Tuesday, February 16

Witness the decline!

I'm losing followers like the Church of England is losing worshippers. Look!

Wednesday, February 10

Occupational Hell-th

I'm currently the subject of an occupational health assessment. They're supposed to be supportive means of getting you fit for work, but I don't feel at all supported, just terrified.

I had a couple of weeks off last year for flu, and was doing really well, but then, well, you know... the stuff with Mum started happening. I haven't gone back to work since Mum's death on Jan 2nd.

I keep having flashbacks to my mother's illness. I find anything beyond pottering extremely stressful. Some days I can barely get out of bed, and neglect myself completely. Appointments scare the living daylights out of me, as I feel pressurised into keeping them. I know that this is depression bought on by my mother's death, I have suffered depression since I was 16, and have learned to live with it. I was doing SO well until all of this. I had a catch up session with a psychiatrist over the summer and he told me that I was doing 'very well' and was 'fully functioning'.

Last week my boss sent me an occupational health consent form to sign citing 'ongoing illness' and 'sick leave beyond what is normal' (or words to that effect). I signed it to agree to the assessment and sent it back. That's where I'm at right now.

My GP and I were going to try to get me back to work after half term, but this has thrown me into confusion. I have so many questions but these are the main ones:

  • Should I hold out for the OH assessment and follow their guidance, or go back to school and try to muddle though?
  • If the OH advises phased return (which is what I'm hoping for) are my school required to act upon their advice, or can they still drop me in at the deep end?
  • If I take the OH's guidance can it lead to dismissal on the grounds of capability?

I don't want to lose my job. I love my job. I just can't do it right now.

I want to go back to work and try to have a 'normal' life again, but I'm scared that I won't be able to do it. Can occupational health help me with that? I don't know. I just want someone to help me a little bit, because I feel like I'm drowning right now.

Sunday, February 7

**Not about being miserable**

It is a truth, locally acknowledged that I am rather a dab hand in the kitchen. If I had my way I'd bake and roast food all day, but then I wouldn't earn any money. I often borrow recipes from Gordon or Nigella, but very occasionally I compose my own, based on something I have tried and never found the recipe for. The recipe I am sharing with you in this post doesn't exist anywhere else online. I should know, I've searched for it often enough!

So there's a woman at the Alexandra Palace farmer's market that makes the most amazing fridge cake I have ever tasted. She calls it 'white chocolate slab cake' but, to the cake connoisseur, that is a very different thing indeed (an American brownie type cake, baked in a tray). See, she is not as good a baker as I, she hasn't done her homework. Despite her inability to correctly name her creations, I dream about this woman's fridge cake, and I actually drool. I needed the recipe. I had to have it. Obviously Ally Pally lady hasn't shared her recipe with me, it's the only thing that keeps me going to her stall, so I have devised my own (slightly better) recipe, and have rendered her useless! Hooray for ingenuity! Enjoy!

Gemma's White Chocolate Fridge Cake

300g good quality white chocolate, broken into pieces
175g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
4 tbsp golden syrup
150g digestive biscuits
150g dried apricots, cut into pieces
100g sultanas
50g mixed fruit peel

1. Line a 23cm square or 22 x 25cm tray with clingfilm or baking parchment. Place the white chocolate in a large heatproof bowl with the butter and syrup and allow to melt over a pan of barely simmering water for about 6-7 minutes, taking care not to let the bowl touch the water.

2. Meanwhile, break the biscuits into small pieces with a rolling pin. Stir all the remaining ingredients into the melted chocolate mixture until evenly coated. Pour into the prepared tray and level with the back of a spoon.

3. Chill in the fridge for 3-4 hours, or overnight. Cut into 16 squares using a large sharp knife dipped into hot water. The pieces will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days.

Friday, February 5

Slightly better news...

The hits for this blog have tripled recently. I can only thank you, and all of my Twitter friends who follow my boring antics.

Bad Day

I have had what can only be termed as a Bad Day today. Grumbling tum led to broken sleep, which led to lethargy and tears, which led to me not being able to get on a train and go back to London. And now I feel guilty about all of the above, which makes things worse.

Dad's been very sweet, and now the child in me wants to stay here forever and let him bring me cups of tea in bed and tissues. I know I can't. I know it's dumb. But right now it's what I want to do more than anything else.

Wednesday, February 3

Wherever I lay my hat...

I've been thinking about the word 'home' a lot lately. Where is Home? Can you have more than one? My sister calls Norfolk 'Home'. Mum was 'Home', now she's gone does that make me homeless? I call my flat in London 'Home' but also tell people that I am going 'Home' to Norfolk whenever I go to visit my Dad and my brother. So where is it? Have I found it yet? How will I know when I'm there?

When I was younger I'd get very anxious about leaving home, even if it was to go on holiday. My parents would have to go through the accommodation arrangements with me in significant detail in order to prepare me for the change in surroundings. I didn't attend a sleepover until I was about fifteen because I'd freak out at the thought of not returning home at the end of the day. Home was special, it was a three bedroom house in the suburbs of King's Lynn, but it was special. I lived here for thirteen years from the age of five to eighteen. When my brother was born I would press my ear to his bedroom door to listen to him breathing. It was there that I sat on the stairs late at night and heard (through the door) that my beloved Grandad had died. I sobbed there for hours and fell asleep slumped against the bannister. I dyed my hair blue here when I was fourteen. I kicked a small dent in my sister's bedroom door when she ran upstairs telling me she was 'going to eat all of the Nutella'. When I was sixteen I slashed my forearms in the bathroom, trying to emulate my hero of the time Richey Edwards (yes, I was a dick). I buried my guinea pigs in the back garden, I made foul-smelling 'perfume' from Mum's rose bushes in the summer. Then I went to uni, and never came 'Home' again.

However, I look back over all the places I have lived, and try to remember where I have felt most 'at home' in my life, and the answer always surprises me, because it is always Norwich. This house, to be precise:





















This is Cardiff Road, in Norwich, part of a little student enclave in the city affectionately referred to by students and estate agents alike as the 'Golden Triangle'. All houses in the area look exactly like this one, so it's hardly distinguished by its features, but by the memories I have attached to it. This house is where I learned to cook a roast dinner from scratch for the first time. It's where I first became familiar with the term 'emergency plumber'. It's where I sat up most nights until 3 or 4 in the morning with my closest friends, smoking Marlboro Lights, drinking tea and plotting world domination (which, of course, never took place). I spent a month on the sofa in the living room here recovering from shingles by eating family sized bars of chocolate and chain-smoking. I naively said 'I love you' to a boy for the first time in my little bedroom at the back of the house. Once I drunkenly dragged a damp sandbag back here at 4am and named it 'Sammy', the effort left my arms aching for days. It's hard to believe that I lived here for just two years, but the rooms and corridors are imprinted in my memory more vividly than any place I have lived before or since. We were all of us amateurs at living independently, growing up, laughing (so much laughing) and making mistakes together. I never felt alone when I lived in this house.

I made a few mistakes; the biggest was moving in with my boyfriend of the time into a shared residence the Daily Mail would call a 'Drug Den Hell'. I had a boring job as a civil servant at the time, I'd leave for work as they all turned in for the night. They grew mushrooms in the cupboard under the stairs and smoked weed constantly. One housemate stole the laces out of my trainers while I was asleep one night, when questioned about it the next morning he replied 'Yeah, er, I needed some, so I took yours'. As you do. My room became my refuge but I was never 'at home' in this place. I was bored, depressed and isolated - my uni friends had all moved away by this point. Despite the fact that his girlfriend nearly losing her mind, my boyfriend refused to leave his mates, grow up and move in with me. So I moved out. And dumped him.

Back to Norfolk then, but by now my folks had moved out of the Home that I grew up in in King's Lynn and into a luxury (well, it has an en suite!!) detached residence in the MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE. I had a few years here while I got my head together. It was good. I went shopping at weekends with my Mum and took my Dad out for curries on a Thursday. I played video games with my brother. I made friends with local people. I saw a psychiatrist and got treatment for my depression. I learned to drive and worked in a college for a reasonable wage. It was nearly home. But my God I was bored, bored as hell. Luckily, one weekend visiting my mate in London, I met James...

When I first moved to London and lived in a tiny studio flat with James I'd pine for home - Norfolk home - every night through tears of anxiety and self-pity. I'd long for the endless fields and deafening silence of the Fens. I missed darkness, which doesn't seem to exist inside the M25. I'd drive through Tottenham on my way to work dodging children and cats, instead of rabbits and pheasants. James would take me for dinner in the West End and I'd secretly wish I was back at the carvery at the King of Hearts in my parents' village, eating ham and roast potatoes. It got easier. In time I laughed at mentals on the bus instead of being scared of them. I completed my PGCE and became a qualified teacher. We moved to a bigger, better flat, in a nicer part of Crouch End. We got a cat.

This is home now:





















Well, to be specific, the top floor. It is my current London home to which I beat a hasty retreat when I am depressed or anxious. It is where I am loved. It is where I am warm. It is the place I look forward to being at the end of the day. I chose the furniture, and the contents, and the company. I love every single thing in this flat (except the tiny kitchen, which I am prepared to overlook). Sometimes I sit at the window and watch the world go by, it never gets boring. I wave to my neighbours and water their plants while they are away. I feel 'at home' here. I am on first name terms with my local grocer and newsagent. I buy my produce locally and recycle my rubbish.

But I miss the Fens. I wait for them to enclose me when I get the train up at weekends and the endless emptiness always takes my breath away. I watch the stars come out in the back garden at night and sleep soundly in my old bedroom, to the symphony of my father's snoring. Other weekends I stay in London, go up to Alexandra Palace and mooch around the farmers market where, in a nod to Norfolk patriotism, I buy produce at inflated prices that is created not half a mile away from my Dad's house. I tell my boyfriend it's because 'it comes from home'. He says 'but you are home'. I don't argue. He's not wrong. It's just that he's only half right.

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