Thunder Clouds and Sultry Air.

Dark and threatening clouds fill the sky. The air is warm and sultry. And it is very still. After an unpromising and rather cold morning in my flat listening to Maria Callas I decided to go for my walk with Sarah this after afternoon despite the threat of a downpour, thunder and lightning. And what a beautiful walk it was. Suggesting a walk in the woods I assumed we'd be heading for the semi closed Waggoners. But she took me on a route I didn't even know was there. What fun that was.

Unscathed we returned to our Sunday lives. For me it is Offenbach, a glass of Chilean red and the wondrous smell of belly pork slow roasting seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme. With a myriad of vegetables in my fridge I have some decisions to make. Do I roast the somewhat elderly fennel root? Broccoli, carrots and beans? Savoy cabbage, carrots and asparagus? Or do I go with peas as a substitute? With nothing else to spend my money on I'm spoilt for choice.

Whatever goes on with it though it feels a better Sunday than the previous bank holiday a couple of weeks ago when nearly two months of isolation really got to me. There has been good and bad since then but today I'm good.

The views of my short mental health films keep building up. I doubt I can wish for more but it is important what was said. Mental illness has no friends or enemies. It can strike anyone. As a reviewer of Charon's Ferry a few years ago so astutely pointed out we are all one job loss, one bereavement, one financial problem away from going from us to them. Yes nearly 30 years on the mental health world has changed. But there is still a propensity for the providers of services such as mine to pressure us to choose their side rather than ours. My great skill is I speak the language of the mentally ill. My experience is my qualification. And yes one does get extra points if one has been a patient on a psychiatric ward. Extra too for being detained under the Mental Health Act. With luck I will never rise to the top on those grounds.

A sincere hope of mine is that we do not forget after all the chaos of pandemic has calmed. Who knows what the world will look like? But I know many who might otherwise have never known my world have been touch by it in recent weeks. Feeling this does not necessarily make people mentally ill if indeed that is useful term but it does make us feel. Maybe that is why counsellors seem to hold such sway? But I would say that you are not the only ones to know of feelings and how to manage them. Sometimes it feels like I should run a clinic in The Hedgehog. But also I must do more to protect myself and not take on all and sundry because some people seem to think I know something about life.

I will enjoy my lie in tomorrow. And to all my Muslim friends have a very happy Eid.

I Heard a Voice.

Speaking Out.

A swirling, blustery wind is dancing across the air outside. The trees sway and bend, the sun is struggling and the occasional squall of rain is unleashed from time to time. Must be a May bank holiday. Yes another long weekend. And we know what happened last time. I hit a mental wall.

This time though I'm in more buoyant mood. Last week was good. It was Mental Health Awareness Week and awareness came to me from an unexpected source. I've been meaning to message my school friend Nick who lives in New York for a while. Remembering on Thursday evening I did just that. Almost as soon as I sent my message a response came from Nick. He had been writing a message at precisely the same time half way across the globe. He described it as spooky, clearly he's live in the USA too long. Not a word I hear often over here.

Relieved to hear he is okay despite the virus savaging the city. What surprised me was that he told me he had seen me on YouTube talking about mental health. He had kindly shared this mystery piece with his team as part of Mental Health Awareness Week.

Not even knowing what he had seen I searched and came up with three short films that had been recorded 18 months ago by some students interested in mental health. I had forgotten about it. After much deliberation I decided to put my head above the parapet and share on Facebook. 

The response was astonishing. Not quite viral but so many watched, shared and replied. I guess I did some good that day.

Really the idea that I shouldn't share in my position is ludicrous. I am my story and I'm told it is inspirational. On the dark low days I feel anything but inspirational. But others disagree.

Posting made me feel good. Not because it is self publicity, once upon a time I would have done to sell more books, but because it made a difference to people. If I do not speak out who will?

In my working world it is frowned upon to do so. But I do not simply inhabit that world. I inhabit the world of the other side of the fence that allegedly no longer exists. I am me and my story is worthwhile.

A few days on it is a quiet weekend. I did the shopping, took a while today, did some cleaning and am now all prepared for my long weekend. Slow roast belly pork will adorn my "table" tomorrow. Not sure whether tonight I will use my leftover Mussaman curry or cook a northern Thai curry with chicken and lemongrass. Depends on my motivation.

Do please enjoy this holiday weekend. And despite the partial relaxation of restrictions please take care.

I Heard a Voice.

Coffee and Croissants.

Eating first thing in the morning is not my thing. Well in fact mornings are not my thing. Made even harder by nearly 30 years on sedating medication. As a child mum would always cook something lovely for breakfast. Except of course in winter when she made porridge which I've detested all my life. Going away to boarding school at the age of nine I was forced to eat cereal every day for five years. That put me off for life. Post illness I simply cannot eat first thing in the morning. A great lover of a full English every now and again I have a fry up but not cooked by the English. My friends at Cafe Trio where I indulge my naughtiness occasionally are Turkish. They still do a mean fry up though.

Not sure why but this morning I wanted to eat. And I wanted to eat croissant. Something I didn't like growing up I now eat them occasionally. I've grudgingly learned to appreciate French culture as I get older. The shop by my flat does have a bakery but in these strange times there weren't any. The packet ones were a little like cardboard but with my strong black coffee I could pretend to be pseudo French with my paper.

After such a brutal week getting to the weekend was a relief. Cooking has played its part as ever, roast chicken yesterday, Spanish tapas for lunch today, garlic prawns with chilli, sherry and parsley, Padron peppers with sea salt and serrano ham. Then an indulgent rare roast loin of venison tonight  with a port jus. The Medoc was especially good with it.

Finally today it warmed up. Going for an afternoon walk with Sarah, finally allowed to do that, I was somewhat warm but we had fun. Probably broke the code by not being as socially distant as we should be. Nevertheless I'm not too worried about plague and pestilence. As you recall from my tome I've never really been worried about it. Just the loneliness which hit last Sunday.

Tomorrow I go back into the fray. I made progress last week but I anticipate some resistance coming up from people next week. Taking difficult decisions and being in the firing line is never easy but that's what I get paid to do.

For now though I have Beethoven's violin sonatas, the rest of the Medoc and the knowledge that however hard last week was I survived, I enjoyed the weekend and the sun is set to shine. Good luck back in the world of reality to tomorrow.

I Heard a Voice.

The Sword of Damocles.

A cold wind swept across an otherwise sun drenched afternoon when I went for a walk. I'm glad I had a coat. It has been unseasonably cold the last few days. Even had the heating on at times which should never happen in May.

So much has happened since I was last on here. I can only make coded reference on here but the legend of the Sword of Damocles came into my thinking. The brutality that mental illness can bestow on me and the young people I work with. In truth I have struggled. The enormity of eight weeks alone hit with great savagery on Sunday. Monday was okay but many of the age old anxieties and stresses of work really came back after that. Who are we? And what are we trying to do?

Time would inevitably bring me torment. The funny thing is I lasted far longer in my serene first few weeks of lockdown than I ever imagined possible. The high has gone; would so love it to come back. But I haven't reached the depths. My friends rallied round on Sunday. And they remain with me.

Moving as we are on to another weekend I will be relieved when I get to 4 pm tomorrow. I will shop, I will walk, I will zoom and I will laugh. Drink, yes of course. And a culinary adventure that has not yet formulated in my mind yet.

Take care everyone and take time to rest. See you soon.

I Heard a Voice.

What Day Is It?

Whilst many of my friends are struggling to keep track on the days of the week I'm keeping track by the lie ins I get and by my culinary adventures. I can see for some it must be hard. They all merge into one if like so many you have had the structure and purpose taken away. Much as work can cause me stress at times it gives me a reason to get up, sometimes I do some good, I'm being paid and there is a routine of sorts. Without those I suspect I might be coping less well with being shut in than I have done.

An odd Friday Bank Holiday must for some have made it even more odd. I value my days off but miss my ventures to country pubs. My annual leave is quietly sitting there. There seems little point in taking it as I have nothing to do, nowhere to go and nothing to spend my money on. Well apart from stocks of food, wine and beer. Yesterday I threw in some domestic supplies and finally got hold of some hand wash. Not that I was running out but having not seen it in any shop for several weeks it was helpful just to sort it for future reference.

Aware that it is Sunday of course there was a roast lunch. Today it was rare roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and freshly grated horseradish cream. Not forgetting wine, a pleasing Medoc that I found on offer on Thursday. It all came out pretty well. People seem to be enjoying my food porn on social media. Hopefully it is keeping up people's spirits.

Now I'm not sure what to do. A grey sunless day pervades outside along with a strong wind. Not as cold as I expected with northerly air sweeping down nevertheless it is not terribly inviting. True I have my opera, today I listened to Haydn and now it is Mozart, but my mood is a little flat. Not up not down, anyone in the know will know this is dull territory.

Dampening my spirits has in part been brought about by a weekend passing too quickly. Seeing hardly anyone does sometimes add to that. There is the phone and all manner of technological methods of getting outside these four walls but today I crave company. Anyone and no one, they would all be a welcome break.

Loneliness has surprisingly not reared its ugly head too much since being confined. Today I think it has come like an uninvited guest. Oh to cook Sunday lunch for my friends. To visit the pub after. To think of how I should be more restrained than that before work starts again. That sadly is not to be.

So as a parting shot on this mixed Sunday I will offer the thought that one day I will cook for others. Will drink with others. And will laugh with others. When that day comes is to be decided by science, politicians and doctors. And the small matter of the virus. Until then take care.

I Heard a Voice.

Reflections on a Different Mirror.

Two decades ago I spent every penny I had and got into debt to the tune of £4000 training to be a teacher. In those days there seemed no other option. Education had played its part in my mental health recovery. Everyone said it was as simple as going back to Cambridge and studying for a year. Going back to Cambridge had always been the aim. And everyone thought I'd become a great teacher.

Looking back over that time I certainly wasn't ready for that. Too crazy, too reckless, too enamoured of getting off my face, too arrogant, too scared. And utterly foolish. I did shock the doctors though, all of whom neglected to tell me they thought I would fail I did pass despite not yet having the great salvation of Risperidone. Failure though came about over the next two years. I never got a job, I never did my NQT year and everyone thought I was lying about being a teacher. 150 applications, 18 interviews and no job.

All these years later I would certainly be better in a classroom now. The proof after my most recent relapse two years ago came when I took a room full of 83 programme leads, veterans of academia, by storm and blew them away last summer.

Since then I have forged quite a relationship with the School of Education. I have spoken before of what I call the mirror test. I get that for mental health but not teaching. Until yesterday.

Faced with a zoom conversation with the lead for secondary PGCE programme I did not expect to stir those feelings. The truth is though that I know how hard it is to overcome mental illness to forge a career. We have to be better. To force people to overlook our perceived flaws. To overcome the bigotry. To prove we are worthy.

The man on the other side of mirror like me did a history PGCE although he was in Oxford. And it made me look at both my failures and my triumphs. Teaching may not have wanted me but mental health did.

At the end of the day I was reflective but content that maybe I did some good.

A day on the sun shone, I walked in the woods, I indulged in fine food and fine wine. And I remembered the sacrifices of those who went before us. The risk of being jingoistic and waving the union jack on VE day is tempting but remember everyone on every side suffered during that terrible war. True Germany was rebuilt and is now the strongest power in Europe. But we must remember we defeated the evils of fascism not the saddened lives of ordinary impoverished people who happened to be on the losing side. On this day we must remember all of those afflicted by war.

Being Friday I would ordinarily be headed to The Hedgehog shortly but these are not ordinary times. Instead I have tuned into The Hedgehog Drinkers watch party. And it's great fun.

See you next time.

I Heard a Voice.

The Beckoning of Nature.

Over the last few days I've noticed a lot of things beyond the four walls of my small flat here in Hertfordshire. In my life time I have seen, witnessed and heard many things. How many British kids had seen Australia twice by the age of 13? Have met the future heirs to both the British Royal throne and the Japanese Imperial throne by 13? To have sung in Sydney Opera House, many of the great cathedrals of Europe and many of the other concert halls at that age? To be taught by the great and the good at Cambridge University by 21? And to have seen the inside of an old asylum locked in with no hope of escape a mere few months later?

Despite that I never really took much notice of nature. Partly because that was my mum's thing and I rejected all she espoused in the dark clash of my life with her and mental illness but also because I was so wrapped up in other things that I was too lazy to look.

When my devastating relapse occurred in January 2018 I first started to notice. With nothing to do my friends Gary and Ali took me through the woods week by week in that five month lay off. I saw the seasons change, heard the birds sing and witnessed the great power beyond my comprehension that is mother nature.

Now locked down like much of the rest of the planet I can't go out much. But when I do I notice. And as glorious reminder that nature is greater than us yesterday I saw a bird of prey serenely gliding through the sky just over the road through my open balcony doors. Given its red markings and knowing they are nearby I think it was a red kite. It was glorious.

Venturing out later on my walk I was overcome by the song of the birds, the sounds of the woodpecker and the emotional feeling that for all we do to nature it will overcome our arrogance.

Back in the day time life it has been a busy day. And a better day. For a little over a week I was back in what causes my anxiety, powerlessness and the political wrangling of my working life. It was like going back in time. My sincere wish is that when we are back on campus, the students are away from fear and we can go out at will we will learn our lessons. I did get a lot done today and I think I did some good.

As it is Wednesday opera night ensued. Double opera in fact. The Magic Flute and Dido and Aeneas. I ate pasta and ragu, had a glass of Rioja and enjoyed the late spring sunshine.

Unable to sit still though I finally managed to reach out to a vulnerable friend who is really struggling. Like me she is a musician and she battles mental illness. Unlike me she has no support or understanding. She is alone. I hope after tonight she feels a little less alone.

Tomorrow I have courgette and feta fritters lined up for lunch. Prepared this evening I need to go and tidy up after this. There will be work of course but also classical music, culture of a culinary kind and another day to get through closer to when this will be over. I hope you all thrive tomorrow. I will try to.

I Heard a Voice

Looking Forward to What?

A haircut? A pint? A fry up? A country pub? Whitebait? Tsing Tao? Salt and pepper ribs? Buying a book? New opera? Borough Market? There are so many things that we are missing right now. It is wonderful to fantasise about these marvellous things in my life. Well in the previous life. How many will still be there when we are freer? I don't know the answer to that. But I can dream.

On a cold grey May afternoon I'm seeing the hours tick by and the move inexorably on to a new working week. Monday comes too fast. Somehow the message about the changed Bank Holiday didn't register with me. Thank goodness one of my students told me it is on Friday not tomorrow.

The shoulder of pork roasts away slowly in the oven. Seasoned with sage, thyme, salt and pepper the smell is heart warming. Mozart's Great Mass plays, I'm off the phone, the paper is read and I'm just enjoying the moment.

Coming on here is a moment of self indulgent play for me. In a way it doesn't really matter how many people actually read. The number of hits exceeded 100,000 this week although I take that with a salt mine of salt as I'm still being watched more by an Italian robot that allegedly reads my stories than by real people. But those who do read and speak to me do seem to enjoy it.

Talking to Jayne on the phone yesterday she asked if I was going to write another book. I suppose in a way this is my third book. Others repeatedly ask when I will write and publish a cook book. I'm more guarded on that as so much of my cooking originates in other people's ideas from my many cook books. It is cheering people up the amount of food porn as a colleague said yesterday I put on the social media sites.

Perhaps it is time for original ideas in the kitchen. There was a time when I drank far more than I do now when I was regularly invited back to friends' houses, shown the fridge and told "cook"! My invitations these days are somewhat more sedate. I miss the days of the Chapel Street Brothel but I'm older, less reckless and find it harder to recover now.

So I suppose many of the things I miss I'm still doing but on a lesser and cheaper scale. One thing I can't get done myself is taming the wild hair. They used to say I had stoned hair back in those days. Now my monthly indulgence of the Turkish barber is no more. I think I miss that most as it is out of my hands. I can cook. I can drink. I can listen to music. I can read a book. But I won't be trying cutting my hair.

Have a good week everyone.

I Heard a Voice.

An Act of Kindness.

There is a very beautiful young woman who works in the shop by my flat. Not in a striking or classical way. She is very quiet and doesn't show much emotion, neither smiling nor frowning. Always immaculately presented and made up with lipstick. I suspect by her demeanour she is older than she looks. I don't know why I notice her other than how polite and efficient she is but I do notice her. My assumption is that she mainly works evening shifts as I often see her going in when it was easier to shop. I do not know her name or story but I like being served by her.

Venturing in in the week I bought a few things including a light bulb. When I got home I realised I hadn't packed said bulb. It was getting on and I had no receipt so I gave it up to experience and worried little that I had lost £4.50. Yesterday I went in again for more supplies. At a different till to pay I was shocked that she walked over and said "did you leave your light bulb behind the other day?" and promptly put it in my bag. I was struck by the kindness of this young woman. Certainly not what I was expecting.

In an odd sort of a way I sense that many are being kinder in these difficult times. More patient although there are exceptions. More tolerant, mainly. And more forgiving. I have optimism that that will continue when the shackles come off and we are free again.

My week was most politely described as trying. Having sail serenely on the crest of a semi manic wave having the anxiety brake taken away things came crashing down on Monday. You know those days when all the most demanding of people come out to play, the doubt creeps in and the anger brought on by powerlessness ferments? That was my Monday. And with few resolutions until yesterday I did not enjoy the week. The result that the impact of therapy on Wednesday was diluted is not what I need now or at any time.

Come the weekend though limping home after the storm of the week that was, the waters have calmed, the gale subsided and some sort of peace is restored.

Domestic things took up part of my day, sweeping, mopping, hoovering, washing. All those tedious things. But now I have a sense of accomplishment and a sedate reassurance that I can manage without Jess for a while.

The storm continues in the culinary arts. Thai stir fried prawns with chilli and basil for supper yesterday. I shallow fried the remaining prawns dusted in turmeric, chilli powder and gram flour and served them on a bed of salad and a squeeze of lemon for lunch. After this I will make a curry paste from Java to use in a lamb curry. And tomorrow an old favourite in slow roast shoulder of pork. Can't wait.

A long chat with Jayne on the phone was lovely. Need to ring dad later. So I bid you farewell a day after May Day and wish you all well. See you soon.

I Heard a Voice.