So the past few weeks I have had an enforced break from swimming, not for anything bad – but because I have been having some work an Tattoos. Now I am very fortunate to know two amazing tattoo artists, Dougal, who I have known since I was a teenager and was also my best man. Then Andy, who started tattooing me in 2004. Andy had started my arm sometime last year and due to my swimming commitments had not been able to get back onto my arm, but we had 3 sessions booked in November and December all year and while having these done I decided to let my mate Dougal loose on my leg again, turning out an amazing traditional tattoo.
Tattooing is more than having needles and ink applied to my body. When I have a session I typically book a full day session and we get as much done in that time as possible. It is through spending time with these two people I find them a form of mutual counselling. Boy – do we put the world to rights during my sessions. I’ll come back to counselling later.
Also going off at the minute is my Gran is very poorly. She has spent some time in hospital and is now in Palliative care. She has been suffering for a while now and is being made comfortable. I have been going to see her weekly now and love being in her company, even though it is also sad. Last week she was singing to me and this week it was Christmas songs. She’s always been the head of the family and it breaks my heart to see her looking so frail and poorly. All I can do is focus on the memories. I am consciously not taking the boys to see her.
The past few weeks have also been tough mentally. This culminated in me having a panic attack on a night out in Derby on Friday and I needed to get picked up and taken home at 7pm. I couldn’t handle the crowds in the pubs. The noise, music, people talking loud etc overloaded my senses. But once home I picked up. I am also meant to be going out tomorrow night – I am going to pull out of it though. Can’t face it. I had a meeting with someone on Weds of last week which opened up a lot of old mental wounds. This rocked me. I have since started counselling again to get me through it as I still have some old wounds that need dealing with.
Last weekend we took the boys to the zoo, which was nice – it was snowing and half empty. Problem was, the animals were all inside – so there were none to see other than an Elephant (Presumably artic variety) and a Zebra. Never mind, it did get us out of the house. I’ve not trained for the last week as I was feeling mentally not firing on all cylinders and then having the Flu Jab Sat left me wiped out. I’m genuinely looking forward to getting back in the pain cave and doing something…
Bipolar Ironman 