Friendship

Everything important I know about friendship I learned from Carole.

I learned that friends are not people you drink with, or people you work with, or people you watch football or go to church with, or people you just somehow accumulate on Facebook or Twitter.   Friends are the people who will step up to the plate in the bad times as well as hang around in the fun times.

Also, I learned that friendship is so much more than a relationship.  It's a journey, an adventure, even a mission.  The weather may be fair or foul, the terrain easy or hard, and we may not always feel up to the task, but always friends are there for each other, helping them through the difficult times as well as rejoicing in the happier times.

And as with any mission, there are duties which cannot be shirked, but are readily accepted - because there's just nothing else you can possibly do - whatever it takes.  So this is a tribute to my friends, but especially to Carole.  And more than a tribute, it's also a promise.

And now the bad news...

This blog was never supposed to be about depression, it was supposed to be about me.  However, depression is where I am at the moment, and I have not been shy to mention it - although with humour and as much positivity as I can manage in the circumstances, which most days is actually quite a lot.

Today however is not one of those days.  This morning I went back to the GP and was signed off for another three weeks.  It is obvious that although I can function well enough within reasonable limits - enough say to post to this blog once a day - I would crumble quickly within a work environment.  I don't deal well at the moment with noise, confusion and the unexpected and I don't think I would handle conflict well either.

The GP was positive about my prospects of recovery.  There was nothing in my work environment that I couldn't handle until one day, for some reason, I just couldn't do it.  My understanding therefore is that the only thing broken is me, and the implication is that I can expect to be fixed. But when?

I don't want to over-egg this.  Today has been far from my worst day, but it has been a sobering one.  I am alarmed that this is taking so long.

Escape from Coronation Street

It's 7.30 p.m. on Monday.  Time for millions of Britons to sit down and watch Coronation Street and time for me to hide upstairs until it's all over.  Apparently I now have an international audience, so for the benefit of my reader in Malaysia I should perhaps explain that Coronation Street is a British TV soap opera set in the fictitious Manchester neighborhood of Weatherfield, which is inhabited exclusively by monumentally stupid people.

I haven't always found it necessary to avoid Corrie so religiously, and have at times engaged with it in the past.  However, following the failure of my "Hang Deirdre" campaign in the wake of her conviction for being a fucking moron, I decided enough was enough.

Not that I haven't occasionally lapsed.  The bastards who write the show are clever enough to include just enough wit and comedy to lull you into a false sense of security before whacking you with a load of domestic violence, child abduction and bloody Gail whatever her name is.

It also occurs to me that I ought to be able to sit through 30 minutes of television without hiding behind the sofa or yelling at the screen "Don't do that, you twat !!!".  I'm hoping that the counselling will help with this, but I still think I'd rather watch Doctor Who.  I'd sooner take my chances with the Cybermen.

Home alone

One of the trickier bits of my current condition is coping in the house on my own without just retreating to bed and vegetating.  I've been back home since noon and will be alone until about mid morning tomorrow when somebody else gets the chance to mind the nutter for a while.

As I've said before, boredom is the main enemy.  Obsessive reading and re-reading of Facebook and Twitter gives an interesting view of the world, especially in my currently dulled mental state.

So for the benefit of my readers, here are the news headlines from about 60 points below my usual IQ level.

Boris Johnson turns out to be not just an amiable twat, but a very nasty amiable twat.

Russia is going to buy Cyprus. Or something.

The government are going to tax bedrooms, but only for poor people in not very nice houses.

And Time Team is finishing.

I think that covers all the main points.  Time to go back to bed.

Snowed in, in the Head

Okay, I don't like snow.  There, I've said it.  I'm sure it's just a failing on my part and I know it's all very pretty but it's cold and it's wet and it gets in the way - all of which are bad things in my book.

I am at Judy's house now looking out of the window.  This morning silence reigned and there was no traffic at all.  The snow outside the house lay about six inches deep.  This afternoon the road is reasonably clear thanks to the few intrepid adventurers since mid-morning and I'm guessing that for most people in built up areas getting out and about is probably pretty feasible, now that it has actually stopped snowing.

I, however, am still in bed.  And furthermore I'm fairly unapologetic about it.  There aren't too many upsides to depression but the right to choose to go to bed for the day is one of them, even though I'm actually reasonably okay today.  The reason, basically, is that I can't be arsed dealing with snow.  I don't want to spend half an hour assembling six layers of clothing in preparation for going outside to stumble around in the freezing cold so I'm not going to do it.

It would be different though if I had anything important to do today.  We in Britain are not very good at snow and I suspect that if Finns and Norwegians took a similar approach civilisation would probably break down pretty quickly.  How many of those changed or abandoned plans for the weekend really needed to be changed?  I have no idea, but I bet the Norwegians could tell us.  Maybe the larger part of being snowed in is in the head.

Spring has sprung...

Who am I?

My name is Paul, and I work in IT for a bank.  These days that kind of role is more or less equivalent to cleaning the toilets on the Hindenberg.  There's a lot of crap involved and a general sense that the whole thing may blow up at any moment.  That said, I enjoy the job and like the people I work with.  And everyone needs money, our customers included.
 

At the moment however, I am off sick.  Anxiety and depression is what it says on the form.  It's a peculiar thing when your mind stops working properly - sometimes scary, sometimes funny, sometimes just interesting.  One reason why I am starting this blog now is because I am bored.  I'm bored because I can't read properly.  Concentration and focus just isn't there for me to read anything much longer or complex than Twitter or Facebook.  I can't watch TV or play games for similar reasons.  Decision making can be hard and Tesco shopping can be a real ordeal at the moment.  For some reason, however, I can still write.  So here I am.
 

Here are some of the key people in my life...
 

Judy is my amazing girlfriend.  More than that, she's like the other half of my soul.  We never argue, we just have lots of lovely times together.  She is completely beautiful, incredibly patient, hugely supportive, tolerant, wonderful and wise, and great fun. We have been together for a year now and she has given me the best year of my life.
 

Carole is my best friend.  A world class friend: fanatically loyal, hugely generous, tremendously caring, gloriously hedonistic, hilariously funny, magnificently stroppy and completely wonderful.  We've been through a lot together and if there's anything I wouldn't do for her I've yet to find out what it is.  In any case it would be less than she has done for me.
 

I have two children.  Hilary is 19 and lives away from home now, but I see her regularly and am very proud of her.  I also have a wonderful son called Rowan, who is 8 years old and lives with his mother some distance away, but I see him regularly too.
 

These are the important people in my life and I love them all dearly.

The First Post

You may be wondering why this blog is called The Clogs of Doom.  Well, quite simply it's because all the more obviously appropriate names I could think of were taken, and so I was driven in desperation to entering random strings of text which somehow emerged from my subconscious mind.  So this is why, dear reader, you are not now reading The Badgers of Mars or Satan's Hammock.

I thought it better to explain this in case you are a particular enthusiast for clogs, or else of an unusually pessimistic disposition.  I have no opinions worth noting on the subject of wooden footwear and I don't intend this blog to be especially gloomy.  Rather I will be commenting on things which are happening in my life and things that are happening in the world around me, hopefully with humour at least some of the time.

Unless of course that becomes too boring, in which case I may write about clogs.