Feeling Gloomy

 As ever my mood goes up and down, and down and up and up and down.

I'm feeling pretty gloomy at the moment, normally at this time of year I'm all excited about Christmas and other stuff.

Son has gone back into school today with ankle, so at least that's almost mended. I surreptitiously watched him go down drive to minibus (hiding behind a curtain), to make sure he made it ok. I even got up early and got dressed, just in case.

Saturday morning was a lovely walk, the sun was still low as the days grow shorter, though it was still warm (jumper on, but no coat). Down on the beach the wild swimmers had gathered - I wonder if they'll continue that into the winter. They are quite a new group to see down there. About 20 ladies, it seems quite the community. There were a couple still in the water, but most were on the beach in their dry coats hugging cups of coffee and chatting. 

There are a number of reasons I'm feeling low at the moment. Essentially I've now been sick for three weeks. Ever since we got back from Italy. First stomach cramps, then headache and temperature, then a few days of feeling better, then a small cough, then a few days of feeling better, then last week I had loads of symptoms of COVID, terrible cough, temperature, then after that temperature and sore throat, lost voice, then again I got the stomach cramps.

I don't know whether this is something to worry about or not, but it's making me feel low. I've done a million COVID tests and they are all coming back blank.

This morning the stomach cramps are still their mildly. I've started to diarise what's happening in case I need to go to doctors. I'll give it another month and see if things settle.

Following on from my knee situation, I've been told I have arthritis in my left knee and have been referred. I was waiting for this referral to discuss a knee operation. I know I'll never get it on the NHS - well not for about 10 years, but actually I could have it done privately on husbands health insurance. Then I got a text to say that I was on a waiting list to even have a conversation about my knee.

Basically I'm going to wait until I feel less shitty and then see if I can speed things up.

This winter we're looking at a huge increase in the cost of electricity and gas. We're doing what we can to cut costs already, as I know much of the country are. Being a bit more choosy on the weekly shop. 

Our cleaner is still sick and whilst this adds to workload it at least means we're saving £30 a week on that - at the moment. Though I didn't clean last week because I felt too rubbish.

Brilliant husband did hoover and empty bins so at first glance you don't spot that the loos are looking a bit rubbish and there is dust all over the place. Still I can live with that for a week.

The war in the Ukraine is also really worrying me. They've started talking about nuclear. I've been stressed we'd get to this point all year. I remember back to when I was 12 and there was always talk about nuclear and this should calm me. But I remember having a conversation with son in January 2020, telling him not to stress out about the COVID stories because they were always trying to scare us that the next big Spanish Flu thing was coming.

Essentially having panicked about Swine Flu, Mad Cow disease, HIV, SARS etc. etc. I'd just got to a frame of mind where I had enough history to know it would be ok.... and then it wasn't.

There are also threats about rolling power cuts this winter. I'm actually not that bothered personally about that. We can cope. But I worry about hospitals and old peoples homes and places like that and how they will cope. I've decided that I can't come up with a reasonable argument for us to have Christmas lights this year. It feels too fascicle - if there's the chance that it's a drain on the power. I've chatted this through with son and he was really cool about it.

I am so sick and tired of always being scared - the conspiracy theorists are saying this is about keeping the population in their place by keeping them scared. I'm beginning to think that this may be true. But it doesn't make me angry it makes me want to stop..... 

So it's actually really bad right now, I have a huge reason to keep going and that's for my husband and son and for them I really will. But if there are people out there doing this on purpose. Please just f***ing stop it. I've had enough and I'm sick of carrying on like things are normal and OK.