Just Another Maniac Monday...

MONDAYS ARE NOT EASY DAYS! I associate Mondays with blitzing out as much as possible. Finally I (should) get to an NA meeting tonight... just as long as I can double-confirm what time it starts and that it is indeed still on there...

... I've not been to NA in years, never did the programme but did "keep coming back" enough and get genuinely serious enough quite some time ago to actually sort myself out with a sponsor.

The sponsor was more enthusiastic than me about my getting clean and somehow the tide turned, a powerful and inexorable feeling, if you ever have fought an actual physical tide that's just how irresistible it felt in the end... then he fled every meeting he felt likely to meet ME in and has never been seen since! His number is somewhere in a long-defunct old mobile-SIM so I've no idea whatsoever how he is. I just hope he still is clean as he had a year's clean-time when I knew him and that must be two-and-a-half years ago now!

Something I realized during my "awakening", and what got me the all-time worst was just how intensely dead so much of me had become. "Spiritually bankrupt" is another way of feeling towards the same meaning. It's not easy to explain as most of what I succeeded in posting here described in glass-half-full type terms what I'd succeeded in saving of myself from the grinding spiritual death of such intensely powerful and all-encompassing addiction...

Death does not speak, does not feel to reach out and even try. Death, being a state of utter unknowing could not say much even when the living portion wakes up enough to realize just how dire things have become. What is there to say about death. Death is nothing and (I know, anyhow) ~ as the Bible says: "the dead know nothing"...

Slowly I'm trying to get back in touch with people but that is not easy in small tranches of time so please don't be offended when I don't get back to you. It's just because I'm spiritually dead... OK excuses excuses but... y'know~??!?

PS: in response to 2 of yesterday's comments, 1: the trotterij is still fine (I think that is Dutch for "trottery"; at least it sounds that way... & 2: I cannot be sure which bridge features in the Coldplay video but the view somehow reminds me of looking due South from the one nearest the Tate (oldschool) Gallery near Pimlico tube...

"Come Outside You Fatties!"

MY TUBBY TROTTERS GOT CLEANED OUT, had a "dust bath" (at least a woodshavings bath) for a couple of hours in their diggery today and, last thing I saw, were pinging back and forth like a furry horse-race around their obstacle-course of a home. Lots of tubes: long and narrow clingfilm ones, giant echoey toilet paper ones; boxes full of chewed up newspaper bedding, chewed-out dog-kennel box that they once slept in literally in a pile of three each atop another with Spherical at the top and Itchy right at the bottom!... and so on and so on...

Spherical glared at me with high suspicion earlier and seemed to say: "three things matey-boy, before you say anything

1. yes I have, as you so pathetically and squeaky-voicedly persist in asking "been trotting on my wheel" you know that's just about the only hobby apart from being abandoned for so many hours on end in that God-forsaken "diggery" that we finally give up, make nests and fall asleep in the dust that we ever get!

2. no I most thoroughly do NOT enjoy being poked by the end of your index-finger, whether you call it "stroking" me or not!

3. I did hear you calling me a "fat old swine" the other day and shall never forgive you for it!

Ooer. Sorry, Spherical!!

All righty: as per usual time's running low so I've gotta run, like the Tubby Trotters on their wheel... yes with Itchy's Daz-white undercarriage flashing round and round and round as the great mother-figure Spherical determinedly thunders ever onwards with her poor slim daughter Itchy stuck on the wheel and hanging on for dear life!

Video:
Coldplay: Fix You

I'm posting this for someone special because they say this song reminds them of me(!) And not a pun from the title, either.

Also I'm pretty SURE I used to go to 24-hour parties called The Warp at that club that's in that rail-tunnel. It's near Waterloo station, just round the corner from the London Dungeon, the capacity crowd is over 3000 and the club is huge!

The second scene shows a road sign mentioning King's Cross. This has long been a place of open despair: well known for easy prostitution and the overt sale and use of hard drugs and a mainline rail station where I actually have seen the proverbial lost-looking teenager with a packed-up bag and seemingly nowhere to go and of course I did nothing (what could I do?) but thought "what on earth are you doing here..??"... and wondered, if they did stay, how long the shadows of the place would take to get at them...

The third scene on the bridge shows a very famous view across the Thames at night...

Surviving (still-!)

I'M GOING TO TRY posting before doing anything else, even looking at my blog. (You can log in via someone else's then get direct into your own blog(s) without bringing up any of your pages... something worth remembering if you ever blog from work (because it means that, unless you do bring up your blog(s) by name, their urls won't be stored in your boss's computer!!) I don't want to spend half an hour stuck in a between-sites void and little to do but repeatedly try logging in and out. Lots of bad connexions these days!

Yesterday was a very long day. I did not buy any drugs though I had the money. A lot of the desire to use has just (somehow) gone. Today I did, but even then had it for surely a good half an hour or more before I bothered even to cook it up. Again, the desire to use has somehow gone sour. And it wasn't that brilliant at all. I have had a few drinks today and I must admit I feel a hell of a lot better for THAT!!

Everyone seems to be down down down I am not sure why. Mother Hubbard was in pits today, + 2 or 3 days ago when I last saw her. She thinks it is "psych" and says she was bipolar before opiates let her switch from lithium to heroin! I have googled this and though drs seem intent on ignoring it, heroin/methadone/morphine/etc DO seem to have some mood-stabilizing effect. I was not at all depressed for my 1st 2 yrs on heroin. Though even then I'm not sure I was happy. I do remember that when the drug was there, it was like Christmas every day. And it was there every day, back then... Even now I find my moods far less liable to swing (though this means barely EVER waking up feeling "happy") or having even a few up days at all now so you takes your choices and you takes your chance...

Not a lot more to say now, because what change? I've wanted to go to an NA meeting for days now and don't know of any I can easily get to at weekends, though Monday to Friday and especially Thurs/Fri I do. The Thurs/Fri meetings are very easy to get to and I've not been literally in years. I have the big "blue book" in hardback, it's quite a good read; I like the personal accounts that fill the second part... plus I've been to loads of meetings and even got a prospective sponsor at one point. Then the desire to stop using just fled me, I knew the tide had changed and what use fighting my feelings. I've always been totally incorrigable when the desire to use has seized me so the situation was totally hopeless then...

Somehow the tide does seem to be turning back. I'm not even sure exactly why!

I hope everyone had a good weekend. It was solstice a couple of days ago and everywhere golden sunlight till late, late into the evenings...

Spiritually Bankrupt

OK. FINALLY IT HAS got to the all-time pits. I am so exhausted, I have so much had enough that all of yesterday and all today up to this point (and that is all I can truthfully of course say) I honestly have not only not "wanted" to use but for most of the time felt so physically repelled by heroin I want to be sick. No more do I ever ever EVER want to be sticking a needle in my left foot, right foot, anywhere else. Finally finally SOMEHOW (how-?? I don't know how I honestly don't) I have come to some sort of turning point. I know I have got there because, as with anything important in life you don't "need" anyone to point it out. You just know.

I'm ever so sorry not to have kept in touch. As I said before I don't want to wind people up or make anybody worry about or be sorry for me. I am just utterly exhausted, so bad I had to stop those antidepressants (they were only making it WORSE and actually, might I say CAUSING most if not all of those weird "alcohol"-related effects I tried to describe...) literally last Monday I was hanging onto the walls so as not to fall. I have had had had had had HAD HAD HAD HAD ENOUGH

ps re the drink i don't want to give wrong impressions. those pills really made things a whole lot worse yet still there remains some residual thing, not exhaustion but something that comes with it (when really bad) they call "brain fog". only drink seems to clear this

pps the hamsters are all alive and fine! i barely have seen them as they've all been in a cupboard (not cruelty: they ARE nocturnal burrowing animals so giving them the peace and dark they like can hardly be called cruel even if it is in a way shutting them out) I have to remember constantly to make sure their water supply does not get in any way messed up (so many silly ways this can happen including the bottle just fuzzing up from exceptionally "hard" London water and just breaking) everything's ok in that respect

Bad Experience at the Bottle Shop

YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? Well swiftly and in a nutshell I got chucked out of a shop I've frequented (admitedly infrequently) for many years... for being so shaky WITHOUT a drink that I knocked a can I didn't want off the shelf x2 and was UNABLE TO REPLACE IT. How f****d up is THAT??

Yes I DID do those days I said "without" drink but not to put down any illeffects down to the lack of drink. Strangely shakes tends mysteriously to vanish now with even one drink.

I don't want to despair and time is a bit short. I'm emotionally wringed out today having lost it with a friend and ended up crying all over the place (not pretty). Dur! What else? Nothing!

PS: as for rehab - I AM considering it (increasingly)... just don't want to make my previous mistake of going in TWICE IN THE SAME YEAR way way WAY too early for admirable but "wrong" reasons...

Take care: have a charming weekend, I'll try!!

My Plan

Seems this alcohol thing might be on or vaguely crossing a borderline between being OK just to stop and suffering for it. I wouldn't really say "shakes" ~ how I feel each morning before 1 drink which in my case means 3.75 units or nearly 2 pints of ordinary pub beer I feel all kind of fumbly and dizzy and have trouble fishing in pockets, holding anything still (no matter how important even if it's a spoonfull of expensive gear)... blah blah. I'm more open than the average person to believe that anything like "shakes" can be consciously or unconsciously brought on or exaggerated especially to "validate" some suffering but I'm pretty sure this isn't what's going on here. I think the antidepressants are doing something but not that much. I feel all over the place and have been brought to see, if anything how I'm NOT COPING and barely able to maintain anything of a normal life. Bear in mind that when I mention cooking is just about the only time I ever try it. My room is a mess. I'm a mess. My life is a mess. (How did it ever get this bad...?) I feel like I'm bordering on freefalling into total "crisis"... in which I agree with JMB's comment yesterday that this is all caused by a horrible melange of difficulties not any one thing (not just alcohol). I'm sure I'm not not "mentally ill" either though I feel like checking myself in the assylum because I feel like I can barely cope any more.

When there's lots of facets to a situation you can only at best even try to figure or fight them one by one. To quote a Chinese proverb that I'm glad I remember: "he who tries to catch 2 rabbits grabs neither"...

Well I'm OK enough to post and that's SOMETHING sorry I can't write anything much more light or "inspiring" .. %->...

Finally: Sleep

FINALLY I DID SLEEP last night. For nine, ten or even twelve hours. Slept so long in fact I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in withdrawal sweats (had forgotten to take methadone). This has not happened for some time usually I'm panicking about taking drugs to the point of veering on too early not too late. I used to get really bad night sweats when I was solidly addicted to heroin and relying upon it literally to get through every aspect of the day ie to get up (or feel OK once got up), to eat (could barely force food past my mouth without banging up first and may the fact that I was verging towards OVERWEIGHT and not under tell how much into that drug I was)... then I had to do it again in order to sleep. Without heroin I could sleep a bit but would invariably wake within 2 hours or 4 at best and end up using. Then I could sleep through till morning.

{I didn't actually have "gear" every night; when I didn't was when I had those dreadful sweats. I also remember sweating heavily on winter's days no matter how cold it was and screaming in fury and despair as the wind a few times turned on me, drenched blasting sub-zero ice-upon-icewater. Absolutely horrible. And yet I would patiently wait, wait, wait for the dealer often in a needlessly ill-chosen park, he eventually showed and then half an hour home by buses, walks whatever. blah blah. I did use outside many a time but those specific winters' days were FAR FAR FAR too cold to so much as roll a sleeve up let alone strip practically naked as is required today!!!}

Apart from the sweats what did waken me was a so-called "book at bedtime" or daily book {actually "book of the week"; they always make things confusing on Radio 4} I will try and give the link here about the Black Death in 14th century Norfolk. The most graphic description of being in the house with a man who suddenly came down with plague, the oozing apple-sized "carbuncle" or abscess as we'd call it today in his groin, the black patches on his skin, ravings, raging fever so bad that when lucid enough he would fight out of the bed screaming that he had to douse himself in the river for he was "on fire" it was absolutely horrific and certainly not what I really needed to hear at that moment... and yet oh so addictive I could not resist tuning in for the next instalment this morning!! (The night reading is a repeat...) Click on the words black death capitalized in pink to get straight for the link, then select listen again. The link goes to the exact episode I heard last night. Don't delay too long; they only keep such stuff online for a week afterwards...

Anyway today, apart from... actually WHY does this sort of stuff happen to ME all the time I was so dizzy and uncertain and fumbly or trembly (though I did not at the time assume this to be "the shakes") that some kids came up from behind on the pretence of asking the time at first I assumed they were up to no good or wanted to sell me drugs though they looked a bit young. Then they asked me what on earth was wrong with me probably wanting to know if I was drunk or on drugs (I was STONE COLD SOBER and had only drunk that nighttime dose of methadone) I neeed MORE tonight else I'll get ill yet again ... yeah so they asked me this question; they weren't really being rude. So I answered truthfully I just feel ill? What do you mean? I don't know I just feel ill (well I wasn't going to start saying "oh i feel so dizzy" to a complete pair of strangers who probably just wanted an excuse to laugh at me. Then one pointed out it was probably because I was smoking a cigarette and I told him he was probably right!

I actually felt like my body was out of alignment with where it was supposed to be, as if I'd been on a boat for some days and suddenly disembarked. Or as if my "soul" was about to float off into space..(!!) Finally I resorted to alchol after Mother Hubbs got into a real flap over this as if I was guilt-tripping her (but I wasn't! & told her there was nothing she could do; nothing I expected out of her)... I did start feeling all right after that oh I really do hope this isn't ALL brought about JUST by drinking I was terrified of that. SURELY I haven't truly been drinking enough and for long enough to get anything like such strong "withdrawal symptoms" if this is what they've been... On the positive side I feel about 99% positive I'm able to quit drink which is far better than I feel about heroin or methadone I can tell you...

OK I'd better go in case this goes missing. I'm posting at the dodgy caff again. It's been SHUT FOR 3 days AFTER I GAVE IN MY MONEY ok only £5 but how annoying I was all up for barging in, taking 8 cans of coke out of their fridge (in payment for services not received), shoving the details in his face and demanding my account with £4 left should be immediately closed but of course as soon as I saw glowing computers (today at last) I relented and logged on instead...

ps oh no i couldn't resist keying in "bubonic plague symptoms" ~ absolutely gruesome no wonder that guy thought he was on fire!¬

pps this internet guy is such a character. He must be in financial troubles though... He's kept his landlord here the 2 hrs I've been in here on a false promise of money: first £150 then down to £75 then £50 though I assume the rest is still owed. So the landlord's back is to me, but he's saying "I don't understand what you're saying" to the internet guy who catches my eye (I honestly wasn't trying to give a look but my eyes are too expressive and powerful this has got me in trouble loads of times) then he can't stop smiling and the landlord's still ranting at him but the internet guy looks like a naughty schoolboy. I had to quickly look at my screen so as not to cause more trouble..(!_)

On and on...

NOT A LOT NEW TO SCRIBE in the few minutes available today...

I freaked out a couple of days ago... my mind broke up, I heard weird voices and got extremely paranoid. People shouting out of flats windows, people wandering past glaring at me like they wanted to kill me...

Yesterday I saw a dead body reflected in the bathroom mirror. I was on the bed and the corpse standing behind the bathroom door. Should it open its eyes, as it appeared highly likely to do, it would be staring right into me...

Actually it was clothes, chucked over the back of the door, drying.

Apparently seeing faces in folds of clothes, wrimples of carrier bags etc or wherever is quite common in depression. I'm hoping my pills are finally at 3 weeks plus kicking in... Sleep has fled me. 2 or 3 hours seemingly and very little more at night and almost nothing by day...

I am feeling a bit antidepressed and far better than my great slough of despond from the weekend when I appeared to be in all-time pits.

(Even back then I WAS indeed better than I'd been in the week... what with those lost days and all that diarrhoea, sweating, horrible illness. Maybe stopping drink had triggered that. It's called "cross-habit"...

Sorry I must go. 3 mins left! All the best to everyone. Take care!

Gleds
xx

Third Message (Penned Yesterday)...

MY THIRD (AS PUBLISHED) BLOG MESSAGE of 9.6.8

AS I yesterday intimated I had such big problems accessing my own comments on my own blog that I had basically to give up till today when I hopefully would feel more refreshed and restored.

I really do feel sorry for having put people through what must be an emotional mill to some. I don't "want" people to worry about me. If I could push a button to save even one from worrying about me then I'd press it right now and save lots of people I love lots of anxiety.

It helps me a lot to know that seemingly by far the great majority of my readers and certainly my friends all you commenters are perhaps paradoxically not addicts. Were that not the case then posts like yesterday's description of a near-overdose would be pushing close to the borders of so-called "drug porn"...

Knowing that most of you are non-users and have, for the most part, never been users of drugs I know that such a description is likely to provoke feelings of shock, concern, revulsion; feelings I, as a junkie, do not feel in connexion with my own experience, even when I'm in potential danger. A sane and straight person knows that anyone unconscious through drugs has a high risk of choking to death on their own vomit. As a smackhead, such a thought barely passes through my mind. I gamble with my life 365 days of the year and 366 on leap years because I do take an opiate or opiate-substitute every single day and you can even die on methadone. In fact TWICE as many deaths per annum are attributed to methadone as to heroin.

Were it not for you, my friends, I might never have been jolted back to this "reality check". Because of you, and because of the fact I know you love me but hate what I do; I'm forced to confront and analyse my own behaviour. So please don't fear any more.

It is 25 to 10 on Monday night 9th June and I've a crowd of junkies congregated beneath my open window chatting openly about their gear deals they've bought, how big they are and how well they "run" ie how good the heroin smokes. A neighbour down the road has just openly told them to "keep the noise down" ~ of course lots of young kids are in bed by this hour.

The Romanian loudmouth who seems worst of this whole vulgar lot just obnoxiously yelled, "why don't you have a pipe on this (crack) too?"

And the neighbour said he wished people would keep their problems to themselves. I felt like applauding.

The people downstairs don't realize I know they use heroin and crack. But the night I found a pre-injection swab lying on their front door mat told me for sure they weren't just a little loud and rough...

I read this poem in Black Poppy magazine this morning on the bus and nearly cried. It's by P Kelly and obviously written from a woman's viewpoint. I sympathize because heroin, too, is an abusive relationship. Your best friend is your destroyer...

I GOT FLOWERS TODAY

I got flowers today
It wasn't my birthday or any special day
We had our first argument last night
And he said a lot of cruel things that really hurt me
I know he is sorry and didn't mean the things he said
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today
It wasn't our anniversary or any other special day
Last night he threw me into a wall and started to choke me
It seemed like a nightmare
I couldn't believe it was real.
I woke up bruised and sore all over
I know he must be sorry
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today
And it wasn't Mothers Day or any other special day
Last night he beat me up again
And it was much worse than all the other times
If I leave him what will I do?
How will I take care of my kids?
What about money?
I'm afraid of him and scared to leave
But I know he must be sorry
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today
Today was a very special day
It was the day of my funeral
Last night he finally killed me
He beat me to death
If I had only gathered enough courage and strength to leave him,
I would not have gotten flowers... today

I hope you like the hammy picture it looks just like Baby Itchy. My hammies are all fine. They have loads of food in reserve and I had been feeding them pizza crust in addition...

VIDEO:
GABRIELLE CILMI; SWEET ABOUT ME
I know this is an old one but it's gone round and round this head of mine...



VIDEO II:
AMY WINEHOUSE; LOVE IS A LOSING GAME
If she doesn't clean her act up this video's going to become all to poignantly telling... the "legend" imagery shall become real and Amy a mere memory and a voice on discs...



VIDEO III:
AMY WINEHOUSE "RACISM" VID...

THIS WAS ALL OVER THE PAPERS THIS WEEK... Amy Winehouse expresses her supposed "racist" sentiments in song. + Amy stupefied ++ hubby Blake FC sounding off about drugs. See for yourself:

Try Try Try Again

OK LET ME TRY TELLING MY STORY FOR A THIRD TIME! (Two previous attempts and technology has failed me...)
Right. First let me apologize for having been out of touch. I'm sorry I did not meant to worry y'all with being away but I've been unwell and managed to do several days last week with NO drinking, which is something I believed I'd lost the power over for good...

My drinking was spiralling out of control. I was drinking 6, 7 cans a day. These are half-litre cans of 7.5% ABV white cyder so you can tot up the units yourself, if you care to do so. Basically on a single day I was exceeding my supposed limit for an entire week!

Another factor: new dealer; double or even treble strength gear. Sod's law that I'll be at my friend's house and get the vein first time. All I remember was standing facing her and fading fast... next thing I knew was a confounding haze of gauwching out on a wall with people walking past this way and that totally oblivious of me. Next thing I know I'm in possession of a "frozen" pizza, only it's long ago thawed and I can't even remember buying it!

A warning on the drug service wall describes my new gear to a t: right down to its distinctive orangey colour. Apparently all over London people have been overdosing on this stuff and chemicals in the gear stop the usual reversal drugs from having any effect so people have been dying on this.

Looking back: or rather peering rather sheepishly through a thick mist all I can see is that vast chunks of last week are missing and I can't remember spending the money that's gone. All I've paid for is some very expensive amnesia!

Whenever not on gear I've been depressed out of my mind and sweaty, diarrhoeary, lying in bed having nightmares about giant ecstasy parties full of beautiful people then I'm stranded 100 miles outside London with no money, no methadone and knowing I have to get to my chemist quick!

Methadone is supposed to keep its users "normal" but all I ever seem to feel on it is weary and listless and totally flat. On heroin I'm depressed, but on methadone I'm depressed out of my tiny little mind!

I'm sorry not to have been in touch for so long, but I'm touched that people worried for me. I did not mean to cause such great concern. I suppose you were right to be worried in a way because I wasn't that all right but I'm OK now. Little better than OK but getting there! I just wish I could get inside my own comments to answer them now!

OK take care my friends and I'm sorry again for stressing y'all... I really wanted to write at the weekend but had no internet connexion and this present one isn't that impressive... I'm surviving. I can make it. I HAVE NO CHOICE.

I Survived!

Hello people I am slowly being driven insane here by computers that do not work, connexions that failed. This is my third attempt at the same post. I'm going to have to write it down on paper first this time as I can't bear pouring my heart out three times in a row for my ramblings simply to vanish into cyberspace. I cannot get into my own comments. And I'm so sorry everyone. Everything has been chaos. Let me try again:

On the Waggon (or Better in Time...)

I DID ALL DAY YESTERDAY WITH NO DRINK AND NO HEROIN. (Did of course take my prescribed methadone, else I'd have been "clucking" like nobody's business...) but the lack of drink left a smaller void within me than I'd expected.

It's the drink, I think, that's been getting to me of late. Drink is why ~ so I was told by one who would know ~ that my antidepressants have shown no sign whatsoever of kicking in...

... drink that makes me incoherent, distillery-smelling, always thirsty (for more drink, of course!) and so on and so on. I don't like what it has done to me.

Plus I was terrified of getting a genuine physical "habit" on it...

... easy does it. I HAVE had one today... let's see how it goes...

VIDEO:

DUFFY ~ WARWICK AVENUE

Here's another that's been going round and round in my head...

Pie Result/Home-Made Cheesecake/Radio Tubberovski!

YES! MY SHEPHERD'S PIE CAME OUT so lovely I had to be (self-)restrained from gobbling the lot of filling before it ever got mash-covered.

The method I used was this (bear in mind I was SUPPOSED to be making it chunky, with cubed meat rather than ground)...

About a pound and a third or 650g cubed mutton
About a pound or half a kilo potatoes
Three large non-Spanish onions
About half a pound or 250g mushrooms
Sprigs fresh sage and rosemary

Butter
Frying oil

Spices:
Paprika
Mr Brown's Jamaican curry powder
Chinese curry powder
Garam masala
"All purpose seasoning" (glorified celery salt: use celery salt if this non-available)
Lea & Perrins worcester sauce
Soy sauce
Dried thyme
Hot chili powder

Buy mutton in bite-sized cubes or cut by self at home (my cubes were about x3 too big so I had to spend 10 mins hacking to bits with a knife prior to cooking.

Oil the frying pan, fry the mutton bit by bit on high heat till thoroughly browned and "sealed-in"... then chuck into saucepan with a little (no more than 200mls) water on medium heat and allow to boil. Continue frying mutton and chucking into saucepan. Now chop and fry two of the three large onions. When glassy and done, chuck these atop your mutton. Add four large dashes Lee & Perrins (ie about 4 generous teaspoons to desertspoons-full), 3 generous teaspoons paprika, one teaspoon mild Jamaican curry powder, half teaspoon Chinese curry powder, quarter teaspoon garam masala (these do NOT make it taste AT ALL Indian or of curry, trust me: the resulting flavour is spicy but "North African" ie still homely to the European/Western palate. When I'd done this I panicked that I'd gone OTT but paprika aside (2 teaspoons would probably have done) this really was NOT an overdose of spices. And once the headiness of the worcester sauce had cooked off it didn't seem so bad. Wash and roughly chop the rosemary and sage. Add a flat teaspoon dried thyme. Add a flat or more generous (according to taste) teaspoon "season all"/celery salt. Add dark soy sauce to darken: 2 to 8 teaspoons as desired. Quarter the mushrooms and add directly to the pot. Cover, reduce heat to number 2 and simmer for a good hour and a half.

If you need to go out or leave this unattended I would suggest adding more water to ensure it cannot boil dry (too much good food to risk wasting!)... you can easily boil this off later simply by removing the lid...

After this time the lamb was delightfully tender, kind of melted almost in the mouth, despite being supposedly the cheapest, roughest cut (v lean no fat on cubes though)...

Peel and chop potatoes into small cubes. Boil for 30 mins until mashable.

Fry the last of your onions in a little all-purpose seasoninged oil with a little chili powder and paprika (to make delightfully tasty-looking and red)... fry until glassy and well done as these are going in the mash and won't get much more opportunity to properly cook...

Mash potatoes in a little butter and black pepper; add the fried onions and red oil. Melange together. Add some Red Leicester or cheddar cheese if desired, half to potato/onion mix; half to top.

Ensure no surplus gravy in lamb pie filling by upping heat and removing lid (if necessary).

Tip lamb-onion-mushroom pie base into a medium baking tin; smooth mash atop.

Cook in a pre-heated oven c 190C 350F gas mark 6 for 20 mins to half an hour.

And ta-DAAA! You're done! It turned out so lovely I ate the entire thing within an hour!!

***

I MADE HOME-MADE CHEESECAKE this afternoon!

Ingredients:
One x small low fat cream cheese tub
Sugar
1 x lemon; 1 x lime
Digestive biscuits

Ultra-simple recipe: take a 350g (ie small) tub Philadelphia-style (but buy own-brand: just as nice and far cheaper) low fat cream cheese. Low-fat is far more like proper cheesecake mix than high: trust me.

Don't do the entire tub at once until confident in the recipe. Take about a third: dollop out on a plate. Heap out about half as much in sugar beside this.

Cut the ends off the lemon and lime (or if already gone into cut a thick slice, about three times thicker than one for a drinks glass) ... drizzle atop the sugar; fold the entire lot in together, adding more cream cheese if necessary.

Don't bother bashing up the biscuit base: simply spread atop digestives and eat with English breakfast tea accompaniment... it's well yummy..!

***

MY TROTTEROVSKIES went on the radio last night! And made an impression all over London as about three hours later a neurotic-sounding woman phoned up mentioning my "gerbils"... and the host said "yeah I can't remember what they were called {Roborovskis} but he said they were the size of his thumb {which indeed they are: no more than 5cm/2in in length}... they sounded really cute"..!!

So all of London knows about my trotters now. Or the five thousand people or thereabouts who actually listen to graveyardshift radio...

***

I'VE BEEN DRAGGING MYSELF ABOUT half dead all the extended weekend long. It was public holiday on Monday and dismally wet, overcast and damp. How I longed for some mud-splishy herby bluebell woodland to ramble in. Instead I had only the textures of my past life to reminisce over. And to feel dead and wooden. Like a board full of wet-rot. And not even to have energy to drag myself out when I was gasping for a cigarette. Some idiot boy I don't like but ended up engaging in conversation the other day when I snapped at him "I'm ignoring you because last time I saw you you were trying to steal my mobile phone" (which he was) retorted "if I wanted your phone I'd just stab you for it" (yeah as if)... I felt like tracking him down and saying "you still want to stab me? stab me now. I'll pay you to kill me." It was that dismal a day.

Anyway I made that lemon and lime digestive cheesecake today so everything's okay now.

Antidepressants STILL not working even though I've cut down alcohol to bare minimum...

The Drugs Don't Work

THEY DON'T WORK don't work don't work... don't work anymore. Don't feel anything good. (Not good enough.) Not good enough to justify the price. Heroin is boring. Have to mix in crack. Still not good enough. Does not work. Except in the very short term of five-ten minutes. Not worth it. NOT WORTH IT ANY MORE.

SO I'M FOCUSING ON MY PIE instead... have a bag of ingredients here... mutton cubes (about 1.4lbs ie about 650g):~ so it IS a true shepherd's pie; albeit cubular..., paprika powder, powdered ginger, potaotes (for the top), onions (for the pie + the top):~ herbs from Mother Hubbard's garden (fresh rosemary and sage); I have thyme (dried) at home... have field mushrooms too... off to buy Lee & Perrins + cheese for in/on potato topping...

... cookery is my best antidepressant...

Sweaty Day: Fur Stuck; Bleach Purchase

IT'S A HOT AND SWEATY DAY here in London. Meaning basically it's not far over 20C. But NOTHING is designed for heat, cold, damp or dry in this country where the railways once announced closure due to "the wrong kind of snow" (not to mention "leaves on the line" ~ yes autumn leaves, the kind that fall each and every year...

ONE OF MY BABIES GOT STUCK to the bottle-tape! I'm glad I found her. Had to stick it with huge swathes of gaffer-type tape and Bashful or one of them I discovered yesterday STUCK BY THE SHOULDER to it. She quickly pinged away when I released her.

I'M STILL COLLECTING INSPIRATION for my pie. (Thanks Nicole.) I did know cottage pie was beef and shepherd's lamb... Tesco's supermarket aparently don't. They sell industrial "Finest Beef Shepherd's Pie" straight for the oven. How very vulgar of them...

OK this has to be quick. I'm on a detour. Have to get back. No news... good news. The local council's computers HAD to go down right on the day I FINALLY dragged myself in there to settle their botched accounts of me... (typical!)...

PS O YEAH and I now have a massive bleach collection for my toilet...

VIDEO:
LEONA LEWIS: BETTER IN TIME GMTV PERFORMANCE
This song has been going round and round my head... I couldn't post it up because some idiot(s) who have posted the proper video to Youtube had "embedding disabled by request"~ duh!?! Why do people do that?? Anybody know..??

Chunky Cottage Pie

HAVING REALIZED that my baking tray may be used as a tub for home-cooked food, as well as something to hold up industrial lasagne etc in reheating, I have been fantasizing all week about making my own beef shepherd's pie (cottage pie). The difference from the illustration will be that mine will be a beef pie covered in cheese and potato not pastry and so will have chunks of beef, not ground up piggles.

I've never done shepherd's pie in my life (can't remember whether we ever did it at school, though it's a typical school recipe) but my recipe was going to go something like this.

About 500g-1kg (1-2lb) stewing steak diced small
About 500g-1kg potatoes
One or two large onions
One or two large carrots
About 250g (0.5lb) mushrooms
About 100g 0.25lb) cheese
Broccoli to eat separately

Method: fry steak lightly for five minutes or so to "brown" (even though it goes grey not brown) and "seal in flavour" or whatever this is supposed to do. I'm quite sure that skipping this step makes no difference but have never dared do it as would hate to waste food. When done tip into large saucepan and continue simmering in a little water on low heat. Dice mushrooms and add to this. (Doesn't water come out of the mushrooms at some point? That's what I seem to recall occurring...) Fry onions.

At end of frying add seasoning which would be something like 4 teaspoons paprika, 2 tsps mild curry powder (Jamaican, Chinese, Garam Masala or mild Indian), 1 tsp "all purpose seasoning" (glorified celery salt), half to one tsp ginger, 1 tsp mediterranean or Italian mixed herbs, 4-8 tsps Lee & Perrins to taste, about 4 tsps soy sauce (makes excellent gravy browner), possibly one Oxo cube and/or 1 or 2 tsps Bisto-style gravy granules. Add all together including most of the fried onions into main pan and simmer fairly lightly for 2 hours, covered, adding more water if required but not too much or the pie will be ridiculously sloppy. Dice and add the carrot(s).

After 2 hours peel, chop up and boil potatoes. Mash, adding the saved fried onions to the potato. Add a little butter to the mash but not too much (I much prefer dry "natural" mash to over milky/buttery "creamed" potatoes). Preheat the oven to about 190C 350F(?) Gas mark 6.

Checking the pie-mix pan, boil off any excess water by removing lid and keeping on heat.

Now turf the piemix into the baking tin, covering carefully with potato mash. Sprinkle liberally with cheese and pepper the top. Bung in middle of oven for half an hour.

Boil the side order of broccoli.

Remove and eat!

I'll let you know how horrible it turns out when I risk making it...

There's no big news as I've stashed at home all week feeling not like doing anything. Those pills are not working yet, I am sure of it. Though it is "early days"...

I have cut down on my alcohol drinking as it was starting to get ridiculous at points (more then 6 cans a day at peak, which would be about 10 pints of pub-strength beer). Now I have got down to as little as one a day. I don't want to have to feel panicky at the thought of not drinking, I have enough problems with chemical dependency as it is!!

Can antidepressants actually make you feel worse? I feel dragged right down.. down.. down.

...The Germany Bible reading is coming on in fits and starts...

And that's about it!

VIDEOS
1:
Rolling Stones ~ You Can't Always Get What You Want from Rock and Roll Circus



2:
Science Lab ~ Flesh and Blood
Tekno with Shakespearean quotations!
(Sound only)



3:
Lattemaking
from Raymi the Minx blog
~ a glimpse into someone else's boring old life for a change ~

The Clean Gene

HOUSEWORK? URKH! I'm sure I was born lacking the necessary gene. I have tried and tried and still do to clear surfaces, spray on, wipe off, rinse down. Put out rubbish. Bleach toilet. Bleach sink. Clean sink (on other occasions (but using different cleaners that do not mix with bleach,)) blah blah etc etc. but the place still looks not tidy enough. One hobby I have picked up is bleaching things. Anything and everything that can be bleached ~ I throw the stuff on. So my bathroom now smells like public swimming baths. My socks are brilliant white (more are soaking as I speak)...

YESTERDAY I went out and (finally) ~ and this was after nearly half an hour of gazing at the likely products: biological, non-biological, colour-care, liquid, ultra-concentrated liquid, liqui-tabs, gel tabs, tablets, mini-powder and maxi powder not to mention pretreatment agents ~ purchased own-brand biological tablets for the wash. I chose these basically as they were cheapest without (seemingly) being nasty. I got 48: that is 24 washloads for £1.60...

...Colourcare of the same was same price for HALF as many....

Posh washing-up-liquid-sized ultra-concentrated was a pound more...

Those liquid sachets looked ever so tempting... I remember years ago buying them just so I could watch one dissolve in a glass of hot water (ooer!) ...

... and SO my clothes ought to be ULTRA CLEAN by tomorrow as not only have I just found out I have access to a WASHING MACHINE but I've a drying binkybonk: y'know zigzag thing you stand in front of a radiator.

Now I'm dead worried about my fabric care option.

Should I have opted for biological? Will this strip all my skin off? Ought I not have been kinder on my ever so expensive clothes (yeah, right) with colour-care product? Do any housewives or other people with (or without) cleaning obsessions know the answers to these pressing queries? Are all washing powders/liquids/gels/sachets/tablets the same anyway? My whopping great elephant pills look like something from a raver's sweetest dream...

ROBO-HAMSTERS ARE ODD ANIMALS. Quite the opposite of humans, they automatically come out to play when I daily stash them under the kitchen sink (anti-landlord protection for when I venture out: I invariably return to find them pinging all over the place...) but five minutes of sheer daylight will always make them go straight back to bed!

Despite the choice of many and varied sleeping areas they've decided they're best off ALL sleeping in the Swan Filter Tips box, which has been nibbled open at the front to look like a dog's kennel. It is barely big enough to fit all three in being hardly bigger than an inch square at the front by two inches front to back (or that would be 3x3x6cm at biggest)... and there I caught them the other day: three dogs laid out like rugs one atop another ~ and a pile of drowsing faces.

I'm going to try and swap their hours so that they will ping around more actively under the red light at night.

I paranoidly ran out on the street to check that my house doesn't look like a brothel with this on. Thankfully, green curtains kind of cancel the redness out, so from outside my roborovskery and lair look bathed in nothing more scandalous than a distinctly orange glow...

Day 4 of antidepressants: nothing to tell...

***

Funny Photos:
The More Difficulties You Have, The More Creative You'll Be...

Cute French Family Shots...

Dog (aparently) Enjoying "Fun" Ears...

The Antidepressants

I GOT PRESCRIBED "MIRTAZAPINE 30mg nocte" which means one pill at night. Almost felt too frozen-up to bother going to the doctors at all and had to vanquish the desire to flee at several points in the waiting room. I took it last night and yes it does make me dream (this did swing the decision on whether or not to bother asking for it, I have to admit but it's not the ONLY reason). As for being exhausted the dr said this is only normal if you are depressed. Mirtazapine is also known as Zispin in the UK & Ireland and Remeron in the US and some other countries. I have been trying not to be sulky and peed-off all week but cannot keep it up. But why take even MORE chemicals when I'm addicted enough as it is (mirtazapine is supposedly non-addictive btw)? "To address the despair underlying and resulting from my drug addiction."

Hothothothothottttttttt

HOW COME whenever I wake up I feel freezing cold... yet get up into this roaring hot day? It's not THAT roaring hot in the shade. Just that every building I seem to go in feels like a suntrap oven (unless air-con, in which case Siberian chill...) I don't understand what was wrong. I slept all night AND all day. Certainly didn't "want" to do such but hey. Mist one appointment. I don't think I'm learning any German from that Bible. All the words I don't know seem to be the same and begin with "ver-"... which translates roughly as be- as in bedeck, bedazzle etc. O it's too hot my brain is going to boil over

Good Day Sunshine II

IT'S BEEN ANOTHER GOOD DAY SUNSHINE AGAIN... still it has not sunken in that I "live somewhere else"... life is butter dream (life is margerine, as the song goes...)

I tried making my robos (these are my Mongolian trotting hamsters, Jumoke) a really tiny nest out of a swan filter tips box (not the cig pack shaped one; the proper box shaped one.) to see if they'd pile in like a warehouseful of quality fur coats with quivering pink noses... But they'd be literally stacked three deep if they slept in there... so of course they didn't risk it. (Bashful does, but sleeps alone though)...

Yesterday they were ever so funny. Poor Itchy (bottom peck, as ever) is fast asleep. Spherical, for some reason, decided to clamber on top of her to use Itchy as a living robo-pillow. And on Spherical dozes. Itchy was either fast asleep or squashed to sheer unconsciousness by Spherical's gargantuan weight... she's looking more enormous than ever these days. Were she not blest with those distinctively perky ears
and beady trotter eyes you could almost think she was a normal hamster, she's so enormous... anyway those two are double-decker stacked and dozing away then Bashful decides to climb on top of Spherical... and then the entire robo-tower fell down. I so much wished I had a video camera to youtube this; it was absolute classic!

I've been reading the Bible in GERMAN to try and improve my command of said language. Because I do know certain passages it makes the comprehension element far, far easier... unfortunately my German Bible is a 1912 edition and hence printed in the heaviest pre-WWII letter Gothick. You think "blackletter" is hard to understand? Try this traditional German print. A "k" has the kucky-bit at the TOP not bottom... Uppercase A, V and U all look the same, as go S and G. An L is dangerously similar to a B. (In other words all the letters look the same.) In fact, on perusing a page I was reminded more of those mysterious South-East Asian languages like CAMBODIAN than anything you'd think of as "German"... I racked my brains as to why, then realized it's because Cambodian, Thai, most Indian languages etc are printed in imitation of ancient scribal hand using the traditional writing implements (often a brush or oblique palette knife or split reed); this Gothick script is based upon traditional monks' writing too: hence a real (if bizarre) resemblance...

Yes I have itchy feet again (not athelete's foot: the desire to travel). It was all set off by my finding a distinctive green-and-silver "concert ticket" stub on the street. One of my worst habits is the constant examining of rubbish I happen to pass... what gig did they go to? I nosily wondered. Actually it was no concert ticket, but a train/tram/tube/bus ticket from FRANKFURT... and what got me was that on perusing the legalistic gobbledygook on the back I understood every word! "Thank you for choosing to travel with us. This ticket is printed on thermal paper so please keep away from direct sunlight, radiators, oils and solvents. Altered or damaged tickets are not valid for travel." This made me think: hey I really should think about going there (Berlin though. Not Frankfurt. If I'm going to Germany it has to be Berlin or if not Alpine cuckoo clock villages or the Black Forest (as long as there IS a forest still there. Maybe it's like Nottingham's Sherwood forest and nonexistent today!)... I'm thinking of picking up my subscription to my German magazine again (Stern). It's like a non-middle-aged version of Time... or the Sunday colour supplements all rolled into one. Quite a good read. I never got it delivered, just ordered it from the local papershop. At £2.80 a week I thought that was quite good value for "fluent German" (as if THAT's ever going to happen: ha!)

Take care everyone!!