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.

Last week of holidays

Been looking at a lot of portrait photography and liking it- black and whites especially. So tried to recreate it with a lay attempt- ie take a snap and try to do the work in the dark room so to speak. But I liked it even though it wasn't what I wanted it to be. For my standard anway, hence the lead image. 

Its been the most lazy week I have had for a while. Not even been out except to put bins out and other little things. The weather has been atrocious. The gales have been blowing, the rain falling. Reluctantly at times having to put the heating on when we can take no more of the cold.

Last week of holidays for the kids which has made for a long one full of very long days. Don't get me wrong its no fun for them either. They got scooters for Christmas and longingly looked out the window each morning to see if the weather was good enough to get out- never was. But I've been finding it mentally tough. So much noise, fighting, arguing and huffs galore. It also created a bit of tension between me and my wife who is much more sedate and allows them to stay up later than I would like- sometimes as late as midnight. So it causes a difference of opinion. She is also less lenient with them which is why I have that "Mr Grumpy" mug.

We've had a few visitors too this week. A visit from my wife's father and older sister. Her older sister adopted two kids late last year and this is the first time I had seen them. Lovely looking kids. Still very young- both younger than our youngest. As usual mixed emotions. Good and bad. A "we can't stay and don't have time even for a cuppa" transpired into a visit of over an hour but I got through it.

One of the things the kids enjoyed about being stuck indoors was a colour in wendy house my youngest girl got from Santa. They spent ages decorating it with pens and paint- one side anyway. And had a lot of fun with it like here.

Such a shame. Just flimsy cardboard with a print on it. They would have been as pleased with the box it came in. I noticed a lot of stuff we bought this year was cheaply made. Quality really is a thing of the past when it comes to toys. Long gone the job of the toy maker in favour now of mass production cheap plastic junk with a higher profit margin. Honestly some of the stuff was beyond belief and won't last long at all.

A bit like a standing light my wife bought at the weekend. It was half price and had obviously been handed back. No wonder. The thing won't even stand up straight. So flimsy. I told her to take it back but she is determined to find a way to keep it upright. So its sort of hanging in a corner looking like it might topple over if you breathed on it.

Either side of the lens

My wife asked me to take some photos of her as she needed a new profile pic for Facebook. I didn't need asking twice. So I took a few which is restricted in this place as there is not a lot of room and even less natural light. Got roughly what I wanted. After selecting about 6 I processed them in different ways. This one was my favourite of the lot but my wife chose another one. I was actually quite happy with this one mainly because its decent for a compact camera and I think few would guess my wife was sitting on the back of a couch propped against an orange wall in a living room.

I don't mind getting my photo taken as long as I don't have to look at it. A lot of people are like that. This one taken by my 8 year old daughter so I will make an exception. A lot of people just see all their faults. Others though don't. Some people can't stop looking at themselves. Nothing wrong with that. If you have the confidence why not? And its not just beautiful people. I admire people who are not so beautiful but don't care. They are happy not to conform. If I had the choice to be beautiful but self-conscious or a non-conformist ugger I'd choose the latter because beauty does not guarantee you will be happy with your appearance, even some beautiful people hate the way they look.

Contentment is a great thing. Just wish I could find it. For the moment I don't really want to post pics of myself here but for once I'll make an exception because this was taken by my oldest daughter who takes a lot of good photos regardless of the subject matter. And on another note I don't want to be posting photos not taken by me either. But again I make the exception. Well mainly because its been a quiet week.

Burnt out

I hate the British weather or to be more precise the Scottish weather as the rest of the UK, or some at least, have enjoyed spells of nice weather this past month as opposed to the wind, rain and cloud we continue to experience up here. From memory we have had two or three days this year where the weather was decent enough to sit outside and as June approaches in a couple of days that is pitiful. Its the kids I feel most sorry for because this has been another long 4 day weekend where they have rarely stepped out the door and as a result showing all the signs of cabin fever in their frenzied loud actions. That is off the back of many days and weeks holidays this past two months where it has been much the same. Normally my wife would take them up North so they at least had a garden to play in but with her knee still bothering her that has been out of the question.

There is frustration to be found in all things when idle. I've spent the last few days cursing Microsoft and their shitty browser off the back of the blogger problems. For whatever reason since blogger fell off the wall and was pieced back together again I've had problems commenting on some blogs under my own ID. Even when I go to my own blog it says 'Sign in' even though I am logged in. So I upgraded to Microsoft's latest browser, IE 9, which still didn't fix the problem. And to add to the joy I then found my 'publish' button wouldn't work- so I couldn't make new posts on my blog. Since then I have found out that this is a known bug. Great. It was long overdue but I have now finally punted Microsoft's Internet Explorer forever finding that blogging is much smoother under Google Chrome and Firefox. Bye bye Bill Gates.

I was feeling a lot of guilt yesterday because of some fortune- well for me. At the start of the year my dad promised to buy me a Kindle this summer after seeing how taken I was with my mum's. I said not to bother because my dad is forever stressed chasing work from week to week and needs every penny. But he was expected to get compensation for a claim at one workplace where he slipped on a loose tile and battered his chest on the top of a pole. He was in real agony and yet still had to work through the pain and breathing problems because he is self employed. But last week he was told the company had gone into liquidation and so there could be no claim. I told him it was OK but he insisted in giving me the money to buy a Kindle. I am very grateful but the guilt isn't worth it. He told me not to tell anyone which I take it to mean not to tell my sister who he had also made the promise to but will likely not get one and also my mum who probably doesn't know he's given away money they could be using elsewhere. On top of that there is my wife who rightly wants new windows and the loft floored so for me to spend £100 on a Kindle is selfish. True. Its complicated though. My dad likes gadgets. He would be annoyed to say the least if I used that money for anything other than a Kindle. This is something my wife accepts but is still annoyed- I can understand. But I think I have worked out a way to raise the funds for the loft flooring which she is pleased about so all well in the end but the guilt remains.

My dad came on Saturday much earlier than expected. It was strange. I've mentioned visits many times and how difficult I find them so apprehension and anxiety were the usual habitual stuff I experienced. In fact the apprehension was extremely intense this time around as it has been getting more and more. It might not have been helped by my brother coming too. I think I have spoke to him twice in the last two years and can't actually remember the last time I was him. I know he's only seen my three year old son twice. But its not as if there are problems between us as we get on very well. He just lives his life and I live mine- plus he never has a phone for more than a week. His presence though made me feel more anxious. As I said though it was strange because this past week I have found some semblance of acceptance of panic at home. Not that I predict it will stay or even last that long but it has been there. Where normally I would fear panic with visitors, running off to my bedroom and lying there in constant panic until they left I found this had eased. It is based on experience as it has happened more than once. But every time that thoughts came I seemed to say to myself: so what? If I panic and go to my room then I will just lie there, no big deal. They were expected mid to late afternoon but arrived well before midday with the kids in their pyjamas and me just in the door from scouting the streets for the cat who had gone AWOL. They stayed for two hours and although I was highly anxious it never ventured into panic. It felt like I was in control of those urges. So that was good. As I said it may not last but I am hopeful it is something I can cultivate. If I could learn to free myself from panic at home it would put me on good footing to start doing that outdoors because that would be a reversal of the process I went through to get here. I have been keeping a panic diary this last month and my last entry was 19 days ago which is a long time for me because that came after a period of almost daily panic and sometimes more than one a day. Panic though is one thing. Anxiety is still there as a constant but if I could lessen the panic then it may ease the anxiety.

What is becoming more and more evident though is the link, in my case at least, between anxiety and fatigue. Half an hour after my dad and brother left I was lying on the couch with my eyes shut unable to muster the energy to sit up. That was until the boy poked my in the eye and shouted 'wake up daddy!' in my face. No rest for the wicked. The fatigue continues regardless of rest. On Sunday I had over 10 hours sleep and today I had 8 hours sleep yet I am still very tired. What I have also noticed is what I feared a couple of months ago as depression is actually not. It is fatigue. Nowadays the fatigue is makes my eyes water probably because they are so dry and I feel like I have excess saliva which is no doubt down to the constant tension I feel in my face muscles when anxious. This creates an impression of being depressed when in fact inside I don't actually feel that but the ruse is strong and only now am I unmasking it. When I look beneath I feel burnt out with anxiety, there is only so much the body and the mind can take.

On fatigue I would just say there is another reason why I believe in my own case now without doubt it is anxiety generated. I have proved it. Take visitors as an example. There are times before hand I am so tired that I need to lie out but as soon as visitors are in I'm sitting up, moving about and feeling no fatigue at all. In many ways its at least partly a state of mind: if you constantly tell yourself you are tired then you will be. But also when I am really fatigued I get a notebook out and I rationalise everything. I get it all and question my logical and counteract it with alternative statements and try to find a level of acceptance. Not every time but a good few times I have felt the fatigue lift. I don't become a ball of energy. I just feel less tired and able to move about. Its freeing myself from the self placed burden of fatigue. As a good few people have suggested in the past this is why occupation works so well because you don't allow yourself the time for long periods of rumination over how you are feeling. I see this at the moment with my wife too. She told be the other night she was going to make a doctor's appointment to get tested for anemia because she should not feel this tired all the time. What she doesn't see is that she has only felt this since her knee operation. Not being at work and not being able to be as active as usual because of the pain and restricted movement has made her this tired. Also she is on pretty heavy duty pain killers which are tiring enough. And also the fact that not only us but the kids are at times very tired I think some boredom, lack of fresh air and this very dark weather where we rarely see the sun all contributes to feeling more tired than normal.

So we still sit waiting for the sun to break through. The week ahead is the same forecast as last and the week before that, etc. Depressing in its own right. But hopefully some time over the summer we'll get some good weather. In July the family are away for a week to a caravan on the coast with two aunts, grandmother and a cousin so I hope at least by then there is some good weather for them. For me though I think my weather system is more internal and rather than waiting for the clouds to part I have to blow them away myself life cobwebs of anxiety hiding away my happier self. On the front there is at least some optimism at the moment that better weather is on the horizon.

No end to the madness

Anxiety I now understand but it doesn't make it any easier. The panic too I understand but the same, not easy. Life will never be the same again. People keep telling me it will and one day I will be normal again but I won't. I cannot see how. You cannot linger in this dark place for a long time and ever be the same again- even if you ever get out. Forever I have believed them more in hope than expectation but I'm too tired now to listen. Too tired yet far too awake. I hate every living second of consciousness. From the first realisation in the morning that another day of battles lies ahead to another endless night.

I am alive but not living. I exist, no more than that. If karma exists then I would dread to think what I have done to deserve this endless torture. I can't even remember when it all started, possibly 3 years ago or more. It's been a slow decline that has quickly gathered momentum and every time I get a punch in the return is twice as hard to floor me again. And I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of this restless existence.

Each day is something new. And each thing is worse than the last. I'm not afraid of dying so those thoughts can't haunt me. There are worse things for me. Having to leave this prison for example would be worse. Being awake and not being here would be so frightening that my mind would shatter completely. With that comes all the concerns that make my state worse. Toothache lingers. Health fears keep cropping up. With little exercise I am helping the process but cannot do otherwise. It's a cruel tormentor this anxiety that I cannot find a second's solace from.

Distractions help and this is what this blog is to an extent. For sure emptying your head is a must less it keep swirling in your confusion. I have plans and I have fears. I know I am not alone in this. Sometimes by writing, or typing, it helps to rationalise a fear and put an end to it. I hope to do that here as well as telling my tale.

This is not my life. I have no life. This is my existence, the restless existence. Maybe one day they will all be proved right and I will get a life back. That is all I want. Some may want fame, fortune or whatever. I just want normality. The chance to be the person I once was. The man who could go for a walk, a drive, could work, could go to the pub or a restaurant. I want normality but every waking second it seems to slip further away.

What I have learned is that I must do it on my own. God knows I've asked enough times and if they'd listened at the start I might not be in this mess but they didn't. And still they won't help so I must do it alone. On my own I must find the answers if there are any to find.

Exercise for me is difficult. For the past 3 years since losing my job I have virtually spent it all on a couch in a small flat. Not good for the body. It's two years since I was out of this country and about 18 months since I was out of this little town I frequent. Now I must start again.

I have lots to tackle but must take one at a time. 2 days ago I have started walks again. 4 so far in these 3 days at only just over 0.4km. Not much I know but it's a start. If I can increase these and do them more frequently then at the very least I won't have to worry so much about my physical condition.