Life Update: A Wedding and A Bad Back

Big fat fail on the blogging front so far in 2011!! I'm so annoyed!

In my defence I've had the dreaded lurgy which lasted for two weeks and left me sounding like Mutley with a tres annoying barking cough, and then I put my back out on Sunday.

"How did you do that?" I hear you ask..... well it pains me (ha!) to admit that I fell out of bed. Which would be embarrassing enough in itself, but I was actually dreaming of being at the Zoo. It was one of those vivid dreams that makes you feel really involved and emotional. The Zoo then flooded and I was trying to rescue the animals... a split second later I was on the floor and the "elephant" that I was clinging onto actually turned out to be the bedsheets! I have to admit that it is quite funny.

The verdict is that I've torn the ligaments in my lower back (from trying to hold onto the elephant I expect!) and my gosh it hurts. My GP wanted to sign me off work for a week so that I can rest it, but I honestly can't afford to lose a week's pay this soon after Christmas so I've been dosing myself up with tablets and going into the office - on the condition that I sit at my desk and stay there!

I know that I must be mad going into work feeling like this. My long-suffering colleagues deserve a gold star this week too!

In between the Mutley illness and the Bad Back I went to my good friend Jenny's wedding. My best friend Louise and her hubby came over from Germany for the occassion and so the old gang of us were all together again. The whole day was wonderful from start to finish and I was honoured to have been asked by Jen and Adrian to read a beautiful text during the ceremony. I almost started crying after making the mistake of catching Jen's eye but took a deep breath and got to the end... aaaand I didn't trip over my floor-length dress! I was very proud of myself :)

Jen and Ade had the fantastic idea of planning some games inbetween Afternoon Tea and traditional speeches etc, and the "evening" part of the day. Afternoon Tea was amazing btw. Home-made cakes, cupcakes, jam tarts and scones sitting on shabby-chic cakestands with little pots of various home-made jam, and beautiful tea and coffee pots dotted along the tables... I was in heaven!

The children had a little games room just off the main reception room so they were happy (although it wasn't long before they discovered the balloons. One of my worst fears is a child plus balloon!) and we had a wine tasting game followed by a charity quiz.

Our team won the quiz!!! Jen and Ade kindly donated £50.00 towards a charity of the winning team's choice, and we chose the Cystic Fibrosis Unit at Papworth Hospital in memory of my cousin Mike. Another wedding guest donated another £25.00 which was an unexpected and wonderful gesture. I was quite emotional at that point. I'm so pleased that the unit at Papworth will benefit from their generosity.

This is what I wore:

from asos

Don't you just love it when you go back in to look and it's in the bloody sale?!

I haven't included a photo of myself wearing it because I don't have any photos of myself that don't include other people, and I didn't want to upload wedding photos without asking Jen and Adrian first - hopefully I'll edit this later or create a separate post and show you some pictures!

Am I rambling? Yes. As usual a massive post! Is this even making any sense? It really is the tablets :(

xx

Wow, it's been a while hasn't it? I'm sorry for the distinct lack of blogposts but what with everything that's happened over this last month I just haven't felt inspired. It's exactly a month today since I posted my "This Is Me Now..." monthly review. It was the night before Mike's operation. It feels like a million years ago. I wish I could turn the clock back to that day and pause time forever. But I can't. And life, however difficult, has to go on.

On a blogging note, I've returned to see that I *somehow* have more new followers! Thank you followers old and new for sticking with me, it means so much :)

I haven't planned what I'm going to say in this post. I just felt like blogging, and this is the rambling result!

And now for another message of thanks. What an amazing group of ladies you are. Compiling my last post was one of the most difficult things that I've ever had to do, and considering you probably haven't met me, my family or Mike, your words of kindness and compassion helped more than you'll ever know. It's always really, really difficult to know what to say to someone in this situation even when you know them in person and so that makes me appreciate your comments even more xxx

I've gone through a few phases of being afraid to let you guys into my "real life".... what was I so scared of?!

You guys are seriously amazing.

T H A N K   Y O U xxx

MIA for so long! A little (rambling) update...

Hello my dears! I'm so sorry I've been MIA for a while, I've been busy, busy, busy with work and life in general and just haven't had the time to blog myself or catch up with everyone else's... I've really missed you all :(

The main reason for my absence is because I've started swimming again. I used to swim a LOT because it's fab for my CP (cerebral palsy), which can make my lower leg muscles really painful and tense, especially if I am stressed or tired - it basically feels like permanent cramp, which sucks! When I was struck down (!) with depression last year, I lost ALL of my confidence and stopped socialising, my physio, swimming... and even had problems looking in the mirror at myself. I won't bore you with all of the details now, however a few of my older posts address that time in my life if you're at all interested :)

I'm slowly making good progress (yay!!) with the help of counselling and fantastic support from family and friends, and started swimming again about 4 weeks ago. I'm so proud of myself as this was a huge thing for me to do - not the swimming itself - but to put myself in a situation where people can see my legs, and lets face it it's scary enough for all of us girls to put on a swimming cossie!! I'm also annoyed at myself for giving up on it in the first place when it's so important to keep active, so am trying to win myself some brownie points back ;)

I swim with my Aunty Sue, who is sooo funny, I love her. She keeps me motivated too which is what I need. She's nearly drowned me through laughing at least six times!! We both love swimming and managed 60 lengths on Thursday evening (when we started we could barely swim 20) ... I REALLY ache and feel pretty exhausted for a couple of days afterwards but already feel that my balance and general fitness has improved :)

I'm going to start my hydrotherapy programme again in the next couple of weeks too, which will help to build up my core stability etc again. The plan is to swim once a week and do my hydro on the other pool visit - Aunty Sue is keen to give it a go too... go Aunty Sue!!!

I've also started socialising again with my lovely friends... not as much as I used to because I still feel pretty anxious about it, but baby steps and all that... it's been great to get myself glammed up for a night out on the tiles and feel like the old me.

So although I only swim on two weeknights per week, the rest of the time has been swallowed up by domestic drudgery, seeing friends and family etc etc, but as I said I've missed the whole Blogger community so I'm going to try harder to blog/comment etc.

Thanks for sticking with me, I really, really appreciate you all following/reading my musings. Big hugs :) xxxx