enough to meet our modest financial needs. Then move. But I can't see getting out or staying out.

Maybe this is what the flashbacks are about. Its a weird thing. Flashes of places I lived before. Instances of nothing in particular. A yearning seeping occassionally through the cracks. Better days.

But I am trying and over the past few weeks or months confidence has been slowly building. With that the wick of hope is rekindled to shine even if only dimly but with each step further out or each second longer out the dull flame burns a teeny weeny wee bit brighter.

At least today its not so bad. The world of hate is buried and I hope it never melts until the day I am driving out of this hell forever sending the moon from the back window of the car back in its direction.

Poolside

There I was. Standing. Amid people. At poolside. Watching my youngest daughter trot off around the top of the pool holding hands with her younger brother to ensure he didn't slip on the watery surface. Would have made a great photo but taking out a camera at a swimming pool might just have got me arrested whatever my intentions. But there I was standing there. Feeling the warmth. The water splashing over the sides and as full as it could be. The kids looking back and waving with their swimwear and goggles on ready for their lesson. And then my oldest brushed by to get to the showers before making her way to the big pool next door. It was something I would not have thought I would be able to do any day for the last however long up until this point where I was actually doing it. And it was not for long but long enough.

Looking back a day later I see all the positives. I tell it like it was a beautiful moment, for me, which in many ways it was. In that moment it was not. All of it meant very little at the time. The only thing on my mind was I had to escape. I had to go. I could stay no longer and I did not calm until I went. For a spell though I stayed with it. Stayed with the shaking and breathlessness and the dizzy feeling wanting to sit down but at the same time just wanting to escape.

I had in fact only gone to the Leisure Centre to drop the boy off outside meeting my wife with the two girls on the way back from school. When I saw her waiting I waved her on inside thinking she would meet me in the reception area. When I got inside there was no sign of her and panic started to rise. I had no idea where to go, nowhere except right back out of there. But I stayed with it. I remembered the changing rooms were off the reception area. So reluctantly I went in and it was bigger than I expected. Still no sign. Wasn't sure which way to go- except again back out. Walked up and down. Finally saw the wife. Went to wave the boy off and get the hell out of there but didn't. Decided to push on. And I stayed. Stayed to help get the kids ready into their swimwear and get the clothes away in a locker and then see them off. Bless them, they thought it was fantastic such are the times I have been missing in their life.

We left and my wife went shopping. As much as I wanted to go home I pushed on to the shops. I didn't stay but did walk a mile. She had said she was not going to be long. In that mile I returned to the shops and walked along the checkouts looking but no sign of her. By that time I had to leave. I was exhausted for the rest of the day. Mentally drained, physically fatigued. But it was worth it.

My wife has a friend who had a bad car accident at the end of last year and has been, understandably, experiencing panic every time she drives. The other day she managed a really big drive into the centre of the busy Glasgow. She got home around tea time and fell asleep not waking until the following day. It is amazing how draining the mental fight can be. But I mention this not for that reason but because she is over the moon. Not because of the achievement but because, as she told my wife: I actually felt normal.

Standing at poolside I did not feel normal. I did it but its still a long way off feeling normal. To begin with that bothered me but now I see I cannot expect any less than that. That is the first step. Getting there first, staying there second and finally repetition. This is the only way that one day it will feel normal. When you cannot do something or go somewhere for years how can you expect the first time to feel normal or natural? You can't. So its a first step and if I can repeat that step over and over then the need to run may ease with time and that has a knock on effect for other things. Its a building process. Some steps on a long journey. Steps nonetheless and let there be many more.