Pinterest

So, Mrs Wonky Pocket suggested I join Pinterest and so I have! It's quite fun but I can see myself spending many an hour just looking for pictures to add!!! I've been going through old photo albums looking back at some of the places I worked in/visited all those years ago before the little ones came along.  One day perhaps we can take them to some of these places.  Between us I reckon we've done quite well on the travel front although South America remains to be explored.

Places we'd like to go back to:

Oh Cambodia

China, India, France, Spain, USA, Canada, Oz, Laos, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia, Malaysia, Japan oh the list goes on....

Places we'd like to go to:

Portugal, Mozambique, Brazil,  Croatia, Madagascar (well, that's me really).....

 Places we've been, maybe not so good for small children:

Liberia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan....etc 

Afghanistan

 

The Aral Sea

Coffs Harbour

Obviously Peter isn't actually here so I'm kind of creating my own list here - but I know he doesn't want to take the family to Liberia so I reckon I'm ok on that one!

Kashgar Market

OK, enough of the photos....but it is making me happy looking at some of these.

Arty is asleep and I'm attempting to write a job application (back to work....) but clearly being distracted by Pinterest....oh, and phoning to complain about the counsellor I saw for my PND - I saw him twice.  I was meant to see him 6 times.  He was so disorganised he kept cancelling appointments - which just added to the stress and irritation rather than helping it!

Oh, and for those who are interested, there were some interesting interviews on Radio 4 last week (I know, I'm not meant to be listening to it - happy music all the way):

• Woman's Hour on Thursday had a phone in with Mary Berry answering lots of baking questions
• Woman's Hour also had an interesting article on JobSharing (of interest to me as I jobshare and love it)

You can find them on the BBC Iplayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qlvb/episodes/player

Dosa and LEDs

Quite a busy week.  Finished off by an hour in a baby sensory room (see above) which is like a chillout room in a nightclub but for babies.....and tired mums!

Forgot to take my pill another few times - it's not a good idea to stop suddenly apparently.  I have been told that I need to be on them for about 6 - 9 months in order to really get over this.  I still wonder how they really work - do they mask the symptoms and give you the space you need to sort yourself out and for your hormones to settle or do they somehow help 'fix' you by creating positive feedback loops.  The counsellor couldn't really explain that bit - but then the counsellor has, to be frank, been rubbish.  I've seen him twice in about 4 months.  He arranges everything by text, then cancels, then says 'I'll see you again in a few weeks' and then doesn't get in touch.  All a bit odd.  So I think I'll look at some private counselling as I think it would be good to get someone to talk through coping mechanisms with.

My main issue I needed to help tackle (and may still need to) is insomnia.  I had no idea that depression could lead to sleep problems but apparently it's one of the classic symptoms.  It was amazing - 6 weeks exactly after Arthur was born, it started.  It was exactly the same as with after Isobel (I had been told by my doctor at that time that I should ask my husband to 'make me a cup of tea').  I think it was worse this time because I knew it had come back and I was sooooo hoping that it wouldn't.  I used to get so wound up and angry that I couldn't sleep, convince myself that I would never sleep again and have some quite scary thoughts about how I could stop my mind racing.  I thought I was going mad.  I thought I was having a nervous breakdown.  The health visitor tried to help.  A homeopath tried to help.  Peter tried to help.  I tried hot chocolate, valerian tea (not recommended when breastfeeding though!), tranquility tea, camomille tea, reading a book, not reading a book etc etc.  What worked?  The pills worked.  As soon as I took them.


Anyway, moving on.  I have had a productive week on the creative front.  In addition to planting bulbs in the front garden (clearly I can't remember what they are called), I've been cooking and baking - a lot!  Last week my great triumph was the masala dosa I made following a Jamie Oliver recipe which uses gram flour.  I love masala dosa.  I used to eat it a lot when I worked in Malaysia.  It was a staple, in addition to nasi lemak (or fat rice....which I must try to make).

Adding the potato mix to the dosa

Trying to illustrate the crispy base!

Yummy.  With yoghurt and MD Mango Chutney