wagwaan?: Autumn

It's well and truly autumn today. First of all, the colours locally have been amazing: Tony Kirkham, head of Kew's Arboretum, said "A colourful autumn has been brought on by the copious rain at the end of the summer and by the cool, frostless nights. The warmer weather has intensified the oranges, yellows and browns that have spread around the gardens" (I read that in yesterday's Times next to a beautiful photograph that I can't find online... so I went on Google images and found this picture of Kew instead:)

Not quite as stunning, but still rather lovely, don't you agree? As beautiful (and mild) as it was yesterday, today it's really windy, drizzly and miserable, although I quite like it from the warmth of my own home :)

The other day I had my first Fatigue Management session, which was surprisingly good. I am nearly 9 months on from my surgery and possibly even more tired than before, because I try to do too much. You know when I said "what is pacing?"? Well I finally have a bit more info. It's actually dead simple and I could kick myself for not working it out for myself. One of the first things the OT did was to draw a graph, going up and up, to describe how we do stuff and keep going until we crash. Well it turns out I'm supposed to break everything down into small chunks. I know, sounds simple right? But I just wasn't doing it. I would do two hours solid then collapse for half an hour, which is really no good. Now I'm supposed to, say, mop the kitchen then go and sit and do NOTHING for a minute (no TV, no reading, no music, just quiet), and then if I'm up to it I can hoover half the downstairs. Then sit for a minute. Etc etc. The sitting and doing nothing is quite strange at first, and my mind was just swirling with thoughts of things I had to do. Very hard to switch off. Now, after a day of it, I'm trying to concentrate on my breathing, and if I can't calm the mind then I imagine myself on the beach at mummy's. That seems to work better!

I have homework to do too - planning my week, which I've tried before but she's given me different ideas - and keeping a daily journal of how tired I feel on a scale of 1 to 10 including what activities I'm doing. And then I have to do a list of things that need doing, which we'll then break down into 3 categories:

- things I like doing/want to keep doing

- things I can delegate (helloooo Claire and the boyf....)

- things that can be left undone and it won't be the end of the world.

I shall be doing that tomorrow. All in all, it was very productive and I'm glad I kept an open mind about it.

Right, that's me done for the day. I must go and have a sit down. As I'm unable to attend our Church's Bonfire Night I shall be looking out the windows tonight for any local fireworks. Beats standing around in the cold, although I will miss the company, the cup of boiling hot soup and the burger we usually have lol.

Happy Guy Fawkes' Night and stay safe!