What Happens When We Lose Our Connection?

 Recently I got very excited.   Now, normally that is nothing to write home about, however, you ask anyone with M.E. when the last time was they got excited and they’ll probably say they can’t remember or they haven’t got the energy.

Energy is the key word here, and it does have a physical, organic root to go along with the metaphysical and spiritual curtain that few of the medics will go beyond.

So what lies behind the curtain that has them all so freaked out?

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, AKA Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, AKA Post viral Fatigue Syndrome and in the good old US of A it has the impressive handle of Epidemic Neuromyasthenia.

So when your GP tells you it’s all in your head, you can actually correct him by saying not only is it in my head it is also in my spinal cord and in the nerve endings in my muscles – see your medical dictionary for clues!

Dr. A Melvin Ramsey, Hon Consultant Physician, Infectious Diseases Dept. of the Royal Free Hospital describes M.E. in his paper circa 1986 as a ‘Baffling Syndrome with a Tragic Aftermath’. He also explains the different terminology used in it’s diagnosis.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis aka, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, aka Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome; and in America they call it Epidemic Neuromyasthenia.

Another Doctor whose paper was summarised in The Haworth Medical Press, the title, Betrayal By the Brain: The Neurological Basis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia Syndrome and related Neural Network Disorders was written by a Dr. Jay Goldstein, in which he describes a conceptualisation of CFIDS/FMS as “impaired sensory information processing in a neural network, resulting in dysfunctional responses. Triggers include things like genetic susceptibility, neonatal stressors, and elevated cortisol levels activated from an early age due to various situations including sexual, physical, emotional abuse.

A Dr. Charles Shepherd has acknowledged that it has links to certain toxins and pesticides, organophosphates being the main contenders.

With all this weighty evidence going on how dare the GP’s call this Hypochondria?

And, should we wish to go and inspect the aforementioned curtain then we can look to another eminent scientific source Dr. Deepak Chopra, who writes prolifically about the cells eavesdropping on one another and their ability to hold memories, particularly traumatic memories.

Take into consideration the depression angle, a lot of physicians say that M.E. is just another form of depression and is therefore psychological, it has been proven though, that cortisol levels in the clinically depressed are low and yet in M.E. they are high, so the answer to that would be that although depression may follow an episode of M.E it is not in itself a component of the disease.

I have M.E. and I have a good idea why I have it. My biggest problem has been how to manage it for once it is got it will not go away!

It hibernates and lays in wait, it catches you out when things are going relatively okay then you catch a virus and it’s basically goodnight Vienna for anything up to 18months or longer.

I have found that actually recognising when I need to rest is the key and acting upon that information, I REST! Dr. A. Melvin Ramsey agrees with me on that one; only wish I’d known that earlier.

He writes, ”The degree of physical incapacity varies greatly, but the dominant clinical feature of profound fatigue is directly related to the length of time the patient persists in physical effort after it’s onset; put in another way, those patients who are given a period of enforced rest from the onset have the best prognosis.”

So, NO, it is not the best thing to work through the flu, it is not the best thing to go back to work soon as you can put your feet to the floor without falling down. We need time to heal and if we don’t take it the cells in our body will mutiny and then we really will find that creek and how necessary a paddle can be.  It is all very well having a work ethic, but how good is it if it means you can only work for a significantly shortened length of time?

The government is not too helpful in that department either, it could make things better with more legislation on sick days and wellness programmes in the workplace, not to mention tightening up on the pesticides and toxins that are carried on ships in our waters and used on our food and our animals on a daily basis. Ultimately paying attention to the pandemic that is M.E and perhaps looking into a probable link with organophosphates not just in agriculture but in Veterinary Surgeries from the 1950′s right through to the 1990′s when they began to really regulate and ban them.

Getting level with M.E is an expensive and epic journey. The NHS does not supply most of the treatments that are helpful, and even when they do it is down to the mind set of the GP that has to refer you to it which will again depend on his budget.

For myself, it has been an awakening to how much more we can do with natural things and spiritual things. Don’t get me wrong there are extremely interesting people out there who have some very unique ways of looking at things; all in all though sorting through the chaff there is help available and again it is at a price, isn’t everything these days, but what price the ability to at least function reasonably on a daily basis?

The Shamanic way of looking at it is that a soul part has been lost and there is a void there that has been filled by the dis – ease, this is bourn out by the neo natal stressors and other triggers mentioned above. It also bears out the mind controls the body thing and Dr Chopra’s theories on cell memory.

The NLP and Ericksonian Hypnosis way of looking at it, hey, it works for me and helps me to talk to my body when it is tired and aching – my unconscious mind is a vast storehouse of resources – as is yours – just waiting to be used, making the connection is the key.

Then there is the Reiki, Aromatherapy massage, Reflexology et al. Touch and smell and relaxation, it really does make you feel better and when you feel better you feel less tired. Being tired is tiring sometimes you know the hypothalamus and the limbic system they don’t need drugs, they need some TLC; and we all know there’s just not enough of that to go around these days.

So what to do, look for yourselves, find a practitioner of any of the above mentioned therapies and some more, whatever is right for you – there’s Indian Head Massage, herbalism, sound therapy, there are so many and there is no one right answer for me it was a combination of the Shamanic, Reiki, Reflexology, hypnosis/NLP, and a great support network that I had to find for myself, my GP is of the Hypochondriacs persuasion… It seems he ignores the fact that the brain is the one organ in the body they know damn near nothing about!  In fact even those who do believe it is a dis-ease cannot agree on its basic form.

Until they do come to an agreement, those of us in the eye of this particular storm must find our own ways of dealing with the day to day workings of this beastie.

When you can, do. When you cannot, don’t. Is the simplest way to say it. What I will say is look carefully at diet and and things that make you sit up and take notice (you will know when that happens). Utilise all that is available and find a concoction that is right for you. This is not a one size fits all deal, that is the reason we don’t have a pill for it yet.

look after yourself, by taking care of yourself as best you can and if that means learning how to do that which you cannot afford to have done as a treatment, my advice is to go for it. That in itself is helpful and healing.

For more info or indeed an appointment with one of us see the website below.

Excerpts from papers found on www.meactionuk.org and www.afme.org.uk

Contact me at  www.spiralheart.co.uk

(written in the latter part of 2005)

For the past few months, longer even, but particularly these past few months; my mind has been meandering, slowly, inextricably back to my past.
I have never really left it, or perhaps it has never really left me, the reason; well if I explore it fully I’m thinking that I might realise that I cannot become someone else without fully recognising who I was before. A Rite of Passage before the past is left behind?
All this sounds very mysterious, it’s not at all. When you think about it how many of our thoughts come out in plain obvious thought, without the leap of faith style jumps of logic, you realise there are very few because thoughts are a bit like quantum string theory, there’s no real beginning and no real end.
There are no straight lines and ultimately there are many variations all occupying space at the same time in different aspects, and all this happens in a nanosecond.
Is that the energy that is left when we die? Are these electrical impulses the basis of the soul that goes on? Who knows?
This is just another tangent that, having swung onto can take a while to get ourselves back on track.
And so it begins.

I was born, whether the usual way or the product of someone’s imagination, whichever makes no real difference; it will go the same way. Firstly, there’s baby stage not much going on there really, cause I can’t remember much of that period, except for having inoculations, that must have been quite traumatic as the memory has stayed with me since. I once asked as to what age I was when I was stuck with needles and all they could say was that I was far too young to have remembered that so I must have imagined it. Even if that is true, trust me, it doesn’t make it any less valid.

My next memory really is my sisters wedding – again I’m assured that there is no way I can have such excellent recollections of the day, but I maintain always that I have. There are a few fleeting memories of little blue Ford Anglia’s and my sister sporting a very fetching Astrakhan coat, (which always made me think of a large, soft, shiny tightly permed black poodle; I do remember once musing that perhaps it was a poodle – but was assured it was some kind of exotic sheep kind of woolly thing, whatever it was I was fairly taken with it).

But, I digress, I do that a lot by the way, but bear with me it will make sense in the end, well ish…

Anyway, I was sporting a pair of what I called “Smarty Sandals”, these were of soft red leather and a very pale crepe rubber sole, and when new, they smelled sublime. They were not, however, the sartorial elegance required by my mother and she insisted that I put on my shiny patent shoes that pinched and I could not move in without causing a blister, not to mention that they should never be smudged or scuffed; the merest chance of which brought on a fit of the vapours; which could very well escalate to a good smack round the ear. Not that much of a problem really unless there was a blunt instrument involved; this was often the case and a situation to be avoided at all cost. Unfortunately, I for some reason, inspired this behaviour to reach it’s greatest heights, and Mothers powers of improvisation never failed to impress, oft times quite literally!

So, quantum wise is there a me who was never at a sisters wedding? Was I too young to remember it and what I have in my head is an ability to connect to another space time dimension and integrate it to my memory. Or was I really just precocious enough to remember that day, because that was the day that one of those life changing moments happened? I’ve had quite a few of them over the years.

My wonderful dog has cancer. He is mostly responsible for my continued sanity. He kind of saved my life, actually there is no ‘kind of about it, he did save my life.

 I can’t even come close to saving his. The irony of it is tangible, here I am a veterinary nurse with supposedly unlimited resources at my disposal, and the favours owed to get access to others not so accessible and the people to make it happen. I won’t though. My dog has cancer – or to put it with slightly more validity – cancer has my dog. This is the situation. He has not the ability to cope with the inevitable intrusions to his life and his body and as his owner it is my responsibility to make sure that he has as little stress as possible -stress makes it worse, as with most things.

He will get as much treatment as I can give him that does not upset his fragile temperament. When the time comes I will be the one to do the deed when it becomes necessary, (very occasionally will they just fall asleep and not wake again, but that is extremely rare). Then I will be the one to berate myself for all I did not do and the grieving will begin.
But no, I’m in the position to begin the grieving process now – at this time – here while he lies in the bedroom, on top of the duvet. While I try to work around him and take him to his favourite walks. While I try to come to terms with mortality and all that comes with it. And I have to come to terms with letting him go; to give him the only thing I have left to give that will free him from this disease. For he has completed what the Universe brought him into my life to do, and he deserves my utmost compassion and duty of love. I have to listen to him and know when he tells me it’s time for him to leave, and allow him the dignity and grace that is all he deserves to go from me as peacefully and as painlessly as I can make it for him.

Is there a reality somewhere where cancer doesn’t exist? Where death is not the ultimate experience. I was going to write “human experience” but that is just too arrogant; everything in the universe must experience things perhaps not in the way that we perceive it but effect is caused by experience is it not? Is not that the reason we have a universe at all?

What if all we are really waiting for is all the strings to come together again? Perhaps once a gazillion eons ago there was a great pair of cosmic shears that snipped the universal string into small pieces making them part of a whole but again totally independent and singular. What if they run concurrently and in a cosmically bound tango the music for which a very few can faintly hear in the distance of a dream?

What happens when all the strings come back together? Will all the worlds then be the same because all of the beings therein will have experienced the full gamut of life. They will all have been all colours, will all have been rich or poor, good or evil? Will all have been everything they need to be, to be whole.
Is that the reason for different dimensions and the reality that lies within them? Was that what Nostradamus meant when he said the world would end?
Is that the meaning of life? Or is it just something that keeps our brains ticking over trying to make sense of it all? It’s all in the box. Erwin Schroedinger’s box; and like Erwin’s box, life is never certain until we unpack it. Only when we recognise what is in front of us and give it a name does it become true. So, until the box is opened there are so many different connotations of what is going on inside the box.

It was actually a highly distasteful experiment as they tend to be. I will not repeat it here but it is mentioned in ‘The Universe Next Door’ by Marcus Chown and I believe in Brysons’ ‘History of Everything’, and the basics are that anything is possible until proven otherwise by direct experience. An experience that we as humans have deemed true by mutual consent.
So, we really do make our Universe on a second by second basis, but, we limit what it will be – by mutual consent.
I revoke my consent. I want my Universe to be better. I want global warming to cool off, I want proper seasons where they have always been. I want to keep my beautiful dog who has the soul of an angel. I want that we discover how to keep our cells from betraying us – or is it we who betray our cells.
I want us to learn from our mistakes and refrain from making them again and again, for that is a sign of madness is it not?

I believe that if I connect with my Universe at a cellular level, (see works of Deepak Chopra) and begin to make the changes from there that that is how the expansion takes place and it grows and fills all of the void and then moves onto the other realities. As above so below, as within so without…
And of everything in between, we have an effect on everything and everyone we come into contact with and that means we are responsible for how that turns out.
The mind effects the body, external events make internal repercussions. What kind of impression do you want to make in anothers future as well as your own?

Happiness Virus Blog this came back into my consciousness.

THE SUM OF ITS PARTS VS THE GRAND DESIGN

The ‘Big Picture’, you know that one, yes? All the time people say to you “look at the Big Picture”; usually just before they try to sell you something, be it a car, a house, or an idea.

So, this ‘Big Picture’ aka ‘The Grand Design’, this thing that we are all a part of and is supposedly therefore a part of us; would be the Universe, right?

Now it seems to me, just sitting here, actually I was lying in bed contemplating getting up after a night of my usual weird and wonderful dreams –(of which this could be the result by the way…)- when this thought of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole, that’s been circling the drain of my brain for a while now, got caught up on the safety filter and got re-cycled; so here I sit at this laptop regurgitating it for public consumption, what a pleasant metaphor – I do hope you have eaten already?

Anyway, I digress, my favourite hobby. To get back to these parts, well those would be us then. Very simple statement on the surface but as we all know nothing is that simple – just ask the guy who built the Titanic!
I’ll bet he wasn’t too clear on the ‘Big Picture’ in that perhaps he didn’t take a clear perspective on what his design was going to be doing and where it would be doing it, after all the design in itself was flawless, according to him, the designer, perhaps if he had consulted someone who had been in the waters he may have been able to describe hazards such as icebergs that go with the flow causing chaos wherever they go, who knows?

Again, it reminds me of that little tale in one of the English books at primary, do you remember them? They would have a host of wonderful information like what a baby eel was called and interspersed between all this information on verbs and clauses there would be a little homily where everything would be put together. There was one in particular that tickled me; I had no idea at the time why, it was the way it scanned it read like a horse at the canter; I now know it was possibly my first light bulb experience on my way to discovering chaos theory.

It was an anonymous author and it was about how the simple act of losing a nail from a horseshoe lost a battle. I think it may have been about Paul Revere but don’t hold me to that. Suffice to say if you don’t know the piece that this bloke was given a message to take to a general he went to jump on the horse and noticed that the horse’s shoe was loose, but he was in a hurry and it was a very important message so he ignored it, ran the horse like a madman, the horse lost the shoe, they were in the middle of nowhere and the horse couldn’t go on without a shoe so the message didn’t get there and the battle was lost and therefore the war was lost – all for the want of securing one little nail.
Taking this into consideration, just think of the power that one man had to change the course of history.

Are you getting it now?

I have this friend who works hard and is depressed most of the time, he’s not happy! I asked him what he wanted to do about it. He asked me what I meant, like he had no control over his own state of mind, and you know he doesn’t know that he has.

Or, he really doesn’t want to know – and I think that is the crux of the matter, for if we know, then we have to take some responsibility for it, we have to be at cause!

He is right, being at cause is hard work, taking responsibility for how you choose to use the power you have been given to change things takes guts. As a rule human beings don’t like change so much, we like to swim in our soup – bathe in our custard of trial and tribulations – that is what we know and we are all wary of what we don’t know. So we wallow in our comfort zones, envying the people who step out and get dry: craving the will to go forward and do it for ourselves but feeling the cold draught of a different atmosphere we sink right back into our ‘stuff’. It’s so much easier to give the power away, and then blame circumstances for your lot.

Don’t get me wrong, we all do it, even those of us who have the towel on and are eying the door to the next room…we have to empty the bath you see, and that means that we have to put part of ourselves into it again to connect to the chain that holds the plug in order to pull it out and let all that stuff go; it’s tempting to linger there in a memory but it’s not a memory it’s an emotion that clouds the memory, that is the sticky part, it’s a bigger state than Texas and I don’t mean Alaska! Keeping the mind on the ball is one thing and it is the easiest thing if you always remember what the ball is actually for, its goal in life is to get into goal, all you have to do is help it on it’s way.

It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Oh yes,it is that simple, note, I did not say easy. If it were totally easy we’d all be quite happy being and doing and the World would be full of contented and forward thinking individuals who would most definitely be more than the sum of it’s whole.

Everything we do each day either keeps us where we are or moves us forward. I have a little anxiety attack kind of thing when I move forward, that is when I know I have, my unconscious mind tells me by making me aware of a weight being shifted from around my heart. It’s doesn’t make me feel wonderful immediately, but I recognise that I’ve just stepped out of a comfort zone and into new territory; by doing as little as writing this and posting it on the net, or talking to a stranger who I know can help me but I’m less than totally confident won’t see me as a right twit.
It’s then I remember a story told to me by an old boyfriend the end of which is ‘ if they know you it won’t matter – if they don’t know you, well, it really doesn’t matter.

As long as you are being who you are. Who you know you can be. Every day can be a good day you have the power to make it so.

Is the sum of your parts greater than your being as a whole? Do you colour your area of the ‘Big Picture’, or do you give the brush to some other? Do you think the whole of your being is greater than the sum of your parts?
It’s just a matter of Balance. Pick up the brush, it’s your canvas, paint your picture bright, see what happens…

Depression, a bigger state than Texas…
And I don’t mean Alaska!

Depression, deeply dark, totally autocratic, no sense of boundaries! Sounds like one of my dates from a previous life!
It is also a state of mind, and like other states it does have boundaries, we just don’t recognise them.
When we are travelling there are road signs, place signs, directions and miles to go signs, there are even state lines; borders we call them. These have ambiguous signs as in you are now leaving – or welcome to… There are no visible signs for the long journey that depression is; there are only indications, symptoms ambiguous hints.

How many people do you think know that depression is something that can be treated to a successful conclusion? How many people do you know have it, have had it or has someone in their immediate family dealing with it?

How do you treat a person you know has it, as in how do you interact with them? Do you steer clear not wanting to get involved, do you tell them to ‘get a grip, pull themselves together and just get on with it? Do you sit with them and empathise, ‘there, there, I know, I know’? The thing is – you don’t know, you can’t know, even when you have been there yourself because everyone’s is unique to them. It is their state; they own it and they are completely in it to the exclusion of all else. It takes that much energy.

The word itself is in fact overused, like the word ‘love’, which is bandied about as a step up from just liking something it is used in such a way to allude to enthusiasm and covetousness of a thing or a place and sometimes a person. When used in this way it has nothing at all to do with the Shakespearian, Casanova, Burton/Taylor, situations that we are taught are the thing to strive for.

These days when someone says they are depressed it can be anything from just slightly peeved, a bit unhappy or put out about something that didn’t go how they would have liked, ‘I didn’t win, that is so depressing!’ to totally suicidal with various stages in between. There are even those who will go from totally ecstatic to the depths of despair that confound most of us.
There are things to look out for though, a change in habit, if outgoing to introverted. Less inclined to buy or shop for little treats and in some cases even staples for themselves. Just too tired or apathetic about getting out of bed or getting dressed; losing interest in topics of hobbies or favourite television programmes, being impatient with others and tired or sleeping at strange times then up in the middle of the night.

These are just some indications and most of them can be found in the indicators and symptoms for M.E.

Mental health is not just in the mind – it has a physiological effect. Depressed people don’t tend to stand straight they bow their heads, they shuffle they sit for long periods of time – vegetating in front of a television that if asked they could not begin to tell you what was on it.

What can you do?

Pay attention, action is movement, get them to change their state, get help. If not for them – find out how you can get help if it is a partner or family member or your friend. Every little helps, and may even prevent a fall into despair. Depression is a lonely and isolated dis – ease. The feelings of being in a vortex of despair and pain whether physical or mental is most debilitating. It is also frustrating for those closest to the person involved which brings it’s own form of depression.

Carlos Castaneda once wrote, ‘we can make ourselves miserable, or we can make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.’
It’s not the effort itself; it is the kind of effort, focus of strength, and the intent to change this state, fromI CAN’T to I WILL! Strangely the rest will follow.

Any complementary techniques should be used under advisement and if they are under a Doctors care with that Doctors’ written acknowledgement of proposed methods and their permission to go ahead.

A big fantastic thank you to all those who came along to our Macmillan fundraising event yesterday at St Brides Hall in Douglas.

The baldies!!

It was really great to see you all, in costume or just to support this cause.

A special big thank you to all those who gave up their time and money with donations and help for the event,

Mane Attraction for a raffle prize and coming along to do the hair shave off

Raffle prizes also from

Douglas Co-op

Spice of Life Indian Takeaway Douglas

Farrens Pharmacy

Morrisons Lanark

Tesco Lanark

Arran Arromatic’s Toiletries

Diageo Drinks

Martine McFarlane – reflexologist

Fiona McLaren – sound therapist

Jeanette Addie – loads of stuff

Gail Addie – tarot readings

and anyone else i have missed

The hair and beard shave off was a surreal experience, i now have a cold head when i go out!!

The preliminary figure for the amount raised yesterday is just over £450 taking our total so far well over £1100. 

Don’t forget you can still donate to macmillan via the www.justgiving.com page, look for Andrews close shave for Leslie

Take care all

the bald purpleandrew

It has been a hectic few days getting ready for the event today. In between bouts of resting and laying down we have collected donations from local shops and supermarkets for the raffle and made a few things for the stalls.

Friends and family are preparing to gather at the Douglas Arms Hotel for 11am followed by the fundraising event at St Brides Hall in Douglas from 12 noon until 4pm.

Come and join us as we raise as much money as we can for Macmillan.

The hair and beard shave off is at 2pm,

Leslie and I hope to see you there

If you can’t make it, you can still donate to Macmillan at the just giving page

www.justgiving.com and look up Andrews close shave for Leslie

Thanks all

purple andrew, soon to be bald andrew!!

Hi all – Its FUND RAISING TIME FOR MACMILLAN

it is only 2 days to the great event and the hair and beard shave off at St Brides Communiuty Hall Douglas South Lanarkshire

Event starts at 12noon, head shave at 2pm

Medaeval fare with lots of stalls,

sound therapy

tarot reading

reflexology/massage

stalls with cakes, sweets, biscuits, chocolate (lots of chocolate!!) AND LOTS MORE

kiddies pumpkin carving competition (bring carved pumpkin)

raffle

lots more

come along and enjoy the fun, chuck your money in the buckets and have a great time

fancy dress would be fantastic

Check out page 3 of this weeks Lanark Gazette for an article on why we are doing this

see you soon

purpleandrew

Well, I’m wondering what is going on.

Like a sunrise, there is a growing vibe inside my head. It is a good vibe. It is the home straight and I’m on it.

It is coming up to cycle 6.  The final chemo shot; the end of the line for the voluntary intake of poison and the platform from which all things will spring for the future.

I’m on the brink again.

The brink, now there is a verdant place to be. So many choices are available all we have to do is choose to take them.

Notice if you will, that I am not limiting us to only one. Nah, why just take one when there are so many available?

I woke up yesterday, after a reasonable sleep, (yes I am noticing a pattern here) and outside the sun was high in the sky and it was bright and crisp and fresh. It just seemed that the whole season was shouting its presence with great joy and abandon.

A little glow began to grow in my heart as I heard the Siren Song of Autumn and began to dance a little bit in my Soul.

I did a little bit of sewing and it worked out really well. The day before I had made the first loaves of bread since just after the surgery, all very small things but each day has been a little triumph of oomph!

I kind of mislaid my oomph just for a while there. I put it on the back burner to concentrate on this getting better thing. It stayed there and I forgot all about it.

Getting better is much easier with a bit of oomph behind it for sure.

I’m sitting here writing this and there is a bubble of a giggle just permeating through, oh there it is, excuse me while I wallow in this for a minute or two…

You see, wallowing can be a good thing. Now I have an endorphin thing going on its all good.

Time has folded in on itself and if I try to think of how long ago it was that I had the diagnosis, or even how long it was from the time I knew there was a problem it seems all at once ancient and current. The one thing that is clear is the knowing that then was the expectation of what is happening now. After all what is time but a concept of state?

This is what I decided I would be feeling at this time. This is how I wanted it to be.

Now I have what I wanted and now I want what I have.

So I’m listening to and feeling autumn’s Siren song, it is familiar and you know I might just know the words so I will sing a little too. Then I might even get my boogie shoes on and dance about a bit just to see how it fits.

Who knows where that might lead?

Hi folks

Well, last week’s planned chemo didn’t happen, Leslie’s blood tests were a little low, so now we wait for some new bloods to be done today and hopefully have the chemo on Thursday.

Do we wait and plod about moping??, no we bloody well don’t.

We have booked a hall for the event. It is at St Brides Hall in Douglas on Saturday 30 October. Meet at 11am in the Douglas Arms Hotel, have a drink then we shall process through the streets in our finest mediaeval garb to St Brides for 12 noon until 4pm.

There will be a raffle

Stalls with cakes and other foody things for you to buy

Dookin for apples

Sound therapy taster session

Kiddies pumpkin carving competition

All sorts, more details to follow

And of course the main event, the Great Andrew Hair and Beard shave off.

So, come along, bring all your loose change and a bulging money bag, coz we want to raise as much as we can for Macmillan Cancer Support

More details to follow, but already folk have started their plans and raided the fancy dress shops.

Helpers wanted for setting up and doing drinks and all the usual stuff, so please get in touch with either of us or as a reply to the blog.

Thank you all, we are gonna have a ball, so come along and help us raise lots of money for Macmillan.

Puprleandrew signing off

Stop the World…

Where were we? Ah yes, I just want to go back a little – to the ‘yanking’ episode – there I was, I assume that at least I was to all intents and purposes – like – there…somewhere!  I am making this assumption due to the fact that I have a memory of everything in the world stopping; just right out of the blue I’m aware of being ‘up there’ suspended in space and time. Totally safe, not at all bothered about where the meat and bones of me would be found, because to be sure, there would be no way I could be this light and still be in my body…could I?

 And, to get right down to it, who was I at that split second of freeze frame?  I had some kind of animation, I could sense myself being ergo I must be making some movement; we are never perfectly still, until of course rigor steps in!  And that sure as hell wasn’t on the menu, please and thank you to whoever or whatever, and wasn’t it just too perfect that that did not matter at all. 

Absolutely no concern for my predicament and the World was just there and I was – not…but yes…could there be another explanation?  Did I jump or was I pulled? Was this an out of body experience or was my one and only Soul about to discover the Thodol Bardo was spot on and there were things and places and spaces and times yet to be traversed. Was I about to get the answers to all the questions? Was there part of me out there to be met and returned to?

Had I dropped through the veils of realities and become suspended in limbo?  Too romantic even for me!  Or is it? Perhaps that is the whole point.

 The Universe had me, by the scruff of the neck – it had picked me up and held me aloft in this daze of space. There was a choice to be made and only I could make it. Oh it’s ultimatum time and you’re gonna leave here, I can see that glazing over in your eyes…( do you get pub singing angels??)

 CLARITY!  The Universe has the capacity to be a bit of a ‘tough love’ aficionado and as the time thing unravelled before my rapidly glazing eyes I began to see where I’d gone wrong…or at least I thought I had.

 Once upon an end of another bastard Wednesday, I trundled my way back home entertaining the idea on one hand of getting changed and going out and meeting up with the boys from Judo, on the other hand, however, the more tantalizing idea was to give it a miss, jump into a long hot bath and go to bed and sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep until old Rip called Uncle and confessed to cat napping! The closer the bus got to my home the more I felt I wanted to stay there. I wanted to see the guys and once I got my lazy arse in gear I’d most likely have an excellent time, I thought, then I thought, no – you need to stay at home just stay at home see them on Saturday it’s not too long to wait.

 And so it went on all the way into the house, up to the bedroom, into the bathroom and while back on the bus to go back into town. 

 Closer and closer feeling more and more uneasy, just stay on this bus it’s the circular, you don’t even have to get off your seat, stay on, go home you will not be having such a good time if you continue on here…

I had another opportunity to leave afterwards when a friend called into the pub and offered to put me up for the night.  For some reason staying was the only option and so that is what I did.

 And, there I was, things getting dimmer below me, no feeling of trepidation just a natural kind of hankering to be going on…

 Until, just when I thought everything was going to be finally right, the Universe (or Universal Representative even) let me go!

 That’s right – it dropped me and I banjoed my brain off the tarmac of the pavement in one great WHAP!

 It took a little bit of time for me to realise that it was actually the pavement and not the middle of the road, which had been my last map reference so confusion ruled.

 Since I’ve always been the kind of practical type, my immediate thought after what the fu…??! Was to make a body check – wiggle toes, yes still ten, extend ankles – good no problem there though my feet were quite cold, the knees bent and in the right direction – big relief and then the back was fine but oh! Oh! There was this big, wet, lump on my head where it had – as only it can -  in Glasgow – kissed the pavement!

 Out of nowhere crowds of people arrived, where do they come from by the way? It was after midnight the streets had been empty, is there like a callout crowd, you know someone presses a button and an alarm goes off and beepers are beeping everywhere and all these people drop everything and rush to be instant rubberneckers at accident sites?

 The icing on the cake was the arrival of the police. I don’t get a panda car or a beat cop – no… I get a mini bus full of them going on duty, and they took my shoes from the middle of the road I’m sure that should’ve been evidence!  Of what I’m not sure, that the car was going so fast or that suddenly I can jump higher than Daley Thompson with a 10ft pole?

That the guy actually did see someone for a split second in his headlights a gal gone ‘tharn’!  (He hadn’t been so sure, he slewed to a stop and sent his passenger out to make sure – all I remember of that was ridiculously high heels and blonde hair and whining, not from me, I hasten to add!) That came later when they picked the tarmac out of my eyebrows and forehead with enormous tweezers while asking me how much I had had to drink.

 No other marks at all.

 And yes, I did remark to the Ambulance man that I was glad I’d listened to my mother and was wearing clean underwear!

When I finally got home… well that is another story and when I know you well enough to introduce you to my Mother, you will read it then.

 A couple of years or so afterward I attended a seminar given by the transport police on fatal accidents. There was a picture of a Volkswagen Gti with the windscreen smashed in when the body of the victim hit it on her way over the length of the car.

The guy in front of me said, ‘No way was anybody walking away from something like that’.

 I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “I beg to differ, it can be done, but it’s best not to try it without the aid of a Universal Representative on hand”.

See you down the rabbit hole…