Walking in circles

Its never a good thing when you have to start a post by saying you are blogging because you thought you'd better- not because you have something to say. That is though what I am doing. Its nearly two weeks since a flurry of posts at the start of the month and nothing in between. Just a quick post then for proof if nothing else that I have not fallen off the planet.

Where am I? I am at a crossroads of sort. No. Actually I am walking in a circle, an eternal circle. An endlees loop. Maybe even a mobius strip. Crossroads would suggest I had different paths to take and a choice to make but that is not the case and that is the problem. Lacking direction and inspiration. I am trying to look forward. I try to see where I could be in 5 years time, or less. I cannot see anything except an old fortune teller staring into a cloudy crystal ball with a puzzled look on her face. There is not direction except around and around in the same circles. For that I only have myself to blame.

The woman from the job centre last called last month and I agreed to a telephone interview this month even though I don't need to now for at least a year. The appointment never came. It shows though that I am willing to look forward. I just don't know where to. I've spent so long not being able to look past my small world that now I can start to look beyond I don't know what I want to be doing. I'd love to say I would take anything just to work and it may well come to that this time next year. I have that time though to try to carve something out for myself like I have seen other people do. I have the time and I have always had that time but just don't know what to do with it.

I think back to the last time I knew. That was when I was made redundant from my last work place. I signed up for an online course which cost be £1500 of my redundancy money. A Web Design course in which I was promised there would be no exam at the end and a guaranteed job at the end. Everything looked good. My anxiety was at its worse and I was housebound but I was going to train for a job I was sure I would love and from there be able to work from home- self sufficient. Also at the time I thought I just needed a break from the long drives, boring days at work and all the rest. I was sure that by the time I finished the course I would be back to my old self and ready for a new challenge. On that front I had never worried. I'd spent a long time before that in IT contracting where I had to constantly be studying new technologies. Even in that last job I had a lot of proper study with 10 or more exams in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London finishing with certifications of CCEA, MCP, MCSE and MCDBA. As it turned out though the course for web design was a waste of money. I was told it could be done in a year which was bullshit and after over 2 years they changed the course asking me to start from the begining again. There was an exam which I could not have gone to anyway. And ultimately there was no job at the end of it. By the time I gave up on this after wasting a lot of time and money my anxiety was so bad I didn't care about a career- I just wanted normality first and foremost.

When I talked to the job centre last month I was looking for inspiration. Not easy for them given I cannot go to a workplace and would, ideally, have to work from home. She did have some ideas though. One was calling elderly people to make sure they were OK and having a chat with this- a friend over the phone. A nice idea but unfortunately not the job for me. My people skills are not good and I hate phones. There were some other jobs but all along the same lines involving phones of some description. I was hoping there would be some company needing bulk data inputs or something like that. Its a mundane task but one I would not mind doing if I was supporting myself and my family doing it. I am pretty nifty with a keyboard, have a laptop and Internet access. I  could quite easily spend 8 hours a day inputing data for a wage. Nothing like that on the go though. A pity. There must though be work out there like this when you think about all the documentation in paper form which needs put into digital. For this though there are services with use imagine and character recognition to do the work in a fraction of the time.

What I would really like though is to find something I could do and enjoy. Computer programming came to mind. I used to write programs all the time and so have the basic know how. I just don't know what is popular now. I have asked on different forums but opinion seems to vary. The work seems to be very niche. And there is of course so many platforms now with the mobile markets and I would imagine all of these are saturated with programmers. The world is a smaller place now to. Workers come from all over with a better knowledge and more experience. I just don't know. Its a question I will have to keep pondering but not too long.

Aside from this aimless pondering there has not been a lot to talk about in the past 3 weeks. For reasons I would rather not go into the opportunity to go further afield has not been there. That has meant my world is pretty small again. I have though continued to keep pushing those boundaries and when I haven't been doing that I have at least been maintaining the new perimeter. One of the highlights was not going further afield but one of my usual walks. It was a highlight because I was home alone with my two girls and usually we would just sit in but this time I decided to take them down the park. Once out though they wanted to go another direction. Its a walk I can do, sometimes, on my own at a push. I don't do those walks as a rule with anyone because I like to make a quick exit and don't want to feel the guilt if I have to turn back. But we went that way over bridges and railways and round corners and lots of different little places. The image above was taken from a bridge. We had previously been on the bridge in the background and even that seemed to excite the girls. To my surprise the girls really enjoyed the whole walk a hell of a lot more than I expected. What I predicted were moans, sighs and when are we going homes? A yearning for some electronic screen never surfaced strangely.

It took me back to when they were young. I used to take them on walks mostly around the block and we turned it into a little adventure. Its been a while since I have gone anywhere with them just on my own. I said I would take them somewhere else. I will do. I have a place in mind. Trouble is I have to do it myself first and cannot yet despite trying. I will keep trying though and at some point take them too. Then I'll look for somewhere else. Hopefully scope for more interesting posts ahead if nothing else.

Lastly something that came to mind. Talk of endless loops and computer program. To say it was BASIC would be apt I suppose:

10 Print "Walk in a circle, stop and look bemused ."
20 Goto 10

Oh, not lastly. This is lastly. The pic above only shows one bridge because there is no vantage point to get both in. The next place I want to take them is below. I've been on the green one in the background, the David Livingstone Memorial Bridge, but always got there by car. The one in between is one I have seen lots of times but never thought of going to look for. So I have a many pointed plan which includes locating the nearest and getting to it and getting to the further one after as well as walking it a good few times before taking the kids there.

Bothwell Castle

Bothwell castle. One of the most historic sites around these parts. Somewhere on the other side of the water used to be a priory but as far as I know nothing remains of it. Local legend has it that the two were once connected by a hidden tunnel. The castle though I have been to once before, briefly. It was the end of 2009 and in that post I sent I would return "soon". I don't think 4 years consistutes soon even by my standards. Back then it was a big deal just getting there and the few photos I took were taken in panic not far from the car at a good distance from the castle today. That day I had trouble taking a photo because the sun is behind the castle as you enter from the car park. This creates a problem. The dynamic range (the range of brightness to darkness) of a compact is not big so you either end up with a fairly clear castle with a blown out white sky or a fairly clear sky with a silhouette of a castle depending on how you focus. You will see what I mean if you click on that link. With that in mind I should have taken my better camera today which has a better sensor and therefore captures a bigger dynamic range. That was one of many mistakes and not least of all is the fact that while I once knew my way around photography nowadays I don't. For the past couple of years I point, shoot and hope.

Boring I know but in this situation there are a few options. One is to take two shots with one metering for the castle and one metering for the sky then later blend them in Photoshop. Another is to take a bracketed exposure and then use HDR software to blend them to get a bigger dynamic range. I have forgotten even the basics. For both I would have been best served taking my gorillapod which I have not used in years and must dig out again. I didn't take my better camera though and with this new little compact I had not even learned all the functions so could not even choose the right mode or even set it to take RAW instead of JPEG where at least I would have had more info to work with in Lightroom- something else I have rarely touched for years. So most of what I took today was washed out which is a shame. I will know better next time but its a wake up call to start learning about both cameras and once again start learning about photography in general.

Today unlike last time I was all for going into the castle and having a look around. That was until we found out it cost- OK, of course it does, doh! £4.50 a head though was not something I was willing to spend even if we had brought money with us. I'll leave that to the tourists. Its not that I begrudge paying the money but given there is every chance I could last 10 seconds and then need to leave in panic a £9 outlay was more than I was willing to part with. Besides that I have seen photos of the inside and it looks much like the outside. So we went up outside it and about then headed back.

My wife then decided it would be a good idea to head down one of the many woodland paths. It turned out to be a stroke of genius. Beautiful. Not that the photos show it but really tranquil. Mostly tranquil. For the best part of our walk down there it was very pleasant. We passed few people but the ones we did pass were very amiable. Dog walkers mostly. The only sour note was some twat, his other half, his kid in a pram and his devil dog on the loose. While she pushed the pram he had a beer in one hand and a mobile to his ear in the other. Alernatively he was talking on the phone, swigging and screaming on his dog. You get them everywhere. Earlier in the day I took a walk down a nearby woodland path and stumbled upon two jakeys dining out in the sun with 3 bottles of buckfast before noon. Pleasant enough but probably not a few hours later.

The walk though as I said was beautiful. It was like being somewhere else. The noise of the river flowing and the birds and the urban squall hidden well from view behind the woodland. Large characteristic trees. Shades from the sun. Hard to explain in words and impossible to illustrate in the photos of a rusty amatuer but something I want to do again soon. We found out that we can actually walk to the David Livingstone centre from there which is now added to the list. Two far at the moment as it would take a 3 mile hike and yet I have walked 3 miles or more 3 times this year. In fact today I walked my furthest in a day so far at just over 8.5 miles.

So a good day. It seems I am posting a lot lately after a year or two of not having much to say. That is good. I hope most of what I have to say is positive. OK there is the dark stuff occassionally but I hope that dynamic range which cannot capture it all moves from the darks to the lights with time.

Chatelherault

Chatelherault, or as we say locally: "Shat-le-row". The garden in the photo above I took earlier today is the scene where many bride and grooms are photographed shortly after the marriage ceremony- by professionals. You can see why. Its lovely. Its another country park and before today I really cannot remember the last time I was here. None of it sparked any memories in my head which maybe shows how long it has been. The house and gardens are of course the centre piece but to be honest I was much more interested in the woodland walks surrounding it.

We took a long walk around with more time to spend than we had on our last jaunt out as my wife finishes an hour and fifteen minutes earlier this week in her alternate weekly shift pattern. Much nicer not to have to rush. Its such a lovely place. You are very high up and can see all over Hamilton from there including such landmarks like the football stadium, as well as Motherwell FC's stadium too, the ever present council building which is hard not to see wherever you are and another future place to visit- the Mausoleum. Also I should add that for all the troubles of the last post they are now a distant memory. A blip. There will be many more. Setbacks they are called. The current CBT I am doing talks about them as being a vital part of the recovery process as did Dr Claire Weekes in her books 40-50 years ago.

We took in a lot but not a lot for writing about. The walk was nice and there is more to do so we will return. As I have been doing of late I will finish with some photos.

Calderglen

Years ago when my oldest daughter was a two or three, she is now ten, we went to Calderglen Country Park. It was a really great day out. Lots to do and see but the most alluring thing for me were the animals. Meerkats outside and in the hothouse monkeys. Its a place I've always wanted to return and as the theme has been these past couple of months I returned there- on Wednesday. It was though just a short visit as we were pushed for time before going to get the kids from school so there was very little point in paying to go in to see the animals- last time I was there it was free. Getting though there was a big thing. As you can no doubt tell from the splodges in the image above it was raining.

Not all good though. Really struggling today with panic which led to a rather scary episode. It stemmed from its only scary episode which is not unfamiliar and that is the dreaded abstract mental panic episodes which I have blogged about a couple of times in the past year or so. Very unsettling. I had one of those in the morning with those weirdly familiar yet nonsensical images, slowed down music I know but cannot put my finger on, sense of deja vu, feeling of impending doom, cold sweats and basically terror. At the time its scary and its only after I see it for what it is. Just another form of panic. The fight or flight response kicks in and sets the mind on high alert which in turn sets the mind racing and suddenly you can feel overwhelmed. Lots of things fly through the mind and its easy to get caught up internalising in all this temporary madness. Its all explainable and all part of a process intended to help. Its also over quickly- about the amount of time it takes for adrenaline to ebb away.

I always analyse these and I see the pattern. I see why it happens. It always starts with a feeling of deja vu then kicks off from there. Its always a very simple cause. This morning it was going into the kitchen and finding one of the cats drinking from a glass of water that was in the sink- later my wife told me she had let the cat drink from her glass in the morning so it had obviously ventured to the sink later in search of more. So that is a rare occurrence. No, actually I think its the first time. Not sure. What it was like though was the other cat drinking out of dripping water in the bath a few years back. Whatever it doesn't really matter. Its something vaguely familiar but rare. That brings on the sense of deja vu. I think this comes stronger with me because my life for so long has been in the same surroundings so there is very little that it is like that. When it occurs then it feels strange because really 99.9% of my day is the same. So it brings deja vu and because its something new also a sense of dread. Panic. The mind of course looks for signs of danger. It doesn't look outward because the source is not outward, it internalises. It goes raking through the banks of memories. Vague memories and dreams looking for a match and this is what I see in my head. I see this abstract collection of familiar things. More panic.

So I had one of these and this left me anxious  for the rest of the day. On the drive to the country park I started to go into proper panic which was expected because I was filled with adrenaline from the morning on top of going somewhere new. It was a real fight to keep it at bay and although I did I was actually glad in the end the visit was short. We then went to the school and picked up the kids and not long after I was home a second episode of mental panic. This one not from deja vu but instead from anticipatory anxiety. The reason for this is that the last few times I have had this it has happened twice in one day. So now I expect it and that expectation leads to it just the same as what happens with normal panic. More cycles. With another dose plus the normal panic in between I was in all honesty a wreck. Both mentally and physically shattered and then something else happened. Something new.

My wife had asked me if I could drop the boy off at his football but I had to refuse as I was in such a state and so she did on the way to picking up the oldest girl from a club. I was little with the youngest girl to take out at half four- an hour later. At some point I just freaked out. I felt I could not remember a thing. Short term memory loss. I got really scared and had to phone the wife. I cannot remember the last time I felt that scared. I honestly thought something had gone wrong in my head. It knocked me for six and to be honest only two days later to I feel its all passed which is the reason for posting this now. But I did not include this to scare people. The reason I post it is so that hopefully if someone in my position experiences the same thing I can in some way put their worries at rest. What happened was in fact a full blown panic attack. The reason I could not remember anything was because I was so caught up in worry over the two mental panic attacks and totally internalising so not entirely aware of what was going on around about me. Seeing without taking in. I was aware of my wife going but only aware as I was too caught up in my own  head and only when I suddenly snapped out of that did freak out- a bit like waking suddenly from a nightmare in bed. Even the lack of memory is not true. Shortly after this episode which again lasted about 20 minutes, and its no coincidence that is usually how long the peak of panic lasts too, I realised I had not forgotten everything. I knew where my wife was, how to get a hold of her, that I had to take my daughter out, where I had to take her and what time I had to take her. But all this was buried at the time beneath the worry I was consumed in. I was, much like my wife leaving, aware of it but not able to focus on it. As freaked out as I was at the time I now see it for what it was- just panic. And given all that had gone on that day its very little surprise it all spilled over in that way. Now I am fine and now I am sure it won't happen again- at least not to that degree. All that from a cat drinking water from a glass.

It makes me wonder if its all just a build up too of getting out more. Its not easy and so the adrenaline is always filling up slowly in my body. With that latter episode in particular I cannot help feeling that the panic had to come out eventually after holding it at bay for so long. I also think holding it at bay is definitely not the answer. It needs flushed out if you will and since that flushing I have much better. Not a new theory but a conclusion I actually came to 3 years ago after a full blown panic attack left me feeling virtually panic free for a short spell after. Its very much a balancing act between pushing yourself and not pushing too much. In that respect time has to be removed as a factor. One of my biggest faults is trying to speed up the process which always ends in regret. Maybe of late I have been doing too much too soon. Maybe I should be going at a slower pace. Its difficult though when you feel you are making some progress to not want to push on. Enough of all that though.

It was strange being back at the country park. Strange because most places I have returned to have not brought familarity. Here it did. Memories came flooding back. There is a children's play park and even without seeing in it I asked my wife if there was a big wooden train there which she confirmed. I saw the big rope climbing frame I remember from the last time I was here. Then other things like an open square where the visitor's centre is and I remembered sitting on a wall with my daughter eating ice cream on a hot day. These are things I had forgotten about. All I remembered from there before going were the animals which we never saw on Wednesday. We will go back though, maybe with the kids, and have a proper look around. It was good getting back out there again.

The Lido

There was a night long ago an obsession took me into the car and out to a dark lay-by and from there leaving the car abandoned I set off down a black path full of panic. It was scary. Even for someone without panic. A long empty narrow path in the pitch of night where any deviant, or deviants, could have been lurking unseen and as I had told no one of my destination I was very much alone. I then arrived at the end of the park where in the distance lay Bothwell Bridge lit up in the night as it is throughout the Winter. I took out my camera knowing nothing of photography and expecting a perfect photo. For that the panic would be worth it. What I took was, to put it politely, pathetic. I had no idea that with no light I would need a long exposure and a tripod of some sort. Instead I took a short exposure hand held and on full zoom. It was only when I got home I looked with disappointment at the result. Not the beautiful night scenes I had viewed on flicker but basically a black image with some coloured blurs. In between that was pure terror. I was well out of my comfort zone far from the car on a dark lonely path and still a drive at the end of it. Scary stuff. No fight just plenty of flight. Incredibly, in my anxiety addled mind, that was nearly 5 years ago.

Since then Google have been hard at work providing their free maps and street view which for me are a god send. I spend lots of wasted hours pouring over these and it was from these I finally spotted a parking space near the bridge. This gave my wife and I the opportunity to go down there. The area below the bridge is known as the Lido. Its small and yet its a place where in years past people used to go down to swim in the Clyde that runs under the bridge. Its only recently that I found out that the area used to be much bigger but that was before the arrival of the Expressway which cut right through it.

So today my wife and I went down there via the parking area I found. It turns out this is a small area for the council workers but there are were not signs up saying we could not park there so we did. In truth there was not much to see but it was still nice to go down and get a feel for the place. And although I still don't have that shot I want at night I do at least have the next best thing so can stop filling up my SD card with dodgy far off in-car shots from afar as we whizz by on he expressway.

Battery

A place nearby I have been wanting to return to for a while. An urban area I went to back in June for the first time which had been regenerated. There was a little lake and lots of dragonflies. Since then I found out there was also an old abandoned AA battery for the last war. So yesterday as a family we all went down there. It as good to get out as a family. Good for the kids. Most of the time my wife and I are getting out is when the kids are at school. For me that was vital in the early days and to some places still a requirement but taking the kids along is a sign of progress. Its the place I want to get to. What is the point of going out in future if they cannot come along? Its important for them. All their lives I have been absent outside the home and so any time I am out with them its a bit of a normality they should have.

We made our way to the AA battery first which was bigger than I thought it would be. The once grey walls are now grimy and painted with graffiti now but you still get the feel for what was there and it was hard to think it was occupied with people waiting to shoot enemy aircraft out of the sky on their way to bomb Glasgow seventy years ago.

That was all I planned to do. That was enough for me. Stretching in all directions though were different walks through woodland. Strangely by the time we'd been around the battery I felt calmer and felt I could go for a walk. I was glad. I would have hated to just head straight back home. The kids wanted to stay out so for me to head back would have been a disappointment for them. But if I was panicking there would have been no choice. Here again is the fear. What is allowing me out further and for longer is not recovery really. Recovery lies in losing the fear of panic. Its just that for whatever reason panic is not coming as frequently or as intensely and as a result I am able to cope better but the threat remains and while there is a threat I am not really moving forward. Its a ruse. I am not trying to put a dampener on it because getting out to new places is, if anything else, good for the spirits. Certainly better than stuck between the same 4 walls all day.

The path took us eventually back to the little lake via a bridge. It was a nice walk. Apparently there are woodpeckers and other birds there but we saw nothing. Its just good being out in nature. The sounds and the smells make it easier to be mindful in the surroundings and less introspection is always a good thing in my case. We spent a good bit of time down there. At one point my wife spotted a fox and although we carefully made our way toward it the fox vanished from view. This led to me losing all sense of fear and climbing up a large incline filled with jaggy bushes into an open area looking for the animal. Its always my hope to catch animals on camera in the wild but not to be. The wily fox was long gone. If there was disappointment it was the lack of wildlife. The only thing caught up there was my oldest daughter who had followed me up and got trapped in a load of jaggy branches so I had to pry her out slowly.

I would like to end with a shot of wildlife but my last chance came out the blue and far too quickly for me to get the camera out. We made it back to the car and my son climbed up a small hill and couldn't get back down. I went up to help him down . I got up and took his hand. Birds suddenly flew from trees as if startled and I guess its because its off the path and they are not used to being disturbed. As I turned to take him down movement pulled me around from the corner of my eye. And there running through the trees were two deer. Stupidly, like the fox, I tried to follow as I got my camera out but they were well gone. A missed opportunity. That would have been a good way to end the post but not to be. Still I am glad I saw them though. Its not something I expected to see so I am thankful for that.