The nature of grief

I wanted to write this yesterday but didn’t know what to write. I’m still not sure I’ll know what to write today.

Two nights ago, I had a dream about Vaughn. It was the day of his execution and I was allowed to have a contact visit with him. He went off after our visit to go and shower and get changed and ready. I woke up thinking what a wierd thing it must be to get ready for. Do you shower beforehand? And how must it feel to take that shower? To know that you are getting yourself cleaned up so that, in a few hours, when you are no longer alive and your family are allowed to come and see your body, then you are at least presentable. Wierd, wierd, wierd.

And then I started to think about Vaughn. I thought about his face, his smile, his easy laughter. And about how imagining myself talking to him felt strange. It felt strange to imagine a dead person back to life and imagine a conversation with him. There is so much happening in my life right now that I would usually have written to him about so I imagined telling him these things. Then I stopped imagining it because it felt odd.

I’ve not met him that many times. He’s on a different continent so it’s not like I was seeing him every day but I would imagine conversations with him all the time. Now that he’s gone, there’s this mental block when I try to imagine a conversation I might have with him. It feels wrong.

When thinking about all this gets to a point where I realise I’m feeling sad, I’m kind of relieved, really. It reassures me that I am capable of emotional responses and that I do have feelings, tucked away somewhere behind all the ‘carrying on’ and ‘not falling apart.’

One of the things I’ve worried about previously was never realising what has happened, never understanding that he is dead. I think it’s changing now. I do realise he is dead. Over time, I’ve started being able to comprehend that no more letters are arriving and that he is no longer sitting in that little box behind a glass screen, with a phone pressed to his ear, waiting for me to visit.

On the other hand, when the children left for Australia, I stood at the airport and watched them leave and the grief was immediate. I was really, really gutted. It didn’t take very long though, to recognise that they will have a lovely happy, sunny life there and that they look well in the photos I have seen. There is no longer the grief but simply the excitement to get out there and see them next year.

Not being present for Vaughn’s final hours has made the process of understanding and grieving quite drawn out. I’m approaching two months since his death and I’ve no idea what the next stage of this whole process is.

My day at Ham House in numbers

Number of gooseberries destalked and bagged up for freezing – 200
Number of redcurrants washed and bagged for freezing – approx. 5 billion
Amount of time I spent washing redcurrants – 2.5 hours
Number of raspberries washed and put in a pot to make ice tea with – 100
Number of roast peppers successfully peeled – 4
Numbers of peppers ravaged in a mad rage as I failed to get the skins off – 8
Number of prawn and marie rose sandwiches made – 16
Number of glasses of water I drank – 6
Numbers of eggs shelled and mashed for making egg mayo – 31
Number of cuts on thumb from sharp bits of egg shell – 14
Number of croutons made from the ends of the loaves – 80
Number of rocket leaves from the kitchen garden washed and dried – 50
Number of times I sat down – 0
Number of times I was asked if I wanted a break but I refused because I wanted to finish the redcurrants – 500
Amount of time it took me to scoff a leftover slice of coffee and walnut cake in my face at the end of the day – 4 seconds
Temperature of body after the walk home – 100million degrees
Temperature of shower I had when I got in – below freezing
Amount of time it took me to fall asleep on the sofa while watching TV – 10 seconds

G is for…

GARDEN!

I have utilised two of my recent blogging themes today (Trying To Be Useful and AtoZ) to tell you about the latest exciting developments in my garden.

Simon Gear, in Going Greener, told me to start a compost heap, which I love the idea of and have been meaning to do for ages anyway. Then my Abel and Cole deliveries started and there were little hints in their booklet, of what to recycle etc. One of the things they mentioned was composting. So it seemed like I was being nudged into finally actually doing it and I took the plunge and started searching around online for a good composting option.

Before long, I came across the Wiggly Wigglers and started to get excited. I’d heard about composting by using worms and on this site, I found a starter kit for £32 which would get me started on using worms to make compost out of my old scraps of food waste.

The basic principle is this. I put my old food in the top, the worms eat the old food, the worms do a poo, the poo is compost that I can use in my garden, to grow my tomatoes and herbs and chillies.

It’s like having a small farm containing only worms in a bin, kind of. So just the worms. And no other animals. And no eggs or milk. Just the compost. So sort of like a small farm. Sort of.

My next garden-related challenge from Simon Gear was a challenge to grow my own veggies. Now, the tomatoes, herbs and chillies are a standard summer installation in the garden so I decided to expand a little more, to step out of my gardening comfort zone.

A friend recently told me about a grow-your-own oyster mushroom farm thing so I checked it out again and decided it fitted well with my instructions and have ordered one. The idea goes something like this – soak a paperback book in water, scatter the mushroom seeds inbetween the pages, put it in the bag they send with the seeds, leave it on a windowsill, watch your mushrooms grow. Apparently I will get about three crops from it.

Books and mushrooms, what’s not to love?!

I shall report back on both the worm farm and the mushrooms. They are due to arrive in the post any day now. Oo, you should get some too! Then we can compare notes on how our baby worms are doing, like mothers in the playground.

P. S. Following on from previous posts, I have not been to a supermarket for 12 days. So for 12 days, I have only bought or eaten food that was grown locally, by people who I have taken the time to do some research about. It feels great. I have also not taken a bath, since I was told to shower instead.

Showering and shopping

Yesterday, I was having a working-from-home day. There’s a lot to be said for staying at home in your jarmies to work. But I also had my instructions from Simon Gear to follow. He had asked two things from me in his book, Going Greener.

Eat fresh fruit in season to avoid the air miles, flying things across the globe so I can eat it all year round.

Shower rather than bath to save on water.

I adapted the first one slightly, given that I was looking for vegetables, not fruit. But the message was the same. Buy as locally as possible to avoid the air miles, one of the most environmentally-damaging things I probably take part in, on a day to day basis.

I decided that, actually, I would shop entirely British for eveything I needed for my planned cottage pie. So I approached the vegetable section. I needed tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and herbs.

Well, I almost gave up on the tomatoes and the herbs! All the tomatoes were from Portugal and Spain. After searching all through the different varieties, I found one variety of vine tomatoes that was grown in Britain. Phew! The cottage pie could make a start.

The herbs were from everywhere but Britain. Jordan, Egypt, Spain, Morocco, Mexico… Nothing. As I wandered off, I saw pots of herbs with little British flags printed on their labels! Hurrah! My cottage pie could have flavour! I got myself some thyme and some chives and suddenly, the world of reducing my air miles and shopping British smelled fabulous!

Next was potatoes and these weren’t hard to find. The carrots were also British, not too much trouble there.

I didn’t need mushrooms but in my excitement that so many of them were British, I got some anyway.

I learned, at this point, that lots of vegetables are from Israel. The other British ones I saw were chicory and lettuce, neither of which I needed but will keep in mind.

The beef mince was easy enough because the nice stuff in Waitrose happens to be British beef so no compromises needed there.

Getting cereal bars was fine because I know Jordans is a British company but a surprising amount were from America.

I wanted to pick up some tupperware to keep left over cottage pie in (another instruction from Simon Gear is to freeze down individual portions for emergencies then you never end up eating rubbish takeaway or bowls of icecream for dinner) but the tupperware was made in Vietnam so that was out.

I must say, it was a bit of a faff checking the small print on everything I bought but I felt sooo much better leaving the shop and knowing I’d made the effort to reduce my personal environmental impact. I also didn’t wrap my vegetables in plastic and I brought my own bags to pack my shopping in.

And now for the second challenge. This one, I knew, would be more of a mental hurdle than anything else, due to the simple fact that when it is cold and wintery, I like to have a hot bath and listen to an audiobook and pretend I am a lady of leisure.

As Simon rightly points out in his book however, when taking a bath, you use more than twice the water of a shower and, disgustingly, all the dirt that was on your feet ends up in your hair, and vice versa. Now I know this, of course I know it. But I like to pretend I don’t, due to the lady of leisure thing already mentioned.

Yesterday, despite the current cold snap and flurries of snow, I resolved to stop being a water-hog (one who hogs water, not a pig who lives in a river) and get a shower instead.

I put the plug in, to test the theory about how much less water it uses, turned it on hot and danced around a bit to some music to stay warm. After a few minutes, I could stop dancing and just enjoy it because it was quite nice actually. The cold from outside was like a test of strength. If I was tough enough to handle the cold, I could do anything!

At the end of my shower, which took 5 minutes instead of the requisite 30 for my lounging around bath sessions, the water was only just approaching my ankles. It was barely a tenth of what I use for a bath. I felt great, tinged with guilt for all the other times when I had bathed instead of showering.

And that was that! Two more boxes ticked on my quest to become more useful!

Going au naturel

When I was living in Namibia, a friend who was super cool grew her body hair and didn’t shave and she was great. She was au naturel and I wanted to be just like her.

So I came back to England in winter and decided to be au naturel and cool. I had not thought about the fact that my friend was being au naturel in summer in Namibia. Because it was winter, I was wearing tights and leggings a lot. Tight things on your legs when your legs are waaaaaay hairy is itchy in the extreme! I was constantly shifting and fidgeting with my tights, itching and scratching. I started to get little red rashy bits where the hair had been pressed into a pair of tights at the wrong angle.

The armpits. Well, the armpits were a constant problem. I get hot much quicker than I get cold, anyway. So even though it was winter, I’d be sweating up a storm under my jumper. I was constantly showering to stop from getting too stinky.

It was all very awkward and complicated. Lots of itching and sweating. NOT what I’d signed up for! Why wasn’t I the picture of au naturel and coolness? Why weren’t girls looking at me and thinking how admirable it was that I was being true to my body and its natural form? But no, I was the sweaty itchy kid in the corner with leg rashes who dreamed of taking a razor to it all….

Eventually, I did it. I just did it. It felt great! I was smooth and fuss-free and happy.

So I’m sorry, world. I tried.

I tried. And I failed.

And now I swim. So there is no way I can be mega hairy and preparing for Brazil 2016. Everyone knows you need to be streamlined so you can go faster. Unfortunately that’s what it comes down to. So I have to follow my Olympic dreams and that’s just how it’s got to be. Alright?

My first bikram yoga class

I went to bikram yoga for a little while last year. Hands up who’s been to bikram yoga? So you guys know exactly what I’m about to tell you. For those of you who don’t know what bikram yoga is, it’s like yoga on acid. The first few classes, it’s mental. It’s a yoga class in a heated room, something to do with relaxing the muscles so you can stretch further in the poses. I thought I’d share my first experience of bikram yoga to make you aware of exactly what is involved in this intriguing new exercise class.

All I knew on my first class was that it was yoga in a heated room. Sounds interesting, I thought. I’ll go along for a trial class. Little did I know.

I was in a t-shirt and leggings, suitable attire for a yoga lesson. I entered the room, found a space for my mat and sat down. I noticed everyone else was dressed in barely anything. All the men were just wearing swim shorts, no t-shirts. The women were wearing little crop tops and tiny shorts. It was like being at a swimwear photo shoot.

I was wearing more clothes than anyone else in the room and suddenly was like, ‘What is wrong with these people? This isn’t a fashion parade. Why are they showing off their bodies? Have these people got no discretion?!’

And then the class started. The teacher entered and turned up the heat and for the next hour and a half, I was a complete mess. If you’d have asked me my name, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you it. My thoughts during the class went something like this….

OMYGOODNESS I’M GOING TO PASS OUT! What is she asking me to do with my leg? I think I’ll fall into a heap and disintegrate if I attempt that. Just keep control of yourself, keep control. I might have to sit down. Water! Water! Ok, let’s get involved again, whoops, stood up too quickly! Head rush. Sit down again. TOO HOT! I wish I hadn’t worn so many clothes now. O no, I think that tickling on my elbow is a bead of sweat which has run all the way down there from my armpit. Ugh, there is a sweat patch on my mat where I’ve been sitting. Ok, get up. Doing some kind of twisting leg and arm thing. Try to concentrate on one spot and keep my balance, the teacher is saying. How can I concentrate?! How can I concentrate when I’m melting? I THINK I’M GOING TO DIE! Can you die of too much heat? If no-one has before, I’ll be the first. I feel like I’ve been in here forever. How long has it been? Omygoodness, only 15 minutes. 1 hour 15 minutes to go still. I can feel delirium setting in. I think my brain is actually sweating. I’m starting to fear FOR MY LIFE. I’m being asked to balance on one leg and hold my hands in prayer position. I can barely concentrate on standing up, balancing is asking a bit much, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll just stand here, not fainting, and that will be my main achievement for my first class. Nope, not standing, sitting. I’ve never been this warm in my entire life….

After the class, I left the room, went into the corridor and leant on a window sill, trying to remember who I was. When I eventually stumbled into the changing rooms, I got into the shower, ran it on the coldest setting and stood there with trembling legs, holding onto the wall, trying to regain my composure.

My next two or three classes were similar to this but a little less messy each time. I eventually got to a point where I could go to a class without having to stop and sit down at all and I could still remember my name when I left the room.

For those of you who are thinking of trying a bikram yoga class anytime soon, let this post serve as a warning to you. Be prepared…!

Why I get up at 5am

Don’t worry, I’m not especially different from anyone else. It’s not that I’m one of ‘those’ people, you know, who run fifty miles before going to work, just for fun. I think of people who do that type of thing as being slightly superhuman and different from me. I don’t need to worry about aspiring to be like them because I’m just human whereas they’re superhuman, so no need to feel inadequate.

No, when I get up at 5am it’s more having willpower and liking to be in control. Let me explain.

Let’s say I’m due at work at 7am. Option 1 is that I get up around half six, get a quick shower, get dressed, have a cup of tea and some breakfast, brush my teeth, grab my bag and leave the house. If I then finish work at 3pm and go home, I’ll be a bit knackered from work so I’ll spend a bit of time sitting around staring into space. By the time I’ve shaken myself into doing something, there’s a textbook waiting to be read, so I potter over to it and spend the time until dinner doing that. Make dinner. Sit around being a bit more knackered. Go to bed. That’s Option 1.

Option 2. Wake up a few hours before I need to be awake and while I’m fresh and lively and listening to the birds sing outside, do something physical (nothing that requires too much exertion though, remember I’m not superhuman, just human). Something gentle like go for a walk or do some yoga. Then once I’ve done that I sit down at the computer and write my blog. By the time I’ve done those two things there’s usually about 45 mins left before work. So I do a bit of studying/working on essays etc while having breakfast and a cup of tea. Then about fifteen minutes before I need to leave for work I get a quick shower, dress, teeth, bag, out of the door. When I get home from work later, I’ve already done my studying so there’s no guilt factor in sitting around, if I want to. I often spend this time baking, making jam, reading or something similar.

For me, Option 1 is fine but my whole day just runs on automatic. I’ve not made that day my own. I’ve just kind of been a bystander whilst running to and fro. Option 2 starts my day off by doing things that I want to do. If I wanted to spend that whole two hours reading a good book, I could. It’s about having control of how I spend my time and the choice to start my day as I please, not just how I have to. Also, by doing all the things I like to, first thing in the morning, the rest of my day is free to do other things I like (more often than not, food-related).

When I say to people I’m getting up at 5am the next day, they marvel, they gasp, their eyes grow wide with admiration. It’s not actually a big effort at all. When the alarm beeps, I snooze it once or twice, because I’ve never in my life got up on the first beep I don’t think, and then I just think, ‘The next two hours, until the rest of the world wakes up, is mine, what shall I do with it today?’ Plus, my brain starts ticking immediately while I work out what to write on my blog and pretty soon I’m itching to get at the computer!