catch up

As I've not been blogging much I've got quite a lot of catching up to do!

Firstly I am beginning to feel better now, the medication seems to be working and my side effects are changing and getting less intrusive.

I've been trying to spring clean over the last week. I started on the kitchen sorting through cupboards as well as general tidying and cleaning. As you'll see from the photo below Kasumi decided to "help" me, although her help seemed to involve trying to break into her food bag!

We've had fantastic weather over the last week, really hot and sunny for the end of March. It feels very unnatural and although I appreciate the warmth and sun it does feel a bit unsettling. I'm sure it's climate change. Any way the warm weather has woken my tulips early with one of the salmon pink tulips flowering today!
Here it is from another angle.
I had a wonderful weekend, on Saturday I went down to London to meet my twitter friend, Sarah aka @gentlechaos It was the first time we'd managed to meet up and I had a lovely time. Sarah is really easy to talk to and I can talk for Britain. We certainly didn't run out of things to talk about. We had a lovely lunch at Canteen on Baker Street. Below you can see the victoria sponge I had for pudding.
After lunch we walked up to Regents Park, the weather was glorious and after looking around some of the park we sat on the grass in the sunshine. All in all a lovely day.

The Black Dog

I have to apologise once again for not blogging. The black dog (depression) has been scratching at my door for a little while now. As ever it was only when my ability to actually work was affected that I realised how bad it was.
But at least I did recognise it and I went back to my GP to go back on the antidepressants again.

The black dog is what Winston Churchill called his bouts of depression
and I think it's an apt description. Dogs can be scary but they're also loyal and for me my depression is not as frightening as it used to be and it does keep coming back like a faithful dog. I do believe that I can train my black dog so it becomes less of a problem.

I was really touched and grateful for the support and kind words of my friends on Facebook and Twitter. I was also surprised at how many had experience of mental health conditions whether it was post natal depression or something more like my anxiety and depression cycle. It cheers me to see how the stigma of mental health conditions is being slowly eroded. I know there are many barriers to over come but I know that 10 years ago I didn't dare talk about my mental health condition openly.

I've had nearly 2 weeks of side effects from the medication: nausea, dizziness, head ache & hot flushes but they're easing slowly. I'm also beginning to feel a bit more positive being able to start spring cleaning & gardening.

I love my garden and today I had a Japanese honeysuckle and two climbing white roses delivered. One of the roses was featured on Gardener's World on Friday, I was so glad I ordered it before the programme I bet it's sold out now! I'll post some pictures and links about my garden later this week.

Garden and cats

Garden and cats, a set on Flickr.

I took some photos of the cats in the garden yesterday enjoying the sunshine. I was digging the border ready to plant some roses & a blackberry bush. The cats were fascinated by me digging as well as enjoying themselves chasing bees!