Overthinking is necessary

"I will think about or worry about that tomorrow"

Those are words that I can no longer mutter as I have to think everything I do in life through in great detail. It is strange though as I suppose I am living "in the now" more than I ever was and I do make the most of every minute of my life.  I am learning to enjoy the planning process (which is very necessary for my now brain) Now brain - I think I might use that saying more. :) 

When thinking about going to London, I was so excited but along with that came a lot of worry too. There are times when I want someone to come along and just say don't worry about a thing, I will sort it all out for you but I know that is not the right thing to do. I must keep fighting on. I am lucky as whenever I go for days or evenings out I have been with people who care enough for me to ensure I am

picked up and taken home afterwards so I feel safe. 

I of course went to London with people who care about me but knowing I was away from my familiar surroundings and having  to rely on mainly the tube (with some dreaded escalators) and not to be able to just pop to the toilet did scare me. 

I miss those carefree days but they are just not an option for me right now. 

I had a wonderful time and so proud of myself for going but in order to enjoy myself these days involves a lot of planning. 

As I said on my previous post I had searched on the TFL journey planners with the option of avoiding escalators. It's very strange to think I looked for steps to avoid them as for a long time steps were not even an option for me either. 

In order to feel that bit safer again, I did download "city toilet" app into my phone but did not actually end up needing to use this and brought a purse with me filled with coins as knew you had to pay 30p to use some toilets. 

Next post I write will be all about my fabulous time in London but I also want and need to remind myself here of the difficulties that accompany these fun times right now. I then have something to look back on and to compare to as the more time is going on the recovery process is getting less and less obvious to me. It is happening just very slowly compared to what it once was. 

Writing it all down helps with this process. :) 

Pack up your troubles

This time last week I was in the very hot and sunny  London. It has taken me a week to start to feel like I am now back in my reality. 

I had spent a long time looking forward to this trip and at least  two weeks before planning each day and each tube journey/ walk etc, I must admit I almost enjoyed the looking forward as much as the actual trip. 

I love packing and started putting bits together for our trip many weeks before it. I would have loved to have bought new clothes to go but that didn't end up happening. I had planned to travel as light as possible while trying to be covered by any possible weather. My plan was to bring three dresses that would all be okay to wear either bare legged or with tights and that could be worn on their own or with cardigans. When it actually came to trying my dresses on though I had nothing that would cover all weathers so I resorted to my usual trousers with either vest tops, short sleeve tops and cardigans. I didn't want to carry anything that I would not get use of but I ended up having to bring "just in case" items. Cerys was easier as she has dresses and playsuits that can be worn on their own if the weather is nice or can look just as nice with leggings and cardigans if need be. Although I did make a mistake of packing a dress that no longer fits her. I had not noticed how much she has grown. That dress fitted her perfectly at Easter which does not seen so long ago. 

Normally I struggle with the dilemma of what shoes to bring but having a dodgy foot means I only feel totally safe in one pair of shoes so I obviously wore them and had no need to pack any more. Cerys wore her trainers and I packed her sandals just in case she wanted to wear them but she only wore her trainers as they are sensible but still look nice and matched all of her outfits. 

I have bought a backpack and it is just what I wanted. I saw a photo of this on Primarks Instagram a few weeks before I could actually go in and have a look around one. I saw another similar one as I walked in and grabbed it as was not sure if this would still be avaliable, I was so happy when I saw it by the rest of the bags. It cost ten pounds, looks and feels perfect for me. I couldn't stop staring at once I had got it home but did feel that it needed a keyring so I had planned to look for one in London. Very strangely though Cerys had gone for a day out in Tenby with Nanny Lawrence and had bought me back a Purple Heart keyring with a J on it. Perfect. It means so much that she chose it for me. 

Cerys is quite notorious for not wanting to carry her backpacks, we had gone for a day out recently and she had moaned so much about it that I ended up carrying it. She wanted to carry my bag around though so I decided to buy her a more "grown up" bag. 

Partly for her and partly for myself as I didn't want her moaning about carrying it around London. She chose a bag "called Kangol" :) she loved the blue and purple colours and the suede bottom. In fact now she has decided that she would like this to be her school bag. 

I bought a folding walking stick that I can carry with me just incase I feel a bit unsteady or tiredness kicks in. I am normally the one being told to "keep your bag shut and look after your purse and phone" and I must admit my reaction would be "everything is going to be fine, no worries" etc but I felt a bit anxious about this, this time around, I think it's because I have so much more to think about these days for instance carrying a bag while walking. I packed my Oyster card in a inside pocket of the bag and packed my purse and important things in a make up bag and tried to pack plasters, my tablets, body spray in another make up bag. I tried to keep it organised and as easy to access as I could while making it as safe and secure as I could. 

I bought a new notebook (which is looking a bit battered after London) and planned days out and how we could get there. I still had my escalator dramas and noticed that if you use the TFL journey planner for London it does give you an option to tick a box to search for underground stations that avoid escalators.  I of course didn't do a strict plan but wanted to feel as safe as I could so needed to plan what I could. We had some food vouchers so had an idea of where to eat each night and an idea of all the things that we wanted to do. I would normally do this sort of thing but would use a computer. I enjoyed using a notebook and stickers though and will definitely use this method again. 

Then all that was left to do was go and have fun in London :)