Well that was a quick COVID round 2 but it knocked the stuffing out of me.

I say this writing on the couch with my feet up, exhausted and yet planning to go back to work tomorrow… how much of that is caused by having done nothing all weekend?

It’s that limbo between feeling better but not sure if you are better enough… only one way to find out. I’m hoping that work helps me wake back up again.

To be fair, I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t think I could. There’s some spark of positivity there!

The guidelines are such that implies I stay home another day but I’m negative and everyone else is running about out there not testing anymore so I don’t suppose I’m causing any issue. 🙈🙊🤣

The magazines honestly have been a godsend. I’ve done more crosswords today… badly as Craig’s been at work! I’ve slowly started to climb the walls so that’s how I know I’m ready….

Strangely my negative resulted coincided with Craig needing picked up from the garage. That was a complete fluke but of course I drove to pick him up. Everything moves past you pretty fast when you’ve moved at a snails pace since Thursday!

So I have nothing else to report today. Found loads of things to share so will get on with that!

So I do want to talk a bit about the next one….

This next photo of me was taken less than 3 months before I fell apart…..

This was the side of me I chose to share with everyone yet inside I was a terrified mess. I was falling apart at the seams and I couldn’t keep it together.

It was the thinnest I’d been in a while, I loved me a Rosé wine, loved people to see me in the sun enjoying my vino. Needed the wine to take the stress out of the day job, out of the life I’d created by putting everyone before myself. I was starting to drop all the juggling balls one by one.

And this is the me I share today….

Tested negative less than an hour ago outside the front door, still in the same jammie bottoms as yesterday. 🙈 ok funny weird grin but if you had to pick you’d say the top photo was the happy one. That’s the fake smile, hide everything smile and I wore that like a badge for most of my life.

Now I wear my heart on my sleeve and share it all. Even the dirty hair 🙈

Amen.

Stay safe everyone 🌻🌻🌻

Oh man… be prepared for a self centred whinge this morning. Actually I’m writing this more for me so that I can make sense of how I feel and stop beating myself up for it… 🙈😬

First of all I want to say a huge thank you to another village angel… Michelle… 😇 there was a chap at the door last night…. (That’s no a man… it’s a knock!)

My idea of heaven when you’re sick! I burst into tears and Craig had two bowls out faster than I could take them out the bag. I allowed him some Monster Munch. 😆

I’m just putting this out there but today would be so much better with £1M deposited in my bank account. (Sits back and waits for it to happen?!?) 🤷🏻‍♀️😆🤣

No seriously, so very kind, that meant so much to me. I’ve saved the Buttons for my treat today. Maoam already gone. 🙊

I think the cold is a bit better today. The fizzy nose still going strong and the sneezes, when they come, are quite spectacular. It’s the level of dizziness and exhaustion that are the worst and sore aching muscles.

Crazy to think that this time last week I was wallowing in Tough Mudder mud rather than self pity.

It’s a lovely day today and in my head I’ve already “wasted” a day of my weekend. Craig’s out all day working and there’s so many things I feel I “should” be doing.

It’s that word again…. “should”…. I don’t have to do any of it. I managed to put a washing in and then came back for a lie down. I exhausted but can’t sleep. I don’t have the energy to read or watch a movie and I keep scrolling through FB which is not helping me at all so I thought I’d ramble in my sloth like state. (Jeez even I cringed at that one!) The crochet hook feels too heavy…. Yeah get over yourself girl…

I’ve mentioned recently that I have long since stopped comparing myself to others. I don’t try to keep up with anyone any more and just do my own thing. Yet I feel like life is passing me by… so in reality I still am comparing myself (yeah ok Craig, you can pay yourself on the back as you keep telling me that 🤣)

I think the pandemic allowed me to recover while everyone else stayed home and did similar things. Now the world has opened back up, I see people doing things I don’t want to do and yet I still feel envious. (Fizzy nose sneeze!)

I want to be out and about and seeing the world and it seems everyone else in the whole wide world is. ❌ no they’re not… it’s just FB shows you that.

Everywhere else has blue skies and scorching sunshine ❌ again just what you’re seeing on FB.

Everyone seems to have loads of money to enjoy themselves. ❌ nope.. everyone is feeling the pinch just now.… just not posting it on FB…. o

OH MY GOD STOP LOOKING AT BLOODY FACEBOOK!!!!

Hits nail on the head one more time.

There’s a real sense of calmness comes over me when I get to the bottom of why I feel bad. I’ve been sitting here in tears this morning feeling sorry for myself… ooh there she goes again. 🥹

How would you talk to anyone else? Anyone catches covid and you tell them to rest, relax, listen to your body (NOT YOUR MIND!)

So I’ve spent the day snoozing and reading. At 2.30pm I decided I would try a bath and actually that’s helped a good bit once I got over the “one minute it’s scalding hot, next minute it’s freezing” bath fill. 🙈

I got it right in the end but the water was almost up to the top. It was actually the perfect bath although a crane would have helped to get me back out.

I’ve got fresh jammies on and I’ve put a seat outside in the fresh air to clear the cobwebs.

I’ve just been to the door for a delivery and found another secret stash!!!

Didn’t hear anyone and not 100% certain who it’s from….. exactly what I needed as I just finished that book. I am so very lucky to have such caring neighbours. I must pay all of this forward.

I was about to write, day 2 down…. but it is only 3.30pm… 🙈😁 gonna make a coffee and read a mag and marvel at some blue sky for a change.

When I can get out of my own head there is so much to be grateful for even when you’re not well.

Stay safe everyone ♥️♥️♥️

Between you and I…. I’ve been a bit worried about my low mood these last few days. From bouncing all weekend after Tough Mudder to deeply lethargic these last few days. I was worried I was having a bit of a slump.

I started sneezing on Wednesday but assumed it was hay fever and yesterday I hugged the tub of Vicks VapoRub at my desk.

Last night I felt exhausted… really wiped out. I wanted to walk the dogs after work but just felt I didn’t have the energy. I felt tearful that I’d come off such a high and splatted back down to earth….

This morning I suspected more….

15 weeks and 5 days since COVID #1…. But honestly, it’s almost a relief as I know why I feel so rotten.

It makes me laugh that it says… it’s likely you were infectious when the test was done.

😳

No shit, Sherlock. 🤭🤣

I said to Craig that I was almost glad as I’d been worried about “ma mood”….. he quips back with “is that your Asian friend?”…. It might get lost in the writing but it was really funny at the time!

So how do I feel? What was the giveaway this time? I am honestly wiped out, I feel like a lead brick. My head is sore, I’m really dizzy, my nose is fizzy and I feel like I need to sneeze all of the time, my right nostril is totally blocked and my throat feels funny but not sore. I’m so glad that I can allow myself to rest now. I’d have felt so guilty lounging the day away… but I have no energy for anything else.

I’m through in Gran’s chair just so relieved that I’m still in control of my mental health. Anxiety does that to you…. What if you’re heading back into depression, how would you manage, why can’t you cope, why can’t you just be “normal”…. I need to remember that this is just life. There is nothing I feel now that everyone else feels on a daily basis. We are just human and some days are better than others.

I’ve not moved much all day, went to bed this afternoon for a few hours.

We got lunch in from the pub next door about 3pm so my appetite is ok and taste buds are still working!

How lovely that Holly suggested sending in her weekend special of chicken and bacon Club sandwich. It tasted soooo good. It’s actually all I’ve eaten today but I don’t think I’ll need anything else.

Except Cadbury’s Chocolate Buttons… they would be nice… oh but wait… we don’t have any of them. Or some Maoam chews…. Or crisps or peanuts…. Nope none of them either. 🙈🤣

At least the lack of it will save me feeding my Covid. Silver lining and all that.

Well hope you all have a great weekend, I’ll mostly be here. Just chillin’ 😆

And getting looked after by the puppers.

Stay safe everyone ♥️♥️♥️

Dunno where the weather has gone… it was meant to be 18C today and it just never happened here. My hopes for a lovely hot weekend are fading fast. 🩴🏝

I’m zonked tonight…. To be fair I’ve been awake since 4.30am…. I sneezed all day yesterday and when I woke at 4.30am and couldn’t breathe…. Then when I rolled over my nose ran so much I thought it was bleeding… it wasn’t but it ran for ages. Too much information?!

So all that moaning aside, I’ve been great at work, felt fine and boss man got cakes as they closed a great deal today so I was loving life on a sugar high! Got loads done.

I’ve come home and wallop…. Nose blocked, soooo lethargic and no energy to even finish a…..

😆🤣 I made myself laugh there…… sentence… obviously…. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

I had to pop out for my nail appointment at 6pm. My toes are a lovely shade of salmon. Ooh check me!

A quick mention about Boris Johnson’s resignation today.

I listened to his live announcement at 12.30pm.… nothing particularly spectacular about his speech but good to be moving forward without a total loon tune in charge of our country. 😬

(Obviously other policies opinions are available. 🤔😁)

So I’m hoping for some sunshine this weekend and hoping I will allow myself to rest if I need to.

Right now I have no option. I’m like a lead weight tied to the couch. 😆

Stay safe everyone ♥️♥️♥️

Well I didn’t sleep well, I tossed and turned like a mad wummin but I am still buzzing today.

I honestly can’t believe I did that yesterday. I completed Tough Mudder Scotland 2022…. And I didn’t hate it and didn’t feel out my depth. I wasn’t even that scared, I was just calm and in control.

Everything went right for me. Despite being anxious about what to wear, my chosen wardrobe didn’t let me down. I wasn’t too hot or too cold, I didn’t get blisters, my trainers didn’t fall off in the mud…. All the things that worried me in advance. It all worked perfectly.

We live next door to the Gateside Inn which is an old coaching station from back in the day and is affectionately known as the GSI.

There were 9 of us in our GSI Warriors team, the 8 others (including Craig) did it all last year (with one other guy who had to pull out at the last moment) and I thought they were crazy. I couldn’t imagine anything worse. It sounded terrifying.

I have to remember that I used to listen to Craig’s stories of the Fit Body Farm and roll my eyes in disgust thinking how awful that it sounded.

And here I am…. If I can do this, anyone can.

I’m sure the face paint resembled a kids face painted tiger rather than camouflage but hey….. we got a minibus down to Drumlanrig Castle where Tough Mudder is staged.

(Should say here the minibus was £40 a head which seems a lot of money but actually it’s from your door and he waited for us and with the cost of fuel these days, it’s probably not that bad…🤔🥺)

We are 1.5 hours away from Drumlanrig.

To be fair…. There’s not really any time to appreciate the surroundings but given that we ran 17.5km around it yesterday it’s safe to say it’s a stunning and huge estate and well worth a visit!

So back to the actual event itself. We got there around 8am and we were booked to set off between 9-9.45am so we had a fair bit of time to drop our bags and queue up at the start line…. Of course time for plenty more photos…. 🤣

Now from this point on there aren’t many photos as we have to leave our phones in our bags. We had two go-pros with us so there are a few and the official ones will be out this week.

This is the route. Of course we did the 15k… which ended up 17.5K…. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

Even looking back at this now I don’t remember what half of the obstacles were. All we noticed in advance was the run between obstacles 5 and 6 and 17 to 18…. I wondered if there was a bus to drop us off?!? 🚍

So up until this point it’s muddy but we are not covered in mud. Every track is pretty muddy so you have to be careful you don’t slip but you gain a confidence running in the mud. T

Here are a lot of water obstacles….. I loved them… it’s funny how coming out of a muddy pool of water being fully clothed and you can still set off a run again?!?! Your shoes are squelching but it feels ok. It’s ok, I hear myself but it is true. You just laugh and get on with it.

The only obstacles I really struggled with were the ones with heights. I have a real fear of heights and that’s something I need to work on. I can climb a mountain if it’s cloudy…. If it’s sunny I feel really dizzy and disorientated as if the mountain is going to eject me off it. I say I have to work at it and I have no desire to do so but I know it’s needs doing….

There were some that I walked round as a result of the height but I didn’t feel awful doing it. I was proud of myself for knowing that I was tackling so much in the day already that a few missed obstacles wasn’t the end of the world.

This next one caught me out.…. You had to climb up a ladder being showerd by very cold water. This is Lynsey showing how it’s done.

I got to the top no problem. The water was so cold that it almost hurt at the top… and out I climbed…. Then realised how high up I was and I had to climb down the back of it. It was the only time I felt a fleeting fear and in the video clip we have, I grabbed on t the side bar. No drama just security….. check the nick of my face at the bottom 🙄😆

This was an easy one going through tape in the trees.

All of a sudden we saw the castle from a viewpoint.

What a great team photo shot! To think we weren’t sure if Ian’s go-pro was even working and his pics have been great!

This photo was taken at the top of Arwen’s Trail which was indeed, a strenuous hike!

We ran past this stunning leaping arch on the just before the hill.

I was screaming to Craig behind me to get a photo!!! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣 was not to be…

Where did Lynsey go?!? Did Craig push her or try to help her?

I’ve admitted defeat and am sitting on the edge ready for a swim as I couldn’t reach the monkey bars!!

Off on a cage crawl… that’s my lying under the cage as Emma waits to go next!

Two very different pictures after Artic Enema…. You slide down a tube into freezing cold ice water and get instantly confused with the cold.

The only negative to the whole event was the mud…. Really, you say?!? Well it’s not that… it’s just the amount of mud at the end!

Someone, who shall remain nameless said… there’s nowhere near as much mud as last year, I mean look at us… we’re all still clean…. From that moment on Lynsey got her mud!! (Oops!)

They save the worst of it until last… and there are no more water obstacles for you to go through to wash it all off!

The result is that Tough Mudder get a stunning finish of everyone covered from head to toe in mud.

Here I am crossing through Electroshock Therapy at the finish line. I didn’t get zapped but some of the guys really felt the electric shock.

Then they give your a fresh clean Tough Mudder 2022 Finisher T-shirt, a 15k headband, a bottle of water, 2 cans of alcohol and you’re meant to try and carry it when your hands are caked in mud?!?! They really need one of their sponsors to come up with a tote bag! (how old do I sound?!?!)

This is Lynsey’s watch… took us 4 hours as she forgot to switch it off over the finish line and was 10.8 miles.

They have a RINSE area at the end but Emma and I went in fully clothed! It took ages to rinse the mud off our clothes. It took almost as long to get clean clothes on to our cold, wet skin 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣🤣🤣

We didn’t hang around afterwards…. It started to rain and we were kinda over the mud! We called the bus and headed back to the Gateside Inn for dinner.

So to the GSI Warriors I say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Every single one of you welcomed me with open arms and your words of encouragement and support were outstanding.

And to Craig…. I would never, ever, ever, ever have done any of this without you by my side. The Fit Body Farm, my first Tough Mudder, all because you believe in me when I can’t believe in myself. ♥️ it also proves that I do listen sometimes 😘🤣🥰

I’m so very proud of myself and it’s not often I ever say that. Long may the buzz continue.

At least until I’m able to walk again. FBF 6am is still under review. 🤣

Stay safe everyone ♥️♥️♥️