How I earn my crust... (Part One)

Sandy Lee wrote a post recently about her job, and I agree with her comment that we’re so busy blogging about our weight-related issues that a lot of us haven’t taken the time to mention what we do for most of our waking hours (apart from think of food and sex of course – reverse the order if male).

My working life started off down the secretarial route, probably because I had taken a quick course in shorthand and typing before I went to university in Bristol UK, and it seemed natural to apply the skills I had learned – and I wouldn’t be blogging to you now if I hadn’t.  Between one job and another I made the transition to administrator, then to office manager and finally admin manager at a wholesale seed merchants. 

1990
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I held this job for 19 years and enjoyed being involved in agriculture; there were farmers to talk to about whether it had rained; knowledge to be learned about cereal  and root crops, the best forage grasses for milking herds and the best sward for a golf course, lawns and wildflowers...

I took this picture on a golf course in Surrey,

to show how the 'roughs' can look attractive

with wildflora.

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…and about how to import cargoes of seed from New Zealand or to export them to Chile.   One stormy winter’s day a container ship went down in the Bay of Biscay, a notorious area of choppy seas off the northern coast of Spain, and most of the containers were lost, including some of ours which were full of turnip seed.  The repercussions of the insurance claim were a paperwork nightmare and continued for several years afterwards, but I always wondered what the fish made of the massive food drop from heaven, and whether it turned any of them vegetarian.

I also chased people for money – with different strokes for different folks:  easy does it with the farmers, discuss the weather and their crops for 15 minutes before broaching the subject of the outstanding invoices, and whether they had remembered to upturn the bucket where they shoved their paperwork in their dusty, rarely used offices, and sort through what was ours... 

Yes, this could have been a ruse, but they would also ring you to admit with embarrassment that they had just found your cheques which they had forgotten to cash from three years ago and could you please re-issue (it was a two-way relationship because they bought seed from us and also grew certain types of seed for us under contract).    The other creditors were a mixed bag – the classic excuse for not paying was to say that the seed hadn’t come up, and to the customers we knew well who came up with the same old chestnut, we would counter with ‘that’ll be because you’ve sown them upside down’. 

One customer was a wholesale merchant who dealt with farmers in south west Wales where he lived (a simply gorgeous part of the country), and he couldn’t pay us till the farmers had paid him.  He was fond of telling us that the only way to get paid was to forget the telephone – he had to trek from one farm to another, bumping along muddy country roads in his Land Rover, and sit down to chat with the farmer and his wife, have a cup of tea with them, sample a slice of her freshly made fruit cake and after the second cup of tea, gently mention about those invoices (old boy).  It was a slow business, and an afternoon of this could become pretty uncomfortable. 

Sometimes I used to get one of the reps to collect in person if it was in his area and the customer was dodgy.  The difficult ones were often the turf suppliers, who didn’t want to pay you because they had to grow the seed, shape it into turves (I know, hardly the plural of turf, but that’s how it’s known in the trade...) and sell it on, and then wait 30 days to get paid themselves.  So we often had to wait 60 or 90 days.  One of them was proving so difficult that after much pressure he agreed to bypass his bank and pay in cash, but would only hand it over in a pub, where the rep had to pretend he was a drinking pal, since his ‘business associates’ (i.e. creditors) were everywhere. 

The rep duly turned up at a pub in Yorkshire somewhere, and was alarmed to note that it was in a very seedy part of town.  The pub itself was full of broken glass in the car park, and the smell inside was beer and –er - formerly beer, empty crisp packets on the floor, cigarette butts ground into the carpet, and so on.  He got his drink and sat down nervously with the turf grower, who after a while put his hand under the table and passed our man a large wodge of cash (about £5K if I remember rightly), while they pretended to talk amicably about this and that.  The rep had an apprehensive few hours trying not to drink too much, before slipping out the door, getting into his car and driving away at top speed, and he told us later that he had slept that night with the money under his pillow and a cricket bat by his bed. 

Our holding company was an old and respected agricultural business in Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, and I was lucky enough to travel there several times over the years for training (in a tiny plane from Bristol – argh).

Returning from Banbridge one year, to find Bristol under snow.

I thought I knew where I had parked my car, but they were all

white.... it took an hour of tottering up and down

on high heels before I sank thankfully and tearfully

into my little Rover Metro!

They were unfailingly charming hosts, and nothing was ever too much trouble.  At the beginning (in the late 80’s and early 90’s) there was a high military presence in the town, you couldn’t miss it.  There were barricades on certain streets and, confusingly, many different types of uniform.  Security was tight everywhere, and reminiscent to me of the seventies in Buenos Aires, during the era of the military dictatorships when I was a schoolgirl.

They had business connections of course with the Republic of Ireland where there were many cereal farmers, but I had mixed feelings as far as credit control was concerned:  they could charm the birds of the trees, no doubt about that, and the myth about Irish people kissing the Blarney Stone is no myth – I can’t think of a more entertaining nationality to talk to over a drink.  But still I can’t bring myself to recall the admin abilities of the typical Irish farmer without wanting to bang my head repeatedly on a table.  On one occasion after yet another fruitless telephone conversation with someone when I could almost hear the sound of his head being scratched at the other end, he burst out “listen now, I’ve been through all the invoices with a fine toothbrush, and I can’t find it, so I can’t”…

From a working life point of view those were happy years, and when redundancy came in 2007 I was devastated, though not surprised, for I had seen the problems being faced by the agricultural trade.  It makes me sad now to remember all those kind, funny, earthy customers I got to know – mostly by phone – and not to be able to follow their lives.  Several of them rang me when they knew I was leaving/had left, to be reassured that ‘I had been treated right’.  

I’m still in touch with Mike, a salesman who has gone on to better things within the company, but who is like a younger brother to me, and was a natural model at our camera club.

I’ll tell you about my present job next time.  (Never let it be said I can tell a story in one go!)

-oOo-

Photo Finish:
From Lonicera's non-digital archive

Visit to St Ives, Cornwall

-oOo-

Go to Part 2

Return to most recent post

Some photos around the house taken today

Tina's March Project

Tina over at Tina's Weightloss Journey has set me the task of taking a picture somewhere around my house to show what it looks like in March, so this afternoon accompanied by Banjo and Rusty -

I set off round the house (not, it has to be said, a very long journey) and noticed that the camellia bushes down the side are starting to flower - Banjo thought I was photographing him of course, he's quite used to it.

Banjo and the Camellia -

spring comes at last to my home in Bristol

This is a view from the street -

My home on the outskirts of Bristol, March 2010,

with Rusty on guard

- and Rusty wasn't taking any chances (on being excluded from the photograph, that is).

Under him on the pillar is my house name - Avonsong - so called after a song written by John about the river Avon, one of many beautiful and catchy tunes from "Clifton Town", an opera he composed some years ago about the Bristol Riots of 1831.  It was staged successfully at the Bristol Old Vic in 1989 (I think I've got the year right).

-oOo-

Photo Finish

- from Lonicera's non-digital archive

Avonsong and the cats in years gone by

Back garden with greenhouse

and camellias in the foreground

Rusty and Banjo in June 2001, when they were 2 months old.

Banjo didn't like those glass grapes, which I adored,

and within a short space of time had learned to

knock them off the windowsill. 

After the second time they were too badly chipped

to display again.  Lesson learned.

-oOo-

When no news is bad news

When you haven’t heard from a bandit blogger in a while, I’ve learned that it’s probably going to be for one of three reasons.  (I’m assuming the bandit is female, because a high proportion of them are – and I can’t speak for men.  Never been able to, come to that…)

It could be that something has happened in her life that has made it too difficult for her to share her news – too busy or too sad, and all you can do is visit her blog every so often waiting for her to come back to life.   (I follow some Chilean blogs, and I was worried for a week or so when they didn’t blog after their terrible recent earthquake.  Such a relief when they returned to cyberspace.)

The second comes from a reluctance to own up - her weight is becalmed and she’d rather blog when she can report on something positive.    

If she’s gone into reverse and is gaining weight, then this is the worst for a bandit.  She lurks in the shadows, reading the other blogs – she’s hooked after all, and wants to know what her virtual friends are up to – but feels increasingly inadequate as she notices they are leaving her behind.  Run to catch up?  No, it was ever thus before being banded – no good at keeping up with the rest of the crowd, that’s why she got into this mess in the first place. 

(If only she just carried on telling us about other aspects of her life which are alright, and understood that bandits can’t afford to be competitive.   To mangle a good old-fashioned saying, there but for the grace of the lapband go they.   Take their band away and they’re as weak a new born kitten as we are.)

For the moment my case is the middle one – I’m drifting, with weight more or less level (ish).  Two weeks ago I had gained a kilo, and Taunton Hospital considered this enough of an emergency to leave me to the tender mercies of the dietician for a good pep talk.  She reassured me that keeping level is not bad anyway, and suggested a food diary.  So in addition to eating the biscuits I shouldn’t be eating (at work – I don’t buy them myself), I’m having to write down in a little notebook that I’m having them, for her to look at and wag her finger next time.  Double punishment.

I draw the line at putting in the calorie values – I did this for years when I was busy zooming up and down in weight… little rows of bright blue A6 sized notebooks lined my windowsill, choc full of lists, recipes, exclamation marks, self-loathing or jubilant comments, my weight written precisely in the top right hand corner of the page, and “P” for ‘period’ every so often – as if that made much of a difference… 

I’ve SO had it with treating the process as a project.  Sorry bandits, I’ve done this for too long, and I find the subject immensely, utterly and crashingly boring - there are so many other topics with which I would rather be occupying my mind.  All I can do is try to follow the main precepts (which I'm clearly not at the moment):  buy wisely, take my time eating, chew thoroughly, stay away from the high calorie foods… and read the other blogs to know I’m not alone.  And of course it’s important to encourage other bloggers – I know well what a difference a good comment can make.

Thank you so much Robin (My Journey into a New World) for your Sunshine Blog award – I will try to deserve it.  I wish I could be more inspirational – but all I can say for now is thank you so much to the followers and blogger friends.  Please keep faith with me and continue to read me from time to time if you can stand it.  I always check out new followers to see what they have to say, and often join their lists of followers.

This I know – and I speak for myself alone:  there’s no point being slim when you’re old.  Please help me be strong, be brave, be resolute.  Before it’s too late.

-oOo-

Photo Finish
– from Lonicera’s non-digital archive
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Spring, a time of hope and renewal

I took these two at Glastonbury Abbey some years ago.  When the slides were returned from the processor, they were very underexposed and I could barely see the subject. Disappointed, I left them to one side.  I’m so glad I didn’t throw them away, because today thanks to digital technology, I’ve been able to transform them by lightening them, and to observe with surprise that they’re reasonable images.  If only other aspects of my life were as easy.

-oOo-

Post Office Adventures

When you want to send a letter to someone – do you put the stamp in the top righthand corner, and with an air of finality, thump it with your fist, saying to yourself, “right, that’s done, I’ll post it tomorrow and they’ll get it the day after that”?? Well, maybe you shouldn’t take it all for granted.

When I returned from my trip to Argentina last year, I did the usual thing that untidy travellers do – dragged out the presents to distribute, the knickknacks to show off, the dirty clothes to be washed… and then abandoned my half unpacked suitcase in the spare room, to the delight of my cats who are evermore on the hunt for new and exciting places to sleep.

Next I wrote my thank you letters and e-mails - and there were many, for so many people had been extraordinarily kind and accommodating. After that I checked my photographs (for “checked” read “straightened”, and thank you to Photoshop), printed off pictures and consulted my list – oh yes, I’m one of those nerdy list makers – to see who had asked me for a copy of the original book whose translation I had been promoting, who wanted prints of my pictures, who had requested information I didn’t have at the time, and so on.

In due course, and in stages over the following weeks, I had various parcels to post to different locations in Argentina. One Monday morning in mid December two of them started their arduous journey to different addresses in Patagonia, the first of which contained several stoutly wrapped bars of bitter chocolate laced with strong chilli (…I know, me neither…) requested by a 15 year-old friend, Tomi, who couldn’t believe such a thing existed and was keen to try it; the second was a padded envelope for Carlos Espinosa, the journalist who had helped me set up my trip, containing a DVD with several hundred pictures taken during my visit, and a Spanish translation of one of the ‘Just William’ books by Richmal Crompton, the series written between the wars about the adventures of an impish English boy aged 11 and his gang. This richly comical saga for all ages had been Carlos’ favourite as a boy, and I was delighted to have found one of them on the internet.

My two parcels disappeared into the maw of the international postal office system and perhaps got to Buenos Aires when this country’s revered institution was having a particularly bad week, or perhaps one of its workers denied time off at Christmas – but when the new year came and went with no sign of them I started to worry that the jaundiced employee was both a chocoholic and a bookworm.

On 13th January Carlos e-mailed me to say he had received two (!) parcels from me: one contained the book, with a written note advising that a second parcel containing photos was on its way, and the other, much larger, was very torn and shrink-wrapped, with a polite note from the national post office, part of which said:

"Dear customer,

The consignment delivered herewith has been damaged by other parties and was received by us from its country of origin in its present damaged condition. Conscious that your post is important and should be received in good condition, we have proceeded to shrink-wrap its original packaging and contents…."

This damaged envelope had my handwriting all over the outside, and nestling inside were items totally unknown to me: (1) a Christmas card addressed to one “Kitty”, wishing her a merry Christmas and happy new year in very shaky Spanish, “with kisses and hugs from Ken and Jean”, and (2) a calendar entitled “Scotland’s Artists 2010”. There was no sign of the DVD in either package. A couple of days later I posted off to him another padded envelope with a second DVD with my pictures, this time with his address all over the disk in indelible print.

Stick with me, because the story gets even weirder.

Ten days later on 24th January an envelope was popped through my door in Bristol by the postman, along with other post – it was a padded envelope, completely unsealed, containing the missing DVD, and was addressed to me in a neatly typed label, from Shanghai, China.
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Carlos was as mystified as I was, but the thick plottened: On 15th February his son was sitting in the garden and a Renault 18 car drove up. The driver got out and called across to him “Is this the Espinosa household?” On being told that it was he handed him an envelope and said “this appeared at my house”, upon which he got back in his car and disappeared. Not knowing the preceding goings on he didn’t think to ask him anything else. The envelope contained my second replacement DVD and a card from me sending my best regards to Kitty…

So why did the previous DVD get sent to China, and who knew my address to send it to me in England??? Oh (sigh) never mind.

Meanwhile, back to the first parcel to Tomi, which contained the chocolate with chilli –

By mid January, a month after posting, it still hadn’t arrived. I realised that if the first one had been purloined, chances were that the second one would be too, but I decided to risk sending another, speculating with grim amusement on the unpleasant surprise the post office worker would have received on taking a bite out of the chilli-infused, ultra bitter chocolate. The second parcel I sent was even more heavily padded – enough in fact for it to look quite consistent when I wrote in clear black print on the outside that the package contained “Zapatos Viejos” – old shoes...

Well folks, the jaundiced one turned out to be me and not post office workers on either side of the pond, because Tomi received both parcels together, and had a wonderful time alternately devouring the chocolate and gasping for glasses of water, not to mention the fabulous street-cred he gained when he shared some of it out with his friends.

So it all got somewhere in the end, probably thanks to the goodwill of persons unknown in both Patagonia and China. The well-travelled DVD wasn’t giving up its secrets, and fearing a Chinese sense of humour that might have introduced a virus into the DVD, I threw it away anyway.

Carlos was for once saved the monthly tedium of the usual long queue at the bank when he went to pay his utility bills thanks to Richmal Crompton’s “Las Travesuras de William” which I had sent him, and didn’t mind in the least the strange looks he got, not even when he attracted the attention of the security guard who demanded to know what was making him laugh. Carlos volunteered to read him a particularly funny paragraph, but was disappointed when the offer was sternly refused. Ah well, their loss.

-oOo-

From now on I would like to introduce a sort of signature to my posts, the idea for which I have got from a gentleman called Matías Vieira, whose blog Patagonia, Chile, el Mundo, (http://matiasvieira.blogspot.com/), contains many beautiful photographs taken by him, of Patagonia and other travels. He lives in Punta Arenas, Southern Chile, and though his text is in Spanish, the content is mainly photographic, and of a very high quality at that. He always finishes his posts with an old photograph or postcard taken from his family archives, and they are a fascinating window into the past.

While mentioning Chile, I would also like to express all my sympathy for and solidarity with the Chileans who have been hit by a very severe earthquake this weekend.  Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

I’ve recently purchased a second-hand Nikon scanner which is designed for scanning slides and negative film. I’m no tecchie, and the setting up phase has been horrible, but I’m there at last, and for the past week have been enjoying scanning 20 years worth of slides. It’s been like meeting up with old friends again, and has reminded me of why I always referred to it as my “belovèd hobby”. Of course the non-digital pictures were less sharp, and sharpening images electronically doesn’t always work. On the plus side I can crop them to a more pleasing composition. What I would like to do, in future without all this verbiage, is to include a couple of non-digital images at the end of my posts, with explanations if required.

Photo Finish
– from Lonicera’s non-digital archive

All the fun of the fair

-oOo-

A Blog Award!

I am – as they say in these parts – chuffed to pieces to have been nominated for a blog award by Tina at Tina’s Weight Loss Journey (Oregon USA), and with a disgusting lack of modesty I have been saying to friends “Guess what, I’ve got a blog award!”  Thank you so much Tina for this gesture of faith, and for the very nice accolade.

I’ll pass on the instructions to the next nominees first, then tell you about my choices:

• Thank the person who nominated you for this award
• Copy the award and post it in your blog
• Link to the blog of the person who nominated you
• Tell seven interesting things about yourself
• Nominate seven bloggers
• Post links to the blogs of your nominees

I’m delighted to nominate seven of my favourite blogs, and have chewed my nails to the quick in trying to decide which seven.  Not all are bandits. Among others, Tina has nominated Simone at The Bottom of the Ironing Basket, (London UK), and Bunny at Weightloss Expedition (Cambridge, UK) another two favourites of mine – so there go three people I would have nominated myself… although that gives me three spare….

All my choices are wonderful, brave, feisty women who shoot straight from the hip and make me laugh at the screen as I read their perky posts.
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1.  Take Helen from Reddirt Woman (Oklahoma USA), who has had a very interesting life, and a bumpy ride in one way and another, and yet shares it with us with a quip and a self-mocking smile.  She’s the sort of person I can imagine being thrown from a horse, and despite hurting herself makes it look amusing, then picks herself up and dusts herself down and gets back on again (while cursing the horse).

2.  Cara at The Dash (Perth, Australia), a lady with a very big heart and a rueful turn of phrase – usually turned against herself – a very successful bandit with (thank goodness) a few foodie failings, and lucky to have a loving husband and family.  She’s incredibly supportive to the rest of us bandits, and probably should have the special award for making the most comments on other blogs – and they’re always warmly written and encouraging.

3.  If I told that you that Shaggs at Food Junkie to Fabulous! (Melbourne, Australia) makes me cry, just check out the most recent post she’s got on at the moment (18 Feb) and you’ll see what I mean.  She writes so well, and pulls you along with her when she’s head first into one of her witty stories, or is having a rant about something.  There’s the other side of course, when she’s in total despair because she feels every other bandit is doing better than she is, and there’s no consoling her – and yet she’s lost an enormous amount of weight in a short time.  She’s probably forgotten about her earlier despair…

4.  Nola at From Here to Anxiety (Tasmania, Australia) is another bandit for whom you need to strap your sides to the chair when you read her, so that they don’t split.  It’s not just that she knows how to tell a funny story, extraordinary things keep on happening to her which are also high drama - for goodness sake, go and find out for yourselves.  Another lady with a big heart, whose experiences with the lapband are told in glorious technicolour, and therefore are fantastically useful to newbies.
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5.  Tracey, in Time to Downsize (Queensland, Australia), whose infectious joy of living is in itself inspiring, has been very successful with her lapband up until the happy appearance of her baby daughter, when it had to be (temporarily) removed.  She tells her story in a way that is not only interesting, but is very useful to other bandits, and at times also full of high drama.  Her tooth abscess while pregnant, during which she refused any medication for the sake of her baby, makes you clutch at your jaw with both hands in sympathy as you read it, not to mention the lapband problems after the baby was born.

6.  Zanna at The Tart who Travels, (Central Queensland, Australia) is a devoted world traveller (with lovely sounding husband Bloss).  She has an awesome single mindedness when it comes to controlling her weight, and is a very entertaining writer.  I love her travel photos, and much appreciate her invariable support.  When you read her you get the strong impression that she has a fun life.

7.  Sylvia at The First Day of the Rest of my Life (South Dakota, USA) sounds like a superbly loyal and gentle friend with a supportive husband who like the rest of us struggles with her lapband but has found time to be interested in a lot of things, such as quilting, and has more than one blog.  The overpowering sense you get when you read her blog is her kindness and sensitivity.

That’s the seven, but there are many more who I feel to be good friends, and many more are from the Southern hemisphere.

Tina who nominated me is a determined bandit who tells it like it is – when you read her you’re on that rollercoaster with her, clinging to the sides.  I love her honesty, and what’s not to like in a person who wears odd socks and is willing to tackle anything to get things done, including working on the roof of her house and prepared to hang from the guttering by her fingernails?  Bunny’s health problems are horrendous; I defy anyone reading it not to surreptitiously cross their legs.  She tells it bravely, and at the very least makes you stop complaining for at least five minutes about how tough weight loss is.  Simone’s blog is a happy one with stunning fashion photographs – and others too – combined with thought provoking ideas, and has a large following, partly because she is kind and thoughtful herself.

What draws me to these lovely people is not merely that their blogs are inspirational, interesting and well written, but also their generous willingness to support people like us who – to be frank – need it.  We started our blogs as part of a determination to change our lives for the better, and the partial anonymity afforded by this (very self-indulgent) means of communication has encouraged us to be as honest as possible.  Validation by bandits in the same situation as ourselves is more precious than I could ever express.

-oOo-

I will try to tell you seven interesting things about myself, but I think it’s more a question of telling you seven things about myself - and then try to make them interesting.

1.  I have played the guitar since I was ten
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This is a picture of my cousins, and I’m the one with the guitar (aged 14 wearing a hat ‘borrowed’ from my father, which he never got back) sitting by the pool at the enchantingly wild farm (“El Chorro” – the waterfall) where I spent most of my childhood holidays in the Valle de Calamuchita, Córdoba, Argentina.  The pool had its own stream flowing in one end and out the other, so was always crystal clear, however there was no fancy blue paint round the sides, so the water looked black as pitch and I was a bit scared of its 3m dark depths.  I learned to swim here at age 4 or so because I was too spooked not to!

I first saw another child play the guitar when I was 10, was instantly besotted, and gave my parents no peace until I got it for Christmas in 1963.  At 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve (and I was still refusing to switch off the light) I heard my father say to my mother “for goodness sake let the child go downstairs to see the presents or nobody will get any sleep”.  Later I was told that they looked in on me when I had at last stopped talking, and I was fast asleep in bed with my arms around the guitar-shaped package.  I was taught solfa and Argentine folk music, teaching myself Joan Baez songs later on.  It was a great ice-breaker for a shy and self-conscious teenager with a stutter, because I didn’t stutter when I sang, and I was always asked to play, which gave me confidence. 

Playing the guitar at a party in Argentina is a skill akin to smoking a peace-pipe:  a lot of people know how to play, so the guitar is passed companionably from one to another and everybody wants to sing – there’s no hint of it being a concert as it would be in Britain, with people listening quietly and clapping politely after each song.

2.  Photography is my “belovéd hobby”
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Both pix:  Kuramathi, The Maldives

Bristol Gilbert & Sullivan Society:

The Pirates of Penzance

I enjoy candid portraits and landscapes, and have tackled (a lot of) rugby and pictures taken at dress rehearsals of amateur productions here in Bristol.  I’ve recently acquired a horribly extravagant scanner for negatives and slides, so in due course I’m hoping to share with you pictures I’ve taken over the years.

3.  I – er – can write backwards.  Properly I mean.

(“Lonicera, Bandit Country, Blogland”)

I’m left-handed, and when bored in class one afternoon as a child I realised that I could write backwards with my left hand (though not with my right, funnily enough).  I also taught myself to write with my right hand, and today use them both equally.  At dinner parties some times when we’re all showing off, I write with both hands at the same time – backwards with my left and forwards with my right (it has to be the same thing, of course or my brain would scramble).  When I write backwards it’s instinctive, for example when writing the above this afternoon, I started thinking about doing the curly capital L backwards and found I couldn’t do it, and had to start again.

4.  Patagonia

Provincia de Río Negro

Estancia Huanuluán, Provincia de Río Negro

I’ve already written at length about my adventures there, born of a fascination with it after reading and then translating a book written by a young English girl who lived there in the twenties.  I fervently hope my association with that lovely part of the world will continue, as I’ve only just scratched the surface of what I want to learn about it.

5.  My cats
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Rusty

Banjo

Banjo and Rusty are my darlings.  Honestly, I don’t mind having terrible nightmares about dragging myself through undergrowth knowing there’s someone after me, (last night actually) and waking up to realise that Rusty is nestled on my chest and I can’t breathe.  And how lazy of me to mind tidying my desk 10 minutes after the last time because Banjo has plonked himself down on it and kicked annoying papers in all directions as he hunkers down as best he can, waiting for me to finish typing for the night and vacate the chair he wants to sleep on (in the cat world this is known as “queueing”).

6.  I hate/loathe/detest....

(i)    Getting up early, going to bed early;

(ii)   Smoked haddock (kedgeree = aaargh!); tea with milk
       (can just about stand black tea); raw onion;

(iii)  Peppermint, liquorice, &
       blackcurrant flavoured anything;

(iv)  Lies, intolerance/extremism, unkindness, cruelty
      – both wanton and thoughtless - particularly to children
      and animals;

(v)   Disloyalty, dishonesty, obfuscation, injustice, bigotry;

(vi)  Show-offs, poor hygiene;

(vii) The Ariel font!

7.  I love....... 

(apart from what has been mentioned above, specific people and writing in my blog)

(i)    Typing on a PC & learning about manipulating
       photographs electronically;

(ii)   People who are straight and true;

(iii)  All the wrong foods...;

(iv)  Swimming in crystal clear water on a warm day and
       the feel of a gentle breeze on my skin and in my hair;

(v)   All shades of blue and green, particularly
       the sun seen through green leaves;

(vi)  The serenity that comes from listening to
       the right music at the right time;

(vii) The star-studded night sky of Patagonia,
       and particularly the Southern Cross.

Long winded - ME???  Who said that???

-oOo-

Time to Resume, and Tribute to a Friend

There are two positive things that happen to me when my spirits are very low, and it’s extremely annoying that they only occur when I reach this point. 

The first is that I feel compelled to write – not newsy letters to neglected friends and relations who haven’t heard from me for far too long, but attempts at something creative.  I seem to regain some sort of serenity when I sit at my desk, hands poised over the keyboard, staring at a blank screen.  I disappear somewhere into my mind, surfing my own internal cyberspace.  My sadnesses remain far below for a little while as I soar up into the mountains of my imagination or my memory, whichever I’m calling on at the time.  I’m a fairly decent typist who doesn’t need to look at the keyboard, and away I fly. 

Then – as inevitably happens - a loving partner or a working colleague interrupts, and it feels like being yanked back to earth.  However justified the intrusion I feel pinned down, unable to escape, forced to listen to humdrum issues that need to be dealt with.  I’m now on a lead, pulling to get away, aching to return to the beautiful place I have just abandoned so abruptly.  Once is merely annoying, but I lead the sort of life when I’m rarely alone, so this happens frequently.  In the end I just sigh and give up, promising myself that I’ll return to that world as soon as the next chore is finished.

If I’m going through a phase of not cooperating with the lapband, i.e. eating high calorie rubbish, then the second effect of low spirits is that I get back on the wagon, because – well, there’s nowhere to go but up.  I know that being slimmer will make me feel better physically and mentally, and I start to apply the rules because I have no choice.  Then slowly things begin to improve, and the modest success acquires its own momentum as wellbeing generates a renewed determination to succeed.

This is where I am at the moment.  You will note from the “Snail’s Pace” weight chart that there has been no significant loss for several months.  The unfill before I went to Argentina in November was necessary for other reasons (stated in previous posts) and I don’t regret it, but apart from slowing down the process of weight loss, more importantly it interrupted the momentum quite significantly.  ‘Head hunger’ returned with a vengeance despite a re-fill, and it’s been a losing battle to avoid comfort foods and sugary treats.   The gym subscription continues to exit my account every month, but isn’t used. 

The trigger is when I reach the point of unhappiness (not necessarily weight related) and I have to acknowledge that whereas I have little or no control over other aspects of my life, controlling my body is something I can do.  

In addition I’ve had a timely reminder that my diabetes won’t take care of itself either. 

Steve, c.1994

I was very fond of a colleague in a previous job, a big hulk of a man called Steve who was a diabetic of the same age as myself.  A warehouse supervisor, he was a gentle giant whose occasional bad temper was invariably due to his hypos – low sugar levels.  I was the cause of one such episode on one occasion when I was supposed to fill the cool drinks machine in the warehouse and by mistake put the Coke and the Diet Coke in the wrong slots.  As the liquid poured straight into the cups you couldn’t tell what you were having, and when he realised his sugar was getting too low he drank several cups of what he thought was Coke.  An hour later he was found staggering around in the warehouse, making aggressive remarks, and fortunately somebody guessed what the problem was and gave him sugar.  He always teased me about it thereafter. 

c.1992. Steve is at the back on the left

I hated being stuck at the front, of course!

Despite moving to a desk job and being carefully monitored by health professionals, his consumption of insulin was so high that he was eventually put on some concentrated version, but all the same started to lose sensation in his feet and hands.  A few years ago a small wound under one foot went unnoticed for too long and very sadly resulted in the amputation of his leg at the knee - a condition not uncommon for diabetics.  He was soon up and about and back at work, coping with the prosthesis as if he had been born with it, although with other health issues kicking in, eventually the job proved too much for him and he took early retirement.   Then a couple of years later misfortune struck again with his other foot, with the same outcome, and he became wheelchair bound.  This week I learned that he had been forced to undergo a further amputation of what was left of one of his legs, and had died during the operation.

He was once a tall, strong man and in his youth liked a drink or two.  In 1988 when I first joined the agricultural company where we both worked, I was told stories about his being arrested outside a pub many years earlier because he had got into an affray and that it took five policemen to hold him down.  Although he never found a woman he wanted to marry, he didn't lack lady friends who hung around, frequently because they were being badly treated by their boyfriends and they sought his protection.  He had calmed down by the time I knew him – it may have been the effect of undiagnosed high sugar levels in the blood - and had stopped drinking altogether (the monochrome picture above ironically shows him being awarded a bottle of spirits for something or other, but he would have given it away).

The baby son of a couple who were friends of his became the apple of his eye, and as the boy grew up Steve was his surrogate uncle.  On a Friday you would ask him “What are you doing this weekend Steve?” and his invariable reply was “Don’t know...haven’t been told yet.” 

Though a naturally cheerful person, inevitably he struggled with depression over the last few years, and clearly he had better reasons than I did for his negative feelings.  I hadn’t visited him in over a year because I felt I would be unable to cheer him up very much.  Now I know this was selfish, and that any effort would have been worth it.  I’m so sorry Steve.

This is a wake-up call if ever there was one, and time to resume treating my lapband with respect.

-oOo-