Holiday, What Holiday?

In theory I'm now on holiday until 6th January. However, owing to events, failures, and general incompetence which is beyond my control I now have to go to work on Monday. It will be a day of tough decisions. Yes those, the ones I don't make! Oh I forgot about that. So where are the decision makers? Where do you think?

I came home after Friday's debacle exhausted and raging. But I did not fire off the torrent of angry e mails my mind wanted. That might have been foolish. I'm certainly not at all happy. Then again though I'm only a humble bottom feeder. More important people than me make those tough decisions

On this quiet Sunday afternoon with the "Magic Flute" playing I'm focusing on calming down. What will be will be. In a rare departure for a Sunday I'm cooking a curry later. This owes more to expiry dates and not back until late on Friday than some radical shift in my behaviour. I will return to the Sunday roast next week when I will be with dad. In the meantime I have to do some academic reading. But that can wait until Tuesday. Until next time.

I Heard a Voice.

Prelude to Judgement Day.

A few weeks into the first module of my MSc it has been an experience of mixed ups and downs. I go to each session feeling woefully unprepared. I'm then pleasantly surprised that I do get it. Then it is back to uncertainty. I have done some work and at times felt confident but until today that confidence had not been tested. Today we had to present an outline of our assignments on service improvement.

With an accompaniment of Wagner-God it goes on-I spent 3 hours last night fretting, doubting and thinking why on earth am I doing this. By about 10 pm I had 1100 words, an outline, and no idea if it was on the right lines. That doubt was further enhanced by re reading this morning. I thought it was shit.

Yet as I looked at previous projects it began to dawn on me that I was on the right track. The question was was I brave enough to present to my peers and tutor. The first 2 who presented were slated. So with great trepidation I volunteered to present. Apparently it was brilliant. I had got it. My tutor told me after that she had no worries at all. She enquired how I felt about presenting it to a dragon's den type panel as I will have to do in January. Facing year 9 in school has taught me never to fear such events. And with that I can march on. There will be doubts but I must trust myself.

The interesting thing is that it was not that the others didn't get it. It was just that they couldn't think in any other way apart from being a psychiatrist. How ironic is that, little me, who no one listened to for 10 years holding psychiatrists in awe. Strange too that they are now my friends. I'm learning more of that strange world. Let us hope they are receptive to change. They are all receptive to me-we are all students in that context. I wonder what it will be like if I relapse and am once again cast into the psychiatric system. Well they have to listen to me now-as a governor they accountable to me. Oh how my world has changed.

I only have 1 more day of work. 3 weeks off beckon to study, eat, drink, cook, and recharge. Then the onslaught begins again in January. Then too I face the dragons for real.

I Heard a Voice.

Missed me?

Have you missed me? It has been a whole week since I was last on here. My intention each evening for the last 6 days has been to blog. But it was not to be. It has been quite a week. So on a sunny Sunday morning to "The Marriage of Figaro" quietly playing I return to my loyal audience.

I come to you via "Othello", an important meeting, a carol service, a fine address by a controversial clergyman, Chinese food time 3, a study day, anxiety re that study, some Thai food, a visitor for dinner, a haircut, an MOT (it passed), and an idea from my dad about getting me nominated for a high profile award. So quite a week.

Thus I emerge a little closer to my holiday, only 1 more week of work, with something of a plan for the next month or so. I intend to recharge the batteries first and foremost followed by progression in the MSc. I should of course note on here the tragic death of a great man. I hope me fears that Nelson Mandela had been holding South Africa are without substance.

Back to today, I feel good. I will relish the Mozart, complete "Gabriel's Angel", find a little more out about the world and with luck have the contents of my survey for my MSc done and ready to send. There you go, a productive Sunday topped off with what I hope is some fine roast gammon. Have a great Sunday.

I Heard a Voice.

The Countdown Starts.

Rare are the occasions on which I attend church services these days. Wedding and funerals of course. Other than though nothing although I did go to King's a few weeks ago for evensong. The 2 services on which I would make exceptions are Remembrance Day and Advent Sunday. No chance of getting tickets for King's despite someone asking me recently if I got free tickets. In truth I've not been there since 1982. But there is a saving grace. And on this Advent Sunday I listened to the great recording I mentioned yesterday. A splendid way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The countdown to Christmas starts here for me. In but 4 weeks it will all be over. I will visit dad and we have an away match at Beka's mum's this year for lunch. Let us hope we can match the glories of last year. It was superb then. I think I might get some white Rioja to bring along as we are eating chicken.

As for now I continue to listen to religious music and relax. The lamb goes in at 3 pm then eat about 7 pm. Tomorrow is a busy day; in fact all week is busy. I only have 2 weeks before my break. I do need to do some study then too. But Christmas is still Christmas so I will banish the thoughts of years ago into the new world I now inhabit. That is being well. Christmases are awful for depressed people. Thankfully those days appear past for the time being.

I Heard a Voice.

Weekend Mix Up.

My plan this weekend was to meet a former student for lunch to celebrate her qualifying as a teacher today then go to Cambridge tomorrow to watch the Pythons. Part the way through the former I realised through Facebook that I had actually got the wrong day of the Pythons. It was indeed this afternoon that they played. Football is supposed to be played on a Sunday. I had been aware there may be a problem but checking on the web it seemed the game was tomorrow. So no football for me this weekend although the Pythons did win; so a plus point there.

Back at home after a very pleasant lunch with Hannah-it is amazing how different my conversations with students are after they have left-I cooked a curry, listened to Jacqueline Du Pre's magical recording of the Elgar cello concerto, and contemplated what to do on my unexpectedly free Sunday. Nothing grand, just slow roast lamb, the Advent Carol Service I recorded in 1979, and relax. I need to do some study too. Actually I bumped into a fellow student from my course as I waited for Hannah. It never ceases to amaze me that given my history I'm now friends with a number of psychiatrists. How the world has changed.

Talking of psychiatrists, Jacek my former supervisor sent me very flattering but false e mail saying I was the "best one man CMHT in the county". Oh that he were my manager, might the world be different and my desire to leave may no be where it is now. But that is life I suppose.

And so I say goodbye to November. It has been a good month from hits on my blog. I hope you all enjoy what you see. See you in December.

I Heard a Voice.

Thanksgiving Day Memories.

On Thanksgiving Day 2003 I took a taxi from my new home in Folkestone to my mum and dad's house in Hythe to celebrate with turkey. It was a precarious journey as a car pulled out of a side road and forced my driver off the road and onto the pavement. Thank God no one was walking there. I had only moved out of home the previous summer. Mum thought it would be nice to have Thanksgiving Day dinner at home. It was a lovely evening with a fine crown and good fun. It is 1 of my happy memories of mum.

Over the next 7 years her mental health deteriorated badly. The final time I ate turkey with her was at Christmas in 2010. She had always suffered from abnormal anxiety. Most of my life she was unhappy if not depressed. By 2010 she also was creeping into dementia. It was not the happiest Christmas. She cooked the crown of turkey for 11 hours as she was convinced we would all get food poisoning. The following year she would experience the first such event without either of us there since we were born. She never saw another Christmas.

I have spent too much of my life regretting and second guessing and asking why. I cannot change my past, I wasn't there so we were not together. But on this day I remember that happy Thanksgiving all those years ago.

To all my friends in the USA-and there are many of you-may I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. I have no turkey-bit much living on my own-but I am watching Green Bay and Detroit and trying to work out how in the world the Lions aren't up by about 40 points!

I Heard a Voice.

Another Time, Another Place.

Why do we meet the people in our lives where and when we do? The chance encounters of time and space are what populate our lives and make us who we are. Maybe it is fate, destiny, or God. Who knows. But I do sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had met people in another time and another place. I have experienced that twice this week. My path would be different.

The greatest and most influential chance meeting of my life was in Granada in 1990. As I've said before that was where I met Rachel. Who would we be had we never met? Might I still have gone mad? The answer to the latter is probably yes.

But I cannot live my life asking about the what ifs. There have been many. When I got better was when I stopped asking that question in my head. That is how I keep my demons at bay. Who will enter my life next to change the direction for good or ill? I don't know.

I Heard a Voice.