Heading for the hills - taking my three children away from all they know...

There is so much unspeakable tragedy in this world so I must point out that my musings only work on a micro personal scale… if you are going through similar feelings. If we climb the ladder of events and emotions they quickly become utterly meaningless and should be scrapped and tossed into the waste paper basket! This journey I’m on has taken an unexpected twist. I was officially diagnosed yesterday with ADHD. I thought I might lack the ‘hyper’ bit but not. I have a 4 letter acronym usually associated with young bouncy boys but at 53 on the edge of my 54th birthday Ive unearthed a lens that colours everything and if I had known 40 years ago might have smoothed a path full of bumps, dead ends and indecision.  Or would it? I’m full of mixed emotions, half revelation half shame.  Might I have been better able to control the wonky bits of my personality… eg impulse control such as telling my best friend she had a slight moustache on the day of her mother’s funeral? (Yes I ac...

Meadow mania had slunk into the recesses over the winter partly as so have I, preferring to stay indoors - dealing with the swirling sense of dread I have developed. But D has been busy with his chainsaw doing some first class but highly exuberant cutting.  The thing is it centred on the hedge that borders the meadow, above where I planted my exciting stretch of native shrubs. Firstly he removed the fence, then erected a swing and fire pit seating area and then fully moved into the stable filling it with tinkers trappings… a cast iron pig feeder, sheets of corrugated iron, chains, pieces of tarpaulin… the list is long and resembles stuff he accrued in the Mozambican bush.  Then he moved up the meadow and began to slash and cut, with a mind to control the old leggy hedgerow and various hedgerow trees that were happily minding their own business and growing away. I accept that hedgerows need to be tamed so they don’t encroach too much on the land… however the debris he create...

Having recently come out… and embraced my two conditions, ADD and ‘countryside dread’, it’s made flickers of happiness easier to identify!   Whenever I achieve anything off the immense and dreary ‘to do’ list I feel such a sense of achievement. And whenever I feel even a glimmer of positivity about our new life it registers deep.  Yesterday the girls got into a mildewed box and discovered Laurie’s once loved playmobil. They constructed a game on a picnic rug…outside… And today it was sunny, I felt renewal in the air. Trying to tentatively repair my relationship with the outdoors I took myself into the twilight this evening as a burning pink sky threw the trees into black silhouettes. Then a mysterious and highly skilled bird sung a celebratory evensong. It had so many different frames, that tumbled and trilled.  Was it trying to remind me that if you can pause with an open heart who knows what wonders might be revealed…

Nb: coffee n brownie part of self medication! A friend was talking about her role supporting women who have not been diagnosed with autism until later in life and have suffered ‘burnout’. Something in that sentence hit a deep resonating note.    I felt truly burnout, frazzled to a useless crisp but why? So I researched burn out and then found my particular brand…ADD burnout.    It all suddenly made colossal sense. Not just now but then.    The pain of meeting deadlines, the constant inner voices and inability to focus, agony of decisions, the sudden peaks of concentration and mania that enabled creativity, my tendency to overshare, feel depressed – so many convergent symptoms that ticked many boxes.    Then I discovered that transitions can trigger burn out.    I rebound from one coffee to another and am self-medicating to stay alert enough but mainly yearn for sleep to control the wave of panic and anxiety of all I can’t face.  ...

Making the best of things The only one that wants to be outside! Moving to the country has turned out to be a journey of a very different nature - a very very different and unexpected nature. My vision of space, creativity, freedom – greater happiness - has nosedived, a sort of spiralling nosedive.  And I’m left wondering how to pull it out of a vertical drop? Instead of new happy heights I’m facing school refusal, displacement, loneliness, boredom, the draw of screens, anxiety issues and then unexpected rankles like ADD burnout.   Some of that is me and much is also the children who in moments of reflection, usually just before sleep say – I really miss Oxford and England.   Willow said ‘Mummy where has the glory gone.?’   Oh my word, how did this come to pass. I try to hide from the noise of the garden and unchartered hope of the meadow.   The woodland slice on its tumbling bank is naturally overgrown and doesn’t shout at me in the same way, so I do take Q...

 My Grandfather was an extraordinary man, cast from his own mould, and without any visible grooves chiselled by a very hard upbringing.  He had deep humanity, humility and humour and was deeply loved by all.  He’d tell my Mum ‘ put bread on the water and it will come back as cake.’   His saying where part other’s part his own. As I write I’m sitting in Alex Gooch coffee shop on Monmouth high street.   They have lovely comfy velvet chairs up stairs   and Im able to look up at the roof tops where two jackdaws are leaning into each other.   With Valentines Day in mind they are eyeing up a chimney pot, a good spot for a new nest.   I don’t think anyone else has seen them.   Because we so rarely look up.   The grey but bright light casts the rooftop into relief and the circular patten of the terracotta ridge is like a wonderful inkline. I mention that saying as I wonder if my blog is like bread and if I put it out there someone might rea...