Resetting. Resting. Not Writing. A First Blog Post After a Month of Work... And Rest

It's Friday night, when I usually write my blogs, and you may or may not have noticed that I haven't written here for a while. Give that I am a mental health advocate, I have to remember that I can't (or shouldn't) over stretch myself. If I do I can't write blogs anymore, or campaign, or go out for walks or whatever. It becomes too hard. Unfortunately it is the blogging and the walking and the 'whatever' that I need. I could replace it with the words 'work life balance'.

Instead of writing this I could be working still, but there has now come a time after four days back at work when I needed a break. And that's what I've been doing, by the way: working... And taking a break. Ever since I finished the whirlwind of Thoroughly Modern Millie I've been working and then recovering, and actually a month or so before that too. Some of what I have done at work recently has been particularly exacting on my energy levels, and I was out of the country working too. I don't know if you've ever worked away from home for long, but it gets easy to let working hours leech into what is usually non-working time. It gets even easier when you are in another country. Other people, people that you know and love, are thousands of miles away, for one thing, but for another thing, they're not on the same time zone as you.

I find myself working beyond my working hours sometimes, then, yes I admit it. I also admit that I can't then do other things always, like writing this blog. I don't want to give up on talking about my mental health and sharing what it's like to work and live at eat and sleep with it, while it's with me. But I have to tell the truth, and this is the truth: sometimes I am too tired and not well enough to do everything that I want to. I have to sacrifice something. And what can I sacrifice? I need to pay the bills. I need to keep my job, therefore. I need to complete my job and then I need to rest so that I can do it again.

It's not an interesting or a fun story, but it's the truth. I can sacrifice my blogging which takes time away from those two things - working and resting. It means I keep my job and that is one less thing to worry about, along with the ability to pay my bills.

But it does mean that I can't do this thing that I absolutely love the most. I love, love, love writing and writing about this. It's me time at the end of the week and it's not just 'me' time, it's reflection, it's creative, and it is active rest. It's frustrating not to be able to do this. I have felt angry at myself, these past four weeks while I haven't blogged. I didn't even write a blog to explain - because I was either resting or working. I didn't even say 'hello'.

Actually that's not true, I tried to blog a few times and wrote a few paragraphs here and there on this and that. I did that four weeks ago, and two weeks ago, and I'm determined that this one will be finished. Today, never mind if I don't fit in the pictures at the end - which is enjoyable but time-consuming. I will write.

I've been in India working and then in the USA 'playing'... actually resting and playing. Yep, I've been doing the Mars Bar thing. And now I'm back to work, and back to blogging and campaigning. I'm in the country. I am feeling a bit stressed at the end of the week, feeling like I've done quite a bit, which is just the tip of an iceberg of oncoming work, campaigning and other activities coming up. This is why sometimes I have to step away from it all and rest totally.

Pressing "reset" is sometimes the only thing I can try to do to keep going.

I am sorry that I haven't been blogging, but authentically, I had to not. I had to stop everything else because otherwise I would have been ill. I wouldn't have been able to rest (facing facts I've always been completely dreadful at resting and it is still a huge effort, and an accomplishment if I manage to relax). If I kept blogging all the time and never admitted that I was feeling the strain this wouldn't be a true blog about what living with mental health challenges is really like. So I stopped.

I started campaigning this week again, speaking yesterday evening and early this morning at Harvey Nichols to their head office and London store staff about what it is like to have depression and to say it out loud, and why the help that Mind charity provides is so vital - literally - to sustaining people through hard times, from the moment when they realise they or someone else is struggling through everything that comes after it.

Harvey Nichols has established a corporate partnership with Mind and will support them for the next two years. What makes me especially proud is that this super cool, classy customer service and consumer goods supplier par excellence asked its people which charity they wanted to support, and they chose Mind. Good choice! Thanks to them for having me to speak to them about my story and why it's important for us all to support ourselves and everyone around us facing mental health difficulties. It was inspiring to see the enthusiasm for getting involved and making a difference on people's faces today.

This is why I needed to rest. So that I can continue to use my voice. To speak aloud to one person or a room or a television camera, or tap my fingers on the keys and tap louder, to talk about mental health.

It's now twenty five minutes since I started typing and my heart and mind and body feel more relaxed and gladder, twenty five times more so. Next week I plan to write more - though some blog posts, if I finish the ones that are unfinished right now, will be out of sync with the timeline. I do have more to say, of course... But now it's time to rest again.

Stay in touch, and take care of yourselves. x

Give It A Rest. Back To Work or Back To Bed?

I'm thinking about going back to work.

I'm thinking about it because it's the end of the day on Friday and it's time to write my blog. Well, nearly time. Usually I reserve 4:00pm (my time of writing) for last minute bids which have been in the works for two weeks or so but which land on my desk with an hour or so to go of the working week. I laugh in the face of last minute bids. Seriously, nothing comes up as top of my Christmas list on a Friday afternoon work-wise, but actually these last minute things are quite fun because I have to supercharge my mental faculties and go for it.

It's nice sometimes. To feel one is to an extent the heroine of the hour. 'Elastigirl' (see below) swoops in with the slides at the eleventh hour. Delivers the goods. Writes beautiful slides. Creates a lovely balance between graphics and language. I say lovely. We're still talking about technology-related change. I love my job and all, but these slides are not Shakespeare I confess. I wonder what he might think of Power Point... Definitely up there with my desert island fly on the wall moments.

Shakespeare didn't consent to this by the way

Anyway, no bids or other work at the moment. I'm off. I may be the MVP (most valuable player) for my inability to sit still, (I learned that abbreviation via a process of elimination whilst reading Tina Fey's "Bossypants" this week) but I also know that if you don't rest (and by you I mean me) then you (I) don't get better.

I read this, but for feel good 

I'd recommend The Year of Yes - Shonda Rhimes. 

You go girl, I mean, highly successful award-winning writer.

Rest then. 

But rest can be bad for the mind even if good for the body. I've stacked up what I feel is a fairly impressive range of TV Boxsets, films and books over the last two weeks. I've also written a few notes to self, scribbled using my wonderful iPhone microphone which I discovered during my first back surgery. And I've slept a fair amount.

Netflix, I salute you. except it would be great if you showed all the 

shows available in the USA. Apart from that, you're, pretty okay.

I've also done my fair share of navel gazing. I really would prefer not to talk about that here, because I'm shaking a figurative finger at myself for that, and also I didn't plan on my navel featuring much in these web pages. Not as such. But the above does make me pause because it's rather unfortunate for my mental health suddenly being at home and forced to spend too much time on my own. My overall recovery could be disrupted by a dip in my mood, and I have felt that these two weeks.

Yep. This is me. And generous at it. This woman has super powers after all.

Unfortunately although the surgical procedure went really well and I even said goodbye to my stitches (staples even) yesterday, I have been struck with severe stomach cramps on the right hand side - apparently gas trapped inside me made worse by past stomach surgery. And not going anywhere despite a lot of muscle relaxants. I feel like I should be dropping around the house like Morph or Elastigirl. In reality I've got more hot air than both the Montgolfier brothers put together.

Pain that has come from a known but supposedly temporary source is unpredictable but unlike my mental health, because this is supposed to dissipate in days rather than months or years even it is annoying for each day it remains as a guest, tolerated but ever out- staying its welcome.

My mental health in the other hand. I wasn't exactly surprised to feel deflated (ironically) to be stuck at home with even washing my hair a now painful as well as seemingly gigantic task. But it had to raise its ugly head and remind me it was still there. "Oooh me! Me! Me! Me! Me!" as if jumping up and down and leaping for the chance to receive the ball pass.

Whereas in reality...

This.

Yeah, don't worry Depression, it's not easy to forget about you. And thanks for reminding me that staying away from work is not the way to further my career. You're right, it won't. I won't do anything at home while off sick because I'm ill and that, my dear, is the whole idea.

Hey there. You, know, I'm feeling a little big boned today.

But I also know that I won't get better hurtling back into work when I can still not stand without bending over in puffball agony. Not just because it won't be my most attractive pose. But also because I've been to the wellness centre at work and it's fab, but the duvets at home are within much easier reach thanks, and I can also wear my very cute jumper with the rabbits on. These are important considerations.

This is the exact style of jumper that I mean.

I own one of these!

Seriously, I cannot count the number of sick days I had off from school when I desperately didn't want to go and did and then felt awful, nor the days I didn't go and didn't feel good either. I also have had days when I went in to school or work or university when I didn't want to and it has been fine. Mentally I have to decide every time whether it's bad enough to be off or whether work (of whatever sort) will help to distract me and manoeuvre me into a better state of mind. 

This is not an exact science, but physically it's easier to determine. I can't move without being in fairly extreme pain. Okay. That means no work. Or at least if it subsides the smallest chance to work at home but absolutely no travelling, no carting a heavy laptop around and no uncomfortable clothing. My laptop's video camera will not be in use. I would not wish my frankly fabulous mouse pyjamas to distract people from the seriousness of my "message".

I don't have these exact ones. But like these.

And mentally while this is going on I have to do what I can (as always) as we all do to take care of the physical stuff so it's as unobtrusive as possible and provide some sort of active rest - watching, reading, writing... Okay I admit, also playing Angry Birds. Active rest meaning something that isn't too much or stressful (okay, might have to take out Angry Birds) but keeps my mind going and away from my navel.

Which is currently covered in an attractive range of winter woollen leggings and an assortment of sweatshirts people in the eighties might have thought appropriate for callisthenics. (My iPhone just spelled that for me, I take no credit.)

All this and more. I am an eighties icon

(lying down without the trainers)

So, it's now 6pm and would usually be time for clocking off. So clock off I shall. From my blog post. I have no idea how I'll feel on Monday but there are two whole days in between, including your favourite and mine, consumer goods made up price-hoiking day of the year, or Valentine's Day if you must. But as I always say at the end of these posts take care. Health is precious. Take that from me. Michelin man. Take care. X

(This was created by adventuregamestudio.co.uk

Those people have serious time on their hands

and even more serious coding enthusiasm!)

Out of the Blue and In The Pink

It comes, it goes, it stays, it leaves...

My last weekend's post is fragmented with ups and downs, and therefore late because my mental health has been fluctuating, but knowing that writing helps, here it is.

Monday 18th January.

I'm feeling so so about the day ahead. Neither good nor bad, neither despairing or excited, at least right now. Right now I'm concentrating on the essentials: getting out of bed. Making the bed. Showering. Drying my hair. Dressing for the day and packing up my rucksack. Then there's the rush or swift pacing towards the train. And on the platform beside me are hundreds of others who have just gone through all those same things and probably more. They might have children to rouse and cajole and chastise through all of those steps above, parents or other relatives to care for, or perhaps they have already been up for hours exercising. (It is, after all, still January.)

Last week I wrote a blog post for Mind on the so-called and fictitious Blue Monday, explaining as clearly as I could that anyone with with depression could be #blueanyday.

There's No Such Thing As A Depression Day

So here's a look at my week.

Monday last, I performed all of the above. With a new year goal to try to be healthy and fit, with a hope that as a side effect I would lose some of the two stone I've gained since breaking my back and being on a cocktail of drugs, at least one of which appears to have beaten down with a stick my ability to eat well, exercise regularly and manage (to a better extent, at least) my weight.

I was extremely busy all day with a number of meetings with team members, colleagues leading projects I'm involved with, my boss and with others. On these days I know I won't have created a document (or 'deliverable', the word my business seems - inexplicably - to prefer) in my hand at the end of the day, the management consultant's equivalent of a painting to take home to mummy and daddy to put on the fridge with proud faces. I rush around the building, knowing that I will certainly meet my daily target of 10,000 steps as my meetings are randomly situated over the fourteen-storey two-building expanse that is my office.

Working my brain into an oiled machine...it gets a little rusty over the weekends at time

There is a reason that I schedule all these meetings together though. One after the other the meetings happen, and I take "a mindful breath" before each one, and get through them. during the first I might feel my gears or cognitive cogs creaking into life after the weekend of luxurious lie-ins (till 7:45!). But as the first meets progresses my clanking cranium starts to move more steadily and stronger, the oil of my breathing and breakfast silently slithering around inside me so I start functioning properly. My point is: once the wheels are turning, I want to keep going as much as I can. 

It's worth it to get my brain in gear and be productive

My mind is whirring eventually and I can actually think about each topic on the agenda and bring something valuable into what we discuss. And my second point is, that, I can't get any detailed work document compiled in a snatched half hour where I should also try to grab my lunch. So, at the end of Monday I feel surprised that it has arrived. I don't have anything in my hand to show for it, to prove I've done anything worthwhile, except a notebook of actions and considerations; but I did get through the day, which I always try to see as something positive these days, and attending so many meetings in a way makes the most of my mental and physical energy reserves to speak and contribute and to be in front of people.

My day can end with notes on a piece of paper, 

but those notes lead to decisions and - finally - to 'deliverables'

I go home and eat something for dinner. Something healthy, and watch television and then to bed. I didn't sleep properly on Sunday night so today, I hope, things will be different.

Tuesday 19th January

Just keep going. Get dressed, and do the things that come after that. 

Tuesday is usually the same, but last week a combination of needing to spend a large amount of time on teleconferences with colleagues in other locations meant I decided to stay at home. Without a three-hour round trip commute I can just get so much more done. Unfortunately I didn't sleep well again, so I indulged in an additional 45 minutes in bed. Some attempt that when I rose, finally, I would be able to push my mind into a state where I could work. I had more listening to do rather than talking, more notes to take, then, but also more time to be quiet even while listening to others talking.

The structure of Monday (with all its meetings stacked up) works for me, but I need both company and solitude to balance my mental health, and time away from the office is a great way to be fully involved in my work but not exposed to the anxieties of travel, dressing up, all the above "start the day" activities. Plus, no one can see my face or any part of me; I could be wearing my pyjamas or my jeans. (If I'm at home as I was for most of Tuesday, I'll likely be wearing jeans, thick socks, a woollen t shirt, two jumpers, a woolly snood, a rug-like scarf and a hat. Our central heating is either on and not very hot or off. Either way sitting still for hours is not the best if you want to stay warm.) the point of this alone time is to be able to carry on working on terms that help my mental health not get in the way of progress.

I ended the day with a treat to see a film - Room - at the cinema, alone. I love solo cinema trips, since it was always too late to organise spontaneous visits with friends most weekends. Alone in the cinema I can think whatever I want and it doesn't matter if others disagree. I won't need to be polite and listen and broker my way through the discussion; it's just me on my own in the dark watching a story unfold, and my review is in my head, not open for discussion or critique.

Wednesday 20th January

Wednesday was similar in form to Tuesday. I spent my working hours at home on calls and producing some documents in the time in between. I can't remember whether I slept well on Tuesday night or not, but I suspect I didn't. Somewhere along the way through Wednesday morning a combination of feeling numb and feeling desperate seep in and I notice by lunchtime that I feel like going to bed and not getting up for the rest of the day. 

I wasn't overworked, I was overwhelmed by depression.

Not the same thing. It can happen through over work,

but I'm still working on understanding this skittish illness

Where does it come from? I had therapy coming up later and so, so wanted to stay at home and slip under the duvet away from everything and everyone in the world until Mat finally got home. But the practical part of me somehow wrestled me into boots and out of the door. I didn't enjoy the fresh air on the walk as I felt the despair of myself - the self I cannot love - in spades. But I know that the exercise and air are natural remedies for better mental health. And luckily for me, it was beautiful. Rationally and unobjectionably beautiful.

The only thing I can think of ito explain what has become a regular mood dip is that the middle of the week is when I have involved myself in the work equivalent of a mess of wool and knitting needles of activity, and if I stop every stitch will perhaps unravel, or if I continue I must be unrelenting in my commitment to progress. You can't make an omelette, etc. Perhaps that is it. It's the second Wednesday in a row when I have felt like this. I can't remember if it came on at the same time, but by the time I'm through with crying in therapy and back at home in the evening, still crying, I did remember how it feels to feel desperate and that things won't get better.

TV. Food. Sleep. I think the sleep worked this time. I didn't have anxiety in my stomach and tingling all over me the next day. That's all I've got. So that has to be good enough.

Thursday 21st January

Thursday was unusual. I had to go to Tooting for a hospital appointment and walked all the way there from home, rising very early, to try to use the walking and fresh air I know - rationally - that I have to include in my life for better mental health. My feet hurt by the time I arrived but I focussed more on hope that my brain would be flooded with positive endorphins of the exercise rather than the dull, murky and lumpy vessels of whatever chemicals are causing my depression to come back and dip my mood again. I also wondered whether two days at home consecutively had made me lonely, so I` don't know. I'm just trying a lot of things I know are good for me and hoping for a better day tomorrow if today is rubbish.

 

I had a reason to feel somewhat abnormal. I was nervous about seeing my neuro-spinal surgeon a whole year after our last meeting. He is both a brilliant surgeon and a thoroughly nice man but I was terrified that I wouldn't be deemed fit and well to have the screws taken out of my spine and afraid in equal measure that I would. I had to call my health insurer to gain an authorisation code for the surgery which is another worry for me, as the representatives are trained to the precise words that come from their mouths to offer a balance of sympathy and firmness, the latter in particular when one of them tells you that you aren't covered for that and that there is nothing that they can do, even if you might find your life at risk because of that seemingly irrational and quite silly conclusion. (To be fair this has only happened once, for suspected sleep apnoea.)

When I've got a lot on my mind, my thoughts

weight twice as much as my body

The rest of Thursday was part triumph and part disappointment. There are so many days like that, where hour to hour I feel elated one moment, but the next in a slough of despond. I had a couple of great meetings but also several where no one showed up. If this happens once, great, I can use the time to get things updated for one project or another, find the resources to fee fulfilled. Three or four cancellations, though, and I'm slightly panicked that I won't be able to achieve the things I was meant to, feeling sick. These things happen; I have to tell myself that, and that there's no reason that it's me. 

This sometimes worries me... 

I am, after all a control freak... so I can control scheduling the meeting,

but not who attends them!

Sunday 23rd January

I'm skipping forward to Sunday as its getting late and I'm very tired. Even blogging, which I love, takes energy, and I need some reserves for Monday. Continuing to try exercise for health, I  had run on Saturday morning and struggled but running on Sunday was easier. Reading through the above makes me feel sad, because it really wasn't a bad week at all, but I hate how a small thing can make me feel really dragged down. Meeting up with two lovely women from the In The Pink a cappella group to discuss International Women's Day and their performance at my work was a delight and so much fun. We laughed and shared our love of music and its powerful means to make me (and everyone) feel good. and walking around beautiful Oxford with Mat lifted me up again. Not necessarily forever, but the inspiration of music and beautiful buildings, happy memories and fantastic people are always going to be magical medication, and make me feel well again. 

Doing what I can to stay in the pink and out of the blue

So here's to another week of ups and downs that leave me somewhere along the narrow road to tomorrow. Take care. x

Please Mrs Butler...Do I Have To Go Back To Work?

In the latter part of Christmas, this was me...

*

In fact, they were a mixture of small and large plates, 

jugs, pouts and more in my refrigerator.

One of the walking routes I grew particularly fond of is the path from sofa to fridge to sofa to bed to sofa and back to fridge... Ahhh. But through my #12DaysofXmasMH as I mentioned in my reflection blog post, I learned a lot about myself and the importance of checking in with myself about how I feel on a regular basis. I found myself getting the itch to go back to work in fact, in a way best expressed by one of my favourite poems:

Alan Ahlberg, this has been completely relevant
for me through school, university and work.

After adopting the useful check-ins I ended up realising that sofa-to-fridge and back is not the best way to sustain reasonably good mental health. Christmas is challenging for me for many reasons I've already written about in previous posts, but what I hadn't realised was, that while rest is important, activity is also important. I guess I should have been hitting myself over the head with one of those  foam mallet things to remind myself that the word "balance" defines everything that helps my mental health, but clearly I was in some kind of major food coma after consuming at least four packets of those yummy cheese and bacon bites that Marks and Spencer needs to stock UNTIL I DIE because it is key to my Christmas Staple Foods.

Ah yes. Must remember!

You may noticed that there have been a few changes to the blog since you last saw it - and this was part of my activity list. Sort non-work stuff out. And because I can't do jigsaws since I still have to keep the house looking like I don't live in our flat.Conversation with myself: Not only was I telling myself, "You have a campaign to run. Do something about it!", I also noticed that I if I did fill my days with some low-level activities and also kept running or walking, my mood would stabilise. Thank you! And for all the resolutions I made, there was still this persisting thought in the back of my mind.

Yep. Smells the same. Looks the same. Is, in fact, the same.

So in some ways I was dreaming about going back to work and very excited for it. There are loads of projects going on that I'm eager to get involved with about and the Learning Academy is such an exciting place to be right now. When I have time to reflect, headspace if you like, I finally have time to think through everything that goes on when I'm in back to back meetings.

I can think of fewer situations this *doesn't* apply 

to than ones to which it doesn't. Oh dear oh dear.

But there is one aspect of going back to work that I absolutely loathe. It's totally ridiculous, I know, but this is the reason I have a slight sense of dread about the first day back: it's because everyone will ask how it was.

"How was your holiday?"
"It was good, thanks, how about yours?"
"Great thanks, so relaxing, really good."

I'm the person in the middle here. I'm okay for the first few of these - one or two exchanges. After that, with each one my stomach starts to tighten because I feel confused and under pressure to have had a brilliant Christmas.

Every week. Every single week.

I feel incredibly self-conscious about it. I can't help thinking in the back of my head that my answer should be a lot more impressive, and worse, that I should feel absolutely amazing about it, for example: "Thanks, it was the most amazing holiday ever. I won the lottery, we flew to Lapland and met Santa, then we dined on caviar and drank Champagne every day, we went on several holidays abroad and at home, staying in luxury five star resorts where we were waited on hand and foot, oh and by the way here's my resignation note since we won the lottery I shan't be coming back. Have a lovely year." With no mention that in addition to all of the above very much not happening, it's now Broke January, and the immense joy of being paid on 22nd December is now replaced with intense panic that I will run out of money by next week.

I will be more assertive. If that's okay?

At the same time I know I shouldn't worry about it, so based on being more authentic and not feeling like I have to conform to any kind of (completely self-fabricated) notions of what Christmas should be like. I noticed this (thanks Mindfulness and check-ins!) so I changed my answer to be more honest, Everytime I'm more honest I feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. It is such a relief to be myself.

Yes, Jessica. Yes.

I said "Good thanks. We didn't really do much." And it was surprising how many people answer, "Same here", or - alternatively - "Oh God, the total opposite, I've come back to work for a rest!". (Those are the people with young children.) It's another one of those humps that I have to get over.

I was one of the people thinking this at the end of this week.

And some people were probably thinking it over Christmas too.

Reality check: lots of people are feeling the same or have had a Christmas that is normal - i.e. up and down! Stop beating yourself up about the fact that you've had a normal Christmas and nothing dazzling or amazing has happened. Just because Orlando Bloom and George Clooney did not decide to leave their partners in order to beg for your hand in marriage does not mean that I'm a total failure as a human being.

Fair enough George, you're married already, it would be complicated.

Orlando? You've got no excuse!

And then there's the stuff that comes next. I took Monday off because I was hoping this would ease me into the year more gently. What actually happened was that I had to make myself not check emails that day as I saw the number against the mail box growing and growing. The temptation to look was very strong, but I had to gently remind myself with a stern word that I had taken the day OFF so I should be NOWHERE NEAR my emails.

Yes, clearly I should have been ignoring emails and focusing on 

this much more urgent activity!

Now I've been back at work a week and yes - I could do with a breather - no surprise there then. Christmas feels like it was a year ago, my best efforts to start the year with everything organised are just plain unrealistic.

Speaking of which...

*Food break*

On the positive side, I've made some progress and have organised a large number of things to do with my campaign and the year ahead at work, increased my exercise and have limited my meals containing either the word 'burger' or 'pies' to only about one a day rather than a wall-to-wall-pastry-fest. There are good things.

Absolutely. 

Is it working?

I have to keep working at telling myself to check in, see how I am and I have to keep telling myself that I can't possibly achieve everything in a single day, maybe not even in a year. But I can do something. And dealing with 'challenges' (which, by the way is work-speak for "WTF. Seriously?" moments)... there are always the nice email replies.

I actually don't mean this when I say thanks. 

But 'outstanding' is my favourite word to describe a day. That Has Gone. To. The. Dogs.

So, yes, a week back at work and I could do with a holiday. In the meantime there are weekends. (Thank you. THANK YOU, the inventor of the weekend. You are awesome.)

Evening schedule. And weekend schedule.

And possibly schedule at other times too. 

You won't tell anyone, will you?

In the meantime, with at least a few hours of my weekend to go, I might just go back and have a read of some of the other poems I love. Eat a nice meal, go for a walk, Just enjoy the weekend. And on poems, the headteacher of my primary school, Mrs. Evans, taught me to love poetry with her expressive performances of many of the poems she read to us - aged five. Although she was incredibly strict and not terribly nice to the older children, she let herself be seen for the passionate literature lover she clearly was when she worked with the smallest children in the school. My love for her poems (as that is how I remember them, even though other authors had written and published them) remains and is testified by how vividly I remember those readings. Humour and creativity - whether music, writing, reading poetry or prose - make a huge difference to my mood, and a lot of poems are small enough to fit into even a really busy day.

Please Mrs Butler. A Poetry book everyone, 

children and adults should read. It's brilliant!

So that will be what I do before this starts again...

Whatever you're up to, take care and take it one breath at a time. (And for more on that, read this article on mindful breathing at work, I really enjoyed it.) See you soon! x

*A very big, #redefiningresilience thank you to VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) for the tweets I used in this post. Your tweets are often the #smallthings that make a #bigdifference to my #mentalhealth. Thank you.