Loads has happened since I last posted here – I retired for one thing! Since then I’ve been busy creating a new life full of things I like doing, which includes writing of course.
I am also a life coach so I have a new blog where I document experiences that I hope will help people who are seeking change or self development.
Please do follow me there – I will continue to blog here too but for the moment my new blog is my focus of attention – follow the link below:
It’s over six years since I stopped smoking. I was always a light smoker and had times where I didn’t smoke at all but I finally completely quit the habit when I met someone who didn’t smoke. I must confess that for a good while after that, if I was out and had been drinking, I did sometimes beg a friend for a drag on their fag and I may even have had the occasional one all to myself but those times were few and far between and I eventually stopped even that. So, I count myself as stopping from the point I decided to stop, with a few little blips after that time. It’s been years since I had a drag on a cigarette and I have no desire at all to do so now.
Very rarely I get a weird fleeting memory of Player’s No.6 cigarettes. The smell and the taste come back to me and I think it was because these were the first cigarettes I smoked, way back, as a schoolgirl on the train on the way to school. Because then, you could smoke just about anywhere.
Thinking tonight about my lack of desire to smoke I wondered if the fact that it is less ‘in your face’ now has helped me. Well, I am sure it has, the cues and triggers aren’t there now. The temptation has gone. Which led me on to thinking about how going to the pub or a club is so much easier now there are no smokers puffing seductively on their fags and wafting their delicious scent around. You have to actively seek the ‘pushers’ out now. It’s much, much easier not to smoke.
This train of thought took me further. It is acknowledged that there is a big problem in the UK with alcohol consumption. We have a very high rate of liver disease in young adults and we know about all the other harmful effects of problem drinking.
So, I thought, what about if we made pubs ALCOHOL FREE, in much the same way as we have banned smoking? Drinkers would have to go outside to a designated area for a pint or a voddie and coke. They could stand with the smokers. It would certainly make me think twice about drinking.
Do you think I’m on to something?
Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now and I’ve only just got round to writing about my amazing experience. That’s very bad of me but, anyway, here it is now – so read on…..
Sometime last year, October I think, someone I knew from burlesque classes told me she was organising a burlesque evening to raise money for the local stroke unit. She had had a stroke herself ten years ago, at the very young age of 24 and she wanted to give back something to the people and the unit that had been so good to her. I didn’t know Anna that well at that time, I had helped out with lifts sometimes to and from class but that was about it but I wanted to help her. It sounded like a colossal feat she was trying to pull off, with no experience of putting anything like this on before. Neither had I but I wanted to help so I offered. I thought maybe she would need help with phone calls, or fundraising or on the night, I don’t know really. What I was not expecting was for her to ask me to perform a dance with her on the night!!!
And so began the adventure…..
Anna had a brilliant idea for a routine that involved her being in a wheelchair and being persuaded to get up and dance by her nurse, a sort of ‘healing’ process if you will. I was to be the naughty nurse. Yup, I thought. I can do that. He he.
Together we planned the costumes – Anna making the dresses with the help of a dressmaker friend (on account of her only having the use of one arm!) and me sewing all the fiddly bits on and making our bras and the rest of it. I had to learn how to insert foam cups inside the dresses to keep them up, I made a nurses apron and covered our bras in sparkle and satin. I sewed glittery things and I attached tassels to knickers. It was great! It felt like all my evenings were spent either sewing or practising our dance.
We choreographed the dance ourselves and had such a laugh along the way, coming up with ideas and rehearsing hard. We booked a studio and we filmed ourselves dancing. We texted constantly, we watched clips of burlesque performers on YouTube.
As time went on it got more stressful for Anna who was negotiating with people, organising the event, from liaising with the venue and compere, sorting out the sounds, finding someone to do the table decorations, getting raffle prizes, selling tickets and generally being thrown in at the deep end. Harder for her than some with the added problems her stroke had left her with. Me, I just kept sewing and making Anna laugh. That seemed to be my job, not a bad one I thought.
And then it was the evening of the event. We had everything planned to the last detail. Anna wanted it to be a surprise. The rest of the evening was full of professional acts, all amazing and gorgeous or funny and quirky but all professional. Anna and I were to come on right at the end with an introduction from Sadie, the compere. Nobody was to know, except a few who needed to be in on it.
And so we did it.
We performed to 200 people.
And it was AMAZING. The support from everyone was fantastic, and we felt like stars. I don’t think either of us were under any illusions that we were Dita but that was never the plan. We were two amateurs, with various physical limitations between us, performing a comedy burlesque routine and we pulled it off!
Along the way, I learned to make costumes and that it isn’t so easy to make something that can be whipped off just at the right moment, particularly when one of you only has the use of one arm, I learned to put into practice all the tips and skills i have found out from the various classes and workshops I’ve attended as part of the Burlesque Jems, and I found out a bit about putting on an event. Most of all though….I found a new friend. Anna and I hit it off from day one and we had such fun and so many laughs doing this. I don’t suppose we would have become such friends if it wasn’t for this and it really was one of the best parts of it all for me. Anna is an inspiration. She is strong and determined and she doesn’t let her disabilities hold her back. Those of you who know me, know I have a positive attitude to life and Anna is one of those people too.
Obviously, we want to do it all again now so…..
WATCH THIS SPACE!!!
And for those of you who haven’t seen us, here is the link:
Hurrah! I am back!! This is my first post in a long time but I’m determined to get back into my blogging! I’m conducting a social networking experiment at the moment, which I hope will allow me to blog more and I will post about that at the end of January but for now it’s just….
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
God, it’s been so long I’ve even forgotten how to change the font and colour!!!
nb. Facebook friends. This posts to my PAGE on Facebook so it doesn’t count!!! 😉
Last week I went to see my consultant for a discussion about what is happening with my boob. To give those of you the background to this post – I had breast cancer 14 years ago. I had a lumpectomy (some of the tissue removed but not all) and radiotherapy. Five years later I had the other breast reduced to try and match the two up (BIG mistake in my opinion, looking back, but I was guided by the surgeon obviously). This was still not successful due to the tissue on my right breast being taken from above the nipple, thus inducing a ‘dent’. Making the other smaller didn’t really make much difference.
I then had an implant put in, which failed to ‘drop’ into position and had to walk around with a most peculiar shaped breast, which I fondly referred to as my ‘third tit’ or ‘the tit on my shoulder’. It took me two years to get this rectified, and a complaint to my local trust who had led me to believe I would get some new treatment which wasn’t actually available to them. Eventually I was referred elsewhere to a proper plastic surgeon who promised he would be able to give me back a matching pair. This involved a big operation, taking tissue from the stomach and transplanting it into the breast, along with micro surgery to establish a whole new blood supply to this tissue. The bonus was that I got a tummy tuck so, it all sounded like the perfect solution. The dodgy implant was removed and I had that surgery. Still, the stubborn scar on that breast refused to allow anything to lift it. I now had an elipse shaped skin graft which had been taken from my tummy and didn’t match my breast skin tone, and completely scarred up and unmatching breasts. They said they could fix it. They inserted another implant. This helped a little but they still couldn’t fill the gap, as it were. More surgery, they said. This time, just a little fat injection from my thigh tissue into the breast, day surgery, so nothing major. I was put on the waiting list.
I’m still on that list, ten months later. I started reconstructive surgery in 2005.
So I went to see the consultant to see what he had to say, since I had been seen only by his team since the big surgery. He is one of the top ten in his field apparently, so I knew he’d be able to help.
What he told me was not what I wanted to hear. He said that there is nothing else they can do. Radiotherapy has altered the cells and each time I am operated on I run the risk of infection, more so than normal. He said that all the surgery I can have I have had. He said they can still do the minor op but it isn’t realistically going to make my right boob look like my left one.
And then he said something that hurt a lot. He told me I have become fixated on this boob and that I need to accept it for how it looks and get on with my life.
Tears pricked me as he said that. I felt like I was being told off. I felt like a time waster, a malingerer and someone who was just being vain.
Driving away from the hospital, his words sank in.
I HAVE become fixated. I AM obsessed with getting it to look right. And I AM running my life around surgery dates.
So I reframed what he had said. I thought about it. My breasts aren’t the same. They look different to each other. But so do a lot of other women’s who haven’t even had surgery. They are healthy. They are a nice handful. They look fine when I have clothes on. I have two. They are mine. I will love them. Both of them. I might love the left one a little bit more, a favourite, so to speak. But I will LIKE the right one and treat it with respect.
Earlier this year, I performed on stage on my own, dancing burlesque to a crowd of people, some I knew, a lot I didn’t. This was my challenge to myself, not to stand on stage, but to SHOW my breasts. I wanted to LIKE them but I thought I was still able to have more cosmetic surgery at that point.
However, it was very therapeutic to do this
.
Yes, I stripped to my tassels and I twirled.
Now, who needs a matching pair when you can do THAT?!!
One day, in 1999, my then 14 year old son came home from school and told me his friend’s dog had had puppies and I simply HAD to see them…..they were too cute.
My daughter, 16 at the time, had been pestering us to get a dog for as long as I could remember. We had tried to placate her with numerous hamsters, rats and even cats but she still wanted a dog with all her heart.
At that time, I was off work recovering from breast cancer and I was expected to be off for several months. My husband and I discussed it and decided that, between us all, we could be there for a puppy more or less every minute of the day, even when I returned to work. He worked odd hours, often not starting until afternoon and then working evenings, I worked part time, so I was home early and both children came home from school in the afternoon so we figured we could work it out.
We decided not to tell my daughter so, when the puppies were ready to go, my son and I went to pick up Oscar, a strange looking little terrier, a mix of pure white Staffie and a cross Jack Russell/Yorkshire terrier. A little hairy staffie with big ears….
We put Oscar in a box and I asked my daughter to hold the box when I got in, saying I had something in my shoe. She seemed confused but took the box. At that point, Oscar popped out. Her face was a picture. A mixture of puzzlement, surprise and pure disbelief. She didn’t believe me when I said he was ours……there were tears of joy when she realised he was!
Oscar initially became my dog, since I was the one at home all the time and I house-trained him and generally taught him the rules. He was to become everyone’s dog of course but I was his mummy at that time and he was a very good little boy. All the while I was recovering from breast surgery and the subsequent radiotherapy, my little puppy was there, wagging his tail and being adorable.
Oscar grew, my children grew, we all got on with our lives……he was a funny little dog, full of character and everyone loved him. He had a feisty streak too and a particular ‘attitude’ towards big dogs! My husband called him an ‘Essex Terrier’ as Oscar thought he was as tough as all the big dogs.
Oscar was there whenever one of us was upset, wagging his tail or simply lying down with us. He comforted me when I lost my beloved dad and saw us all through many family ups and downs.
In 2004 my husband passed away after a short battle with cancer. Yet again, Oscar was our little tower of strength, comforting us all and staying with his dad through his illness. He knew there was something very wrong but he carried on being Oscar and making us smile, even when there didn’t seem as if there was anything to smile about.
Since then, I’m happy to say, life has been a little less stressful and Oscar found a new dad when KD came to live with me five years ago. As Oscar grew older, KD looked after him, taking him for walks, talking to him and generally being a wonderful dad to my beloved dog. He became KD’s dog too and the two of them were inseperable.
Oscar started to become ill earlier this year and we had to go back and forth to the vet’s with him. Everyone in the vet knew him well and always loved it when he had an overnight stay. They all said what a darling little dog he was, such a character. We knew he was not getting any younger.
Oscar started to have problems breathing. We knew things had got much worse but we had a holiday booked and didn’t know what we would do. He needed a lot of care by now. My son changed his work rota around and stayed with him so we could still go. He barely left the house and made sure Oscar had his tablets, as well as feeding him fillet steak and sausages because, by now, Oscar wasn’t eating properly. He was not a well dog but he enjoyed the week with my son. His little tail wagged and he tried to follow him around the house, although his breathing didn’t always let him.
The day after we returned from Italy we made the very difficult decision to put Oscar out of his pain. We knew he would only get worse and he was struggling more and more each day. It was the most difficult decision I have ever made. He was still wagging his tail and making an effort to follow us around but, in his eyes, he was saying, ‘please help me mummy’.
On Friday 14th June, we took Oscar to the vet and we said goodbye to him. We stayed with him while they put him to sleep and I cuddled him as he left this world.
We brought him home the next morning and buried him in our garden, with some beautiful rose bushes to mark the spot. It is Oscar’s memorial garden.
The pain of losing your dog is indescribable. If you are not a dog lover/owner you probably wouldn’t understand but anyone who is will know exactly how we feel. There is a huge empty space in our lives now. No more ‘tap tap’ of his claws on the stone floor, no snoring in the night, no waggy tail, no little friend.
But the pain of losing Oscar was worth going through for the 14 years of absolute joy we had with him.
RIP Oscar la Boska
We went to visit a place called Assos yesterday. Most of Kefalonia was destroyed by the 1953 earthquake but there are ruins dotted about. This was the stairs to a building that fascinated me and, consequently I took a lot of photos. There was something eery and sad about it but also something incredibly beautiful.
Today I was very organised. For me.
I got up early to switch on my laptop and check that the Powerpoint presentation I had carefully prepared last week looked as good as when I switched off on Friday, in readiness for a two-hour talk to professionals and foster carers about drug use and young people. To my utter horror, I couldn’t open it. I had saved it to the wrong drive and the only way I could access it was if I docked the laptop in at work. No time to go into the office as I had to be in another part of the county in 45 minutes time!!
Fortunately, I had printed off a copy of the slides with the idea that I would jot down some notes over the weekend. That didn’t happen, obviously, but I did at least have the text I had carefully prepared before me, so I hurriedly typed out another set of slides, jumped into the car and arrived with seconds to spare. The new Powerpoint presentation lacked the pretty patterns and font that the original had sported but it saw me through the two-hour talk I had to give. Nobody was any the wiser and I managed to appear knowledgeable, professional and confident to all those present.
I thought I had stopped doing that. Leaving it to the last minute, I mean. I have got much better in recent years at preparing myself for things. (I think that comes from living with Mr OCD actually!!) but it has certainly taught me that life is so much easier if you plan ahead.
On the other hand, I actually think I perform better when I leave it all to the last minute. I get an adrenalin rush from the panic that, I believe, fuels my creativity. I could be called (and indeed have been called) a procrastinator. I leave things and leave things, choosing to do anything and everything rather than the task at hand until there really isn’t any other option but to do it. But is this procrastination? Or is it simply ‘doing other things’? I prefer to think of it as the latter. I still manage to pull it out of the bag and it must work for me as I have successfully completed a degree and a masters using this technique….
A tutor on a management course I attended told us there are two types of people – ‘steppers’ and ‘squigglers’. The steppers follow a set pattern to achieve a deadline, whereas the ‘squigglers’ appear to be all over the place in the process of getting there. Both arrive in the end. The steppers find it harder to deal with a setback in their well laid plans whereas the squigglers never had a plan in the first place so can carry on regardless. That’s not to say it’s plain sailing for the squigglers. Leaving things to the last minute leaves no room for error. But that’s quite exciting, really. Isn’t it?
Isn’t it??
It was my birthday on Wednesday. Not a particularly special birthday, although I believe all birthdays are special. I took the day off work as I was told we were going for dinner somewhere in London. Since we were going into town, I decided to make a day of it and booked two tickets to the first day of the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate.
The exhibition was breath-taking. So many beautiful paintings, all in one place. Some I knew well and some I had never seen before. Some artists totally unknown to me too. We spent a couple of hours there, entranced and transported by the ethereal quality of the colours and the beauty of the compositions.
I did know by now where dinner was to be – we were dining at The Ritz!
Wow!
And WOW it was! Stepping through the doors was like stepping back in time. There is an elegance, a serenity, an atmosphere that cannot be described in words. The lighting, the mirrors, the high ceilings – it felt as if we had walked straight back into the 1920s.
Dinner was fabulous. Seated in the most beautiful room, with a quartet playing gently in the corner, we were served by waiters in lovely waistcoats who made us feel as if we were the only guests. The meal was delicious, I had salmon, and it was mouth-wateringly beautiful, both to eat and to look at. A sommelier served us the wine of his choice to compliment the food and that was the icing on the cake for me. Everything just felt so ‘right’.
I imagined my great-aunt and uncle visiting the Ritz in the thirties, socialites that they were, and I saw a room full of ladies in beautiful long dresses and men in tuxedos with live music playing gently in the background. On Wednesday, there was no such splendour but, in it’s hey day, the Ritz must have been dazzling.
We finished with a glass of Calvados and walked back through the building to the reception area and then back out onto the busy street again, back to reality and 2012.
The whole day was like a time travel experience to me. I won’t forget this birthday.
Like I said, all birthdays are special but this one was just that little bit more special to me. Thank you, KD x
The Flossie Country Files 