I’m disenchanted with social media and have been for quite a long time. There seems to be so much of it and all the different sites compete for our time. I have decided that they don’t get to say how to spend my time, I do.

The first two to go were Instagram and Facebook. Both are part of the same network and it’s only recently I’ve discovered just how much data those apps take.

I had Facebook to stay in touch with family there is more than one way to keep in touch with family. Facebook was consigned to the rubbish bin.

I used Instagram as an alternative to Flickr when the subscription prices were raised for the latter. Back then Instagram was largely a photographic site but now it is littered with influencers, inspirational posts and reposts from other social networks. Instagram went in the bin.

Twitter was going to go but one of my dearest friends persuaded me to stay so for the time being all I’m posting is photos of food that shouldn’t be on sale.

I have bought Pro subscription for Flickr and have remembered how wonderful it is to be a photographer
and not just somebody who takes photos.

So for now I’m digging out photos and building up my Flickr account and enjoying time away from politics, snarking and desperation.

Have a look at my photos here if you’d like to.

I have had a friendship wIth a friends partner since she moved in with him a few years ago. I found it difficult to like her at first but she had a way of making me like her even though I don’t like the way she behaves at times.

She wakes him in the middle of the night to ask him if he loves her knowing that he has an early start for work. If she needs to speak to him during the day she doesn’t text him or ring him she makes a video call because she can see where he is and who he is with.

She insisted that they put tracker apps on their phones so she could see where he was and if he made any diversions on the way home. She stalks him. I insisted that removed the tracking app from her phone because it’s one thing to be able to see where someone is in order to be able cook so they can eat as soon as they get home but quite another to track them all day.

Slowly but surely she began to cause trouble within the neighbourhood sowing seeds of discontent between people. Except me. Yeah, right.

I thought she was a good friend and that I was exempt from her bizarre spite but I’m not. And the way she has behaved has horrified me.

I have an eating disorder and earlier in the year while making a cup of coffee for us I told her I’d made myself sick and how devastated it made me feel on the odd occasions that I did it. I turned to find her laughing at me and when I challenged her she wrote it off as nervous laughter.

Last week I revealed to her I was buying a two handled cup as I had the shakes very badly some days as a side effect of the medication and she laughed very loudly. This time I saw the spiteful look on her face.

Yesterday I spoke to her partner and he was horrified. Today I blocked her phone number. If she turns up at my home to talk to me she will find out exactly how I am when I’ve been pushed too far.

I’ve been falling over a lot lately. Twice in one week a few weeks ago and once a few months ago. No serious injuries but enough to lay me up for a week or so and the last two falls were so close together I was encouraged to see my doctor.

Before I saw him I looked at disability scooters and discounted that idea. They’re very expensive and let’s just say my hand/eye coordination is somewhat lacking. I looked at rollators and decided that it was exactly the thing I needed and with the bonus of a built in seat.

I had a long and tearful conversation with my doctor. We talked about how exhausted I felt, about eight years of troublesome dogs. Eight years of having one dog babysat once a week to find, after his death, that the person I was leaving him with was exposing him to new experiences that unsettled the dog. The second a medium sized teddy bear of a thing who he made giddy and then dumped him back on my doorstep where he resembled a toddler full of e-numbers.

Then there was Leonard whose early death left me devastated but also relieved. Relieved for my cats who are loving life without him, relieved because I no longer had to search for quiet places that don’t exist in this part of town and relieved because I wasn’t spending so much money on him.

For the first two weeks after Leonard’s death I didn’t stop moving. I cleaned the flat, walked to and from town at the fastest pace I could, and then I fell and then I fell again.

My sobriety blog this year was about Leonard with a few lines at the bottom of the “Oh by the way.” kind. I felt relieved that Leonard wasn’t enduring the madness he’d been going through, guilty because I was relieved for him and just so very tired.

My doctor is much wiser than me though he says I’m wiser than him at times. We have an exclusive mutual support group. When he told me there was no obvious physical cause to my falling over and that it was almost certainly down to exhaustion I started to breathe out for the first time in a long time.

I have rules now. I try to go shopping with someone else or take the rollator. I’m drinking a smoothie most days to improve my diet. I’m reading more and watching TV less (I do feel a binge watch of Shetland coming on though) and the reading I’m doing is pretty lightweight compared to my usual stuff.

I am doing things slowly, I am repairing myself. Meditation is back to being a healing act not something I squeeze in between dog walks, I’m sitting on the step pretending to read but I’m actually smiling at the dogs in the churchyard as they play.

I’m taking it easy.

so a perfect time to write about an imperfect month with a positive beginning for the month ahead.

On March 27th I had to have my darling Leonard put to sleep. He was a gorgeous boy who made other dogs who were devoted to their owners look like amateurs. Leonard had problems and it’s only in hindsight that they were in plain sight.

Once he realised we were a pair, at about five weeks old, he’d shove all of the other puppies out of the way when I was visiting the litter – I was his. When he came home I realised that he had far too much energy for a puppy, even a Jack Russell puppy. He slept little, ate a lot and ran around for a couple of hours at a time. He never dropped suddenly and slept like other puppies, I’d have to pick him up and soothe him to sleep.

He rapidly became overprotective and even after castration that was still there and his energy levels didn’t lessen. He began to get aggressive when people came near me and bit a neighbour. I had that talk with the vet but as he was only a year old we both agreed that intensive training was the way. It didn’t work.

He bit two people recently and when one person needs medical attention and the other reports the incident to the police it’s time for that conversation again and this time I knew it wasn’t going to be a happy outcome. The vet had an obligation to put him to sleep. A dog that attacks randomly is dangerous and little or not, dogs can do serious damage.

While he was sedated I played him the song that soothed him off to sleep every night. If it hadn’t already been a favourite then it would be now.

As I enter my 33rd year of sobriety holding on to the truth that alcohol doesn’t relieve feelings and emotions, experiencing those feelings and emotions relieves them, please listen to the wonderful Leonard Cohen for whom my Leonard was named. I give you Lullaby.

As someone who has always struggled with keeping things organised and a lack of ability to prioritise tasks I pretty much lived in chaos until about a decade ago. Two things happened to change this and now I live in a reasonably tidy environment. I still struggle to prioritise things so the second thing helps me when I feel as though I’m drowning in my own incapability.

The first was a tip from my GP and it is so simple I can’t think why I didn’t come up with this as a solution before he suggested it.

Two parts – choose a level of chaos you can live with,
– attempt to live slightly below that level.

It took a few years to get to where I am now and looking around as I write this I see things that need clearing away so that I can concentrate on other things. If they don’t get done then it’s not a problem because the chaos is under the level I’m prepared to live with.

Second tip is equally as simple but one I’d never have come up with. It’s not something I do everyday but when I feel overwhelmed it’s the thing I go to to prioritise things. So what is this magical tool? A three step to-do list.

It works like this – you write one must do item at the top of the list, one needs to be done on the middle of the list and one treat at the bottom. For example, mine today has read Laundry, Wash Up, Read.

The laundry is two sets of towels. I put them in the washing machine as a needs to be done yesterday and today they were promoted to must be done. They are now hanging up to dry.

Washing up today is a needs to be done but not a must do because it is not scattered over every available space in the kitchen, it is confined to a tiny area. It will probably be done today because it’s a small amount but if not it will be promoted to must do tomorrow.

Today my treat is reading. If I’ve done must do and needs do tasks then I deserve a reward. They’re not the only tasks I’ll complete today. I’ll change the cat litter and cook myself something to eat but if they’re the only two things I’ve had to do then I’ve beat the day into a cocked hat and I deserve a treat of my choosing.

One thing I’ve formulated for myself is for big tasks such as changing the bed I break them down into smaller stages and then I don’t feel trapped and overwhelmed by the enormity of something. I strip the bedding, freshen the mattress, pillows and quilt then leave the room. I’ll go back an hour later and put the sheet on the mattress and the pillow cases on the pillows. Finally, while food is cooking for my evening meal, I’ll put the quilt cover on the quilt. That’s three tasks in one so bed changing day gets a bigger treat such as an hour out with a camera or a visit to a second hand bookshop to smell the books.

As promised not a lifestyle blog post but a few things that help me live my life with a little more ease.