Life's ok

Things are still going really well for me. Lost just over 1 stone in weight, bought a digital SLR, realised that I can sing, been out a fair bit, calming down over a fair few things, been playing the piano and trying not to spend too much money. Going out with a friend tonight to a gig in town. Really looking forward to it.

Indiana Jones movie - not as bad as some critics have been saying. I enjoyed it and wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Feeling damned happy. New girl at work. Seems nice enough. Quiet. My main aim is just to get my head down and get on with things.

Decided not to delete

I was thinking of ending this blog, just hitting delete and let that be the end of it. It would be a waste, I realise, not to the world, but for me. The blog is just an easy way to keep track of stuff. I tried to keep a journal but would always be mislaying it and starting again in another note book. At least I can't lose this.

going well

Its been an age since my last blog.

Things have been going really well over the past three weeks. Having fortnightly counselling and its been brilliant. I've come to the not very startling conclusion that there's nothing wrong with me, nothing at all.

Been on a healthy eating plan and lost 7lbs over the last two weeks. Been exercising regularly and feeling really well for it. I have no intention or desire to go to OA , AA or Coda meetings. Started going to my book group again. Signed up for a weekend writing course. Been going to the cinema regularly and out with friends. Went walking the last two weekends out in the Warwickshire countryside. Going to see a band on my own tonight which I'm a tad nervous about and I've been "forgetting" all about it. I'm going to have to push myself to go to it. I've paid a lot for the ticket, so I really don't want to miss it or throw that money down the drain. The only down side to all this is that the house is still a tip and I'm spending too much money, as ever.

Stuff I like

Independent
Curious
Stupid sense of humour
Strong
Persevere
Love outsiders
Down with the haters
Music
Dance
Art
Colour
Sun
Walking
Beautiful hair. Love the colour and love the curls.
Love my eyes and my mouth and my smooth skin.
Love my long fingers.
Love wearing earrings
Love mountains and snow
Love Switzerland
Loathe conforming for the fear of non conformity and the punishments it brings - see fashion and cliques at work and at school
Yes to quiet rebellion
Yes to protest
Yes to freedom at all costs
Weather: fog, snow, hail, rain, fog
Pears
Lavender, Frankincense, Vetiver, Patchouli

Monkey wants out

Finally got a session with a therapist at a local agency specialising in helping people to stop problem drinking. I first got in touch with them at Christmas.

I was feeling a bit apprehensive about it all and cut it fine getting there, detouring to do some shopping. The woman I'm seeing is a black African and it felt like arriving somewhere truthful. As I review the session I'm realising how much I've been affected by race and how untruthful and untrustworthy I view white people to be.

I resent my Dad for leaving me and my mum alone to cope in this hostile, fucked up little place. Ended up caged. That's how I felt and sometimes feel; like a zoo animal.

The therapist said a lot of things that made real sense to me. Anger, that's what I'm feeling. Anger about my childhood and all the burden's I had to carry. She says its like peeling back the layers of an onion and it takes time.

She got me to list some of the problem areas from the past and present that I want to work on and prioritise them. Self loathing is the first one and she talked about how I had taken on board negative messages about them and believed them to be true, but are they? I'm unique and special, she says. And so she got me to list the qualities I like about myself and she told me to review them every day. I can see how 12 step left me feeling that some of the things I really appreciate about myself where bad. "I'm too independent" I'd say to myself. "I need more friends, it's really bad you don't have lots of friends." So I go out trying to make friends but perversely it can turn into a punishment cos I'm setting myself these terrible difficult tasks to achieve.

I'm curious and interested in things and then I say to myself, "You never stick with anything." But I love people who are in to everything, so why can't that be me too?

And some of that self help crap doesn't help at all. Dr Wayne Dyer's thought for today is "feel superior to no one" which is laudable but it would have had me criticising me for feeling in anyway superior and carrying this dreadful tension around with me all the time. Give up TV and give up self help.

Its been an odd day today. A lot of chat. We have a new girl on the team and she could talk the hind legs off a donkey if you let her. Nice enough soul. She's not a hater.

I haven't written anything for a while cos I've been too drunk to do anything but exist. Stopped on Sunday. Feeling a lot better. A lot of energy. I always feel at a bit of a loss when I'm at home.

Drunk again

Been as pissed as a newt since Saturday 23rd. Two bottles of wine a night, up to four on two days when I wasn't at work. Gradually began cutting down from Thursday.

The course was a challenge. I was given some feedback and left thinking what a fat ugly pig I was. And the mind chat became unbelievably awful when I was drinking. But in that sense it's been a blessing because I can really hear what I think of myself. It used to be "Oh God" and a sense of deflation and that was it.

By the grace of God, I got a phone call on Friday from a local alcohol support organisation. I had got in touch with them just before Christmas and never heard back, but I was OK, right? Got a first appointment next week.

I've been doing some mirror work and that's helping.

I realised that I'm really angry with my old councillor and it released a lot of energy. I need to pin some notes up around the house to remind me that if I get into a funk, who, or what, am I angry at?

I'm seeing a guy at this new place and its free, thank God. Bit nervy about him being a bloke and I promise myself that if he annoys me, I'll tell him. No more being nice and reasonable monkey. It's about being real monkey.

So pissed off its unbloody believable. Fed up with the boss. Ate lots of donuts. Pissed off that people are leaving left right and centre and I'm still fucking here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bastards. Rats leaving a sinking ship.

Holy Crap

Went on a course at the weekend called More to Life. Hmm. Interesting, overwhelming, overwhelming.

Hmm.

Work stinks.

Gutted

Been prepping for a job interview. Didn't get it. Gutted.

I didn't go into it with high hopes but the interview seemed to go well and I liked them and the job. I also realised how demoralising I feel working where I am at the moment. Fucking horrible. Feel like I'm being treated like a nobody and seeing talentless Liz call all the shots. Fucking idiot bitch.

Got an interview coming up. I'm already making my mind up that I'm not a favourite and therefore I'm not going to get it. Got to take a portfolio of my work. Spent the whole of yesterday evening obsessing about what I hate about my current job and I know I just need to let it go and just trust that the universe will deliver. If I don't get the job, I'll be gutted, no two ways about it. I need to change the way I look at it. If I focus my intention gently on getting this job then I will get it and stop saying that I can't and start saying that I can.

Fucking pissed off today. Trying to let go. Felt forced to do something in order to look "nice". Pile of shit.

Random stuff

I applied for a new job. Hope at least that I get invited for an interview. Stayed up late filling in the application and now I'm really tired.

Work was fun today. Some of the managers are so thick. They can't deal with reality or ask for what they want, or just communicate.

Had a chat with my favourite photographer. We were at one of those really dull work events where you're trying so hard to look as if you give a toss.

Soon, I will head for bed ridiculously early.

And I forgot, applied for a free ticket to the filming of a really awful talent contest, but its near to where I live and I've got the day off anyway so it'll give me something to do.

Eating what I want

I've been eating what I want today. I had goats cheese, wholewheat toast and medjool dates for breakfast, and just been stuffing my face with celery and carrots for lunch.

Bought 7 bars of Green & Blacks milk chocolate. Unwrapped all the bars and broke them up into single or double chunks and put them in a glass jar. It doesn't look half as nice without the wrapper. Brown is a crap colour, if you pardon the allusion. But it is. It's so unappealing. I had a little bit and I'm not tempted to have any more. I feel as if I've had enough sweet stuff today. But could be too early to tell.

Got a job application to fill in... Yuk.

How to eat

Got up at 4.30am yesterday to get down to London for a course about how to eat. This may sound a bit nuts but for those people who binge eat, go on constant diets or have other symptoms of a crazy relationship with food, then you may understand the idea. We all know what we "should" be eating, what is "good" for us or "bad" for us, but many of us don't know why we eat the way we do and how to eat if we're not abusing ourselves or following a diet. The course I went on was an attempt to address that.

I won't go into too much detail until I can put some of it into practice but it was affordable and very well presented. A lot of care was taken and I felt good because of it. And the food was great! I was given a book that goes with the course and access to their website which has lots of extra information in the form of worksheets and MP3s to download plus a forum.

I didn't make friends on the day. I've given up on all of that and I just got bored talking about food during the breaks and how awful the diet industry is or how bad the media industry is. Water under the bridge. To be honest, I was tired as hell and didn't really perk up until the afternoon and I plain wasn't arsed.

Fucking mad dash back to the train station after the event. I had under 30 mins for a journey that involved two tube trains. God I was fearful cos my ticket had to be used on a specific journey. If I missed it, I'd have to pay out for a new ticket which would cost nearly £40, twice the cost of my original return ticket. I won't bore myself with the details, but a station closure meant having to risk getting off at Warren Street and walking to Euston, as fast as my fat thighs could carry me. I made it with 2 mins to spare, praying to God part of the way and then changing that to, "Well, I'm just going to have to pay out for another ticket if I miss it. There's no point in getting hysterical over it." Admittedly, I only had myself to blame for the situation. I had plumped for that train because I didn't want to get back too late and miss the last local train home which would force me to sample the delights of a night bus or the expense of a taxi if I couldn't face the drunken louts. Thankfully, I was spared both.

Appliance breakdown does not equal disaster

Fridge freezer broke down. Had it for a while so I got good use out of it and it gives me an opportunity to try a different arrangement in the kitchen.

It's a real sign of my growth in recovery that I can turn this into an opportunity and not a crisis that would have involved a lot of self talk along the lines of:

"You should have brought a decent make."
"Bad things are always happening."
"Nothing good ever happens. I'm being punished."
"What have I done to deserve this."

This negative self talk would be accompanied by my shrinking into a fearful and depressed ball.

Bloody lovely day out. May see if I can get my shit together for a nice walk somewhere. But I have a job application to fill out...

Kairos Foundation, More to Life

I was invited to an "introductory" evening by the Kairos Foundation who run a course called "More to Life". I had dashed out of the house with a scrap of paper with directions I'd jotted down over the phone from a friend. When I got off the train at my destination, I somehow couldn't drag up the courage to ask the way from the guy at the ticket office. Instead, I followed my friend's directions the which began from the "No 37 stop for Tysley train station". That turned out to be a load of crap which ended up in me going round in a big circle, involving a few lonely minutes walking through a deserted industrial estate. I wasn't impressed. However, I figured that as I wasn't murdered, at least I got some exercise.

I had assumed that the event was a kind of drop-in evening. Drop-in, have a coffee and a chat, drop-out, which suited me fine cos I didn't want a late night as I was suffering from a heavy cold and preferred to be tucked up in my warm bed. I didn't leave until 9.45pm. Got home around 1 hour later. Still, it was interesting. The woman who ran it was a bit of a knob and by the time I came out I was wrestling with whether to sign up for the next course in a couple of weeks that I couldn't afford, or wait. but if I waited, would i just be delaying something that could change my life. Thankfully, I followed one of the rare pieces of advice that I have ever actually listened to. Never make an important decision on the spot. Sleep on it. So I slept on it for a few days and now realise that its not teaching me stuff I don't already know and its certainly not worth getting into debt over. I'll do it, but not yet and not in London with that silly woman who leads the course there. The longer the time from the event, the more I dislike her!

I'll finish on this. The thing that really impressed me about the course was the focus on allowing the participant to decide how they would use the tools they learnt. The organisers weren't going to tell you what to do and that felt good to me. I'm going to be my own guru this year. Fuck other people trying to fix me or tell me what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.

Smug Liz

It couldn't have been duller at work. I'm getting sick and tired of sitting opposite smug Liz. She's as boring as fuck. She only talks when she wants to.

Tom Cruise Scientology Video

Click here to view it at Gawker.com. It probably wouldn't be so toe curlingly bad if they didn't have that awful Mission Impossible theme on a loop in the background, plus he just rambles and repeats himself a lot. A PR disaster.

No Country For Old Men

Great movie.

Food's so out of control

My food is so out of control. I'm not unhappy. I think I'm sabotaging myself, so it's fear I guess of being able to cope without the protection of all the fat. Learn to love myself. God that sounds twee.

Great picture. Click on it and it will take you to a shop where you can buy a print.

Boiler Saga

British Gas
Bloke came round to give me a quote on replacing the boiler. What a salesman. I'm for honest and open communication, but I didn't get that from him. He told me that to replace the boiler and water tank would cost £5k. To get a whole new system with combi boiler, new radiators and pipework throughout would cost £5k. Hogwash, to put it politely. I didn't want to hurt his feelings or appear rude, so I asked a lot of questions and tried to appear like I was going along with it. He only offered one choice of boiler - a Worcester Bosch and then didn't offer the five year warranty that I know they are doing, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may not realise it's on offer. British Gas is clearly for richer people than moi. I feel sorry for him that he has to do this for a living.

The quotes for a new combi boiler upstairs has been £2,400 (cash) - £2,600 cheque. One guy would turn up with a team of 4 and take a day maybe day and a half. Another would fit it over a weekend and the last 2 1/2 days - he was the cockiest - not in a bad way. The 1 day fitter was very softly spoken, quoted from top of his head and didn't really stop long enough to describe what he'd be doing. Lovely bloke though. The weekend guy was my favourite. I warmed to him on a personal basis and he was open, honest, non judgemental, informative and gave me options. Plus lovely tousled hair. OK, OK, basing choice on a haircut is not a good idea and he's yet to drop the quote by, so who knows how its going to end.

I am in support of everything in my life.
Everything you are against can be restated in a way that puts you in support of something. Instead of being at war, be at peace; instead of being against poverty, be for prosperity.

Went out last night with a friend to a quiz night. We came last.

The last train home didn't turn up until just before midnight. I'm a bit knackered. Wisely took the day off but couldn't sleep in, I'm too used to getting up early.

Sherry Baby - depressing movie. Saw too much of Maggie Gyllenhaal's tits by about half way through. It started to be like: Oh no. You're not taking your top off again.

Thought for the day from Dr Wayne Dyer

Yum Yum

Went to Bank restaurant last night with a mate of mine and had a fantastic time. The food was gorgeous. We took advantage of a special offer that added a free glass of wine if you were eating from the fixed price menu. They let me swap the wine for a non alcohol cocktail. I had a lemon sour, and it was fabulous.

We were both stuffed after the main course but valiantly ploughed on to sample dessert.

The evening ended with cocktails at the bar. Had to put up with a couple eating each others faces off. To be honest, initially I had fun watching but as my back was to them, Val had them in her eye line all the time and started to get fed up. Get a room! We had a brief giggle at the woman. The back of her blouse was torn right between the shoulder blades - in the rush to get it off, Val thought. Ah, but aint lust grand.

Monkey goes shopping

Decided to celebrate my birthday with a meal. Normally I would have plonked for something at a restaurant that I could be comfy in, that is, comfy shoes, trousers or jeans - you get the picture. That all changed when I came across a special offer for a highly rated restaurant in town and decided to go for it. But what to wear because if I turned up in my usual style, I would stick out like a sore thumb. Plus the friend I'll be going with is always well turned out. So I gathered all my mental and physical strength for a bout of clothes shopping. Yuk.

Lovely bargain on some new boots. Discounted in the sales from £90 to £15. Forgot about shaving my legs...

Learnt a lot trying on dresses at M&S. Jersey fabrics look very bad on me, I need a tailored and lined dresses. Normally I would have given up after seeing myself in the jersey dresses which were my first choices cos they're comfy and soft, and gone home feeling horribly depressed, but I was able to be rational. "There will be something that works for you," I thought. It took a while and the little black dress I plumped for was sleeveless and knee length and as I detest my arms and legs for very good reasons, I had to find a solution to both those problems. Opaque tights would hide the leg sins but after wandering round M&S for an hour looking for a jacket or cardigan with no success, I call it a day and head out into the dark evening to find it's snowing.

Determined to assemble my outfit my next stop is Monsoon which is full of chaotically arranged sale items. Too much of a headache to wade through, I flee to H&M. Eventually I find a gem of a little jacket in my size. It's a satin green and cropped and I realise that the boots I've bought won't go. The top half looks really polished, but by this point I'm knackered.

I catch the train home and when I get to my station, I step off into a thick layer of sludge and inch my way slowly home through the snow. Cold and wet, I take all my finds up to my bedroom, dress, and take a look at myself. The boots don't work, but I look surprisingly cute. I fish a little candy stripped cardi from the wardrobe and find that, with the boots, it makes a nice casual outfit.

The following day, today, I head off back to town to find some shoes. wearing my dress in casual mode cos I figured that I'd need to see the shoes with the dress or I could end up making the wrong choice. The snow has melted. My first stop is Clarkes. Nothing at all in my size except a pair of flat plumps which make my legs look dumpy. Back to M&S where they have virtually every style in my size. Heels work best and I eventually find a pair of shoes that are stylish yet comfortable, but I work up a sweat doing it. All the shoes in my size are on the very bottom shelves of the displays and then a couple of styles had the most awkward buckles. I start worrying about my newly straightened hair. You know, I'm not good at glamour. I'm so relieved to be on the train going back home. I tuck into a marzipan bar.

Bad hairdresser

Going out to a posh restaurant this evening with a friend of mine. Normally I favour comfort over fashion. Don't believe in pain, unless it's fun. But with my life getting better and me liking myself a bit more, I went shopping. I'll cover that in another post. Today, I went to get my very curly hair, cut and blow dried straight. The young hairdresser was a sweet girl but inexperienced. It was her first day at the salon and she was unfamiliar with the water temperature controls. Half way through having my hair washed the water became boiling hot. My head shot up and I cried out. She clearly had no idea that she needed to douse my scalp with cold water and I had to tell her what to do. She didn't seem to hear me when I said she'd scalded me. It was a mistake and I told her I understood that. On to the blow dry.

The poor cow didn't have a clue. I thought at first it was just a different technique and that she was going to go through the process twice, but when she was clearly at an end, my hair looked so frizzy, I said that there was no way that I was leaving the salon looking like that. I said, "You've not done black hair before have you?"

"No."

To her credit she got the manager and another stylist and I had to go through the whole fucking process again.

I wanted to reach out to her and say something comforting, but what? I couldn't find the words and she wasn't visibly upset, but I guess it was a humiliating experience. My only consolation was that I didn't make a huge fuss over either incident. As long as she learns from it.

Rug lady

I took a rug to the cinema. That's how sad I am. Well, its more about grabbing a bargain and deciding it was worth working at not caring. It wasn't a little rug, it was a fair sized, rolled up rug. Bargain, and the only one left. Dilemma was, do I take it straight home or do I go to see Enchanted now rather than leave it and risk it not being in the cinema at the weekend. The shop was just across the road from the cinema and the film was about to screen. I decided to go. The film was great.

Wayne Dyer's Rubbish Thought for the Day

I like and admire Wayne Dyer very much. He's at that stage in his life where he's very spiritual to the point of not quite having feet on the ground. One of his daily quotes was banging on about the peace we'd achieved if we observed nature and learnt from the innocence of animals. What, you mean, learn to gang up and hunt each other down like a pack of chimps? Or eat our mate once the sex is over?

Sex on the dance floor

I want to visit a really rough nightclub so I can observe the wildlife.

A friend of mine was working behind the bar of a club on the fringes of the city centre and was horrified to see people having sex on the dancefloor. I found the story hilarious because I can't begin to understand the world you have to live in where that is cool. It's not just a different world, it's a different planet.

Tapping: Emotional Freedom Therapy

Last night, I was still seething about work so I did a tapping session with the aid of an online video tutorial. The tutorial was about anger and it brought up a lot of stuff that I hadn't anticipated and tears were shed. I went to bed feeling exhausted. But today, I don't feel good, cos I'm knackered, but I feel capable and alive. When I feel stuck, confused, fearful etc its as if my consciousness is buried within, as if I'm hiding within myself. After tapping, when I'm feeling much better, I'm more aware and feel as if I'm inhabiting my body fully and of course the negative feelings have subsided or disappeared completely. So tapping or Emotional Freedom Therapy, is proving to be a useful tool, although I would stop short at claiming that it is the answer to all life's problems, however it is clearing the junk out of my head and enabling me to get on with living and all that that entails.

How does tapping work?
Who really knows? Officially its about clearing energy channels. Others argue it's a distraction technique, but I would say its more than that. Tapping forces me to replace negative emotions with a positive activity and self talk coupled with a clear outcome: my negative emotions will subside or disappear very shortly. The resulting space becomes occupied with positive feelings, an outcome that I had focused on from beginning. Tapping is a way out of the maze of difficult emotions.

Recommended Course
My advice, don't pay to learn this unless you want to go on to teach it. The technique is easy and there is a lot of free or cheap information out there. Trust yourself and be your own guru.

Rant

I work with some daft buggers. There's an "us and them" divide at work based on which of two floors you work on. I've just come to the conclusion that the Floor One people are just a miserable bunch of insecure buggers.

1) They're scared of management. Having worked for some bastards in my time, I know that our management team are a pretty fair bunch of people. So I don't get it.
2) We get inundated with sweets at Christmas but the small minded ones won't put the sweets in their kitchen because "the people from upstairs", who use the kitchen at lunch time, "will eat them". Season of good will?
3) A contractor delivered a Christmas present for me. He went to the trouble of getting the name of the person on reception he left it with, making clear where the box of sweets should go and leaving his business card, but did I get them? Not until I asked for them the next day when he phoned to see if I liked them and of course they had opened them and started eating them. I don't care about the sweets but I am angry about the dishonesty.
4) They don't know they were born. It's cushy where I work. Go somewhere else and I can gurantee they won't get the same pay or the nice office etc. Bunch of fucking idiots. Their misery is all in their own heads and they deserve it.
5) They just can't be arsed. New staff have started and can they be bothered to brief them properly, can they hell. A delivery turned up over the holidays and just sat on Floor One for three days without a word that it had turned up. The person who had signed for it had only started the week before, so wouldn't know better, but the rest of the egits do.

Feel better now.

I am Legend

The short review: Will Smith is excellent and so's the dog but ultimately this film is depressing and suffers from a badly written second half. The film's success is solely
down to Smith's star power and the timing of its release following months of pretty dull movies. I for one was gagging for a cinematic spectacle.

Based on a novel by Richard Matheson, I am Legend tells the story of Robert Neville who could be the last man on an earth ravaged by a virus that has turned most of humanity, and their pet dogs, into a cross between vampires and zombies. Luckily the blighters only come out at night so our hero can pretty much keep out of their way while he toils in his basement laboratory to find a cure. Well, that's when he's not hunting them down to perform experiments on them or trying to commit suicide. Ironically the virus mutated from a cure for cancer discovered by a Emma Thompson. Always knew that woman was trouble.

Neville broadcasts a message on the radio every day in the search for other survivors. Now, in flashback, we learn that the army blows up bridges etc in an effort to isolate Manhattan, the heart of the virus outbreak. We also find out that there is a colony of survivors co-ordinated by what's left of the armed forces. So how come what's left of the armed forces don't pick up Smith's radio broadcasts? And when a woman and her kid turn up and rescue him from a pack of vampire-zombies, just how did she 1) manage that. In the movie is just looked like she had a very strong torch! 2) Survive the trip all the way up from South American and get through the blockades in her 4x4 and still look so damn good?

It's a shame they couldn't have worked harder on the script and it's also a shame that Smith's character dies. The audience had to suffer enough loss in this bleak film. But still, it prompted me to dig out my Bob Marley CD, so not all bad.

Some stuff I'll be up to soon

Although the last few months of 2007 were a mental and substance nightmare I still managed to have something of a life - just. One of the hightlights was going to see Rufus Wainwright: a truly brilliant concert. .

Highlights for the first 5 months of this year:

Beyond Chocolate Course
Louise L Hay Course possibly
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Ute Lemper
Buena Vista Social Club
Push with Sylvie Guillem
A BRB jazz triple bill

I got the piano

I listed "second hand piano" on my wanted list when I started this blog and I'm pleased to say that I've got one and it didn't cost me a bean.

The piano is 68 keys as opposed to the 88 keys of a full piano. I got someone round to tune it up. The piano tuner was a great guy, a jazz enthusiast. He got me to look at videos of the great jazz pianist Art Tatum on You Tube while he was tuning away and what a revelation. The man had an amazing talent. I recommend you have a look.

The piano was put together anytime between 1920-1940. It can be difficult to date a piano, particularly one like mine which is at the bottom end of the quality spectrum, because the harp that's inside it could have been hanging around for a while before being put into the piano casing. The instrument itself is on it's last legs. The pegs that the strings are on and that you turn to tune it, have become loose with age and there's nothing that can be done to cheaply rectify that problem. It means that it won't hold its tune for long and will eventually become impossible to tune or play. The average "life" of a piano is 50 years, so its done well to get this far.

The good news though is that the little lady is worth a little money. Most of the time when you can't tune a piano, unless its a famous make, it becomes firewood. However in this case the piano tuner said that he'd never seen a piano like this and although its a piece of tat sound wise, he reckoned someone would like it either as a theatre prop or as a prop for a piano dealership. They may even go as far as reconditioning it, an expensive job that only an enthusiast would take on board.

In the meantime I'm teaching myself to play and trying to decide what I want next.

Why I haven't posted

I haven't posted in ages. Its just been a difficult few months and I lost my confidence. Counselling was tough. I can't be bothered to go into it now but it resulted in a relapse that lasted from September to December. I quit the sessions and feel a hell of a lot better and I'm sober again. Bizarre. I go and do something to help myself and it ends up nearly destroying me. I stopped meditating, walking and praying. I didn't do any washing up or housework in all that time and you can imagine the state of the place. I was so overwhelmed by life. My food binges got worse then ever as well. Just a nightmare. Towards the end, anything positive I tried to do for myself just bounced off me. But I'm back. Thank God.