Work related stress causes two things in my case – so far one of them has been almost ten weeks off work and this causes the other problem…. more stress worrying about whether I will have a job at the end of this and whether I can survive the time off financially.

In either case it has been a difficult time so far. My family have been amazingly supportive, contacting me daily and arranging visits. My daughter’s greyhound Hippie has given me a great deal of love, company and pleasure, and, I have met many new friends on the way, some virtual and some amazingly real!!

The obvious thing a lot of people do when on long term sick leave is watch an awful lot of TV. I have never watched TV much and he thought of watching some of the daytime rubbish filled me with more dread. Added to the fact that because of the aforementioned anxiety I couldn’t sit down for long without panicking that I should be doing something.

I decided to devise a routine of sorts to keep me sane.

Every morning I get up early, shower and dress – Okay I’m not going anywhere but why become a slob because of it?

Then I make a list of things to do today – at the beginning this was just basic housework and cupboard sorting but they needed doing. then as each task is completed I strike through it. I also try to drive a little every day as that’s where the panic hits me the most – and guess what? I can go quite a distance now. Nothing like I used to but its getting better.

Some days I have to go shopping – I don’t like supermarkets much because the milling throng get in my way – but I do it!

Then there’s my laptop and broadband – thank you God!!!!!

I have my own websites – four of them, much the same as this one, and I hadn’t been keeping up with them at the beginning because it seemed that my creative spirit had disappeared. But then my son showed me how to get to other peoples sites and just read some of their posts. It was great, there are some funny, crazy, wonderful people out there and it made me laugh just reading what they had to say.

There is one special site where an elderly pipe smoking gentleman posts his daily thoughts. Sounds quite gentle eh? Sometimes it is, but sometimes he is controversial, or serious, and sometimes so funny the tears stream down my face. But his persona of being Grandad makes me forgive the swearing etc just thinking he is cantankerous and cannot help it. I have been brave enough to comment on some of his posts and have been pleasantly surprised that he doesn’t ‘give out’ to me like he does with others.

See, if I had a persona I could play act and be ……. what? A cranky old woman? No – I’m not far off that already. A young teenager? God no I remember what that was like. A bloke? I’d never get away with it…

Maybe I’ll just have to be me. I was never any good at pretending.

Anyway I’ll post this as a big thank you to my family and friends both on and offline – you are helping me to get through this! Oh and the house is clean, paintings done, slabs have been pressure washed – its all coming together. Just need to get back to work now!!!!!