On this occasion, I thought I would write something different. In one way it’s ironic because for those of you who may have read my story, you will know that at the beginning of my troubles after my accident and at the start of my issues with anxiety, I went on a residential course to help deal with my condition.
I don’t know how much it helped me, really, and whilst that may sound strange, it is because, in the end, I couldn’t wait to get away. It was more frustrating than anything else, but I have tried to use some of the techniques they taught, so it must have been of some help. I kept with it because a gentleman I will now name as James Kivlin from Cambridge paid for me to attend. He did it as a favour to me for looking after his business when he needed someone, and he did it when he didn’t have to, as all I was doing was my job.
But he did it, and I will never forget the man for what he did, but I would never have forgotten him anyway, such was the man. I have chosen anonymity for people throughout this journey, and I do that because I don’t want anyone to receive any reaction to my writing in any way. But I can name James as he is sadly no longer with us, passing away some eighteen months ago. A tough, hard, but fair man losing a fight few rarely win, that being the fight with cancer – a sad loss for sure.
But as I sit here writing in my hotel room in the Tontine Hotel, Peebles, Scotland, I am once again realising how lucky I am, a situation I keep mentioning because I know that I am. Some of you may be wondering what I am on about and why I have mentioned the course again. Well, on that course, one of the things that frustrated me was we were advised that we should keep a diary, something I had never done and wasn’t going to start doing at fifty. If I remember, it was to help us keep our lives in order and give us purpose, which helped in our battle against anxiety.
I had never needed one; all my work-related matters were on an e-calendar, my personal needs were on a calendar, and my mobile phone, diaries were not my thing and weren’t going to be – until today, that is. I am going to write a diary, and I am going to try to add a post every other day for the next ten days. I just want to give it a go and share my experiences, so I am starting on day 2.
Day 2 is in Peebles, the town I call home, at least my Scottish home, but then home is where the heart is. After being born and brought up in Hawick, the town I left at eighteen to join the RAF, I have never been back to the area other than a party or a night out, I think about four times in forty years. My Dad was a shepherd near Biggar, but when he got made redundant (unfairly so, as within days there was someone in doing the same job) some thirty years ago, they moved to Peebles, and it has been their home ever since, and so where I call home.
I was concerned about my Dad, having lived a life on farms having that outdoor lifestyle for some forty years, how would he cope with moving into town? He managed very well, starting to work looking after people’s gardens, doing odd jobs, and doing the work he wanted when he wanted to; he actually loved it and does to this day, living in town anyway, the work stopped years ago.
So here we go on day 2, the hotel is nice but the downside of hotel life, both at 330ml, the can was 69p from the shop across the road, and the bottle from the hotel was £2.20!! Next time I’ll stock up from the shop! Day 1 was a slow drive up from the West Midlands on a very busy M6. When I first moved to the West Midlands, I had to get to Manchester before traffic cleared. It then became Blackpool, and yesterday it was Junction 36 south of Kendal when many drivers branched off for the Lake District, the location for our last holiday some two months ago (think lucky)!
But after stopping off for lunch in Moffat, we got to my parents’ house at three o’clock, and as always, how good it was to see them again. We spent time with them before coming into the hotel in town, and a few beers and a fantastic meal at Franco’s, an Italian restaurant in town; a good day was had by my wife and me.
She is out shopping at the moment, a planned morning with me coming back to write and have ‘me time.’ I’m fortunate I don’t need a lot of me time to get away from my wife; we get on well enough to be able to spend time together without arguments and fallouts, an important part of a twenty-four-year relationship.
But as I sit here, I saw my little packet of pills that I have to take and not for the first time recently. I wondered if I should stop taking them? They are for the mood swings that became very difficult times for me, the highs way up, the lows way down, but going from way up to way down in less than twenty-four hours was starting to get to me.
I am very apprehensive about stopping taking them as they have been a massive help levelling me and my moods out; I am sure there will come a day when I have to stop taking them. I often think I should do it when I am in a situation like this, relaxed, very happy and away from my everyday life, but it would worry me that the moods would come back and spoil the time away.
I get concerned that if I tried to stop taking them when I was back home in that everyday life, then they would also come back as that’s the life I was living when I started taking them. I hope that makes sense. I only take half the prescribed dose, so I have already tried to help myself; maybe when I need another prescription, I will speak with a GP to see what their advice is.
So we will be sitting in a pub in the Highlands watching the Euro final, and I have told my English wife she will have to be quiet if England score, but she told me not too politely to ‘get lost.’ But I will be cheering for England with her, my home for thirty-five years, England has been good to me, and they always get my support, unless of course, they are playing Scotland! I am no modern-day William Wallace.
I haven’t watched Wimbledon this time around, and even that has caused some controversy this year. I felt for young Emma Radacanu and her abrupt exit from Wimbledon. But John McEnroe, BBC tennis pundit, said after her exit. ‘It appears it just got a little bit too much… Hopefully, she’ll learn from this experience.’ Doctors and even Raducanu’s opponent took issue with his comments, and I need to ask why?
I also hope she will learn from the experience because if she doesn’t, it may very well happen again. She has done amazingly well for such a young person. I applaud her, both for her tennis performance and her dealings with the press, but this is an experience she will never forget. She will need to learn from it or how does she progress to become a stronger person and better player and also be better prepared. So what did McEnroe say that was so wrong because I don’t think he said anything so bad other than the truth?
The problem is we all know that the truth can hurt, and maybe she just wasn’t ready for the occasion, but by learning from this occasion and the incident, she will become stronger and a better player, and we will hopefully be seeing a lot more of her in the future. It also shows how much trying to achieve our life goals can actually lead to anxiety or other mental health issues. Others have suffered too and it is happening more and more these days, and sad to see, as is the case of anyone having these problems for whatever reason in whatever they do!
But then there was BBC tennis pair Boris Becker and John Inverdale who faced a volley of criticism after calling a player’s fiancée ‘very pretty.
‘If you’re a tennis player, always good to have a partner called Anett.’ (Inverdale).
Becker, 53, chipped in: ‘They do say they have the most beautiful women in Hungary. I wouldn’t know that, but she’s certainly very pretty.’
Women in Sport’s Stephanie Hilborne said her charity has spent decades trying to end objectification. She added: ‘When two men are comfortable talking about women in this way, never mind on live TV, it shows there is still more to do.’ (Courtesy the Sun Newspaper).
I wonder if Stephanie was more concerned about the bad Anett joke or Boris calling a lady ‘pretty.’ Because I and some female friends also don’t get this one. I have asked them if they would mind being called ‘pretty.’ My wife wouldn’t object at all, and one lady friend said, ‘if someone said that to me, I would tell them they had to get their eyes tested,’ but then on a serious note she said not at all.
For people of my generation of which Boris and John are closer, there is nothing wrong with this at all, and I believe most women would take being called ‘pretty as a compliment and not an insult; maybe the sun should carry out one of their online polls, and maybe, just maybe, in this situation, Stephanie is in the minority.
So we are back in that situation again where we all have opinions; Stephanie believes it is wrong, my wife and some female friends think it’s just fine, so who is right? Because in the eyes of my wife and friends, it isn’t Stephanie who is right on this occasion. And so because Stephanie thinks it is wrong to make these comments, it doesn’t make her right, sorry Stephanie. (I believe if you read that slowly, it makes sense!)
However, what I do know is that I’ll leave it for the ladies to argue this one out, but when my wife is looking good, I will tell her she looks pretty, looks good or looks sexy and do you know what, she will take those as compliments, as will many other women. And that is also other women I have had relationships with: some – probably many women like compliments. I certainly know that in the times I’ve been called ‘handsome’ (yes, it has happened), I would certainly never have been offended, and I ask Stephanie one thing? What is the difference between calling me handsome and a woman pretty?
Thanks for reading, and stay safe.