Day 2
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The next few months are well marked by the theme of “family reunion”. In two weeks time, I am going to meet my uncle, the brother of the mother, for the very first time. Him and his wife and three kids (kids that are young adults). They are visiting Alton Towers and he asked if they could meet up with us the day after. Initially, they wanted to come to my house but I took the tummy twisting notion as a sign, that I am not quite ready for that. I just can’t see them sitting on my sofa and hey, you gotta listen to that gut feeling. I know a lot is first time meeting nerves plus obviously a huge part of me wants to be liked by this unknown family and fear about not being liked is building up by the day. The little sensible voice in my head, who speaks so quietly at times that I can hardly hear her says: “It doesn’t matter if they don’t like you, because you know you may not like them.” And I know this is true, but at the same time I want to be able to dislike them, but for god’s sake I want them to like me. That’s the least they can do, you know.
And of course, I know he will be reporting back to my mother and this makes things even more complicated.
And then in September there is this trip to Germany that I keep postponing because I am paralyzed with dread when I think about it. When you haven’t seen people in such a long time it becomes a total big deal when you do. My aunt, whose 70th birthday it is, plus some random family members of our once huge family, my uncle (the one I know from little, the one who is my father’s brother, yet so unlike my father that it is hardly believable they are related) and his wife will be there. As much as I am looking forward to seeing them in equal measures I am dreading it. Dreading it because there will be judgement, there always is with families and mine is Catholic so judgement is almost religiously prescribed. There will be stories about my father, what he is up to (no good) and I can hear my uncle’s wife already: “You should be taking care of it.” And I can hear myself defending my actions or rather non-actions and I can feel my husband tensing up and being very quiet because I am not willing to share the truth about the whys with them and he thinks I should. And there is a huge part of me that wants to tell the truth but I fear what my uncle would do to his brother if he knew. Sometimes, not speaking the truth is protecting those we love. What good would it do to my aunt, my uncle, cousins if they knew?
So this morning as I am still trying to catch up with work, I am almost paralyzed with dread. I wish I could fast-forward.
One of the things I thought I miss the most was pizza. Today I made cheeseless pizza topped with tomato sauce, sundries tomatoes, mushrooms, artichoke, jalapeños and olives… It was so good! Two weeks in still no dairy craving, eggs craving though…
I had the most delicious food yesterday! So so good! A thali is a selection of dishes with some nice roti
Well after my first week of 3kg loss, I put it almost all back on since I chomp on too many nuts. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I have now set myself a weekly allocation of a cup of nuts, once that’s gone, I can’t have any more till the following week.
The non-dairy thing is suprisingly easy and as of yet, I haven’t felt like I need to replace cheese with some nasty cheese replacement. Well, I don’t know if they are nasty, haven’t tried them yet, but previous vegan cheese attempts weren’t all that glorious.
I am now starting on phase 2. Eliminating refined sugars from my diet. That sort of means no processed foods as sugar is pretty much part of any processed food no matter how low in fat it is. In fact, the lower a food is in fat, the more sugar is pumped into it. I imagine that won’t be too hard apart from home baking. But I am not attempting a 100% lifestyle here, more a 80% be good approach. The problem with refined sugar for me is that having sugary things makes me grave for more food quicker and doesn’t keep me full up. So. e.g. if I have porridge in the morning and sweeten it a bit with sugar than I want more food by 10, if I sweeten it with a bit of agave nectar I feel fuller for longer. Or those low fat yogurt (which I no longer have obviously) are full of sugar.
Phase 3, will be cutting out bread and refined, processed wheat… i.e. only wholegrain stuff. I may have wholegrain bread, like German rye bread but in moderation. Again a 80%/20% split.
But tonight I am out for a Jyoti’s meal, a vegetarian Indian restaurant which has 90% of vegan food on its menu. So yummy.
Yesterday, I drove from Birmingham to Nottingham to watch the last Harry Potter with my friend Milena. Some may wonder, why I drive an hour to watch a film with someone, but the reasons are simple. For one, I really like Milena and wanted to catch up in person anyway. And even more importantly, I wanted to watch the film with someone who wanted to see the film as badly as I did.
I am totally unashamedly a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. I love kid’s fiction a lot and often feel that writers of so-called grown up fiction can learn a lot from writer’s writing for a youth audience. Like many adults who found themselves lost in the books, for me the attraction has always also been the fact that I identified with Harry. The reality of his day to day life was gruesome and then suddenly a magical letter came and all was good. When I was little, I dreamt of a rescue too.
It felt sad watching the last film, knowing it was all over but at the same time, it also felt really good on the way home when I realised that I cried during the film for the ending of Harry Potter and that I was no longer crying about the past. And that was a rather good feeling.
I will miss the wizard and I am sure I will read those books many times again, listening to the audiobooks while doing the washing up, folding laundry or cleaning the bathroom and watching the films when I am alone and hopefully, in years to come I hope to share the experience with my daughter.
As Alan Rickman said in an interview: “When I’m 80 years old and sitting in my rocking chair, I’ll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will say to me, “After all this time?” And I will say, “Always.”
Me too.
I have learnt over the years that freaking out is really not helping when things aren’t going the way I planned it, usually, staying calm and collected is a much better approach.
But you know this last week kicked my butt. My husband finally had a week off and we had plans on taking it easy and spending some quality time. As often best laid plans are just an invitation to chaos, I first dropped my laptop last Sunday. The computer wiz recommended by a client, came, saw and delivered the news that he would be able to get my data of the hard disk but that the laptop screen would be too expensive to warrent repair.
An hour later the washing machine broke for good.
Then I broke the printer.
Then I broke the power adapter for the other laptop.
Then finally on Thursday, it was the kid’s first speech and language session. Last August I went for the first time to the health visitor to ask for help with the speech. She sent me to the GP, first GP totally sent me packing, calling my concerns ridiculous. Second GP I saw referred me to hearing test. In November, we finally had hearing test appointment. All good, the doctor said she would refer us speech and language therapy. And since then I have been chasing up this referral letter. I called the BCH about every two weeks, kept being told they sent a letter, that I would get a call which never came. I finally ended up writing a letter to their Chief Exec which resulted in the letter being sent. First I was told we dropped priority and wouldn’t be seen by next year. I complained and was referred to their “in community” service and had an appointment within the next month. Long Story ey? Imagine how I feel about it, drained, emotional and frustrated. Then imagine how I felt when I was told by the therapist that I could have referred myself. Simply calling them making an appointment. No one told me.
And this is not the end. When Dharma had nephritis, we were told to give them a call if anything happens that we are worried about. So this past week, the kid has been incredibly tired. Like totally tired. Falling asleep as soon as she sat down. GP sent us packing when we went. But I am worried, she is sleepy, pale, not hungry and she drinks a lot. So I called BCH. Was told I would get called back in an hour. That was Thursday. No call back came. Called again two hours later, had to explain everything again, was told I would get called back. No call back. Called Friday morning, was told I would get called back and I said I would hold and she should get a registrar on the phone for me. Registrar came on the phone and got a bit snappy with me. So I snapped back. And then he said, you can relay your concerns at your appointment on the 8th of August. I had no idea about this appointment, in fact I had been chasing this appointment for a few weeks now because I had no letter and then he says that the appointment had been made in March. No one cared to tell me, in fact even when I called no one was able to tell me about it, no letter sent. When he then suggested that I had misplaced the letter I freaked out. Yeah right, blame the parent. I totally misplace important letters about my daughters care all the time. If this had been the first case of miscommunication from them I would have probably thought it was me. However, this was the umpteenth time.
I lost my calm yesterday. I raised my voice to the registrar, which is unfair because it’s not his personal fault. However, the institution he works for totally pushed me over the edge this week.
I feel upset about this not only for my and especially Dharma’s sake but also for the sake of children, who don’t have parents that are able to fight their corner. Adults who may lack the verbal skills to fight their corner, don’t know their rights and so their kids fall through the huge gaps and lack the care they deserve. It’s not the adults faults then, it’s the hospital’s fault, the NHS fault to not do their work properly.
Sometimes I just cannot be calm.
Dharma currently has a lot of fun drawing people with extremely enlarged heads because it’s funny! So here are we
andiamback 