March 2013 – ALIVE AND CREAKING

I’ve lost my mojo…

Anyone living in the UK at the moment can be forgiven for being obsessed with the weather. It is supposed to be spring but it’s snowing, freezing (minus temperatures!) and generally very depressing.

I have renamed S A D (Seasonal Affected Disorder) as SNOW Affected Disorder.

Normally fairly positive and upbeat I have decided that March has been a write-off and my mojo has GONE. I can’t be bothered to do anything much and need a big boost of motivation from somewhere – but not sure where to get it from.

Is this a symptom of my age I wonder? The fact that I am officially in the ‘latter’ stages of the human life span and everything around me seems grey (or white) and dead. Even the birds aren’t around at the moment; who can blame them when there is an icy wind blowing!

It makes me wonder how people who live in Scandinavia and anywhere near a Pole, manage in the long dark winter months. I think I did read somewhere that suicide rates always increase in those countries in the winter, and I can understand why. If you are already feeling deeply unhappy, for whatever reason, being cold, unable to move around easily without fear of falling on ice or disappearing in a snowdrift, surrounded by greyness and dark skies, it could be quite easy to decide to take that extra final step to end everything.

So how do we reach those people and support them? How do we cope with those feelings if we are affected? No easy answer. Personally, despite having lost my mojo (temporarily I hope!), I have hope because the daffodils are poking their lovely yellow heads up through the snow and there are signs that spring is in there somewhere. So I guess my mantra today must be ‘There is always something to be hopeful for’

To anyone reading this – have a hopeful and a happy day, our Universe is wonderful.

CAT UPDATE..

She’s now on a drip for 24 hours to rehydrate her…. and I am a worried owner. She’s used up an awful lot of her 9 lives that I know of – and as she was a rescue cat I don’t know how many she’d already cashed in before I got her!!

Cats!

This is my lovely cat relaxing in the garden last year. Right now she is at the vet having blood tests and scans because she seems to have ‘lost her mojo’. She’s getting on a bit – in her mid-teens, but has been very healthy until the last few days.

So now I have to wait and worry – and hope. We invest so much time and love into our pets, and they give us so much in return – not least, unconditional love and acceptance.

Sitting in the waiting room at the vet’s surgery I looked round at the other ‘patients’. One very young and enthusiastic spaniel wanted to make friends with every other dog there – including a VERY large labrador/retriever who wasn’t quite so keen… The spaniel was obviously a novice at the vet’s and hasn’t yet learned to be terrified of going! Others, more experienced, sat and shivered under their owner’s legs as if waiting for a call to the gallows. Yet I have been told that once in the surgery, most dogs become compliant and soppy and let the vet do whatever he/she needs to!

Cats, on the other hand, are usually much calmer and more laid back as they wait their turn. They sit in their carry cases and usually look bored or go to sleep – until they are called into the surgery where they become vicious, spitting, almost rabid, feline monsters as they try and fight the vet!

Contrary creatures.

So I sit and wait for a call from the vet to say when I can collect my poorly cat, and I just hope they have found the problem and more importantly, a solution – preferably one that doesn’t involve too many tablets. Administering tablets to a cat is a whole new blog!

This was nearly me today

I have just spent a lovely weekend with fellow Reiki practitioners in rural Oxfordshire – and it was nearly ruined when it started snowing at 8 am this morning and continued snowing heavily for the next 4 hours. It caused me, and several of my companions, considerable stress as it looked as if we might be stranded there for another day/night.

It’s 2013 and even rural England isn’t that far from mainstream civilisation, and yet there we were panicking at the prospect of being forced to spend another night in what was, in fact, a beautiful location.

We are indeed a strange people, us Brits!

Bear with me…

Just in case anyone is reading any of my blogs, please bear with me as I am still learning how to build the pages! This means that I’ve created some pages with nothing in them yet. It’s very time-consuming to get it right, and I am a bit of a perfectionist… I’m also playing with different designs and backgrounds, so the site could well look totally different tomorrow, and again on Sunday.

If anyone has any tips or comments on what makes a great blog – please do tell me. And if you think my blogs and/or pages are rubbish, constructive comments are welcome.

Thank you 🙂

It’s all in the mind….

As my blog is about not getting old, this picture seems very appropriate – and it made me laugh.

I remember my Mum telling me, when she was in her late 70s and frail, that she used to wake up every morning and feel 21 – until the moment she tried to get out of bed and everything creaked and ached. Once she saw herself in the mirror it was downhill for the rest of the day. I also remember her saying, after her GP suggested she join the local ‘Darby and Joan’ club for over 60s (again she was in her 70s), that she wasn’t going to join a club full of old fogies and fuddy-duddies. ‘Old people are so boring’ she remarked, unaware of the irony that she was probably older than many of the members.

Now I am in my 60s I understand exactly what she meant. I see someone who is probably my age but who, in my opinion looks ancient, and I think ‘Poor soul. Should I help them?’ Ironic as I am probably more physically slow than they are – but it’s all about how we feel inside, and like my Mum I feel 21. And I want to stay like that 🙂

Fed up with blame culture

I do so wish that politicians would stop blaming previous governments for everything that’s wrong and just get on with trying to fix things!

Pointing fingers and saying it’s someone else’s fault does nothing to resolve problems, but every politician seems to indulge in this practice. They are elected to run the country, so please guys, just get on and do it – or get out!

Long winter..

It’s been a long winter here in England and just when we should be looking forward to re-birth, lighter evenings and higher temperatures we have been plunged back into -7C temperatures with the accompanying ice and snow, not to mention winds from Siberia!

So why am I blogging about this – only because I want to share that the sky is blue today and I can see buds on the apple trees, so spring IS on its way and we should all be positive about that

Today I joined my local library!

It’s about 7 years since I last used a library – which is strange considering how many books I get through every year! Moving to the country made it harder to get to a library and somehow I just never got round to it – until today when I decided I really MUST join.

Well, libraries have undergone a total transformation since my last visit – all for the better! It’s so easy to check your books out. No waiting in long queues while librarians stamped return dates in the front of every single book, and checked dates on all the books being returned; just scan your card and put the books in a hatch and it’s all done, boom.

And I can take out 12 books at a time! I am an avid reader, but I would struggle to read 12 books in 3 weeks, not to mention the prospect of back strain trying to carry them all.

Still, it’s a lovely library and I’m looking forward to finding lots of new treasures there.