A Slightly Soggy Royal Day Out

 

I've just about dried out from yesterday's trip to London to watch the Coronation Flypast and soak (no pun intended) up the atmosphere. I hadn't planned on going but I heard rumours of 'special' aircraft formations and I thought after the epic formations at the Platinum Jubilee (you can read my blog from last year here and watch my video of the flypast below) I wanted to be a part of it. 

The Ministry Of Defence (MOD) warned a couple of days before the celebration that due to the horrific weather forecast the flypast was at risk of being scaled back or worse cancelled. This helpfully came 2 hours after I'd bought my train tickets ... So I decided to take a chance on going as I could always go and find something else to do should the flypast be cancelled.

Decorations at Eastbourne Station

En route

When I got to London there was no news on whether the flypast was going ahead or not so I decided it was a good excuse to pop to my favourite book shop Treadwells 😇. 

Look at all those books 💕

Unlike the weather Treadwells didn't disappoint and I came away with some goodies -

I got one of these candle holders on my last visit and was heartbroken when it broke so I got two this time!

One can't have too many tarot artbooks!

I also got this book that I didn't know existed! I really enjoyed the author's previous book Sigil Witchery and this one delves deeper into connection art and magic, I've been wanting to get back into drawing etc so I thought this would be a good buy.

After Treadwells the flypast still seemed to be going ahead so I went down to Waterloo Place where I watched the flypast last year. I'd missed the actual 'crowning' moment as I was on the tube, luckily Piccadilly Circus had me covered. 

The decorations were out in full force (think or say what you want about the Coronation or Royal Family we do pageantry very well!).

The world's biggest tea towel?

The brollies were out in full force ...

Unfortunately to no-one's surprise the MOD announced that the flypast was being scaled back to helicopters and the Red Arrows only. We were all disappointed but as you can hear from the cheers on the video everyone made the best of it (please ignore the raindrops on the lense blurring everything out). 

I lifted some photos from the video and unfortunately they weren't very good due to the gloom.

Merlin & Apaches

Wildcat & Merlins

Juno HT1s

Puma & Chinooks

The flypast was rounded off by a flypast from the Red Arrows.

After the flypast I headed home to dry off. I'm pleased I went, as the atmosphere was good and I can always have the "I was there" boast 😆 I just wish the weather would have played ball. We've had an utterly crap spring cold and wet with none of the random 'hot days' we normally have (an example being when I went to Yungblud in March last year and I was walking around London in a t-shirt! If you don't believe me then read my blog 😆). 

I think I might need to find a more indoor special interest that doesn't involve being soaked 😆

Wish us luck!

Love Jen

XxxX

Putting It Out There

It needs putting out there. In the famous words of Gérard Way "I'm not OK". My mental health is crashing around my feet and I haven't felt this unwell since Aug 2019...

What I didn't mention in my last blog about my Yungblud shows was that I was supposed to have an extra night in Brighton (Mum was going into hospital for a knee operation so needed to isolate) and had my hotel booked and ready and a plan for how to spend the day. As you may guess my brain had other plans and completely melted down meaning I had to head home early (losing £70 in the process). On a positive note Mum's recovering from her knee operation well 😊. 

It just seems like every time I try to do something I enjoy my brain has other ideas and boy do I suffer for any concert I try to go to, meet up I try to do with my friends. I can't even take Eos for a walk around the block without having anxiety attacks, even leaving my room to go downstairs makes me anxious. 

I'm not even looking forward to things that normally make my heart sing going to RIAT, adopting bunnies again, summer fun in general. 

I'm on the waiting list (Well more of a scroll 📜 I imagine) for the mental health team to be re-assessed AGAIN now with a view to my having PTSD with my Autism. But we all know how crap they've been in the past, dumping me off their books because I wasn't 'cured' by anxiety courses, being spoken down to in the rudest ways. I have no faith in their ability to help in any way. I have new anti-depressants to try but I've had to stop them because the side effects were so awful - I get restless legs at night sometimes which can be a side effect of these and my god were they awful, I ended up punching my legs to try and stop the twitching then wondering the next morning where the bruised feeling came from 🤦🏻‍♀️

I just feel so helpless, useless and utterly pathetic and leads to me wondering if it's worth even trying when I can't find any happiness in anything and am spending my time just being terrified all the time and feeling sick 🤮 from nerves *insert Mrs Bennett from Pride & Prejudice here*

Love Jen

XxxX

Yungblud Take 2!

 

Hi guys as the title suggests yesterday I finally made it to the re-arranged Yungblud shows in Brighton. After two previous attempts it was third time lucky on a lovely, sunny Brighton day.

As always I had my best travel buddy Corney with me. 

We stayed near to the venue at The Amsterdam Hotel which was slightly 'oldy worldy' but still nice. The room was small but that wasn't a problem for a solo (plus unicorn) traveller, they were also very generous with the tea and coffee supplies in the room (much appreciated!).

View from the window

Whilst making use of the aforementioned tea supplies I realised that my hair matched the wall 😅

After finishing my cuppa it was time to get ready for the shows. I painted the Yungblud logo on my face (I like to decorate with artist's logos when possible, see my 30 Seconds To Mars blogs) and popped my trusty spikes on. What can I say? I like a bit of goth statue of liberty cosplay 😏.

Looking like a proper member of the Black Hearts Club

The shows were at Chalk which is a night club/small gig venue, I liked the neon decor. 

The benefit of the venue being small was that I could stand at the back and still have a pretty good view whilst maintaining my 'Jen space'.

This is my favourite song The Funeral 

Posing on the barrier post-show to look cool ....

Whilst I was waiting to go into the club I made a 'queue friend' called Nikki who was lovely and also had tickets to both shows. When the first show finished we decided to make the most of a sunny evening and have a walk on Brighton Pier which was across the road. 

We were treated to an absolutely stunning sunset. 

Sunset selfie 

The sunset kept getting better and better and looked particularly good with the silhouette of the ruined West Pier in front of it.

On the way back to re-join the queue (how British is it that I queued twice in one day?) I gave into the elements (it was a sunny day but the moment it went down the air temperature reminded me that it was still early April) and got a hot chocolate which came served in the cutest bunny cup.

How to make Jen enjoy a drink even more

Pretty pier lights

The second show was as good as the first, I do love seeing bands in small venues it's much more personal and fun. One of my favourite ever 30 Seconds To Mars shows was in a really small venue in Hackney (which was super cool bearing in mind they were playing shows at the O2 Arena every other time they visited the UK) but I digress. I'm hoping Yungblud carries on performing in small venues as well as the bigger shows (I saw him back in February at Wembley Area - read about it here). 

Living his Coyote Ugly fantasy 😂

One final barrier selfie

This morning after I left the hotel I had a wander around Brighton. Helen had asked me to look out for plant themed decor for her and I was shocked she wasn't keen on these beauties ....

No gratitude some people! Whilst I was in The Lanes I went to their branch of Shakeaway. and went for a Kinder Bueno, Ferrero Roche and Reeces Pieces mix (you can have literally anything, when Eastbourne still had a branch I had all sorts of combinations). 

Yum yum yum (please come back to Eastbourne)

Before I headed for the train I went to Two Feathers as I needed a new white candle (my one from Glastonbury is nearly burnt down). The mission was succesfull for both me and the store since I also ended up buying a Fluorite and Green Lapis crystal points. In my defence they're pretty and calming. 

I'm lucky enough to be seeing Yungblud again at The Eden Project in June and dragging Helen along to keep me company under the guise of a trip to Cornwall 😇 I feel I should fit in fine since scones are one of my favourite things in the world, so long as I get the jam and cream the right way round and don't get deported to Devon ......

Love Jen

XxxX

PS for those having a 'what the hell?' moment about the scones this will explain it https://www.thespruceeats.com/difference-cornish-vs-devon-cream-tea-435316#:~:text=In%20Devon%2C%20the%20scones%20are,the%20ingredients%20that%20are%20different.

Next steps in Autism

***Popping some trigger warnings for mental health and all it's associations in before anyone starts reading****

Last month I shared the news that (in the world's smallest surprise) I'd officially received a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (you can read about it in more detail here). Since then I've been really struggling with my anxiety and mood, I would assume it's related to the diagnosis but who knows with my brain 🤦🏻‍♀️. 

One of the really big things I've noticed is just how angry I've become all the time. We used to joke that Esme was the world's grumpiest being but lately I've been putting her to shame. Every little minor inconvenience, being asked regular questions, adverts interrupting YouTube videos will have me swearing at the TV. I've always been an inwardly angry person as a result of my shitty life experiences but now it's surged to an impossible degree where I'm choosing to spend as much time alone as possible as I'm downright awful to be around, crazily snappy and worry I'm going to blow my lid and scream at some poor unsuspecting friend or family member for no reason. I get like this with PMT but this is like permanent PMT x 1000. 

I guess that some of the anger is tied to not being diagnosed until now and living almost 36 years struggling to understand what's wrong with me and why I feel so different. There's also the anger at professionals who could have picked up on the traits nearly a decade ago rather than just boxing me into diagnoses and sending me on my (not so) merry way. The so-called professionals who I've dealt with over the last few years have been worse than useless and sought to drop me at every possible opportunity despite knowing that I have ongoing mental health needs. 

The other big problem at the moment, one would assume being fed by my anger and frustration, is my dangerously low mood. At the moment I'm back in the head space I was in summer 2019 when I wanted to (to put it delicately) 'unalive' myself and ironically putting my autistic researching skills to good use working out what combinations of meds would send me off the most painlessly. 

The only thing that's stopping me is knowing how much pain it would cause those around me (especially with their own problems at the moment, upcoming surgeries and other health problems) and the thought of not seeing the world's dimmest Border Collie (™) again. So I'm back to my old coping mechanisms of 'hurting' and over eating to try and numb the brain pain.

I've spoken to my GP and been prescribed a new anti-depressant to try (along with my existing mood stabilisers, anti-psychotics and anxiety meds) which is called Mirtazapine. Which takes my grand total anti-depressants varieties I've tried to 6 (the others on the honour roll are Citalopram, Duloxetine, Fluoxetine, Sertraline and Venlafaxine). I'll start on it next week so hopefully it'll help improve things a little.

Love Jen

XxxX