Three steps forward, ten back!

Well as the title definitely alludes to – progress is slow in Mob land. I have read with amazement and absolute delight the lovely comments made by such great personalities and wonderful writers as your selves on my blog. I had meant to do my usual and write back to each post or at least bunch them together and answer in blocks but I think a blog entry might be more appropriate. I have recovered from the dreaded lurgy that beset my household before the festive season and although still sluggish somewhat I feel quite good that the awful symptoms have abated. I had pneumonia when I was fifteen and have a slight weakness when it comes to the flu so when I get a bad virus I am fit for nothing for a little longer than others. Also, being as hot as Dante’s inferno due to overheating with the menopause, my temperature is well off the scale to boot when I am ill. However, moaning aside I am much better and my lovely husband is back at work and fully recovered too. I mention the virus again purely for the purpose of creating a link to my next paragraph.

What I hadn’t truly appreciated is that whilst my temperature raged and I was away with the fairies, I totally messed up my HRT cycle of drug taking. I had dug into three separate bubble packs of tablets without realising it and completely messed up the sequence they should have been taken in. I take a combination of oestrogen and progesterone in separate tablet form as I still have the old baby making kit installed and this means I am still menstruating whilst on the tablets. Having never done this kind of half assed mistake before – and believe me I have had every up and down possible with trying to sort out my severe symptoms – this was a new one on me. I didn’t bother ringing the practice – as some of you may have already read in my previous posts, the receptionist there is short on manners, personality and kindness and gives the impression that you next request will be your last – so much so that the NHS have installed a whip and a chair just to get an appointment from her – so I decided to make the best of what was left in the blister packs and see if I could self medicate………

…………Big Big mistake. I am now on a second menstruation cycle in a month and enjoying those abdomen ripping pains that only a bread knife being dragged though your body can make. I have minute to minute mood swings that leave me feeling like I am on a roller coaster, and bless my poor husband, he’s borrowed the whip and the chair from the practice surgery and arms himself big time before approaching what was once his even natured wife – maybe I could fill in for old hairy face at the practice when she wants a rare day off? I digress but some of us menopausal women tread a fine line between almost functioning as a fully paid up member of society or a complete and utter nutter that could torture small children and animals and then bugger off and run a small dictatorship somewhere. It can’t be much fun for my wonderful man to live with so many personalities as having one wife is more than enough for any man. Still, he has the escape of paid employment to remove him from danger for eight hours each day and he should think himself very lucky for that……..Ha. But he also has the knowledge that I am doing everything possible to get back on track and that within a day or two the light at the end of the tunnel with come into full view and I will be someone he recognises from the past that he once fell in love with.

We started a low GI diet on Monday to loose the festive fat and what was also there before we piled on that extra little gift of lard. The garage has been setup as a gym again and we are making inroads into a new exercise routine. Unless I am decomposing by the next festive season I intend to be a lot less heavy and wide by then and looking as good as a fifty year old bat can do at this time in one’s life. This is my only resolution for this year – one is more than enough to fail at – a lot less guilt to contend with when it all goes tits-up.

Now, re the next instalment on the story I was telling. I was contacted by a published author who likes what I was writing and he advised me to take the story and to write it into book form. He even said he planned to have an agent he knew who may be interested to have a look at the blog. I was chuffed to say the least but he also advised me to take the rest of the story offline as it might have been purloined by someone else. I was really thrilled in one sense but then I felt bad for you guys that were following the story. The virus took over everything after that when I ground to a halt and the festive season got in the way too and then workload and then the HRT fiasco so here I am only now about to get writing the book. I had no inkling of whether I could write and still don’t but your feedback on the blog has been a surprise and a delight and I want to at least try. I have a lot to learn in the craft and art of writing and am currently reading a book about how to structure a story, design a plot and develop the main protagonists and so on. The story is complete as it has already happened but I need to know how to write a book and not just a blog. The book on how to write a novel makes a lot of sense to me and I realise I have an uphill struggle as just about every other writer does but I know that this – fear of ability - is not a unique feeling. I certainly am not arrogant enough to call myself a writer and never will unless I get published but I am an apprentice one for the moment. It is thanks to each and every one of you that have now or in the past been so kind in your feedback that I am going to have a shot at this. I will blog regularly but not any more from the story as if I stick it all online then no one will buy it if it every sees the light of day. If I never get it published then to hell with it, I’ll just write it up online anyway.

I am chomping at the bit to getting around to reading all your blogs because I have missed reading good quality stuff that makes me laugh and cry from sentence to sentence. Happy blogging all and thanks again for being cyber pals.