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It's a mild and dry Saturday afternoon and the country has not yet gone into lockdown over Coronavirus, but I'm sat indoors in my pyjamas... probably not the best thing, perhaps I should be making the most of the freedom of movement and go to the cinema or the shops or something, but it's what I feel like doing right now. It's been a tiring week.
My depression has returned over the last few months, making me realise I need to change my way of life and not just get another job, otherwise it's just going to go in circles. I read a book last year - The Lost Connections, by Johann Hari - that explained how depression is largely caused by disconnection from a number of important things including meaningful work, other people, the natural world, meaningful values, and a hopeful and secure future. It really made sense to me and rang true for my life, and I need to do more to better my connections with those things.
I was made redundant from my job a couple of weeks ago. It's a small company which hasn't been doing well recently and needed to cut costs, and I wasn't surprised - in the year I was there, it was always very quiet and I had very little work to do, particularly in the last few months. So I actually saw it as a positive, and decided to take the opportunity to do something interesting and live my life a bit. Instead of looking for another full-time permanent office job, I'm going to do temp work until August when the tenancy on the flat ends, then leave Southampton and go help out on farms for a while :) I'm desperate to connect to nature more; to wake up and hear birdsong, to look out the window and see trees and grass and flowers and other plants, to learn how to grow herbs and vegetables and fruit and preserve produce for storage, to learn about horticulture and ecology and permaculture and regenerative agriculture and more - and to meet other people who are into all that too, like-minded souls.
I've just completed my first week of temp work, at a florist relay company which takes orders from around the world and finds a UK florist to make and deliver it locally, like Interflora but not. Mother's Day is one of their busiest times of year so they needed a few people to come in just for two weeks to help out with the extra workload. Unfortunately, my autistic self has not been able to get my head around the processes at all, and I've emailed the temp agency to let them know I don't feel able to go back next week because of that. Part of me feels bad, especially because for some reason I was the only one of the three temps to stay beyond the first two days, but if I can't do something I can't do it, I would be of zero use to them, and I don't want to stress myself out any longer unnecessarily. It would have paid enough to cover a month's rent so it's a shame I'll only be getting half of that, but my old job will be paying me this month as a sort of redundancy compensation, so thankfully April's rent and bills will be covered.
Although leaving home at 6:55 each morning in order to start work at 8:30 wasn't lovely, getting to explore Romsey a bit was nice. I've never been there before, despite it being so close to where I've spent most of my life. It's a lovely little town! My lunchtime walks were spent moseying down quiet residential streets lined with pretty houses, trees, and gardens full of flowers and birdsong, and sitting in the Abbey grounds (although it was cold!). The Abbey itself is beautiful, and was a wonderful much-needed oasis of calm and peace. I'm not religious but love churches. There's something strangely comforting, familiar, and grounding about walking around supermarkets, too. Especially if it's first thing in the morning and it's only just opened and the other customers are mostly pensioners.
I'd like to read more. As much I love books, I don't actually do much reading anymore, I used to read every day and haven't done that in a long time. My sister was recently shocked when I said I've never read a Roald Dahl book. There's a lot I haven't read, and I'd like to change that. I saw a nice post on Facebook this morning which made me smile, listing places you can go even if you're on lockdown: Narnia, Middle-earth, Hogwarts, Asgard, a galaxy far far away, Earthsea, Lansquenet-sous-Tannes... :D The choices are endless, and that's just fiction. While this coronavirus pandemic is not a good thing, maybe it'll be an opportunity do more reading.
My depression has returned over the last few months, making me realise I need to change my way of life and not just get another job, otherwise it's just going to go in circles. I read a book last year - The Lost Connections, by Johann Hari - that explained how depression is largely caused by disconnection from a number of important things including meaningful work, other people, the natural world, meaningful values, and a hopeful and secure future. It really made sense to me and rang true for my life, and I need to do more to better my connections with those things.
I was made redundant from my job a couple of weeks ago. It's a small company which hasn't been doing well recently and needed to cut costs, and I wasn't surprised - in the year I was there, it was always very quiet and I had very little work to do, particularly in the last few months. So I actually saw it as a positive, and decided to take the opportunity to do something interesting and live my life a bit. Instead of looking for another full-time permanent office job, I'm going to do temp work until August when the tenancy on the flat ends, then leave Southampton and go help out on farms for a while :) I'm desperate to connect to nature more; to wake up and hear birdsong, to look out the window and see trees and grass and flowers and other plants, to learn how to grow herbs and vegetables and fruit and preserve produce for storage, to learn about horticulture and ecology and permaculture and regenerative agriculture and more - and to meet other people who are into all that too, like-minded souls.
I've just completed my first week of temp work, at a florist relay company which takes orders from around the world and finds a UK florist to make and deliver it locally, like Interflora but not. Mother's Day is one of their busiest times of year so they needed a few people to come in just for two weeks to help out with the extra workload. Unfortunately, my autistic self has not been able to get my head around the processes at all, and I've emailed the temp agency to let them know I don't feel able to go back next week because of that. Part of me feels bad, especially because for some reason I was the only one of the three temps to stay beyond the first two days, but if I can't do something I can't do it, I would be of zero use to them, and I don't want to stress myself out any longer unnecessarily. It would have paid enough to cover a month's rent so it's a shame I'll only be getting half of that, but my old job will be paying me this month as a sort of redundancy compensation, so thankfully April's rent and bills will be covered.
Although leaving home at 6:55 each morning in order to start work at 8:30 wasn't lovely, getting to explore Romsey a bit was nice. I've never been there before, despite it being so close to where I've spent most of my life. It's a lovely little town! My lunchtime walks were spent moseying down quiet residential streets lined with pretty houses, trees, and gardens full of flowers and birdsong, and sitting in the Abbey grounds (although it was cold!). The Abbey itself is beautiful, and was a wonderful much-needed oasis of calm and peace. I'm not religious but love churches. There's something strangely comforting, familiar, and grounding about walking around supermarkets, too. Especially if it's first thing in the morning and it's only just opened and the other customers are mostly pensioners.
I'd like to read more. As much I love books, I don't actually do much reading anymore, I used to read every day and haven't done that in a long time. My sister was recently shocked when I said I've never read a Roald Dahl book. There's a lot I haven't read, and I'd like to change that. I saw a nice post on Facebook this morning which made me smile, listing places you can go even if you're on lockdown: Narnia, Middle-earth, Hogwarts, Asgard, a galaxy far far away, Earthsea, Lansquenet-sous-Tannes... :D The choices are endless, and that's just fiction. While this coronavirus pandemic is not a good thing, maybe it'll be an opportunity do more reading.
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| One of spring's simple pleasures - lovely daffodils |
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