Just Mooching About at the Cricket

Yesterday was a difficult day, as the news of a Covid spike in the town set me on edge and made me suddenly get very angsty about all the maskless car sharing going on in the car park and an insanely daft finger buffet another team decided to have.

A fine idea at times like this.

So it was a relief to get home.

Today I wasn't playing, but I did take myself down the cricket ground for a few hours to watch our first team to play Gotham. Sadly Batman wasn't playing, but they were a decent team as it was without any Dark Knights in the ranks.

It certainly looked hard for our batsman to score, as we were 87 for 5 when I arrived with about 12 overs of our innings to go. But the skipper played a great knock to see us reach 150. Hopefully he'll be thrilled to see that he's mentioned here, as well as the guy batting with him who must have found it rather more difficult to hit the ball than he does when I'm bowling at him in the nets.

Both lads scored 35 or so.

I then watched the first 15 overs of the Gotham replied, which was marked by some extremely tidy bowling from our openers who took a wicket each before I left after having lapped the ground god knows how many times.

Apparently, it turned into a sensational game where Gotham made it home by just two wickets in the last over. Foolish man was I to leave.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.08.20

Pain and Confusion and Flowers

Well, after my last cricket net session, my back has decided to give me merry hell albeit a couple of days later, and I've been in spasming pain for a day now.

As ever, a pain that standard painkillers do very little eo ease. Which is just as well seeing as there aren't any of the bloody things to buy for love or money in the shops at the moment.

So, although I will try and get outside as much as possible, isolation and social distancing is upon me; not so different from my normal life really only I am not going to the pub for a pint and a read.

We had a glorious bit of sun and warmth for a couple of hours yesterday, but didn't see anything buzzing about alas. Now we are enclosed in cold grey cloud again.

I hope we are still allowed to go outside when the weather warms up, I really don't see how locking people in their homes can be beneficial. As time goes by, mental health is going to suffer for a lot of people.

Me, I'm going to see how much weight I can lose.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 17.03.20

And Now Sunset over Work

During the week I don't have a lot to show you; the workplace isn't exactly brimming with life I can photograph well at the moment, other than a few daisies that have braved the frosts to poke up in the garden area where the blue and great tits munch upon the fatball and seed feeders.

The rabbits are plentiful, but wary; a flash of white tail suddenly erupts from beneath your nose almost, and is gone in an instant. Kestrels in the sunrise look beautiful, but they are mere dots in a mobile phone shot.

My hip is still bugging me, my neck too after some fairly violent ticcing today. But I will get it sorted, and I will get through.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.01.20

More Howling Winds

Plans to visit the nearby alpaca farm, or Langford Lowfields, or indeed anywhere on my bicycle today were rather shattered when I awoke to my windowpanes being  blasted by rain and gale force winds.

It really wasn't at all pleasant out there this morning! So I just walked to the park, around the park, and through the park to the cafe where I was able to have a very large and  hot cup of tea which I didn't spill into my crotch like I did yesterday.

Then after lunch, a long read and a bit of a nap, I went out pottering again as the wind began to drop somewhat, just taking photographs with the light, seeing if dwarf irises were up in the library park, and just seeing what was about.

I note also that today was "Time to Talk" day encouraging people to talk about their mental health problems. If you are struggling, I advise you to do so, and I wish you well!

And to remember the benefits of the outdoors, as I do.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.02.19

Flowers in the Rain, The Watching Thereof

God the weather has carried on being dismal. Thought it would be dry but no, two more rainy commutes. Weather trying to destroy me. WELL I WON'T HAVE IT.

The wet flowers looked very pretty, so I wandered outside to snap them. That's alright, isn't it?

So, exercise. Trapped in tonight but rain, but not missing being out running or cricketing. Demotivation day. I will regret this for other reasons, because exercise is so important to my mental health. Tourette's is very energy intensive, the tantrums, rages and obsessions even more so.

If I'm not outside, thinking of other things and burning up that energy and stopping it from fuelling my various ailments, then they get worse.

I need to remember this all the time. Weight is also a mental health issue for me in all sorts of ways.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.06.17

Tic and Stim Confusion

So, I've been having another outbreak of Tourette's and Asperger's confusion that has become a little bit of an odd obsession the last couple of days.

I'm trying to work out how much of each thing is inside me - is it  Tourette's 100-0? Or 0-100 Asperger's?

I really can't tell. Both TS and AS share similar co-morbid conditions - OCD, ADD and various other flavours of behaviour, but they are also different, and this is where I've been going a little crackers.

Tics are in the provenance of Tourette's. Stims are autistic behaviours. Stims are things like flapping of hands, rocking back and forth - I've just been rocking back and forth just now while thinking about rocking back and forth. Tics are uncontrollable, only they are not...they satisfy an urge, wait so do stims, sometimes, but in a different way...

The only really consistent thing I pick up is that tics tend to be more centrally located down the centreline of the body, while stims are more symmetrical and found at the extremes. But even then I'm not sure about that. I do tic vocally, usually quiet little names or phrases of interest quietly burbled and usually taking on slight different, clipped forms, but the real yelling, and the most convulsive, violent, flappy tics come when I'm extremely upset or stressed by something I read or think about.

Then, at other times I think stimulating thoughts and my hands begin to flap and do a sort of clapping without moving thing.

Then sometimes my left foot has been arching within the shoes, and my left leg likes to do a sort of strange stretching thing, like a slightly demented cat.

So today, everytime by body has done something, I've tried to classify it - stim, or tic?

I've tried to classify me. Tourette's, Asperger's, or both?

For some reason this became very important, and I'm not sure why. Knowing what percentage of my behaviours is caused by one or the other doesn't change very much, they are all still there and nothing will ever change that.

Even as I write this, a tense bit of "Silent Witness" comes on, and my right arm bends over the top of my head, hand towards my left ear. At the same time, my left side tenses and pulls my body over like an anti-stretch.

Incredible thing, the brain, and body. I don't know how the heck anyone ever works it out.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.01.17

Walking for Wellness through RSPB Langford

Here's another of my walks I produce for work, but think other people will like. I keep upping the text size to make it easier to read. Hopefully the unseasonable weather will enable me to get a trip out into the sticks this weekend.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.12.16

A Windmill Walk

Hopefully you'll be able to read this one! It's a route that leads from the Willow Holt Nature reserve in Farndon village, along the river past the power station and then to the Farndon Windmill, and is another of my own "Walking for Wellness" series I've been doing for work.

But why am I telling you this? It's all here!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 16.11.16

More Walking for Wellness

I posted this one last week, a walk for wellness around Sconce Park. I do love being able to write this sort of thing at work.

My Workplace Publications

I think a while ago I mentioned that off my own bat I'd started producing little news-sheets for work, and nice people that you are, you encouraged me to keep it going.

Well, despite the odd hitch here and there, I have done. I've done about 8 in all, plus various pictorials and online only bits and pieces. They seem to be well received as a nice distraction for a few minutes, and certainly some folk have said they have learned something new from them.

One of the subjects I've looked at pushing is mental wellbeing, and consequently have been encouraging the staff to go on walks to perhaps notice something they've never seen before, or just to get out in the open air.

I produced this one today for online, and rather like the effect I got.

Si

All tect and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.10.16

Following my Own Advice

Today has been a day of days.

The first thing I did upon waking up this morning at about 7:45am was to pick up my mobile phone. The moment it was in my hand there was a bleep, and a vibration.

A message? A twitter notification? No, it was a Guardian news headline, informing me that David Bowie had died of cancer at the age of 69, a mere two days after his birthday and the release of his latest, and now last, album.

As a David Bowie fan since the age of zero, the news was a terrific shock, and saddened me greatly. As a teenage kid growing up weird with undiagnosed Tourettes, he made it OK to be different, a sentiment shared by many LGBTG folk on twitter today who probably had a much rougher time than I did.

His music played non-stop on Radio 6, it was time to follow my own advice, and treat my sadness with a dose of the open air, looking for goosander on the two lakes - and finding none - and winter thrushes on the Coddington pastures.

None there either.

Still, it was a good 13km run, with Bowie music in my ears the whole way, and it at least was a positive way to end the day. I'm not sure David himself would have enjoyed a run like that; it's hard to light a Gitane on the move - but I hope he knows how much me and many many other people have enjoyed listening to his music today, before, and forever.

Si

Everything was a feeding frenzy today

Ducks are at it too

A glorious sunset duly ensued

Tourettes and the Road to Wellness (Ugh) and Mindfulness (Double Ugh)

I suppose everyone has seen a lot of posts on how people are going to set themselves up for a better year. Well, I'm late, I'm gruff, and I don't do resolutions.

You are only setting yourself up for a fail, most of the time.

I see a lot of people talking about "Wellness" and "Mindfulness" and how they are going to improve them in 2016, which to my occasionally cynical mind makes me think of incense burning yoga-and-oatmeal-thons in a retreat with spinning dreamcatchers in the window. The sort that cause house fires on sunny days.

Well I hate those words, horrible, middle class Sunday supplement terms, endorsed by a tranquilly smiling D-List celebrity standing in that yoga pose that makes you look like you have a bladder infection. Boo to "Wellness", boo to "Mindfulness".

Just get out there and take a bloody walk! Why spend a fortune on taking your yoga mat to a cabin in The Alps when you can merely don a pair of sturdy shoes, plug in some sounds - Radio 4 or 6 in my case when I'm not listening for birdsong - and visit a world that costs you absolutely nothing and if more us enjoyed it wouldn't be in such a mess. Most town dwellers, and even a lot of city ones, should be able to find a pleasant spot to walk in within 15 minutes. If they can't, they should be down their council's throat to provide one.

Fancy being a bit more energetic. Well, you can kit yourself out for running for less than £40 - I just ran a marathon in a pair of Decathlon running shoes that cost me £13. Cycling is equally cheap if you know where to look; £50 will get a perfectly serviceable mountain bike from a roadside bike man, if you're smart.

I have Tourette's, I need to burn energy and keep myself super occupied to keep my physical and mental ticcing from getting too extreme on bad days. Other folk may find it beneficial to sit on a sun lounger and watch butterflies or commune with the moon on a starry night. Whatever it is, JUST DO SOMETHING OUT THERE!

It does help, believe me.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.01.16

More Garden Colours to Paint Upon my Brain

After long days in work sometimes just lolling in front of Doctor Who repeats - tonight it's "Genesis of the Daleks" with Tom Baker - feeling like your squandering your mind, you need to get outside in the garden and paint your cortex with colour, and to head out on bicycle or in running shoes and take the evening in, and enjoy the world for a bit.

I did so last night. And I fully intend to do so again shortly. I really hope I'm not sounding like a particularly pretentious "lifestyle" blogger. I'll be eating quinoa and artsean bread at this rate.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.07.15

A History of Tourette's

This post was actually written as one of the header pages for the blog, but I felt it could do with a wider reading, so here it is.

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"What is going on with my body?" I'd never ask myself as a child, as a parental scolding voice, or gorping child, would point out my flailing arms and legs or frantically rubbing hands.

"Talking to yourself again?" the stepfather would ask, as I continued a two hour session of playing imaginary cricket with a tree with live commentary thrown in.

I would shrug dfensively, say as always that I couldn't help it, and get on with the (part sub-conscious) job of developing an eccentric personality as a cover for all these strange behaviours.

So my life continued, being bright but always struggling in exams due to inability to write fast enough, enjoying chemistry theory but hating the lab classes as I was too slow and clumsy to set up my apparatus, and too obsessive about the results, often too restless to settle down to homework.

But I made it through school with good A Levels, although they should have been better, and went to Exeter University where the nightmare of chemistry practicals caused me to give up the subject and become a Classicist at the end of my first year instead.

Round about then, things started getting difficult...hardcore obsessions, contamination compulsions, sleeping problems, inability to concentrate. Again I didn't know what was going on, but it was causing a great deal of distress.

Luckily I read "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks in the University bookshop, and it was his piece on a surgeon with Tourette's Syndrome that unlocked all the doors, and enabled me to get the diagnosis.

Things seemed better straightaway...it wasn't my fault anymore.

Obviously, it's never that straightforward. But my interest in nature, running and cycling has helped enormously. One of the main things I like to do with this blog is try and impress upon people how benficial even a slight interest in their local environment can be to their physical and mental wellbeing.