Trying

Scarlett didn’t want me to go to work this morning. She didn’t want to stay at Badgers last night either and every so often she does this faux clingy thing which always leaves me wondering if she genuinely feels a bit wobbly or is doing it for effect. Fortunately she was staying in her own home with her own Daddy so I didn’t feel too bad about leaving. I was late though.

Ady had got up early and been to the allotment to do some watering before the rest of us even got up and he made me lunch to take to work. He’s such a good wife ;).

Work was indeed hard work today. It was incredibly hot and airless, fairly busy and one of my colleague is having a very difficult time was was hard work to be with and worrying to be around 🙁 Without saying too much she suffers with dreadful anxiety and shares all her fears and woes with everyone incredibly openly asking for support and advice. She is not at all good at the jobs she does to the end that someone has to literally go round behind her correctly her errors but due to her own mental health issues and the fact that only 6 months or so ago we all attended the funeral of a colleague who took her own life thanks to depression everyone feels like they are tiptoeing around her while spending all our tea and lunchbreaks in her company counselling her 🙁

I spent some time with her today and found it utterly draining. I am not a good person to come to with worries that are not particularly rational at the best of times and while I do understand that depression is an illness and people can’t just ‘pull themselves together’ I still struggle to get my head round not being able to discount worries that are out of your control and simply taking control of any issues that you can deal with.

It’s very worrying to feel that you are being put in a position to have to offer advice and yet your advice might well not be at all the right solution for someone. I did ask her if she was feeling desperate or a danger to herself and checked she was going to be around other people all the time for the next 24 hours and when I left at 5 the senior librarian was on duty and planning to have a chat with her.

I did come home feeling very worn out and worried though. And not at all in the mood for my mother rolling her eyes dramatically at Scarlett running out of the house yelling ‘Mumma!!’ into my arms because she was pleased to see me. No, I don’t recall doing that to greet my Mum but I still think a full 9 hours away from the person you love most in the world when you are six possibly justifies a joyous reunion.

I’d spoken to the local paper who rang to clarify details of yesterdays litter walk and promised to email some more photos over from the previous library display Davies and Scarlett had done. I assume it will be in next week’s paper, if so I’ll link to it / photo it.

A huge parcel of resources from British Heart Foundation had arrived so we opened and explored that. It all looks excellent and something to be looked at in more detail when we next have a day at home. You can order stuff from this page and while I remember the link for the farming stuff was here ,here and here.

Davies and Scarlett went off to play with various bits from that before having a very late tea and some Mr Gum before bed. We had dinner and Ady went up to bed but I called him back down to watch the news about Michael Jackson who must be one of the most famous famous people of our lifetime. I watched quite a bit of the news coverage on that and dealt with Davies who had a bad dream and has been awake and bobbing about since about midnight (having probably only actually been asleep for about half an hour). Really must go to bed after just one more game…