Back again!

I confess to having been a bad blogger and vanishing for a few weeks. There is a reason for that, which I did intend to mention before I went but once more managed to forget. We finally made it to our place of respite, which is a farm owned by people I've known since I was a baby. We were there for a little longer than intended, partly because I had a slight dip in health while we were there and needed a couple of pain-relief injections.

We took delivery of our brand new Motability car shortly before we left, which made the drive down interesting. It is a Vauxhall Mokka Turbo SE which, despite some of the reviews I have seen, is actually a lovely car to drive. It has much better road grip than our previous car and because it is a turbo, it pulls away faster too. The reason that we picked the Mokka was because we got much more for our money in terms of features. There is individual climate control for passenger and driver sides of the car, with heated seats and lumbar support on both sides too.

Although many people refer to Motability cars as being "free", this is not true. People who have a certain level of mobility problems are entitled to claim the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance. Let me be clear; this is not a benefit. It is an allowance that helps to contribute towards the additional costs that disabled people incur due to their disability. The good thing about this Allowance is that it allows many disabled people to work, in some capacity. This, of course, means that not only do they then pay taxes, they are likely to spend much more money in various businesses, thus contributing to the economy at a much higher level. Without that allowance, this would not be possible.

For people like me, unfortunately I am not able to work, due to the severity of my health issues. I have, in the past, volunteered in various capacities. My car played an essential role in this. What happens is I pay the entire of the mobility component of my DLA to the charity Motability. In return, I lease a car from them via a local supplier. In my case I also had to pay a small 'up-front' fee of £99 towards my car.

Luckily for me, the almost £60 a week that I pay to Motability includes full breakdown and tyre cover. Believe it or not, with only 650 miles on the clock, we had a blow-out. I wasn't in the car at the time (thank goodness!) as my husband had popped out to a nearby town to pick some food up. It was around 8pm when he called me to let me know what had happened. Thankfully he had been able to control the car and pull into the side of the lane; three guys from a nearby farm had come out to help him.

Here is my big problem with modern car manufacturers; where is the spare wheel? Why is it taken out prior to sale? This meant that rather than the 5 minutes it would have taken my husband to change the tyre, he had to wait for a tow-truck to come out, pick the car up and bring him back to the farm. Because it was night-time and they didn't have a tyre immediately available, the tow-truck then returned the next morning and drove my husband almost 30 miles to the nearest stockist. Yes, I did say 30 miles for a tyre! Had that garage not had any, it would have been a drive of over 65 miles each way.

Anyway, after that had passed, we stay an additional couple of days to de-stress me so that I would be okay with the drive back. That didn't work, unfortunately. It has taken me over a week to recover enough to get back being able to talk-type on the computer.

I hope you've all had a happy and healthy few weeks. It is good to be back! The only thing I really miss while there is that there is no internet access.

Weather plus a cold equals fibro hell and a postponed trip

I was supposed to have travelled to Wales last week for a fortnight's respite. Unfortunately my immune system decided against that and instead decided that a cold would be a really fun thing to have. I would rather have had my trip to Wales. Still, I do believe that things happen for a reason and in this case perhaps the reason was that it has barely stopped raining all week, according to my mom, who has been about 15 miles away from where I go, since Wednesday.

Because I wasn't in Wales I could, in theory, have gone to Weight Watchers on Wednesday instead. I say 'in theory' because what happened was that I slept all day. As you may already know, one of the primary symptoms of fibromyalgia is fatigue. The cold has made things worse; I haven't had the strength or energy to wash my hair, meaning it feels disgusting. Greasy hair is my pet hate, so the very first thing I am going to do the moment I have enough energy is to wash my hair.

My hair, currently blue, is one of my 'things'. We all have things that we insist has to be okay before we leave the house and for me, it is my hair. That tells you straight away that I haven't been out of the flat all week. The main reason for this (apart from my hair!) is that I don't have the energy to get down the stairs let alone back up them.

However, as I've said before, just because I have struggled to get out of bed, even with assistance, it doesn't mean that I can't do movement of some description. This week, movement has consisted of very gently using my resistance band to help raise each leg off the bed in repetitions of five. I am then repeating that later in the day. I am using a combination of thigh, stomach and arm muscles to do that. Believe me that while I am aware that doesn't sound like a lot - and for most people it wouldn't me - but for me, it is. Energy-wise even just that amount of movement feels as though someone has stuck a needle in me and sucked all the energy out. My muscles are drained like flat batteries!

So, that is as much as I have been up to this week, apart from entering competitions on the internet which, unfortunately for me, doesn't count as exercise. I hope that it has been a better week for you this week, despite the weather.

Memory, distortion and a fantastic childhood experience...

Pete and I were talking about memories last night and how our perceptions of events can change over time. We have a couple of very obvious examples where extended family members tell people that they did something that they could not possibly have done, due to age or other factors. I am sure that a lot of other people can think of similar examples too, either friends or family members that tell the world that they did something selfless or had a worse upbringing than they did and so on and so forth. 

I did a course a while back, called Understanding Global Heritage, through Open University where memory and the effects of time were discussed as part of one of the units. I found the concept of memory distortion (article on memory distortion) particularly interesting, especially as it is something I have witnessed first hand. I have kept a diary  - on and off - for years and tend to make quite long, detailed entries for significant events. One particular conversation with an individual was something I had found extremely distressing at the time and so had written down everything the person had told me. In great detail. Several years later we were discussing the events in general terms and I raised the particulars that the person had told me. They insisted that they had never told me, that these events had, in fact, never happened and that I was obviously making this up. At the time I was both shocked and confused. I started to doubt my own recollection of the conversation, until I re-read my diary. Now, no doubt I had my own perceptions of the conversation at the time and these formed part of the diary entry, but the conversation and events in question did most definitely happen. I was actually quite worried about the person in question until I read through the module unit and did some research of my own into the subject. I still worry a little because of the actual events, but a lot less than I did initially. 

It also made me think about the events that have taken place in my own life, things that I remember (or how I remember them) and stories that I have been told by people who are no longer around. I do not want those stories to be lost; I want there to be a record of them somewhere real, not just online but something tangible. I have decided that I am going to buy a nice, good quality, attractive note book and start writing down all those events that I can remember, all the stories I have been told, so that there is a record of them. Even if the only person who ever reads it is me, at least I will remember the events the way that I remember them now and not further distorted by time and place. 

One of the greatest sets of childhood memories that I have is of growing up spending almost all of every school holiday in Wales on a farm in Pembrokeshire - or Dyfed as it was when I was very little. To have grown up being able to collect eggs every morning, to help feed the calves buckets of milk, help herd the cattle, go to the cattle market with the farmer and his wife, pick fruit and veg, ride on a tractor and oh, so much more! I had the greatest time imaginable when I was a kid and I have to say that I am so glad that I had the opportunities that I did. I would not have traded my time on the farm, which I still go to by the way, for anything. While friends would maybe go off for two weeks in over-crowded Spain, with 'organised fun' (I cannot think of anything worse) I got to explore a fantastic farm and have a truly amazing childhood. I want each of those memories to stay as fresh and true as I can make them. Although I wish I had written some of them down sooner, I think that I am going to have a great deal of fun remembering and getting them down on paper now.