Complete Rest and Brambling

So here we are in Clynnog Fawr near Anglesey overlooking Caernarfon Bay. This much looked forward to holiday while we have to vacate our homely static caravan in Hastings was slightly in jeopardy due to my continuing ill health. After three sets of blood tests and a 24 hour urine test (no I didn't have to wee for that long, just collect it over that time), we are none the wiser and my GP is still stumped. I had low cortisol levels in my wee but not in my blood – apparently. So, to cut a long story short I have been referred to an Endocrinologist (hormones) and three months after I first voiced my concerns about symptoms being caused by cortisone steroid injection in my back in November she thinks this may be the cause. So by the time I see the Endocrinologist I will probably be better! Now, the Anaesthetist at the pain clinic who organised the injection says my symptoms are not connected to the injection. No surprise there then. In my last consultation she suggested that to manage my pain I need to exercise, relax and drink wine, red is best and go on a holiday to Spain. I hope she gets well paid to give such ground breaking advice. I have been too unwell to drink any alcohol or go anywhere unaccompanied and pretty much just about able to get up in the morning. So this it seems is this all she can come up with after two years of investigations of my chronic back pain.

No more book writing done as yet as this is supposed to be a 'complete rest,' so now we've settled in I thought I'd best get back into my blog for starters. It's not that I have writer's block, the writing is in my head, it's the sheer exhaustion and physicality of well, writing. It's not an 'I'm depressed' sort of exhaustion where the lack of motivation is immense. It is the immensity of physical exhaustion. Getting out of bed, putting one foot in front of the other, making a cup of tea, getting out of a chair, standing up. Sheer mind-blowing exhaustion. So once you have expended all your energy reserves on the mundane basic tasks there is no energy left.

I made an humongous effort to cook a Valentine's meal and yesterday I needed to recover. Needless to say I have never felt anything like this before. There are only two other times I have been so ill it was nearly totally unbearable. The first was after giving birth to the twins. They tried to come out at the same time so I lost three pints of blood and had my cervix sewn up. When I woke from surgery I was alone in a recovery room with a painful catheter, the boys unreachable in their shared hospital cot. I turned to look at them through tears and thought 'what have I done.' I was young and soon physically recovered. The second was when I had my breakdown and was diagnosed with clinical depression. I recovered from the worst pain. The worst was worse than that first painful protracted childbirth experience. Living with clinical depression for me is drawing a metaphorical a line, where above that line is feeling okay in various degrees and under the line is not okay in various degrees. I have been mostly under the line, occasionally moving above, but mostly under. Just near enough the line to function, but not high enough to keep dropping down and crashing in episodic crisis. I have been dead inside, the outside world a spiky-shaped hanging grainy greyness. It isn't even really grey, it is indescribable. I have always hidden it well. Anxiety goes hand-in -hand with depression, thoughts catch in a relentless groove and the chemicals and how they work fail, and the body literally 'breaks down.'

That it seems is sort of where I'm at now, but it's different. My chemicals are fucked, but strangely I am not depressed - just not really feeling much at all. If I ran on battery I would be flat.

Alfie's consistent doggy nature meanwhile keeps me occupied. His continuous 'Anadalusian Hound' hunting behaviour, enthusiasm and naughtiness is a distraction. 

Bachwen Farm and Cottages

He loves his walks to the beach - well he ignores the beach and concentrates his hound-nose in the bramble on the way, where the bunnies live. He managed to scare one out and chased it across the paddock, and no he didn't catch it.

The Paddock

The paddock runs over to the cliff's edge, but it's not a high drop, luckily for Alf, as he can easily spring over the wire fence to yet more bramble. Although I am taking this time to rest, with heavy leaded legs, I have managed to walk down to the beach. It is literally yards away down the soggy underfoot grassy glade. 

The Glade

A small wooden bridge stretches over  a stream.

Wooden Bridge

Yummy Welsh sheep are not an option for Alfie as they are safely fenced in from all aspects, so sheep-watching is as far as he gets.

A Menacing Welsh Sheep

As we walk down the glade we come across a wide metal five bar field gate that requires me to pull the sprung bolt out to open. 

Five Bar gate

It is a tricky operation to one whose main concern is not slipping and going tits-up on the rocky beach. Hiking stick and lead are chucked beach-side and I only just about have the strength to pull the bolt out, open the gate toward me, balance on the woody salt-slippy threshold whilst turning and holding on to the gate and the post for dear life and manoeuvre the bolt back in it's tricky hole. Alfie meanwhile is back up the cliff exploring the undergrowth.

He eventually follows and we pick our way through the rocks to the water's edge and then he runs back to the cliff and back in the undergrowth. So much for a leisurely dog walk on the beach.

The Beach Walk

I walk through the waves in my wellies, one annoyingly filling up with wet frothy sea water. Further up, flowing down the cliff on the beach and into the sea is another freshwater stream bubbling over the rocks. 

Stream Up

We paddle over it, just for fun (which has been sadly lacking over the last few months) - I'm wet now anyway. I climb with my curious wet welly-weighted leaden legs up the stone steps and into the paddock in front of the cottages. 

Stream Down

I trudged and Alfie deer-sprang through the sodden grass. More bramble and gorse and he's in it, brambling again! Manic barking, frantic wagging tail, bottom in air and his peculiar Spanish hunting yelps and out pops a startled grey rabbit which Alfie pursues until it disappears under the bramble hedge on the other side. By now fed-up, damp with sea and sweat and exhausted by my short trek I walk off calling him to come. He looks at me, looks at the hedge, looks at me then the hedge and makes his decision. More barking, tail-wagging and hound-nose sniffing, in and out of the hedge, head down, bottom in air: I am ignored. 

Waiting for Bunny

                                           BOTTOMS!

So I do my best doggy discipline trick of walking off and calling 'bye bye Alfie'– it usually works, eventually. Unless it doesn't work and then I have to revert to plan B to drag him back. 

As happened the other night, when I thought I would just let him have a last little run and I could watch the sea over the Bay as the Sun set. He scurried down the cliff into the undergrowth while suddenly sunset became dark and he disappeared into the night. I knew he was near – I could hear the light cymbal-clink of his name tag. It went silent and I was mildly concerned but he then shot past me and vanished again into the darkness. The bugger had gone down the cliff to the beach and come up the stone steps the other side of the paddock. Plan B was instigated, an irate hubby was mobilised, I was more than mildly annoyed when Alfie came running back to Daddy. Little shit.



Video of Alfie brambling

Butter wouldn't melt! Who me - naughty?....

and a close up because he's so gorgeous awww...