Apparently, if you’re not used to swimming, the breast stroke is not the healthiest stroke to chose. I was completely unaware of this before today.

Today I went swimming properly (as in swimming lengths for excercise) for the first time since I had swimming lessons in school. Which must be almost 15 years ago by now.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the pub with two friends from work and we made a pact. We agreed that the three of us would get our more or less unfit and overweight bodies to the local leisure centre to swim lengths together.

I desperately needed that pact. There’s no way I could have made myself unveil my (as of TODAY) no longer obese but still quite overweight body in a swimming costume in a leisure centre swimming pool without a friend to metaphorically hold my hand.

So I do understand how the one friend came to chicken out. I’m still extremely disappointed with her though, especially since she’s totally slim! So maybe she’s got a bit of cellulite, WHO HASN’T?! I’ve got fat legs with super cellulite!

Anyway, I digress.

We swam 40 lengths of the 25m pool, which means we swam a very grand total of 1000 metres! I was so chuffed!

But then, this afternoon, I was on my way to the corner shop near work when my left knee went *crunch* loudly and I almost fell over. It hurt SO MUCH! I almost phoned a workmate (any workmate) to come and fetch me back to the office in a car, even though I was less than a 5 minute walk away.

I managed to resist that urge and hobbled into the shop. Once I was done posting my letter and buying the creme egg for a post weigh-in treat my knee had recovered a tiny bit and I was able to limp back to work.

According to one of the ladies at my Slimming World group, the problem has definitely been caused by the breast stroke. She’s got knee replacements and she’s been banned from doing breast stroke because of the pressure it puts on your knee joints. Her suggestion was to do the breast stroke arm movement but the crawl leg kick. That’ll be embarrassing. I’d do the crawl properly, but I seem to have forgotten how. I went all over the lane when I tried it!

It’s been hours since it happened and I keep thinking my knee has improved, only to find it really hasn’t. So I’m quite worried about the 10k which is looming ever closer. Less than 3 weeks to go now! And my knee won’t let me walk 10-minute-kilometres, let alone run 10-minute-miles!

Ack!

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I might have gone just a little bit mad on Folksy last Wednesday. I wasn’t feeling very good and rather than comfort eat, I comfort shopped. So this week I’ve been receiving necklace after necklace with a couple of pairs of earrings thrown in for good measure.

Yesterday I went to work wearing my pretty black bow necklace. But a whole stash of lovely new necklaces was waiting for me at my desk and I couldn’t resist them. So I swapped to my new “WTF?” necklace. But wonderful as it is, it didn’t really suit my mood. True, WTF? is always applicable (if perhaps not always appropriate, depending on the company. I wouldn’t want to have to explain it to my grandparents for example) but I had another necklace that fit my mood perfectly: my new “YAY!” necklace.

This morning I chose my new “KAPOW” necklace (I’ve got it in black, not green) to wear with my red top. But when I discovered (just as I was about to head out the door) that I’d managed to get half of my breakfast down myself, I had to change tops. And since I was no longer wearing red, I suddenly had the option of wearing a pink necklace. So I swapped ‘KAPOW’ for a pretty little pink robot, which I showed off to everyone who crossed my path as I made my way to my desk at work. But when I got there, I found another package waiting for me. And it contained nothing less than an incredible little stormtrooper necklace! I couldn’t resist! The pink robot will get its chance some other day.

Where to find the little beauties:

Black acrylic bow necklace: Temporary Secretary
WTF? necklace: Retro Thrust
YAY! necklace: Cherryloco Jewellery
KAPOW necklace: Cherryloco Jewellery
Glossy pink robot necklace: Kawaii Boutique UK
Stormtrooper geek necklace: Cherry Trash

I’ve just had the BEST weekend!

I don’t feel up to writing a full length post to do it justice, so let me just say I feel so much better and I’m incredibly grateful for this weekend. I feel more relaxed and more able to process and deal with things.

And on that happy note, let me present ALL the photos I took on my road trip to York:

I charged the battery for my camera in happy anticipation. And then I took two whole pictures.

Never mind. Best trip ever anyway :-D

This post might be quite disjointed and muddled. I’m still trying to work out how to react. I don’t deal well with tragedy, even when it’s not my own.

One of my work mates had a really bad skiing accident yesterday morning. He’s had an operation, but last we’ve heard he still couldn’t feel his legs and nobody at the hospital was telling him anything.

He’s a really nice guy. And very sporty. I can’t imagine him paralysed from the waist down. Not that I could imagine anyone of my acquaintance paralysed, but particularly not him.

I’ve been praying like mad that he’ll be ok. And I’ve got my home group praying for him as well. (They’re wonderful, by the way.) But I feel uncomfortable telling people that and I’m not sure why. I kind of feel like people might think I was trying to make myself look good. That I was just doing it because it’s the ‘proper Christian’ thing to do. But seriously? I just couldn’t not pray like mad. It’s so horrifying, and so immediate!

Most of me is really close to crying. But the part of me that thinks tears are weak and I should stop crying at every little thing is currently winning out, leaving me with this horrible choking feeling in my throat. I wish I could just have a good cry and then feel sligtly better. But the no crying police is going This is nothing to do with you! Why should you cry about it you wuss?! And apparently I’m intimidated enough by that little voice in my head that I’m not crying.

I meant to go for a run today. But I couldn’t possibly. My legs feel like jelly.

And now I feel really bad about the fact that I’m focussing on myself and how to get on with my weekend feeling like this, when he’s stuck in a French hospital and can’t feel his legs.

Please let him be ok. :(

To the random person who just sent me a text saying ‘Whos this?’:

I’m afraid I don’t do April Fool’s. So whether you meant it to be a riddle where I work out who you are, or you’re pretending I contacted you first from a number you didn’t recognise (I didn’t!) I’m not going to answer your text.

Nevertheless, I would like to extend my gratitude to you for making today the first day this week on which I haven’t overslept :)

This evening I broke up with my counsellor. That’s what it felt like anyway. I was tempted to trot out the old It’s not you, it’s me line. But I didn’t.

Actually, when I tried to explain why I felt it wasn’t working out, I choked. It’s just … and I gave up. But she knows the basic reason why. We’ve talked about the fact that I was struggling with her not asking me any questions and pretty much just having me talk without any direction from her.

I’ve talked through my issues. I have. Over and over. With other people and also in my head (I NEVER stop talking. If my mouth is shut, there’s almost guaranteed to be a conversation going on inside my head). Yes, talking helps. But I’ve got as far as it seems I’m going to just with talking about things. And while it’s true that I’ve come a very long way, it’s nowhere near far enough.

That’s the whole reason I want counselling. I know what my issues are. I know where they come from. What I haven’t a clue about is how to deal with them. How to learn to interact normally with people.

How to deal with normal, everyday interactions without feeling like they’re this huge confrontation. Like the world will end if I say the wrong thing. How to not analyse every single word over and over before it comes out of my mouth, so that by the time I say something I’m aware of all the different ways it could be misunderstood and what the odds are for each one. More often than not I will automatically add a disclaimer for the most likely misunderstanding. I’m constantly terrified of causing offense.

Humour is my defense mechanism. I make fun of myself before anyone else can, so that people are laughing with me rather than at me. I also poke fun at everyone and everything else. Or at least, I poke fun at everyone once I’m comfortable enough with them and have calculated the odds of them being offended to be low.

Sometimes I miscalculate. And then it feels like it’s the end of the world. When it really isn’t.

My reaction (after OMG it’s the end of the world) is to tell myself to judge things better next time. Get it right!

But that’s not what I want. It’s never going to be possible to get everything right every single time. What I need to work on is dealing with having got things wrong. IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD!

Also, not needing the defense mechanism quite so desperately would be a good thing too.

Back to the break up with my counsellor. She’s a very nice girl. And in spite of the fact that it clearly wasn’t helping, I wouldn’t have managed to get up the courage to tell her I want a new counsellor (terrifying phone call if ever there was one!) if I hadn’t felt that she was actually managing to make things worse!

Last week, after we’d discussed the fact that I wanted her to ask me questions and follow up on things in the first two sessions, she had a stab at it. Honestly, I think I was one of her first clients. Poor girl.

But she picked up on the following three things:

• First, the fact that I laugh when I’m saying something that makes me feel uncomfortable. Yes, I’m perfectly aware that I use humour and laughter as a defense mechanism. I’ve known that for years. I’m not stupid you know. At the latest I’d have picked it up from watching Friends! I’m a regular Chandler Bing, except not male, not quite as funny and I only have two nipples.
  
  The problem is, that now I feel uncomfortable talking to the counsellor because every time I laugh or make a that-was-kind-of-a-joke face (if you know what I mean) I feel like she’s judging me. Like I’m weak to be hiding behind humour.

  I’m happy with my defense mechanism. I know about it, it’s not doing any harm and I currently really, really need it. So don’t mess with it until you’ve started fixing the rest of me!!!

• Secondly, she decided to pick up on the fact that I said The whole family always said my siblings and I were really sulky and I was the most sulky of the lot. I was going somewhere with it, namely to a story that illustrates that my sulking tendencies have improved dramatically.
  
  It must have really hurt to have your whole family criticise you like that. was my counsellor’s reaction. No, they were right. I was sulky. It was a coping mechanism. I had no other way of dealing with things. But it wasn’t a healthy or helpful way of dealing with things. I never considered them to be criticising me unfairly. But now that you’ve put it that way, NOW IT HURTS! So thank you for making me paranoid towards the whole lot of my family!
• And finally when I said I was never really bullied physically at school (just once or twice), but I was always made fun of and often excluded from groups, she picked up on the once or twice I was bullied physically and made me tell her about the one time I remember. I must have been a somewhere between 7 and 11 years old and one day when I was walking home from school, two boys from my class came up alongside me and pretended to be nice to me. Then one of them held me in place while the other one whipped the back of my knees with a thin branch.
  
  The counsellor was horrified. I agree, it wasn’t a nice thing to have happened. But when I said something to the effect of it only having been that one time, her answer was not helpful. Once is all it takes. ALL IT TAKES FOR WHAT?! WHAT?!!! But she just shrugged. And I’m still chewing on that question. What was she implying?!

So now I’m proud of myself for having faced up to my counsellor, even though I felt extremely guilty for dumping her like that. Guilt, by the way, is also one of the issues I would like to learn to deal with. I know it’s something a lot of girls struggle with, but I can and do feel guilty about the tiniest things.

Anyway, as I was saying, I’m very proud of myself for having scraped together the courage to tell my counsellor I want to see someone else. But I’m also feeling horribly apprehensive about the fact that I’m going to have to start all over again with another counsellor. And worried that this one won’t work out either and then I’ll have to try again. I don’t want to have to talk about it all over and over again. I’ve had enough of talking about it. Please can it just be fixed now?!

:-(

This afternoon I went slightly mad ordering summery shoes online.

In my defense, before this afternoon I didn’t have a single pair of pumps (soon I’ll have two *g*). And I fell in love with the wedges in Tk maxx earlier this week but they only had them in a size 7 which is extremely uncomfortable when you’ve got humongous size 8 feet like I have.

These are my beautiful new wedges:

They’re from Firetrap but I ordered them from Tk maxx because I couldn’t find them on the Firetrap website today. I’m sure they were there yesterday. But it was the same price, so never mind.

And here are my pumps*:

They’re from Next and I’ve ordered the black pointy pumps and the ‘raspberry orchid’, i.e. pink ones.

Of course I bought the pink ones. Do you not know me?! I confessed to some friends this evening (girly DVD nights are the best. Just saying.) and one of them’s immediate reaction was ‘I hope they weren’t all pink!’ :-D

My excuse for buying the pumps is that I have to show my appreciation to Next by buying their stuff. After all, they’re the only people currently willing to give me credit except for my aunt and uncle who let me buy their old car on credit. And sadly the car buying doesn’t show up in my credit report…

That reminds me: I paid off the car this month, so now I no longer have to feel slightly uncomfortable when talking about my car. It really is mine now! ALL MINE! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

*embarrassed face*

Not sure the car quite warrants an evil laugh.

But still. Yays! :)

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* no, I didn’t buy the whole collection (not quite), but I couldn’t get single pictures

I have to admit, I have no idea what the syn value is for this rice pudding (how do I work it out?) but since all the ingredients are free (except possibly the apple, because it’s kind of cooked. Oh yes, and of course the milk, but at least part of that could be a healthy extra A) on green and extra easy, it can’t be too bad…

Ingredients:
2.5 cups skimmed milk (part or all of this can be replaced with water, but it’s not the same without any milk)
1/3 cup pudding rice
1/4 cup splenda
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 apple, peeled or unpeeled, chopped into medium sized pieces (or whatever size you prefer)
pinch of salt

Instructions:
Put the rice, milk/water and salt in a sauce pan and bring it to the boil, then simmer on low heat for about 10-15 minutes.
Then add the apples, vanilla essence and splenda and mix well.
Simmer for another 10 minutes or until both the rice and the apple are done to your taste :)

Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and enjoy :-D

Zumba class is a bad place to get a sudden severe attack of shyness.

I don’t get panic attacks thank goodness, but I did manage to work myself up into quite a state before the class started. How embarrassing is this going to be?! I’m going to look like a complete moron!*

I can’t follow a dance routine to save my life. I need clear explanations and at least five extremely slow demonstrations of each individual step before they’re put together. And then I need to be able to practice them slowly another 5 plus times before even thinking of speeding up. Big diagrams on the walls would be good, too.

And even after all that, I’m guaranteed to get it wrong at least half the time.

As it happens, that makes Zumba the perfect dance class for me. The first rule of Zumba is “There is no such thing as a wrong move in Zumba. Anything different from what the instructor is doing is called flavour and flavour is GREAT!”

So after a few minutes of checking how bad everyone else looked, I let myself go and joined in. And it was fun. And hard work. And confusing and bizarre and it made me doubt my sense of rhythm which doesn’t happen very often**. But still fun.

I’d do it again if I could find a class at a convenient time and location. Tonight was a one-off at my gym to raise money for Comic Relief.

Here’s hoping enough people feed back that they want a regular zumba class*** for the gym to set it up :)

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* I did, but then so did almost everyone else, too :)
** only when I try to follow a dance instructor’s moves, in fact!
*** not me of course, I’d never be as organised and sensible as that