Lucyism

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:09:00 +0000

Well, here I am having temporarily relocated to London for a few weeks. I went to the Ski show last weekend as my friend Kat had a stand there and I remembered how much I used to like skiing - before I became overly-green and anti-ski...Not sure where I stand on that now as I've remembered how much FUN skiing is! Anyhow, I’ve just about survived my first week here and it was lovely that my Grandpa happened to be in town visiting for a few days so I went out for a lovely meal with him :).

However, unfortunately after arriving in London and being exposed to lots of unfamiliar bugs, I seemed to catch one of them... but hopefully (fingers crossed), the eating of lots of Tunes and drinking plenty of orange juice and green tea and honey seems to have done the trick. Plus the copious amount of sleep and extra antibiotics…

After feeling pretty sick on Wednesday, I saw my friend Elena yesterday who brought me round extra-specially yummy freshly squeezed orange juice from the lovely Waitrose, as well as chocolate, pumpkin seeds and a book. She expected me to be half-dead on the sofa but seeing her made me feel much better and we went out for a nice meal.

Tomorrow I am hopefully seeing my uni friends again (the ones who came to see me in Bath) including my friend Ruth who I haven’t seen SINCE uni! I hadn’t spoken to her for years either but I spoke to her last night and it was like we had never lost touch so I’m looking forward to that lots.

I have also been up to Leeds since I last wrote and caught up with some friends there including Vanessa (whose dog Noodle I used to walk) which was most lovely indeed so I’m doing much better at keeping in touch with people – I could hardly be any worse than I have been!

Finally, I heard today that my cat Mich went to the vets for his annual check-up and passed with flying colours so I’m very happy about that.

And finally, finally Rob who used to live with me in Leeds and who I visited in Australia got married to Anu last weekend. I met Anu in Australia and she was lovely – I’m sure they’ll be very happy together and I wish them lots of love and happiness in their future lives together. xx

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Last week, I went to Birmingham to spend a couple of days with my cousin and her little 'un Amelie. I even went to Rhythm Time and got to play a few instruments (Well when I say instruments what I mean is a shaking a multiple-bell-thingy) as I was a bit sad because there weren't enough glockenspiels for me and the kids - it seems, strangely, that they had priority over me. Although no one seemed to think that it was that weird for me to be there without a child of my own.

However one lady at the 'Bumps, babies and beyond' group the next day said that I was very brave for attending without my own offspring as when she first went, she couldn't believe how anyone could cope with the noise...I didn't mind though as there were some very cute kids and I got to play with the toys.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:29:00 +0000

I can't believe another week has almost past and it's time for me to go and be creative with clay and glaze again. I always find it weird the way the colour of the glazed ceramic is so different from the colour of the glaze you put on but then I guess that's just the way it is. I hope some of the little animals I've been making have been fired as I'm feeling quite inventive today...

Last week, I went swimming and swam nearly a WHOLE width under water. I went with my new friend Ali which was really nice. I've been trying to do some more exercise and yesterday I even went for a walk on the beach. It was Weston, so obviously the sea was miles out but it was nice to feel the sand beneath my feet (shoes). The pier is still a crumpled burnt mess but the new designs are pretty cool so hopefully they should be able to come up with something nice or hopefully even spectacular or amazing to replace it.

I also saw my old friend Katie on Friday, who I haven't seen her for ages, and her little baby Rosie "bear" (how cute is that?), so that was really lovely too.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:22:00 +0000

Hello there,
Well here I am, back after my country-wide adventures. I enjoyed the nice sunny weekend especially as it was my grandparents 66th wedding anniversary on Sunday, 66 years together, can you believe that? They made the lovely chicken lunch (although there seems to be something intrinsically wrong with making your own meal on your big anniversary but we did make an apple cake with lots of yummy apples from the garden so it sort of works out fair...)

This week I went to my pottery class yesterday and today I'm going swimming although now I might just go and make the most of sitting in the sun before it goes away...

p.s. Here's a pic of me doing the cultural thing outside Thomas Hardy's cottage in Dorset last month.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:11:00 +0000

More busyness. After my fun time in Dorset I spent a few days at home before going to Sheffield to stay with my auntie and uncle. It was freezing cold when I first got to Sheffield and I started to freak out a bit especially as my uncle wore a woolly hat to the allotment which was slightly worrying and made me think that winter was well and truly here. I couldn't believe I hadn't brought my coat - especially when I've been wearing it all summer... Luckily I borrowed one of my cousin's, which she had left at home, but after that first night it wasn't too freezing at all. Hurrah!

I had fun in Sheffield and even went to a yoga class which was good. I haven't been to a proper yoga class since, well, Oz... I did go to one the other day in Weston but it was more like a very, very gentle exercise class which didn't really make me feel like I'd achieved anything - nothing like the hardcore Bikram yoga I'd done in Melbourne.

After Sheffield I went to Leeds for a few days - it was lovely to catch up with my Leeds friends and I hadn't realised how much I'd missed it. I met up with Tyne, one of my old colleagues, and we made fairy cakes for a leaving party. We even made the cakes without scales - who'd have thought such a crazy thing was possible?! The party was really nice and it was lovely to see my old boss and his friends. And the cakes tasted pretty good too despite the fact that there was supposed to be the same amount of sugar and flour and there clearly wasn't, as told by the quantities left in the packets...

I also caught up with lots of people I knew from Chapel Allerton - friends from the Oxfam group and my old landlady. It made me miss Leeds LOADS...

Now I'm continuing my route around the country and am hanging out at my friend Kat's flat near Wimbledon which is very lovely indeed. I've also been very spoilt as I saw my friend Joanna who brought me lunch one day and that evening, I had dinner at my friend Rebecca's lovely flat in Ravenscourt Park which is most pretty too. And the next day, I caught up with Fiona another ex-colleague of mine. In fact, I carried her rather large mosquito net with me during all my travels and didn't use it once - it reminded me of her tho. ;)

So loads of people and lots of things happening. Including a move to London in the near future...eek!

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:04:00 +0000

I've just spent a nice couple of days away in Dorset with my auntie and uncle, my cousin Becky, her husband Steve and their little 'un Amelie. Hopefully there'll be some pictures of us soon but in the meantime here is a pic of me and my mum with Elsa, my other first cousin once removed (or something like that). It was lovely to meet her and see her parents. Elsa came and played at my Grandparents in the summer before moving from Sweden to Norway - how very exciting and how very well travelled for someone so young.

Other exciting things that have happened is that I saw my uni friends who came to visit me for lunch in Bath. That was really lovely and I just couldn't believe it was so long since I last saw them.

Also, Grace, my Goddaughter, has just started school. How very exciting! Although I haven't seen her for a while, I can't wait to see her again soon.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:42:00 +0000

Well I haven't blogged for a while - although obviously you can see that. Thought I'd start again. Let's see what the autumn has in store. Things have been a bit crazy but are getting more normal now; after being ill, I have been helping look after my Grandma who isn't very well and helping my Grandpa.

Yesterday I went to a green festival and so am now stepping up my greenness which has (to my shame) fallen off my radar a bit.

So hello to greenness and hello to me (again).

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:46:00 +0000

I'm writing this as a window of 'Lucy normality' has just appeared. Strange really as I had no sleep at all last night. That's despite the large dose of Temazepam which I'm on. Ironic really considering how much I used to sleep (but that's another story).

So, could this be the end of the nightmare?

Fingers crossed.

I seem to have reacted idiosyncratically to every drug I've been given - and i've been given a lot. Drugs to stop side effects from drugs, which isn't so great and leads to more confusion and muddle and my body being pulled apart like an old rag doll. So it's all been very frustrating and annoying.

And i've had windows of normality before only for them to have been superseded by intense periods of loonness (yes, politically incorrect, I am). So who knows? I guess if I post again soon things will be on the up and if not, i'm just lost in the dark for a bit longer...but I WILL return.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Hello world. It's me, Lucy.

I'm nearly back.

I'm showing signs of progress, apparently.

What's happened since i came home? Basically it's been a complete disaster. I've sort of had a drug-induced breakdown.

I reacted to the drugs in hospital; to the IVs, to the ADs. And circumstances meant that i took the ADs for too long and then was told just to stop them (instead of coming off them slowly) so suffered awful withdrawal effects too. It was horrendous. It still is quite horrendous.

Like anything that goes wrong, there's a million little things that happen for it to go wrong - otherwise it would be OK. It should never have happened. This is what i keep saying and everyone just tells me that there's no point in saying it. But i just keep saying it anyway.

I can accept coming back from Thailand now but I'm finding it very hard to accept that the past six weeks (the worst of my life) have been drug-induced. That feeling so awful and so ill has been so unnecessary. I know that my state of mind didn't help and apparently my reaction was an idiosyncratic one, but still...it's so hard to accept, all of it.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:32:00 +0000

Well that was the month that wasn't.

Hence the lack of blogging.

It consisted of the two worst weeks of my life - both caused by side effects of drugs and two not so great weeks also caused by evil meds.

And, although the drugs are still making me feel a bit weird, I am feeling better. Hurrah!

It's a bit ironic that i go travelling for six months and am pretty fine and then come back and get really ill; my poor body.

In fact, my body is mentally and physically exhausted now and I'm just really hoping that i'm going to be OK. I'm trying to keep a lid on things but feel like the side effects are the final straw although the drugs should be nearly out of my system now. And so by Tuesday I should have a better picture of how things are. Fingers crossed.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:11:00 +0000

I feel so sad.

This is a edited version of something I wrote for the BRI. It's a bit repetitive but explains how I've been feeling and how I made the decision to come home, which I've been cursing since the moment I left Thailand. (Incidentally, it's v weird being back at the BRI after seven years. I had lost over 3.5kg in Thailand and I am having IVs although these are more of a boost because i haven't been taking Pulmozyme for six months and haven't had IVs for years.)

I'm pretty sure the hospital think I've gone insane. Clearly, I have. And then if you read to the bottom you will see the revelation that, actually, it's all my fault and that thought is making me feel even worse, if that's possible? But maybe you already knew this? Maybe you'd predicted it? After all, it's pretty clear from my blogs, isn't it? And so I just think, how could i have been so stupid?

I had reserved a ticket home because I was freaking out that I had a blockage as my stomach wasn't responding to any drugs. Then i found some meds to sort out my stomach which was great but I still wasn't feeling v good as I still had the fever I'd had for weeks. I thought my fever would go when my constipation got better but it didn't and my recovery was not helped by the fact that I couldn't sleep and my mind was racing.

But as I made my stomach better and decided I didn't want the ticket, I 'forgot' in my list of reasons to go/stay (I was trying really hard to write a positive/negative list as i've been so bad at making decisions recently...)that my stomach was the reason I was going home.

I'd been to a Chinese doctor who said I had no energy, was unbalanced and had an incredibly weak immune system and to rest for a few days but instead of following his advice, in my sleep-deprived state I convinced myself that I'd made the wrong decision cancelling my flight, panicked and booked a flight home that day. All night long I'd told myself I'd made the wrong decision and when I woke up I just ran around like a headless chicken not stopping to think for one moment what that decision was or why I'd made it.

I have this problem where I can't remember the reasons why I've decided different things - again it's like I just 'forget' things or that my brain doesn't work. I used to think I was quite intelligent but recently I've decided that I'm not and I certainly don't have any common sense.

This panicky method of making decisions has characterised my whole trip. I usually make a decision, panic and then do the complete opposite. It's like a sort of brain 'fog' and it causes me lots of stress and anxiety.

In Bangkok I realised it was a mistake to come home but my bag was already on the plane so there wasn't much I could do and haven't been able to relax or sleep properly since. I was restless on the plane and since I got home I've been pacing up and down like a caged animal, going over and over things in my mind, so cross with myself that I put all my effort into getting better and now have come home when I'm really not that ill at all.

And now I feel less in control of my health or my medication because I'm in the weird situation where I want to be ill because otherwise why the hell did I come back?

I'm just so cross and angry with myself but having said that when I made the decision to come back I wasn't feeling very well- headachy fever thing/sore throat and had slept terribly. I was exhausted and was finding juggling everything difficult (especially because I was fighting the illness on my own although I had loads of antibiotics so what could any doctor do, and how else do you get rid of a fever without drinking lots? Maybe I should've gone to a doctor but I had in my head from Richard Laing (NZ cf doc) and Daniel (uk cf doc)that they didn't know anything about cf over there.)

I was struggling with water intake, sugar levels, salt levels, food not to make my constipation worse, Klean Prep/Swiff and did I need re hydration tabs with it?, normal cf meds, keeping everything clean (which I wasn't very good at, actually maybe it's a miracle I didn't get more ill).

But why did I abandon my recovery plan? Especially when I was so much better. That's what makes me so annoyed. I'd taken the trouble to see a renowned Chinese doctor who'd given me acupuncture so why didn't I stick to my plan and decide how I felt after I'd followed his advice rather than before? I don't know how long it takes to build up your immune system and I know that it's not ideal to be in Thailand with such a rubbish one (Richard had told me a horror story about that) and I did have a sore throat so maybe it was good that I left. And it was only when I got to Bangkok that my fevery/headache thing went and I did think I'd be more ill on the plane.

The problem is this; I'd decided when i went to bed one thing (to stay and get better) and then I woke up thinking, and doing, the complete opposite. I just had this over-powering ridiculously loud voice in my head repeating over and over again all night long so I couldn't sleep: YOU'VE MADE THE WRONG DECISION (to stay).

So as far as bad decisions in Thailand go, this is by far the worst. It's the worst because I feel i didn't have any control over it, because it was the wrong, because I'm just not ready to be back but mostly becuase I feel that i abondoned the race with the finish in sight. I know it sounds stupid but I didn't think that coming home would be the end of my trip. And I don't want it to be the end of my trip.

So i'm freaking out thinking that I'm not going to get over this ever that I feel so awful and can't sleep and regret coming home and wasting all that money on a flight i didn't want and I started talk to my mum and basically we work out that my anxiety started to increase as soon as i cut down and then stopped taking my ADs on ki/melb and got worse and worse thru nz and thailand. It's just going over and over in my mind-what WAS i thinking?

In my defence, I hated the horrendous night sweats and vivid dreams and think i need less sleep without them and was the happiest i've ever been in my life and couldn't imagine a time when I wouldn't be happy, but still... And I thought i was ok because I wasn't depressed and never associated stress or anxiety with them.but now i keep thinking that i've ruined my trip by not taking them and why didn't i THINK they might've helped or take them here or re-start them there. And if i'd taken them then i would've been able to sleep better and would've got better and maybe not made so many stupid decisions and been less anxious and still been out in Thailand having fun.

And as i said if you look through my blogs, the increase in stress is as clear as clear can be. Why didn't/couldn't i see it? And then i think a million and one thoughts about how i should have done things differently and I tune into the 'i can't believe I came home' negative thought pattern only to be superceeded later in the day by the 'I can't believe I came off my ADs' and so it goes...

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:35:00 +0000

There was never any doubt that there was a seat for me on the plane-i wish there had've been. i realised i'd made a mistake when i was sitting in the lounge at Bangkok airport.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:50:00 +0000

Have just found all the nice free food and drink. :)))am thinking this might be another stupid decision and maybe we should've just gone and stayed in an expensive hotel...i read in a travel health book about the benefits of doing that...

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:44:00 +0000

OK. it's all gone a bit wrong. but here i am in the business lounge at Bangkok airport which has FREE internet access and is so v exciting and cheering me up. Also the fact that i am in the business class lounge becuase i'm waiting to see if my 'world traveller seat' is available as the world traveller section of the plane is overbooked and as i was the last person to book, i get to hang out here and wait to see what seat i have. Also obviously i'm totally lowering the tone of the lounge in my crumpled trousers and hoody, both with holes in them.

So yes, i'm going home. now it seems a bit of an over-reaction as i feel better than i have done in ages...

Basically i've made one million bad decisions and i've slept terribly since i've been in thailand and just haven't been able to get over anything. i've had this fevery headache thing for about three weeks now (altho i've had a couple of days when things have been better) which started just before the trek (which probably constitutes one of the worst decisions i've ever made altho, again, what made it worse was that i couldn't sleep on it) and last week i had a fever so bad i honestly thought i was going to die and was scared to go to sleep in case i didn't wake up.

Think also i stayed at you sabai too long thinking it was relaxing and i could get better there and while i did get better for about a day, i got sick again-my stomach was completely messed up (that was my fault as i just wasn't paying it the attention it deserved - forgetting how constipation is a serious problem for me). I'm not sure how these things are all linked but i guess they are. anyway i got complacent and over-confident when in reality i was shattered when i got to Thailand.

The reason i'm here now is that i can't sleep at all. i went to see a chinese doctor y'day and he said that my immune system was really, really weak and told me to do nothing but rest for three days but i couldn't, last night i just stressed and stressed. basically i've lost too much weight, have no energy and as the good doctor said, my immune system is shot - i just don't have the energy to fight any bugs should they try to attack me. also my stomach was proving really difficult to manage altho i did find some good meds in the pharmacy there and i've had enough of feeling headachy and dizzy.

Y'day i decided not to come home and i was thinking that that was a terrible decision (because today's ticket cost about 200pounds more although i'm less cross about this because if i don't get my allocated seat i get money back and also i'm getting these nice perks including rapid transit through passport control) because when i went to the travel agent to ask them for the next flight out it wasn't for a week and i panicked. I know you can get standby tickets but i didn't want the hassle as i had to fly down from Chiang Mai as well and obviously i am actually ill. also i don't have a credit card at the moment. (more me getting too stressed and not sorting out stuff properly)

Probably i should just be glad i'm not more ill -altho i have a flight to london to catch so i should probably keep quiet about that.

As i said to my sister when i thought i was dying. I don't regret going to Thailand. i'm really glad i went and i'm really glad i went on this trip-it's by far t he best thing i've ever done in my life and now all i have to do is tell the tale

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:03:00 +0000

Hello from this cool place called You Sabai . We came here last Monday for the cooking course -which lasted for three days -but i was ill and didn't do any cooking so we're still here. my chest was a bit bad (a nice doctor who was also doing the course gave me some oil of oregano which seemed to work really well) but really that fever thing i had came back and wouldn't shift. i'm feeling much better now though and am doing the cooking course this week instead.

this is a good place to rest though as you can just chill at the cafe (the cafe is really cool and provides a place to hang out for the peeps doing the earthen building course down the road or rather track(which is where i'm emailing from, i'm tempted to come back and do the course next year-earthen houses are so much better than normal houses-why do we all pay squillions of pounds for houses when we could build our own much cheaper and more sustainably?))

Or if you don't want to be sociable you can sleep in a bamboo hut all afternoon which captures the little breeze there is (as long as no one else is in it).

We're living in an earthen house which is pretty cool and yesterday i did our washing by stamping on it in a bucket which worked surprisingly well-the cleanest clothes i've had for ages.

We've met lots of nice people and been swimming in some nearby lakes. There are lots of rice paddies around you have to walk through them to get to the little village. so pretty cool and am feeling much better-physically and mentally. there are lots of spiritual books here so i'm trying to recapture my ki positiveness. currently i'm learning about water crystals and how they respond to words and pictures...

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:35:00 +0000

A belated hello from Thailand. I can't believe i've been here for ten days but there you go. time flies when u are having fun and/or stressing and/or not sleeping...yes it's still the same old me and i am completely doing my head in. why can't i be normal??? i want to be someone else again-i'm just annoying. as is this computer as lots of the keys don't work v well hence the even worse than normal grammar.

anyway i loved bangkok - i felt like i was michael palin and in a travel programme thus really travelling as asia is soooo different (with apologies to nz and australia). we were there for a couple of days before heading north to chiang mai. we got the overnight sleeper train and i had the best night sleep i've had here!

after one night, i went on a 24hr buddhist meditation retreat. i loved it at first and thought it was the best thing i've ever done in my life but the next morning we had to get up at 5am and i was too tired to concentrate on the meditation. when i got back to where we were staying at about 2pm i rested and then fell asleep abou 5pm - i then slept for the net 24hours as i had a bit of a fever.

however we are going on a cooking course later today and we wanted to go on a 3 day trek so dosed up on paracetomal we went to book it. not sure if it was a good idea or not but my body exceeded all expectations and i had a really good time (despite the fact that i was so stressed about taking every medicine you can think of on the trek that i forgot my fleeces and slept terribly as it was freezing).

The walking was easy and the tour guide really nice and we met up with different groups of people an went swimming by waterfalls and bamboo rafting and elephant riding and stayed in hilltribe villages and had camp fires and hung out with the local hill tribe people. yay!

*********

Thanks everyone for your lovely birthday messages...have never not wanted a birthday so much and not sure i like being 30 at all. I met a girl in nz who was 34 but she said it just felt wrong saying she was 34 as she didn't look like it and didn't feel it. that's what i feel like. no one believes me and i don't want them too. seeing as i was premature i've decided to stay 29 until March 11 or whenever it was i was meant to be born, not sure what i'm goig to do after that...

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:45:00 +0000

Well hello from Melbourne. Before you start getting confused, I have a few hours here before my connecting flight to Thailand. I thought it was going to be horrible being here (time between flights is six hours) but it's really quiet and I managed to sleep and do my nebs and drink lots of water - and, even blog. shock. Sorry for the lack of emails/blogs but i've been finding it quite difficult to fit everything in. Also i've realised that i have been ridicously stressed and the last couple of days really prooved that.

I was shattered when i arrived in Chch and when i went to the hospital on monday, I had decided that i wasn't going to go to Akoroa as it was too much and should just spend a couple of days chilling by the river. The docs agreed but as so often on my travels, which could account for some of my stressfulness, i completely changed my mind. I'd made a decision and then decided to do the complete opposite.

This time it totally worked out. I got the shuttle to Akoroa and thought i'd just get a hostel when i got there but the two in town were full. At this time i was starting to panic a little bit but i knew there were hostels around that could pick me up. I went into the tourist info and a French girl was going up to a farm hostel, i asked the tourist lady to see if they could take me too...and they could.

Sophie, from France, was lovely as was everyone at the hostel and when i got there i told the guy who owns it that i could cry because it was so beautiful and i'd only wished i'd found it before. I thought i could only stay one night becuase i had to pick up some meds but after muchly stressing (which wasn't really needed) I worked out i could stay two nights.

So much for my relaxing, I played volleyball (v badly), went for a four hour walk (which seems nothing now as i've been walking laods-altho i get really out of breath going uphill but lung function tests show that it's because i haven't been taking my DNase (not enough refridgeration and no way anyone overseas would prescibe it for me as it's sooo much money) anyway apart from that all's good and at least i know the reason why i get more out of breath, and last but not least went dolhpin swimming.

Last night i went to stay with Averil who is the Servas host i stayed with at first. She was lovely and took me to the airport this morning.

Hopefully i'll see susie in a few hours. yayyyyyy!

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:07:00 +0000

Mount Cook was good. Staying in Chch for a couple of nights then going to Akoroa. Ahh no credit left!

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 04:09:00 +0000

Much less stressed today thank goodness - don't know what was the matter with me yesterday. Am back in Queenstown for the night and am staying with some people I met at a hostel and then hopefully the Stray bus will remember to pick me up tomorrow morning and take me to Twizel so I can go to Mount Cook for a couple of days. Need to be in Christchurch for Monday as I have a hospital appointment (which they've made especially for me - the lovely nz cf docs), then am thinking of going to Akoroa for a couple of nights before flying out on Thursday 31st. Not long now and I meet my sis in Thailand. Woohoo!

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:50:00 +0000

Hi everyone, I'm in Wanaka at the moment. I've pretty much completed my trip of the south island but am getting really stressed about days and the time i have left. I've sort of planned what i want to do but it's like i have no control over my feelings - i just work myself up into such a panic about things and then stress that i should have done other things - guess i haven't changed at all really.

When i first came to nz i said i had no desire to sight see and while i have done quite a bit of sightseeing and have had some good times, nothing in Nz comes anywhere close to what i had on Kangaroo island- the peace and stillness and happiness. I guess it just goes to show that it's true what the Buddhists say that true happiness comes from within.

The weirdest thing about this is that I'd say i actually like nz better as a country, although now I've got so used to all the beautiful scenery that i don't really appreciate it anymore.

What i also think is really important is working. I never realised before how important it is to do different jobs and the sense of accomplishment and achievement you get from doing different work and the confidence it gives you - i think I've missed that here.

Stray was good because it got me to Abel Tasman and i met some nice people but I've missed some of the people i met on Stewart Island and at Lake Tekapo. It's weird how you just click with some people and others, even though they are perfectly nice and you get on with them ok, just don't have so much fun or feel so comfortable in their company.

Hanging out with people my own age, or 20-30 bracket, has always been my biggest fear. That's why when i first came to nz i stayed at YHAs after Stewart Island i started staying in backpackers and preferred them and also starting talking to more people my age. Stray was all young people and i still find chatting to people my own age most difficult. I've realised that to be good in a group you have to be a good storyteller and I've not very good at that but while i sometimes didn't feel 100 per cent confident in the group, it didn't make me feel half as bad as it would have in the past. I guess I'm accepting myself more - definitely cf , I've never felt as comfortable with it as i do now and also how i interact with other people and am more accepting if i don't get on with some -realising that maybe we're just different, rather than that they hate me, as i used to think!

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:54:00 +0000

Am having a great time with Stray bus (www.straytravel.com) which i joined last week. Have been in Abel Tasman which was awesome. Just a quickie to let you know I am safe, well and happy.xx

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:37:00 +0000

OMG I met Phillip Bell in the Lake Tekapo backpackers last night! For those who don't know him he was in my sister's year at primary school and lived in our village - of about 2,000 people (although probably less in those days and i think there were probably only about five boys who started primary with her...). How strange is that?

He was looking at me a few times and i thought it was because i'd been taking about cf. I have decided it is by far the most interesting thing about me and now have no problem telling people about it when they comment on my cough (which is much better now thanks to a cocktail of drugs) or do my nebs in front of them. Can't believe i was so horrible about my ineb when i first got it - there's no way i could have done this trip without it. Well i could've but it would have caused me much more stress and i would have missed it more and so been more ill. So hurrah for the ineb.

Anyway when i walked past he said, are you Lucy? yes Lucy Glynn? And i was in shock and just stared at him as i didn't have a clue who he was. It was really nice to talk to him though especially as he said he'd always liked my mum as she was really 'mummy'. And it was cool seeing him to talk about primary school and village people as i have been feeling a bit home sick.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:17:00 +0000

Was majorly stressing earlier like old me x100 (if that's possible) actually probably just normal old me but it feels pretty bad and i don't like it. Feeling much better now as i'm at Lake Tekapo which is just so beautiful. I won't even try and describe the colour of the lake to you as it won't do it justice but it's the most amazing turquoise. Thanks to Christine for suggesting I didn't miss it out. We went up the hill for a walk and i've met some nice people. yay!

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:39:00 +0000

Am staying at this cool place called Kinloch Lodge, Glenorchy which is right at the top of Lake Wakatipu. I extended my stay here before i'd even got off the little boat and now i've asked to stay even longer - i would wwoof here if i could but you can't only wwoof in winter (it's so busy in the summer they need people with work permits). Tomorrow, I'm going to go for a little walk into the mountains and am going to stay in a Department of Conservation hut like a proper tramper (NZ word for hiking).

This computer is really annoying -read driving me mad -so sorry for the short email. Also if anyone is under the false impression that i have had a personality transplant - i haven't. i keep stressing about everything and anything and finding things to replace the stressing once i've stopped stressin, mostly about what i'm going to do next. what am i like? as if that's a problem? i'm trying to tell myself to chill.

noreply@blogger.com (Simba) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:46:00 +0000

NZ pics (including the Jurrasic fern I discovered on Fortrose beach with Christine) are at: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lucyhglynn/NZ