Bike (1) or Bloody Nora!

Bloody Nora that was good. Just got back from my daily bike ride. I have mentioned that I ride most days haven’t I? Good for the endorphins and stuff? Good. Well the last couple of days it’s been torture. Almost like a punishment and I’m already highly skilled at beating myself up. The weather has been grey and bitterly cold for the last couple of days so cycling has been less then enjoyable. I’ve even cut the ride short; down to 35 minutes instead of the 50-55 I usually do at this time of year. Being in the Deep Dark Pit™ hasn’t helped. In fact on Wednesday I went to bed at 7.30 in the evening. I didn’t wake up ‘til 7.30 the next morning. Oh! Glorious hibernation. To sleep, perchance to dream………Ahem! Sorry. Where was I?

Today I woke up feeling better. I seem to have scrambled out of the Deep Dark Pit™ in about two days. I think a combination of the weather and too much debauchery last weekend brought it on. Alright, maybe not your actual debauchery. More a few too many beers (The Hook Norton Double Stout on Saturday in the Volunteer was delicious, as was the Loddon Razzle Dazzle at Sunday lunchtime in the Shoulder of Mutton.), too much rich food and a couple of really late nights; 1am and 2am on Friday and Saturday respectively. I might learn one day.

So today I get on my bike as usual and head off down towards Letcombe Regis on my usual route. Living in Wantage means I’m out in the fields in just a couple of minutes. Today I have a tail wind. Out through Letcombe Regis and, on the drop down to the old cress beds in Letcombe Bassett, I disturb a Little Egret which flies off down the Letcombe brook. The Egrets are fairly new arrivals here. I saw them for the first time last winter and I’ve been cycling along this road for a few years now. Didn’t see any Kingfishers today though. I occasionally see the electric blue flash as one speeds away up the cress beds. Heading up the steep road to the Ridgeway was pretty good too with the tail wind nudging me onwards.

Coming back down was a tad less enjoyable. The current easterly wind has a rather bitter edge to it. An ice-cream headache ensued. Normally the run through the fields down towards Sparsholt is fast with the prevailing south-westerlies giving a helping hand. This morning it was a bit more of a battle. With my head down and legs pumping I didn’t see the Buzzard and Red Kite stood in the field to my left. It was only as I approached them that they took off and I caught them out of the corner of my eye. It’s not often you see Buzzards and Red Kites together but the pair of them rose up just by the side of me. I watched them circling around each other just above me looking fantastic in the low raking sunlight (that’s the Buzzard and the Red Kite looking fantastic. Not me.).

As they started to move away I carried on along the track through the fields and across the road down in to the slight holloway that leads to Sparsholt. The Red Kite suddenly appeared to my left at the top of the trees, disturbed its mate who dropped out of the trees right in front of me and flew off along the holloway causing a large flock of Fieldfares to erupt out of the trees at the same time. All this with the glorious and indeed joyous, sound of Ade Edmondson and The Bad Shepherds in my ears (at times I like to use my MP3 player whilst cycling). It was just fabulous to see and it put a huge grin on my face.

Right! Time for a shower (yes, I’m sat here still hot and sweaty from my ride, gently cooling down and getting chilly) and then lunch. I needed to gush about this whilst I still felt, err………gushy. Put it this way; it didn’t half lift the spirits after the last few days.

Wizard!!

Niggle

(Possibly Niggle 1 of several. Possibly not.)

So, as mentioned previously (see Whistle), I’ve just finished a years worth of psychotherapy sessions provided by th’NHS. All well and good, so you might think. Well….yes…………………………………and no.

Although the NHS provides Mental Health centres, therapists and counsellors (good), they only provide them for a finite time (not good). I’ll explain.

I self-referred to th’NHS to try to help with my ongoing status as loony and Major Grump™. (I’m quite good at hiding the Major a.k.a Marvin. This usually manifests itself as being humourous, witty and the life and soul of the party, albeit with a slightly manic edge and getting loud after a couple of pints). I was offered, and accepted, a years worth of psychotherapy. And hereby lies the rub. That year is set in stone. Just as I was beginning to make progress like never before the one year cut off date reared its ugly head. Now, I’d spent the first 8 months in ‘denial’ (psychobabble, I know but wotcha gonna do about it, eh?) over this huge lurking monster; this whirl of emotion, fear, insecurity and vulnerability deep inside. I was just reaching a point where, metaphorically, I could approach this monster and gently prod it. It was incredibly painful to do. That’s why it took about 8 months before I plucked up the courage to do so. And then one year is up and ……………………………………………nothing.

What it means is that I’ve re-buried the monster. It could re-surface at any time. And the NHS was actually very helpful during that year. I got on really well with my therapist and between us we had formed a ‘safe’ place in which I could, gently, open the lid of the box and prod the monster inside. I just needed more than a year. And, by writing this, I can feel myself, for the first time since late autumn, standing next to that box, and I can feel that monster close by.

Where next?

Light

Light impacts us in many ways, and impacts some more than others. I’m one of those for whom light has had both beneficial and deleterious effects. To put it bluntly, during the winter, I’m a S.A.D. bastard (that’s Seasonal Affective Disorder for them as don’t know).

Here’s another repeating pattern. Jan/Feb/March. Bleeeuuurgghh!!

It happens every year. I want to hibernate. I’m fine(ish) through late spring, summer and, on the whole, autumn. Then comes Christmas and New Year followed, with an annual inevitability, by January. It’s about this time that things tend to fall apart. Short days. Dull (sometimes just bloody dark) days with little or no light, let alone sunshine. Cold, wet and windy. Pleasant, mmm? On such days, and especially when there’s a long run of them, my mood drops like a stone. I get anxious, irritable, short tempered and my (fragile) self confidence all but disappears. I wish for nothing more than a warm bed and a long sleep. I can become very misanthropic. I don’t want to see or talk to anyone. It makes life quite difficult for me, my wife and my work colleagues. I have a few strategies for dealing with the worst of these effects.

1 – Exercise.

I get out on my bike as often as possible and ride for about an hour, generally up to the Ridgeway. The climb up is a great cardio-vascular workout. Sometimes I have to force myself. Occasionally the route is cut short if I feel especially narky and grumpy. But I generally make the effort and it’s usually worth it. It’s something to do with endorphins. You may have heard of them. They make you feel better…… h’apparently™ (Myk Ripley).

2 – Light Therapy.

Expensive initially but bloody worth it in the long run. I have a light visor. It looks like one of those visors that golfers wear to shade their eyes. This one differs in that it has bright LED lights in the visor and a battery pack. Set the intensity and duration and away you go, looking like a plonker but at least there’s the ability to move about and get on with stuff.

There’s also a light box. That’s set up at work. The warehouse is my domain in the small company I work for. My colleagues let me think that I’m the Warehouse Manager but I’m really a gofer. Above my packing bench I have a box that radiates large amounts of bright white light. It doesn’t half make that corner of the warehouse welcoming. So there’s oodles of light whilst cans of paint get taped in to boxes ready for distribution.

3- Drugs

Fluoxetine……..(better known as Prozac). It’s an attempt to keep the Deep Dark Pit™ at bay. It generally helps.

4- Booze

As in ‘not-too-much-booze’. As much as that warm, fuzzy glow that a good ale imparts is enticing, beer is, sadly, a depressant. I’ve learnt that it’s best to reduce my intake during the winter. I won’t give up completely. Once you do that it can become an obsessive craving which, if anything, can be as bad as the depression. (More on booze another time)

5 – Whistle

Current obsessive activity. See also Scuba, Booze, Books, Cycling, ‘Togging, Writing, Morris, Tunes.*

Actually it’s good to have something to keep occupied with. It helps stop the brooding and inevitable slide in to the Deep Dark Pit™

6- Holiday

Not a good idea. Well, not a ‘Winter Sun’ holiday anyway. Sounds like a great idea doesn’t it? Spend a few quid on a cheap package deal to LanzaGrotty, get topped up with sunshine and Vit. D for a week. Been there. Done that. Not pleasant. Don’t get me wrong. The week away is fine. Warm, sunny…..and that’s just me, never mind the weather. But, and it’s actually a big but, the return is a rather more bumpy affair. Plummet would actually be a better description. It feels like the lights have been switched off, and rather than the gradual slide in to winter that autumn provides, I get slammed in to the Deep Dark Pit™ and left there for dead, only to crawl out battered and bruised as spring errr….. springs.

It ain’t all doom and gloom though. What about those fantastic days when it’s crisp, bright, sunny, even freezing, especially after snow. The light bouncing around is fantastic. The low slanting light and the warm pink glow of the sun in the morning and evening make for some beautiful scenes. These are great days to be out. It makes being on the bike an absolute joy and with hoar frost rimy on the trees, a photographers dream.

That’s when the light is beneficial.

*Coming to a screen near you soon.

Whistle

This may be therapy. I’m sure it’s therapy. It’s a continuation of my recently terminated psychotherapy sessions, except now it’s just me, a keyboard and whoever deigns to read this blog. I’m trying to get my mind in some sort of order. I’m looking for patterns. Repeating behaviour. I’m pretty sure I know some of them. Maybe there’s more. Maybe not.

I’m trying to deal with this huge lurking monster; a whirl of emotion, fear, insecurity and vulnerability deep inside. It’s been there ages. I need to know more. Then I may be able to cope with it, deal with it somehow.

Anyhoo.

I took up whistling just over a year ago. That’s not quite true. I first picked up a whistle in my mid teens. I’m talking penny whistle here. Not the Acme Thunderer heard on playing fields up and down the country at the weekend.

I suppose it actually goes back a bit further. In the mid 70s, as a young kid, I knew there had to be more to music than Donny Osmond and The Bay City Rollers. I discovered John Peel and a whole new world opened up. I discovered Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull amongst others. It was Tull that really put me on the path towards folk. That mixture of electric and acoustic guitar, flutes and assorted other acoustic instruments.

As most young lads do I bought a cheap guitar, and played it exceedingly badly. I used to go to UMIST on a Saturday night to their Rock Disco. During the week I’d go to Mossley Folk Club near Ashton-Under-Lyne. I bought a penny whistle; a cheap Generation C, and a book on how to play it. I played it very badly. Nowadays, with the internet and YouTube etc it’s dead easy to find music, both the dots and recordings from which to learn. Then, getting hold of music was rather harder and rather more expensive than nowadays. My interest foundered as Agricultural College, work and then life in general, got in the way.

Two years ago, having passed through various phases of other hobbies and pastimes, I picked up a guitar once more. Instead of a big powerful motorbike, my middle age crisis was to play a bit of music or maybe I wanted to be a ‘Rock God’ ™. I bought a cheap guitar and played it badly, but I improved a bit. I bought a better (though still quite cheap) guitar. I improved a bit more. At least I could play a few chords reasonably well this time. I started at the local folk sessions. They were and are, a very forgiving bunch. Thanks for putting up with me. I still couldn’t get the hang of finger-picking and (wanting to be the centre of attention, yet not wanting to draw attention to myself – something I may return to in the future) I wanted to play the melody. I dug out my collection of old and battered whistles. I don’t know why I still had them but I’d kept them and they had moved from house to house over the intervening years. All of a sudden things started to work. I could actually learn the melody reasonably quickly. More to the point I wanted to. I enjoyed, and still enjoy, and hopefully will enjoy for a long time, the challenge of new tunes. And there’s thousands to learn.

Fortunately whistles are a relatively cheap drug musically. A cheap one can be a couple of quid. Between £15 and £50 there’s a huge range of very playable, good sounding whistles.  I could indulge myself in WhOA Disorder (Whistle Obsessive Acquisition) however I now have a Colin Goldie high D. At over £150 it’s quite a lot for a ‘penny’ whistle but bugger me it’s good. I don’t need another one for a while, except maybe a £220 Low D.

The point of all this? I still strum the guitar a bit but I play the whistle obsessively (just ask the poor unfortunate neighbours). I will continue to do so for as long as the urge continues. Unlike photography (another story for another time) I don’t want to try and make money from doing it. That way lies madness, financial ruin and turning something rather pleasurable and a joy in to a chore and a drudge. Maybe in time I will lose interest in playing music and move on to something else. That may be in a year. It could be four or five. I’ll not tempt fate and just let it happen.

Oh! And tonight I’m picking up a melodeon. The neighbours haven’t heard nothing yet.

Hmmmmmm........

....I wonder if most open mic nights are like that? I'll get more of an idea on Saturday. Mind you, I'm not sure that a sample of two is particularly  representative.
The one last night consisted mainly of lads with guitars, some of whom could play very well. Sadly the vocals were generally a little less accomplished.
Still, at least they had the balls to get up there and have a go. I may have a go myself one day but for the moment I'll stick to hiding amongst other musicians in the local folk sessions. :-)

In other news, my decision to cut down on the beer seems to be working. Combined with getting out on my bike as often as possible I've lost 2kg (about 4 1/2 lbs in old money) since Christmas. The bouncing around on Wednesdays at Morris pracrtice can't hurt either. At least the  belt overhang is now a little less overhangy.

And finally, the cat thinks it's tea time. Sadly for him he has to wait another 2 1/2 hours. He'll think his throat will have been cut by then.

Plenty to look forward to this week

Tonight it's an open mic night at the Fred's 'ead (King Alfred's Head, Wantage) so I'm going along to have a shufftie and see what it's all about. Not been to one before.

Wednesday is knuckle smash and skipping practice with the Icknield Way Morris Men. One or two things seemed to come together last week so I must be making progress. It's bloody hard work though. Very good as a CV (cardio-vascular) workout. It makes the calves hurt a bit until you're used to it too. I'm also borrowing the sides spare melodeon which was bequeathed to the club. I'm going to see if I get on with it like I have the whistle. I quite like the idea of being able to play as well as dance with the side (but not at the same time, obviously)

Friday night is the monthly session night down at the Abby Arms (Abingdon Arms, Wantage). Usually a fantastic night of music and beer. I'll be taking my new whistle (A Colin Goldie high D - bloody expensive but excellent sound and lovely to play) that I got for Christmas and maybe my guitar, although I'm very out of practice now.

Saturday is another open mic night, this time at The Volly (The Volunteer, Grove - opposite Williams F1). I didn't know they even did open mic nights until earlier today but I know a couple who will be playing there so I thought I'd pop along and have a listen.

A Couple of Decisions

1, Go headlong in to Morris Dancing.

After seeing the way the Scots of all ages totally embrace their Celtic culture at the Loopallu Festival in September I've decided to embrace the English folk culture.
a)' cos it's good fun
b) 'cos it's a bit bonkers
c) 'cos it's a damn good workout
Hankies Ahoy!!


2, Sort out my damn drinking.

I drink too much and have finally admitted to myself that I have a (small) drinking problem. I like real ale too much and consume too much at one time. So -
From now on I'm only drinking cask ale. If I'm somewhere where there isn't a choice of cask ale, I will drink a soft drink rather than drink horrible fizzy keg crap or bottled beer.
I'm going to stop keeping bottled beer in the house. Although not bad, a bottled beer is never as good as a well kept pint of cask ale so what's the point of drinking it for the sake of having a drink?
I will limit myself to three pints in one session so I can still play my whistle at the end of the evening.
I'm only going to drink on a Friday night at the local folk sessions  with these exceptions
- After a Sunday walk with a pub lunch (very rare)
- After Morris practice on a Wednesday (Max 2 pints and possibly alternative weeks only)
- The occasional weekend when we have more than one social engagement.
- When on holiday.

This should hopefully help some of my mental problems as well.