Portly Recovery.

On Saturday I bumped into someone I knew from back in the hospital days. I would say friend, compatriot, survivor but he was exceptionally obnoxious, aggressive and unpleasant at the height of his illness. He had few friends just people who tolerated him in limited doses. My background was different to his and my many others companions on the road of madness yet we were held together by that madness. Souls thrown together by circumstance, illness and stigma. That was a bond few could break.

Seeing him there entering my friend Mandy the butcher's shop almost exactly 23 years since I first met him showed 2 divergent path. He has lost so much weight. He has stopped drinking and using drugs. He no longer shouts at people but is polite. He takes medication. And he said he now has friends who care for him.

I have put on weight-he called me portly. I no longer live there and as the years pass have less and less contact with those from back then. I take medication. I have a career, a place to live, some influence and an independence I never dreamed I would gain. And I have friends.

So who did the best of us? In truth neither. Each recovery is as valid as the other. Recovery is not a model it is a philosophy. In the wrong hands it is very dangerous. The man I saw on Saturday is no lesser or more person than me. He may never work but he has come so far from whence he once was. Those with power should acknowledge that not just blanketly tar us all as worthy or unworthy. We have each moved on and for the better.

I feel heartened by this encounter. Back in my life now I'm reflecting on a weekend away, seeing dad, my friend's birthday, and a day's study. Yes I got round to that today as we had a tutorial. I appear on the right lines with my enquiries. Long may that continue. So with baroque music accompanying my reflections I pose you the reader the question, do we take enough out of those chance encounters and marvel at how far we have come?

I Heard a Voice.

Halloween Heatwave.

Hard though it may be to believe but here in the UK we are having a Halloween heatwave. 21 degrees at the end of October! I ditched my coat today and switched to my summer blazer-still sweltering. Now down in Kent visiting dad and to go to a party I struggled to get dry after a bath as it is so humid.

What a strange day. It ends a reasonably good week where some progress was made both on work and study fronts but there is still a hell of a long way to go.

I'm doing well. Mood is good, I don't feel too stressed and that fear of being overwhelmed has not been spotted on the horizon yet. So to a weekend in Kent. Dinner at The Butt of Sherry, lunch tomorrow at The Nutmeg,  a little shopping then my friend's birthday party. Mexican is on the menu then, not my normal fare but a good change. See you all in November.

I Heard a Voice.

Startling Nature.

I inadvertently startled our resident heron yesterday. I didn't realise he was by the trees as I ventured for a seat for 5 minutes away from the mayhem on a beautiful sunny morning. Off he flew marvellous in his grace, high and clear of that lake. Soon I will say goodbye to the lake as we are moving back to campus in December. As I predicted time is flying, almost November. The NFL is around its half way point. The holiday is looming but there are steps to go before then.

Back in the office I'm desperately playing catch up after the dramas of the last 2 weeks. My diary is getting packed out by the end of Monday for the week. I'm getting anxious about my MSc. Yes I'm reading and correlating sources at home but I need a couple of hours in my office to select data to use for my piece. That can only be done there. But when? In truth I need to do it this week. I'm away visiting dad at the weekend and with a group tutorial planned for next Monday I need something to go there with. I guess I'm praying for a cancellation or 2.

Yet I'm still standing, still coping, still creaking but not overwhelmed. I'm going out tonight for a curry with my friend Hannah. I supported her through her PGCE a couple of years ago. I always like working with education students as I went down that path myself. I wonder where I would be now had I just got the break I needed with a job back in those days. Fate decreed I would never teach. I tried and failed. That was a life time away. What I do now is of more value although financially less rewarded. Many students have noted in passing how glad they are I did not get a chance in teaching. Had chance been different they would never have met me. I cannot help everyone but some value me for my highly than I deserve.

I Heard a Voice.

Cultural Pursuits on a Saturday Afternoon.

After all the drama of the last week or so I made it through to another weekend. After rising very late I decided I really needed to get on with some study. So to the accompaniment of Haydn's The Creation I set about re reading some work and checking for other sources I can use in the dreaded referencing section. It was actually quite a productive afternoon reminding me of what I had forgotten. I fear she will move the goalposts when we meet again in 3 weeks but I need to get progressing. There is a group tutorial a week Monday. Given that there are only 2 of us doing this module this semester it could be a cosy affair.

Studies completed I ventured into my other great cultural pursuit and returned to my kitchen. I'm visiting Thailand today with a belly pork curry. I spent some time pounding not 1 but 2 curry pastes and what I anticipate will be a fiery visit to that epic cuisine is bubbling away gently on my hob. Richard is coming to share it with me so to eat in about 2 hours.

I feel I need the rest after this week. Dealing with fall out then had a minor bug yesterday that kept me at home. Some mention stress but I think it is just a chance encounter with something in passing. Despite the last week I don't feel too stressed, exasperated at times yes but not stressed. In 2 months we will be celebrating Christmas. After some consultation I think it will just be us at home this year. Dad didn't feel he or the aga could cope with 9 people; it is after all quite a small house.

Tonight I will don my Panama Hat for a charity event at the Hedgehog in memory of our dear friend Jeff who succumbed to his long battle with cancer 10 months ago. I miss him. He always wore a hat so we will honour him in that way too.

I Heard a Voice.

Sounds of Teenage Angst.

In the days before Madonna took the musical world by storm in around 1984 there was another brash and eccentric American woman singer with a squeaky voice, wild hair and outrageous dress sense. Her name was and is Cyndi Lauper. It's hard believe all these years later that she was once bigger than Madonna. She was Lady Gaga years before Lady Gaga.

Earlier in the week whilst wandering aimlessly around HMV trying to escape the chaos for an hour I found her first album She's So Unusual in a sale. The whole world knows that girl power anthem Girls Just Want to Have Fun. It still plays at all the parties of 40 somethings throughout the land. It was not really for that that I bought it for. I had my years of rage and teenage angst in the 1980s and that album was part of my backing track of melancholy. Money Changes Everything, Time After Time, When You Were Mine all featured in that curious time of chaos and pain before we end our childhood.

Looking back now I already had significant signs of mood disorder and mental illness back then. It just didn't explode and destroy my life until I was 20. Some of those songs were woven into the fabric of my madness. Not about me as the psychiatrists arrogantly suggested but representing the words and emotions that I could not express. It was not until A Pillar of Impotence  hit the world that I was really able to put words to that pain.

Much has passed since then but I was still moved by the music of my madness; just not destroyed. Back at home I dined on rare steak, potatoes sauteed in duck fat, minted peas and Rioja to the more sedate accompaniment of J S Bach. What a contrast.

In what passes for my career I'm still up against it. I did nothing but answer the phone on Monday. The events of last Thursday are still taking much of my time but so be it. And at the end of each day I reflect. Did I do some good today? In the main yes. I'm holding up well but struggling to keep up. The other fear is my studies. Hardly got off the ground with them and I need to get going. Maybe the weekend will bring respite. We will see. Until next time adios.

I Heard a Voice.

Standing Room Only.

The world and his brother seemed to be headed for London at lunch time. It resembled the early morning commuter trains with nowhere to sit and standing room only. Days Arsenal play at home are always busy yet as they fanned out at Finsbury Park it was still standing room only. That said I got lucky and managed to sit down after Potter's Bar.

As I ambled along the Charing Cross Road I mused on how much had changed since my brief spell in a London psychiatric unit in 1994. Yes 20 years have passed. Most of the book shops I perused in those days as I fled from the pressures of therapy designed to tear me apart have gone. My old friend Foyles still exists and in I went. Thinking it had had a major makeover it was not until I made a passing comment to the shop assistant that I realised it had actually moved to a different building. Time marching on. I'm greyer now than then. Maybe wiser. Certainly fatter. But infinitely better mentally.

It was a short and restrained trip. A Dim Sum lunch, a few shops, some walking then home. I had hoped to pop into the Porcupine but it was packed so I headed straight for the tube.

Tomorrow is a roast chicken day. I have bought some English wine to accompany it from the Chapel Down vineyard near Tenterden. So close to what was my home for so long. There's an outside chance Beka may join me for lunch. That would be good.

Maybe more tomorrow.

I Heard a Voice.

Do Your Job.

Many people cannot understand my passion for and love affair with American football. To some British people it pales in comparison to rugby. It is played by soft people as they are covered in pads. It is too slow, too confusing. There are too many players. And too many rules. Well having played-and loved-both American football and rugby I can tell you they are different but equally tough. What really attracts me is that the former is that it is the ultimate physical chess. Eveything is choreographed with 11 players on each side needed to act together. If not it all goes horribly wrong. It is a game of plan then counter plan, of adjustment, of physicality and skill. Above all each player needs to do his job. Often the commentators will say "do your job".

My days of player football are long gone. I will never go back. But that phrase do your job rings true often enough. Yesterday I left my office on the way to A&E at 5.15 pm and got home at 2.45 am. It was indeed a long day. I earned my money, felt humbled, ashamed but in the end I did my job. As I was teaching today I had to go in rather than take the day off. I dropped by my office to collect my car and tie up loose end. Then and only then did I go for lunch and a beer in the Three Horseshoes.

The post mortem will begin on Monday. And once again what my job is will come to the fore. In truth if I hadn't done it, delivered my special skills at that time of life threatening crisis, the outcome could have been worse. That is not to say that I am special it is just the experience I bring in what I have done in my so called career.

As this time of change plays out for me I think there will be much debate why I do that and should I do that. I will hold as firm as I can for that is what I do. Lots of people were worried but we made the calls, took the decisions and dealt with it. Let's hope it does not cause further discomfort in these uncertain times.

Another weekend is here though. If I can summon up the energy after only 4 hours sleep last night I might get the train to London, Chinatown, Foyles, The Porcupine and some gentle wanderings appeal if the rain stays off.

I Heard a Voice.