[Ella (left) and Pink (right). Why “Principesa”? Well Pink has always been a little Princess, and I love Pavarotti singing Nesun Dorma, and the lyrics refer to principesa – I have since realised it’s principessa in Italian, principesa in Spanish, but hey ho, the link has been shared!]

I love writing but it can be painful. I think about the stories I want to tell and it becomes almost obsessive, like a narration in my head, and whilst I really don’t want to dig around in my emotions right now, this story insists on being told. I’m still not sure how it will end: will my writing end before a resolution? Dangling on the edge of a precipice, flapping like a discarded plastic carrier bag?

I’m trying really hard not to focus on the physical right now. But this is Pink’s final/not final lesson to me. I can’t fix this. I can’t work it out in the physical. There is no resolution. Every time I think I may have a solution, something else crops up, some other nugget of information or realisation that scuppers my solution. I know she’s hanging on until I surrender.

If I had a pound for every time I have Googled “what is surrender” I wouldn’t need to work again. Desperately hoping someone can put it in words that I can act on. I think get the principle, it flutters around the periphery of my understanding, like that pesky plastic bag, but how do you execute it?

Over a month ago Pink stopped eating. Everyday in the afternoon they get birdseed and mealworms. I throw a handful into the compost bin for Humphrey the Pheasant, though he’s been gone for well over a year. I always hope one day he’ll come back and take his position in his command post. The pigeons eat it. It keeps the chickens away – they are perfectly capable of jumping into the compost bin but they don’t seem to try. The rest I scatter on the grass and Pink and Ella scuttle over to peck and scratch. I love watching their fluffy bums in the air, their tails like a rudder, pointing the direction they’ll move to next, their strange 3 step moonwalk scratching. Pink didn’t come over. Didn’t even look up. She’s far more obsessed with food than Ella so this is unusual. Worried, I got some of Sally’s raw feed, minced meat, the biggest prize after eggs, and took some over. She ate that so I wasn’t too worried. But the next day she wouldn’t eat that either. I don’t really know what they eat during the day unless I happen to see them at the feeder.

The chickens hate the vet. They hate being caught, being handled, being restrained, being in the car, the whole works. It’s stressful for all of us. They get injected with hormone implants 3 times a year so they know it’s going to hurt. Nothing good comes out of vet visits. I do Reiki on all of us in preparation. I will avoid it as much as possible, but by day 3 I felt I had to take her. The vet said it may be her liver and suggested painkillers, and some other drugs but Pink’s an old lady and I knew where this was heading. The average life span of an ex-battery hen is 4 years, my girls are 8 and a half. There wasn’t really an answer, an unspoken shrug. I didn’t want to give her any drugs since it’s horrible way to destroy the trust just before they die, but if she wasn’t eating because she was in pain, I thought I’d try the painkillers at least. If I was giving her them I may as well give her the other drugs. We did 3 and a half  days of battle morning and night. I silently thanked the Universe for it being this time of year where I could grab her out of the coop in the morning, and then do it on her way to bed 12 hours later. Poor Niala had weeks of being hauled out of the coop in darkness to get her 12 hour dose in – and that’s not a nice way to end your days.

Pink has always been the most vocal about being caught and handled. She’ll scream like a banshee before you even touch her. She would rather garrotte herself on the chicken fencing than let you pick her up, hurling herself, shrieking, at the fencing as I corner her. Thanks Pink, I thought, 7 years of nothing but love for you and this is how much you trust me. Surprisingly she recovered a lot quicker than the others though, after 4 tablets shoved down her throat one by one, having wailed and screamed she would stop fussing as soon as I stopped man-handling her, not seeming to hold a grudge. However the final squirt of some vile liver bile down her throat proved too much and she really started fighting me, squirming like the cat, making it impossible to administer. She still hadn’t eaten and nothing changed. On day 4 I decided to stop the drugs since they weren’t helping.

That was 5 weeks ago. I saw her drinking for a few days but then rarely saw that. Ella wouldn’t leave her side. I’ve been round and round in my head – wondering if I should force feed her. Everyone has an opinion but then I read never, ever force feed any animal if you don’t know what’s wrong and that felt right to me. The least I could do was let her die in peace.

There is so much controversy about letting animals die. If she was obviously in distress of course I’d take her to the vet but now I had an even bigger worry. Ella. It was hard enough to lose Niala, but Pink dying leaves only Ella. Chickens are social animal, they don’t naturally live alone. People are quick to tell me of stories how some “devoted” cat or dog turns into a different character when their sibling dies, asserting their true personality implying they’d been smothered by their partner and were now coming into a life of their own. I can’t hope that that’s true for chickens… Apparently chickens on the edge of the perch sleep with the outside eye open for predators. And turn around in the night to close the other eye. Is that true? Pinky was bottom of the pecking order, her eyes would always be open. Ella, on the other hand, has always been the boss, she got a good night’s sleep. How would she fare alone without her minions? If she’s going to be left alone, I want her to witness Pink’s passing or she’ll be forever waiting for Pink to come home. That breaks my heart. And I know I’m an animal communicator, and I know that animals are in constant communication with each other, but this scenario fills me with horror. I can’t take the risk of me being the messenger: I want Ella to be a part of what happens.

Chickens have a complicated and delicate social structure and introducing new chickens isn’t something I want to take on right now. The timing is all wrong. We may be downsizing, moving, it’s just not a good time and I secretly dread any flock issues since Pink was bullied by Niala. That was such a painful experience it led to my learning to heal, in sheer desperation of how to calm it all down. It worked, so I have them to thank for my healing skills and ultimately the animal communication, but I wouldn’t revisit that scenario lightly. And it’s not necessarily a solution. Ella might not want a pile of younger chickens. They might bully her or reject her. I can’t bear that thought either. Ella, the smallest and feistiest of all the chickens was boss from day 1. Much smaller than the others, she ruled with a rod of iron,  I can’t believe she wouldn’t still be boss, but you never know what might happen with stronger, bolshy youngsters. There would be no point in adopting another single elderly companion as then I’m just putting off the problem. And introducing more than one requires that none of them know each other so you’re not introducing to an existing flock. Everywhere I turn is issues to overcome. What if she’s unhappy alone. Do I rehome her? I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t. I simply don’t trust anyone else to care for her as I do, unless I know them, and even then I’d have no control over what happened to her. She could moulder away, bullied and scared. I know I have control issues, but I’m not going to compromise on this point. Besides all that, she’s on hugely expensive hormones to stop her laying. Our biggest bill after oil and electric is the chickens…. Who’s going to take on an old hen who doesn’t lay, who costs £500 and plus the cost of 3 vet visits a year at a minimum? If they stop the hormones, she’ll likely die from a stuck egg. I didn’t realise it was a lifetime commitment when I put them on hormones, and money wasn’t an issue at the time, but apparently they put on so much muscle and weight not laying that they’re too chunky internally to lay now.

Would she be happy alone? Maybe. People do keep chickens alone, it seems to depend on their interaction with their owners. But whilst I pop out a few times a day to see where they are, I always check on them periodically, is that enough? It’s fine in summer when I can be in the garden, but through the dreary dark wet days of most of Scotland’s weather, it’s not realistic to suggest I’ll spend much time with her outside. What if I brought her in? Gary would have a fit. I’ve already started dropping hints… But they poop everywhere. Apparently you can get nappies. My heart lifted when I read that. Sorted I thought. If she can tolerate a nappy I can bring her in once a day to spend some time with me whilst I work. Then I read that you can’t have them in the heated home and then toss them out into the cold. They just can’t regulate their temperature like that. I don’t think she’d be happy inside all the time either, having been a free range chicken outside and likely we’d both be homeless: I’m pretty sure Gary wouldn’t tolerate that. Every path leads to a dead end. Or a divorce. I’ve made a nappy just in case though. Amazing what you find on YouTube.

Round and round and round I go. Moments of clarity and my heart lifts, then sinks. There’s an urgency to get on with this, to see what’s going to happen with Ella. But that requires Pink to die. Now is her living a good thing, or a bad thing? And round I go again. Heart-broken to think of losing Pink, terrified of what will happen to Ella. I’m stuck in a magnificent whirlpool of drama. I’m going to have to go through this at some point even if she lives through this. She can’t live through this, Google says she should be dead in a few days. Then I read about a lady who finds her hen trapped in an above ground swimming pool, who lives without food for 3 weeks. Pink’s a good weight, or was, could she last that long? Maybe Pink would be better on her own? Ella flaps her wings and does that flying run whenever Pink is out of sight, desperate to catch up. Pink is more inclined (or was) to wander off and potter around on her own. Bullied so harshly by Niala in the past she got used to her own company. That breaks my heart again, remembering that… What if Ella dies first – she’s been sneezing the last couple of days. What if they die together, that would be perfect. What am I saying? Wishing them both dead now? Should I take them to the vet and say I can’t cope with the enormity of what’s happening and I want to end it all here and now?

Stuck. Stuck. Wedged between hopelessness and fear. Smothered by a suffocating love for them. I’m teetering between sobbing and peace, sobbing and peace. In the peaceful moments Niala is there, gently reminding me what I know but can’t feel right now. If I believe the Universe is taking care of me, the only thing that’s making this hard is my fear. If I can keep my vibration high, everything will work out for me. That means the Universe will present any solution I need, in response to whatever problem there is. The reality is I don’t know what the problem is yet, beyond the fact that Pink isn’t eating. I don’t know if she’ll live or die. I don’t know if Ella will die first. I don’t know if a fox will kill them both tomorrow.

Three weeks ago she simply lay down in the path. This is it I thought and rushed around the house, literally going in to every room in the house, in a panic looking for things I hadn’t identified. Do I put her in a box to keep her warm? Fill it with hay? Use the litter tray? Where do I put the box? In the shed for shelter, or outside so she can see what’s going on? What if she crawls under the hedge and I have to drag her out by her back legs in her final moments? I emptied the litter tray and filled it with hay. Hovering in the doorway of rooms, unable to focus on what I was doing. What if she couldn’t climb out of the litter tray? A box then, a cardboard box. I can cut the sides down. As I staggered through the house with an armful of hay, a cardboard box and a litter tray I caught sight of her outside, she’d climbed up into the flower bed and was gently foraging with Ella like nothing had happened. The sheer ridiculousness of my panic and the blatant reminder that I was not in control was laughable.

That day, they seemed to explore every recess of the garden. Every corner that they had enjoyed, They pecked at the guesthouse, in the dark lush grass. They foraged around the oil tank, in the dandelions and dock leaves. They lay in the dirt with the foxgloves under the hedge halfway up the garden. They sunbathed in the top corner of the garden near the clematis. My heart sang thinking what a beautiful day Pink had had to end her days. But it was not the end.

And so the roller coaster continued. I had a time where I thought I was finally in acceptance. Everything felt a little brighter. Pink started eating for a couple of days, tiny amounts, but enough for me to notice. When she stopped again I realised it wasn’t acceptance. It was hope. Logically I know she can’t come back from this, but I was pathetically grabbing onto a ray of hope. That’s not acceptance. I need to be OK regardless of the conditions, because the conditions are unreliable. The conditions can change. The conditions can’t be controlled. Human suffering is all because we’re trying to control the conditions so we can feel good, when what we need to do is just feel good anyway.

So is acceptance merely a wearing down? As we navigate emotional roller coasters it just becomes too tiring to care. Is that acceptance?

Two weeks ago, I cried into my coffee at Loch Lubnaig. She hadn’t come out of the coop but at least by now I was able to go out for the day, comforted and strengthened by the presence of my sister. I expected her to be dead when I got home. As I unpacked my swimming stuff, deliberately not looking out of the windows, Stella came over with tears in her eyes. Pink and Ella were sunbathing at the hedge.

And so it went on. Goes on. There have been days when I’ve carried her into the shed, not wanting her to get too wet as she walks carefully around, her little crooked feet being placed oh so carefully down. By the evening she’s wandered out onto the grass and stands quietly at the hedge while Ella busies herself nearby. She stands motionless for hours in the flower bed.

I watch a crow in the tree squawking. His whole body moves with each caw, as if straining with the effort. That’s what Pink is like when she peeps. She’s the only one who ever peeped and her whole body moves gently as she peeps. I can’t hear her anymore, but I see her little body shake when she acknowledges me. Peep peep.

I know what’s going on. They have laid it all out like a beautiful story. As I learn how to manage death though, it’s also bringing up guilt about how I managed it before. But I try not to go there. Was I too late with Dora, subjecting her to one too many vet intrusions? Was I too keen to put Wambers down, afraid of a repeat situation? Too quick to condemn Niala when she finally wilted? I realise very clearly that in this situation, it’s me that wants relief, not Pink. Niala taught me the hands off approach, that it was OK not to do the endless drugs and manipulations that vets will have you try, that it’s OK to say “enough, I’d rather leave her be”. That quality of life and trust is more important than survival at any cost. She taught me that we can’t judge the quality of someone else’s life just because it doesn’t look how we think a “worthwhile” life should look. And Mum was there along with other people in the care home with dementia to show me that quality of life may take a very different form to how we expect. We all think we don’t want to be like that, God no, I’d rather die than live like that. Until you’re around people who very clearly do not want to die, who are perfectly happy to sit for hours on end gazing out of the widow, blankly watching TV. It only takes a wee smile, a wee acknowledgement, a catching of the eye to realise that they may still be happy, content in their new world. Not all of them obviously, but we simply don’t know how we would feel in a situation we have yet to encounter. I used to be so sure of what I knew and now if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I know very little, and I can’t be sure of that either.

Pink is teaching me I can’t control this. I can’t control how Ella will react, and I can’t make it OK. I can’t fix this in the physical. I can only make myself OK with whatever happens. And she won’t let go until I do. As I fret over whether I’m being selfish by not taking her to the vet, my sister tunes in to her and confirms this is exactly what she wants. Pink tells her that to be put to sleep would be like ripping off a band-aid. She wants to go gently. In little snatches. I know this happens, that the soul dips in and out before a pet passes. It’s probably true of people. It’s true of the baby before it’s born, the soul is not attached, it comes in and out. Pinky is preparing her way, gently and on her terms. As Pink is motionless in the flower bed, Ella starts moving further away: I actually saw her up at the compost bins. This is the first time she has started moving away. Pink is sheltering in the shed and Ella comes out to forage. I see her have a little hairy fit to herself and scuttle back to Pink. She’s scared, and she’s not used to being alone, but I know this will pass.

Yesterday Pinky did not come out to play. Ella spent most of the day alone, poking around. Pink is not only preparing herself, but she’s preparing Ella too.

Today Pink is out again, unmoving, but like the video of “ninja cat” that had me in hysterics on YouTube, every time I look out of the window she has moved, but is completely motionless, snap shots like a time-elapsed camera.

I am just an observer.

For two more days, Pinky stays in the coop. A tiny deflated bag of feathers. The irony is that her feathers are beautiful and glossy: she’s just come out of a long moult and her feathers are bursting with a deep, dark red sheen. She looks beautiful, my warrior princess. I start to fret, worried that I’m getting it wrong, as I watch her breathing deep, far deeper than I’ve ever seen, as she lies with her head tucked in like a swan, curled gracefully round the front. You never see chickens lie like this normally. Am I being selfish? What if she’s in pain? I can’t connect with her, I never can when I’m so emotionally involved. Unable to bear the questions I peep in the back of the coop. I’m trying hard not to fuss around her but I’m in agony. She has a tiny spec of wood shavings caught on her eyelid, though her eyes are tight shut. I brush it off ever so gently and she half opens her eyes and shakes her head as if nothing is wrong with her. From comatose to Pink in a microsecond. She barely opens her eyes before sinking back down, slowly, gracefully as if luxuriating in sleep. I know I’ve done the right thing. I gently close the back of the coop and another day slides by her.

I expected her to be stretched out in death, as I’ve read that they will spasm, a violent fit as they die, words assuring me that it’s painless as they are already dead. But there was none of that. Just a wee sleeping Pink. All curled up, just as I’d seen her yesterday. A soft, glossy cushion of feathers. Finally still and at peace.

Today my mother’s body travels in a little wooden box to be turned into ash. I don’t feel emotionally attached it, in theory, I have no attachment to her body, her soul has long departed. I imagine Mum already crashing headlong into her new, or, depending on your beliefs, her real life, in the non-physical. I haven’t quite got to feeling her in the non-physical, but maybe that will come in time.

It’s no secret that I had issues with my mother, but since I became more aware of the, um, shall we say, differences in how she and I relate to people emotionally, I have been blown away by how other people see her. I’d like to write this piece from that perspective, in memory of Jane through the eyes of others.

In 1937, nearly 87 years ago, Sylvia Jane was born to Elsie and Henry. Elsie hated her own name and insisted on being called Sarah. Jane also hated her name Sylvia, but whether Granny had liked the name Sylvia was a mystery, since it seems Mum was always referred to as Jane.  I really don’t know much about Mum’s history, I’m not sure why. I think my sister got some of it when Mum “nursed her” after an operation as an adult, but I only ever got snippets. Mum always seemed surprised that I hadn’t somehow acquired this information, by osmosis presumably. So there may be many inaccuracies in this writing, but who’s going to challenge me?

Sylvia’s (Jane’s) parents had thought Elsie (Sarah) unable to have children and had adopted who I have only ever known as “Your Aunty Ann” (in a grim tone). Then to everyone’s surprise, Jane was born. Ann never knew she was adopted until she was an adult (a source of great pain to all involved), and whether her parents subconsciously over-compensated Ann for not being blood we don’t know, but Jane knew the sun shone out of Ann’s backside as far as her parents were concerned. I do know that from Jane’s perspective, Ann made her life a misery. I only met My Aunty Ann fleetingly, along with “cousins” occasionally (since we lived in Kenya and they, here) but don’t remember much. I did spend a night with them in my late teens, at someone’s funeral in the Isle of Wight, where I had been appointed “family representative”. I remember only two things: I was smoking in the deceased’s house, and before you judge me, anyone who was anyone, smoked back then, and the house was littered with ashtrays. I also recall specifically asking if it was OK, and my “cousins”, mumbled it was. My Aunty Ann swept in, furious, and snatched it all away, stating in an imperious voice that “we didn’t smoke in this house” (actually, not her house, but hey ho). Not a single “cousin” said anything, nor would they meet my eye. Later back at HER house (I didn’t even try to ask there) when she plonked chicken and mushroom pie in front of me, I ate it. Despite having been vegetarian for at least a few months. Again, don’t judge me, things were different then, vegetarians were weirdos, it just wasn’t worth the drama. I was scared of her. I thought my Mum was a scary lady but now I understood why My Aunty Ann had intimidated her. For the first and only time in my life, I heard myself say “well they aren’t blood anyway” by way of dismissing the entire family.

Jane went to Norwich City College at some point, and presumably there, met David, 5 years older than her and back from the Korean War. What he must’ve thought of a 16 year old girl who hadn’t been anywhere, after him serving in a war, I can’t imagine. Apparently, Mum had told me, he had said that anyone who would marry her would need their head examined, or words to that effect. Hey ho.

David wasn’t good enough for Henry’s daughter, Henry being the youngest bank manager that the Midland Bank had ever had, which was a big deal back then. But, in what will become an obvious Jane characteristic, she married him anyway at the age of 21. I have to admire her for that. Jane was so strong willed, when she set her mind on something, she would not be deterred. We all learned not to try.

David joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and took his young bride to Africa, to what was then the East African Protectorate of the British Empire, the Kenya Colony. This was during the Mau Mau uprising, so, a totally reckless or really brave move? Gotto admire them both for that. So they landed in Embakasi Airport, Nairobi, the capital, after a flight via Rome, Khartoum and Entebbe. A flight to Kenya takes about 8 and a half hours direct these days, I can’t imagine how long all that took, well over 24 hours all in all we think. David had gone ahead so Jane journeyed across those foreign lands alone. I imagine Jane, clutching a sun-hat to her head in the windy airport, climbing down the wonky steps from the aeroplane and David, overloaded with baggage as he ushers Jane on to a donkey, but I assume if they had planes, they may have had cars too.

David was a land surveyor with the British Government for a while but at some point went into partnership with a couple of chums. Kenya gained her independence in 1963 and Stella was born in Eldoret a few years later. Jane had dobermans and we have endless pictures of Stella in a sun-hat lying in the grass with the dogs, with and without other babies that presumably lived in the area. A few years later Kate was also born. Less photos of her as the novelty of babies in the grass has worn off by then. But the Patterson family is now complete. Final. Never to be added to again, except with various pets along the way. The family tree emphatically stops here, with Stella and I.

Jane’s younger days in Kenya are a blur to me, no memories of my own, but films such as Out of Africa and White Mischief fill in my blanks. Jane was a teacher apparently but then became a housewife. Later she would play golf, dragging a reluctant Stella and I around carrying her bags, her being too tight to pay for a caddy. When Jane got a golf trolley for Christmas it was us who sighed with relief. We had servants in Kenya, as Jane explained it, it was right and proper to have servants, not least because you are giving employment to people. We had a “house boy” Matibo, who was at the complete opposite end of the scale to boy, he was ancient (mzee), then after Matibo, “house girl” (Rosa), a gardener on and off (Rosa’s brother), and then David had a number of men helping him with his land survey work (John, Jeremiah, Timothy), who also worked in the garden when David was working in his hut (home office).  They’d all pile into the landcover and rattle away for hours on end, coming back dusty and tired.

Jane was extremely generous with her servants. And kind. Very kind. Stella and I were forever coming across diagrams of female anatomy that Jane had drawn for Rosa, explaining that her sterilisation would not prevent the baby from being born. She educated them where she could, cared for their health, supported, sponsored and championed their children. Most of all she was extremely fair and respectful. We had to tidy our rooms before Rosa would clean. Rosa was NOT a servant to pick up after us, she would tell us. Jane kept in touch with Rosa by letter, long after she left Kenya. I remember when Timothy’s daughter had died. Most of these folks had family in far, far away places, whom they sent money to and some lived lonely lives in the towns and cities to support their families in the villages. Others had family with them but they all had roots in the villages. When Timothy’s daughter died, Jane knew that he believed that he had to take her body back to the village, a colossal expense. She also knew she couldn’t explain to him that his daughter would not be denied into heaven because although Timothy was undoubtably Christian, his traditions and folklore told him otherwise. Jane always taught us to respect other people’s beliefs. They didn’t want to lend him the money because he would never be able to pay it back. When Timothy stole the money instead, Jane understood why. We never saw him again. I liked Timothy, he’d made me a buffalo out of mud. I liked all of Dad’s men, they were generally quiet, strong men but laughed easily, like children giggling in a bus at the back of a teacher when David got bad tempered, sneaking glances at me and making me laugh too. We were so free there, free to sit in  the mud, the river, collecting dudus (bugs) or tadpoles, jumping the Christthorn hedges like horses, picking kiapples from the thorny hedges that loomed huge between our properties and loquats from the neighbours trees. We weren’t supervised and I never felt unsafe. I would love to sit in the courtyard of Rosa’s pitiful rooms, various sisters or Aunties cooking around a little burner, squatting on the concrete floor. I never questioned how they lived, so simple and spartan, maybe because things didn’t mean much to me then. I didn’t see the differences in our environment, though Jane would later point it out to me to make sure I was grateful and appreciative of my life and respectful of theirs. I loved their warmth and happiness, their ease and laughter, happily hugging and cuddling me, playing with my hair, teaching me Luo or Kikuyu and laughing at my efforts, insisting on oiling my legs so the skin didn’t look like cracked mud, showing me how to squash posho into a ball on my fingers to push into my mouth.

Jane had a quiet faith, a faith I almost admire. Having been to two Catholic Convents, I have an aversion to Faith with a capital F, and as an young adult, seeing the grief and fear and wars fought in the name of Faith, I abhor any organised religion. However Jane had a quiet unshakeable faith which she kept mostly to herself. We regularly visited children’s homes and orphanages, through the Church, Jane making us pick out toys from the very sparse collection we had, in order to share with those that had not. This was a very clear theme throughout my childhood.

Later on when the plan to move back to the UK “for our education” was hatched, they sold their house in Nairobi and rented instead. Unable to take local currency out of the country my parents had a bit of extra cash: I got a horse and Stella got a motorbike. My joy was complete, spending days with my face buried in the warm musty smell of Arthur when we weren’t out on the vlei (fields), jumping hay bales and ditches. He was at livery near the house and I’d cycle over there daily when I was home (I was at weekly boarding school). When I dropped the envelope with a month’s livery, I was devastated that nobody handed it back, and terrified of Jane’s reaction. She in fact was very matter of fact about it. When I asked how someone could steal from us she looked me right in the eye and asked if I appreciated how much money it was to one of the syces (stablehands) who probably picked it up. What do you expect she asked, when you have so much and they have so little? There was no judgement in Jane about things like that. Plenty of judgement about a lot of things, but not that.

Fast forward to back in the UK, Norwich, England where Jane struggled to work whilst David stayed on in Kenya for me to finish my O levels. She got jobs typing and teaching, working with YTS (Youth Training Schemes) school leavers getting on the job training. She tried really hard to make it a worthwhile experience for them, exasperated at how employers were using them as cheap labour instead of teaching them skills. Fast forward again on to Perth in Scotland, where she set up a business support centre, teaching herself to use a computer, a desk top publishing package, printing and photocopying, requiring a dizzying array of technical skills she had to teach herself before the advent of YouTube. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. David, now returned, was not thriving and whilst he pottered about he didn’t really do, or couldn’t do, much to help. Eventually he was diagnosed with ME which was a “new fangled thing” and no help was available. When I moved to Yugoslavia to teach English, Jane was inspired. She suddenly took herself off to Cyprus to get a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) qualification and before you could say “sell the flat” they had moved first to Turkey (apparently only because Stella, returning from a holiday in Turkey, had mentioned they might like there) for Jane to teach English. After an initial stint in Turkey, they moved back to Kenya for a few years, and then settled back in Turkey, where Jane was again teaching in Ankara.

I never visited them in Ankara, we had the occasional holiday on the Turkish coast at a beautiful village called Kaş on the South West coast. I don’t know much about her life in Turkey at that time, but what I do know is that Jane had friends everywhere she went. I am astonished at how dearly these people hold her. From my viewpoint of judgemental and prickly, unloving mother, Jane was much loved by people, showing them a side we just didn’t see. She has friends, especially young friends (and by that I mean my age) who hold her so dearly it allows to see her in a different (if not slightly confused) light. Bedriye, Şükran, Kim, “daughters” who adored her, and for whom she moved heaven and earth to help.

David died in Ankara the day after Jane retired. They had all these plans you see, I wonder if he just couldn’t face another new exciting journey. I know nothing of his life in Turkey but got the impression he had little routines to fill the days while Jane was working. Stella says he loved it there. When I returned his library books, the young clerk went pale and tearful and went through to the back where a couple more tearful faces appeared, quietly and visibly shocked that he was dead. They didn’t speak English and I no Turkish, but their grief was palpable. I got the impression he spent a lot of time there. That was a pivotal moment for me processing that he was dead. Maybe it was just all too much for him to move on. The flat belonged to the school so they had to leave as soon as Jane’s job ended.

Jane followed their plan, settling around the corner from where they had both decided to continue their life, in a little village called Akyaka on the South West coast of Turkey, about 3 hours west of Kaş, having made friends around Fethiye which was en route. There she quickly built up a life of street dogs, neutering, strays, fundraising, drawing maps of the area (there weren’t any!), mapping heron nests and all manner of things to keep her busy. She lived there nearly 20 years, an elderly single woman alone in Turkey, battling on in her own strange way, creating chaos wherever she went, but making friends along the way.  Eventually she came back to the UK, living in Edinburgh. Her dementia worsened and she then moved to Reading in England to be close to Stella as she needed daily support. The year she moved down, Stella organised an 80th birthday for her and we endeavoured to contact all her old friends in the UK. Bearing in mind she has been out of the country longer than she had been in it, the response was overwhelming. I can’t recall how many people came but it was astonishing. More astonishing was the letters and cards that arrived to wish her happy birthday, before the event. I don’t know if it was the dementia or a blissful self-confidence but Jane never questioned why she suddenly had 40-50 birthday cards and wishes, happily leafing through them, humming and ha’ing at the news inside.

The evening of the event was lovely and we met so many people again. It was an incredible credit to how all these people saw my mother. There would be the odd knowing wink or smile when Jane would refer to one or other of us in her classically rude and thoughtless manner, as if they all saw these quirks, but that’s all they were and they accepted her, with all her rudeness and oddness, and loved her anyway. In my defence, they didn’t have to live with her, but it was absolutely both baffling and humbling to me the overwhelming response of love and appreciation for Jane, my mother, on her 80th birthday.

As we sat at a table “for the kids”, with the children of other families who has also been in Kenya, children who had been friends in those simple years, whose trees we had climbed, books we had borrowed, cars we had slept in (children would all sleep in the car at a party), we all marvelled at our respective mothers. There were 6 of us, all daughters to 3 different mothers. The mothers in question, were all slightly odd, certainly quirky. Strong, mindful women, either loud and commanding, or quietly determined, who had danced off to Africa when little, if anything ,was known about it, and had battled to create a life in those barren, dry and hostile lands, against impossible odds. Leaving the security of everything they knew and their families, they had raised their own children in a strange country and called it home. Did you have to be that sort of nutter to do that, we pondered, as we each acknowledged and compared the “damage” these women had inflicted on us with their strange inability to nurture their own children, despite their obvious capability in every other area of life. Were these all women who suffered the same emotional neglect from their own mothers, and that’s why leaving home didn’t phase them? Or was it that isolated life that had made them emotionally unavailable? Alone without any family or support in an unforgiving environment, before the days of “engaged fathers”, or overseas phone calls, TV shows or even women’s radio… I guess we’ll never know.

We dreaded putting Jane in a home but it because increasingly difficult for Stella to care for her. She’s always been awkward and requiring your constant attention, even in the most benign and harmless way, she would divert every second of your attention to her or to what she was reading or watching or doing. With the additional confusion and lack of memory she got angry and frustrated. She couldn’t be left alone for a second or she’d dismantle the light socket, fill the microwave with water, or something so stupid that she couldn’t explain and would deny emphatically. I will be forever grateful to Stella for taking her on when I couldn’t function anymore, and she cared for her with more patience and grace than I would ever be capable of. She cared for Jane long after she could’ve given up and it was a battle to convince her she couldn’t continue. Jane went into a home in Devon, and settled quite well. It was a lovely home focussing particularly on dementia, and whilst Jane wasn’t responsible for anything in reality, she felt she had control over her life in that environment, being able to make coffee in the common room, all adding to the sense of independence.  After COVID her money ran out, the council wanted to move her to another (cheaper) home in Devon, but we insisted they bring her to Scotland so she would be close to me.

I didn’t know the nursing home existed when we moved here, but now I feel divinely protected in the way things worked out. I couldn’t have identified a more suitable home (Bandrum Nursing Home, Saline, Dunfermline) for Jane and the care she received was unwaveringly outstanding. I learned a lot in the last few years, not just from Jane, but from being in the home with people, residents and carers alike. Learning patience and compassion from the staff, as they so effortlessly stroke, caress, comfort people, whilst I struggled to treat Jane with any gentleness. I learned though. It was hard, but having been rejected so many times as a child, they showed me that she was now in a place to receive, and even give, affection. I learned that people’s quality of life is individual, and cannot be determined by metrics. Jane became gentle, fun-loving, even cheeky. I think the years of her constant struggle with having to be capable, independent, reliable, finally relaxed and she became happier, less aggressive and less challenging. Jane was their favourite, they told me. Not least because she didn’t hit them. It’s a low bar, but they did genuinely like Jane. She was still feisty, still a character, still minxy in her own way, making faces and being silly. Insisting on running in the corridor. “You’re so special,” she would say to me as soon as I walked in, in her last few weeks. “How lovely you look,” she would tell people who came into her view. I can’t describe how completely the opposite this is of the Jane of previous years, quick to criticise, but refusing to complement lest it swell your head.

Plain Jane and no nonsense. The home called her Sylvia initially, and indeed, it was still on her door when she died, because that’s the name on her birth certificate. It was a sign of how changed she was when they called her Sylvia in the home and she didn’t chew their faces off. Gradually they started to call her Jane. “Plain Jane”, she announced one day. “Plain Jane and no nonsense.” After that they all called her Plain Jane, “and no nonsense” Mum would finish off proudly.

Rest in peace, Plain Jane.

 

My beautiful friend and colleague created her own healing modality. Yes, just like that. That’s the sort of folk I hang with. And she’s written book. Sally Heidtke (sallyheidtke.com). Her modality is “Attracting Joy” and her book is “Be Infinite”. It’s annoyingly beautifully written. I say annoyingly because there are a hundred million self help books and Sally’s written yet another one, and as I read it I was blown away with how accessible it was, but more than that, as I am a bit of an intellectual snob, it was really well written. And enjoyable. That’s what I mean by annoyingly. To be so good at everything.

I have been lucky enough to have Sally work on me as she researched both her methodology and her book and she identified my Spiritual Milestone as “sorrow”. On the surface it doesn’t seem plausible, I don’t think I have experienced any great sorrow in my life. Plenty of heartache like everyone else, disappointments and challenges, but nothing I would call sorrow. Nothing more than usual. Nothing prolonged. Why sorrow I wonder?

As I reflect on my life I realise that there is a lot of sorrow. Sorrow in little doses. Constant trickling of sorrow. Sorrow as a result of being sensitive. Every injury I witness to animals. Watching any animal in confusion, despair, any animal kept chained up, every bird in a cage in Greece. A dog tied up to tree. A donkey without water. A soft toy thrown out of a babies pram. Everywhere I look, animals hurt, tortured, hunted. Ignored. Abandoned. I learned to stop reading about things. I even hate that people forward me “happy” animal stories on Facebook. JUST. DON’T.

I stopped listening to news 25 years ago. I don’t read the stuff from animal shelters and I threaten to remove my support if they ever send me anything again. Interesting that these days there is an option for this, apparently people do understand. Even watching animals together, when one animal pushes past another – I know now this means nothing to an animal but in my anthropomorphism that’s a rejection – a little stab of pain. This is THE lesson that all animals are working on with me – reminding that these little infractions are all reminders of my own hurt, nothing to do with them. The pain I feel around animals is often due to perceived helplessness and vulnerability, but animals are teaching me they AREN’T helpless and vulnerable, that pain is a reflection of my own (perceived) helplessness and vulnerability.

But it’s not only animals, just mostly. Every slight or hurt I see manifests as sorrow, that I hold in my heart, clutching at my throat, threatening to spill out at every moment. Sorrow. What is sorrow? To me it’s a deep sucking grief that feels endless, not something that overwhelms you and moves on, but moves in, settles, for the duration.

So why? Why do I feel something so acutely that apparently other people manage to live with without too much fuss? It took me a long while to realise that I am not a sap. I’m not pathetic, feeble, attention-seeking. A lot of people agree that the things I describe here are upsetting, but I have come to realise they don’t necessarily feel it the same. I’ve finally accepted that I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP); I am sensitive to minute stimuli and I process information differently. Not so much differently, as deeply, very deeply. My nervous system is wired differently. Not only do I react to physical stimuli but I’m also sensitive to strong emotional reactions, hypersensitive to social and emotional cues and I have more active mirror neutrons which makes me feel a feel empathy and understanding of people. I pick up on things that others miss and I’m aware of peoples emotions, sometimes even when they are not, which means I’m reacting to something unspoken, or even that the perpetrator themselves may not even be conscious of. Talk about confusing. HSPs are known to be deeply connected to their animals due to their heightened compassion. So on the one hand this is all good, and it makes me an excellent psychic, communicator and coach. But it can also make life miserable.

When I first had counselling after my breakdown the counsellor suggested I read a book about Highly Sensitive People. This on the back of telling me my mother likely had Borderline Personality Disorder, and that I had been emotionally abused my entire life. It was a lot to take in (and I had reacted badly to the latter, defensive, furious that she should suggest such a thing). I know now all the above is true but it took a while to process it, looking back I feel naive and a bit of a simpleton that it took me 50 years to see what was happening.

There is lots of literature on psychopaths targeting HSPs as victims in “romantic” relationships but not so much on the implications of psychopath parents. Are HSPs created by psychopathic or emotionally immature parents? Was I born like this, or did I develop my sensitivity as a defence to a highly unpredictable childhood, where second guessing my mother’s mood and reactions was paramount to my safety?

Well some say you are born HSP. Then again, some say not. Depends who you ask.  Your environment, as well as your personality trait, are also factors. Some also say that up to 20% of the population is HSP but I would argue with that – if that were so there would be a lot more awareness of it and understanding of it. So back to the book. It actually resonated a lot with me, but when it started asking me to trawl through childhood trauma, asking me to access and acknowledge my inner child, I checked out completely. This was way beyond my comfort zone. I semi-identified with the descriptions but literally switched off once it got a bit woo woo and touchy feely. Ironic given where I’ve end up isn’t it.

So what have I learned years on? Even on finally understanding that I was an HSP I still didn’t quite get what a big deal it is. What I mean by that I shall try to describe. Sensitivity is another “thing” being thrown around a lot right now. Like being neuro-atypical. Like being a victim of a narcissist. Everybody knows so much about everything; everybody is a amateur expert. It’s a good thing, but the knowledge is such a thinly stretched film, people think they comprehend something they really don’t understand but they use the labels indiscriminately, which then dilutes their meaning, reduces the impact. Yes, everyone is sensitive to this that and the other, but what I have learned through my own experience, once I started to question it, and reinforced by the pets of my clients who are also HSP, and is that what we HSPs experience IS SIGNIFICANTLY different to what others experience and that we should not discount, disregard or belittle it.

One fascinating thing about Soul Level Animal Communication, and Soul Level Intuitive Coaching is that every session you have is a lesson for both facilitator and client. Clients with eerily similar issues to mine show up. Even to the day  – something that becomes an issue today will suddenly show up in a reading later on. “I didn’t even know I needed to hear that”, will often be my response to my guides or an animal. There are often themes, and these will form even as I talk to my colleagues about what’s going on with me. We’re all helping each other along the path. You don’t need to have all the answers, you only need to be one step ahead to be a guide. The animals and guides have been sending me clients who don’t know they are sensitive, clients who’ve been battling away, trying to block out their sensitivity in an effort to “get on” with life.

Even knowing I was supposedly a “sensitive person”, only after 3 years of being in Danielle’s community with other sensitive people, with animal communicators and psychics, have I realised just how different it makes me. Even compared to other sensitive people. And what the animals have been telling me to share with their (unknowingly) sensitive owners who come to me for readings, is to acknowledge that it IS a BIG deal. Because “normal” people just don’t understand, can’t understand, the depth of feeling and how it affects you – not because they don’t want to, but it’s like explaining colour to a blind person – the references are just not available to them. They lack the social imagination to understand how it affects you. Like trying to understand something in a foreign language, it’s not for want of trying, you just don’t get it. Other people think what they experience is similar, but I’m here to tell you it’s not, and it’s not just a matter of degree. The animals aren’t saying this to demonise “normal” people, but rather to encourage their sensitive owners to realise that they have to accept and embrace their sensitivity, protect themselves where they can and treat themselves with compassion when they can’t.

When I first heard Eckhart Tolle talking about turning other cheek, I was really confused, angry. How could I? What sort of person am I if I am not part of the solution? I had been taught that that squarely put me in the vicinity of the problem. That’s another clever little mantra my Mum unwittingly instilled in me. If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. How better to get an obedient hard working child who doesn’t need any discipline or supervision, never mind encouragement, than to let them believe that if they aren’t actively doing everything in the word that needs to be done, obeying every rule that exists, proactively anticipating problems and fixing them before they can arise, they are going to hell in a handbag? I could sort of grasp the value of not reacting to hurt, with regards to people, learning to forgive and all that,  but when Eckhart Tolle talks about not pushing against problems (animal welfare was my immediate focus), I was stuck. I wanted to believe him, up till that point everything I had learned in this new world felt so right, so pure, so true, but this? I just couldn’t parse it. And as a result, my sensitivity stepped up – the Universe with gladly help you on your way. Your soul will push you into a corner one way or another until you are forced to listen.

Sensitivity is a beautiful gift, but it can be a raw and cruel journey until you learn to look away. Turning the other cheek has taken me years to reconcile. Years to understand it, and more years to feel OK about living it. I’ve had to learn it’s not my place to fix every hurt. I can’t carry the burden of sorrow for the whole world. I am not the person to join the RSPCA or confront animal cruelty or campaign for animal rights. I simply can’t. I tried so hard to be that person but it hurts too much and for people who roll their eyes I just have to remember they don’t know what I feel. They think they do, but they don’t, because if they did, they wouldn’t need me to explain. Forgive them, they know not what they do.

Being a HSP can be a tiresome life. HSPs are often also perfectionists as a way to control feelings of anxiety and fear, and to avoid letting others down. Since we’re so empathic, letting others down feels like the end of the world. If like me, and the people I attract to my work, you feel the burden of responsibility of the all of the world, life is tiring. If you’re sensitive on top of that, it can be excruciating, because you’re carrying all that additional emotion burden too.

Most spiritual traditions, in some flavour or another, teach us not to push against things, but that’s the hardest thing for people to grasp. So what is our place in the world? If pushing against, or trying to fix things, is not our responsibility, what is our role? Law of Attraction tells you to stand your own light. Holding your own alignment is your gift to the world. But what does that mean in practical terms? Well essentially it means being happy, but since we’re human, and until we reach enlightenment, we still need to strive to feel some purpose. So to satisfy my own human-ness, what is my role? I’ve been giving this a lot of thought over the last few months of introspection and come to realise, that, amongst other things, it’s to help ease the suffering of other HSPs by telling them who they are.  Telling them that what they experience is different and not to expect other people to understand it. Once they accept that, they can start to put down some of their burden.

I’m also here to share the unpopular message that it’s OK NOT to fix everything, that it’s OK NOT do things if they make you unhappy, irrespective of what people tell you. That being a “good person” is irrelevant. It’s a trap. That doing ”good things” is a complete rabbit hole. We’re programmed from birth to obey and conform and yet, as Abraham Hicks points out, “being selfish” is only tossed about when you aren’t doing what someone else wants you to do. You can only let people down if they’ve decided that you should be doing something a certain way. Doing “honourable things” are more often or not wrapped up in what someone else expects or wants you do do.

It’s nice to be nice of course, and most of us get a lot of joy helping people, but it’s only joyful if it comes from the heart, not from obligation or duty or fear of judgement.

I’m here to let you know that being happy is the only obligation you have to anyone. And if you’re an HSP, if you allow yourself to turn the other cheek towards things that upset you, you’re a step closer to happiness.

 

[Ref] I found this excellent website to help me explain things: Sensitive Refuge

It’s becoming apparent that becoming Danielle’s featured practitioner was not, as I expected, an incredible opportunity to grow my business and deepen my intuition but instead (or rather as well as) an opportunity for me to have another meltdown. As I struggle with wanting success so badly, my cast-in-stone beliefs that it can never happen for me, are taking hold of me. Because I am different. I’m special. I was always told I was “special”, with a sneer. I’m difficult. I’m awkward. I am not like other children. As well as being bad and evil, I’m “misunderstood”, this, directed at me with distain and mockery, being the catch all for everything when I protest my innocence or defend my actions. Other children exist beyond this veil that blinds me, prevents me from see what “normal” looks like. A deep and dark twin has emerged, angry, frustrated, a victim of circumstance. Convinced that my prices, the timezone, my lack of abundance in my soul, will wither this plant to nothing.

I’m finding it hard to find my guides because I’m so in my head about it, and if I’m honest, I don’t want to listen. I’m angry with Julie’s guides because it’s all just more of the same. I know what I’m supposed to do. I know I have to look away. I know that the Universe can find me clients in my own timezone, and that there is plenty of money in the world and that all these excuses are just pinching off my abundance. You’re in your own way. You just need to let go. Surrender. Why can’t you see your brilliance, why can’t you see what we see? Peel back the layers. I just want to scream. No wonder people don’t believe this garbage! It’s like telling someone how to pronounce the words of a language they don’t understand. I know that I need to surrender. But what the fuck is surrender? You can find million opinions online, believe me, I’ve looked, but none of it is accessible to one who is not surrendered. All offered with the smugness of someone who has worked it out, with the benefit of a different vantage point. I get the concept. What frustrates me the most is that all the advice implies that you are somehow deliberately holding your self apart. Just more people making me feel like I’m deliberately doing it wrong. Like I know how to surrender. I know how to be happy. I know how to align with love and joy and peace but I’ve deliberately chosen not to.

Julie’s guides call her Dodgy Kate, with a slight element of criminal. I have called her Miss Understood. I know exactly who she is, and right now, she is driving the bus. She’s about 15. If I can’t surrender, after all I’ve done then it’s all over for me. I’m trapped here. Trapped in magnificent suffering, between the old world and the new. I know, believe with all my heart, woven through my soul, that the new world is the right way, the only way for me to find peace. I can no longer return to the old world where pushing and striving and suffering is to be admired, compared, polished up and held proudly as accomplishment. I would rather live in poverty, somewhere warm preferably, lying on dirty mat with a skinny, flea infested dog beside me, than venture back into the old world. I know that’s easy to say from my comfortable home, but if anyone is watching Shantatram on Apple TV, that book was a turning point for me. The love and joy and purpose that Lin finds in the slums of Bombay made so much sense to me and ignited a longing in my soul for more. But if I can’t make this new world work for me, where does that leave me? Worse off than before. That’s where. Having glimpsed the gardens of Eden so clearly, in breath-taking 4K beauty, only to be pushed back behind the curtain and told it’s not my time?

Jess Lively talks about waking up like a baby wakes up. When you look over at the younger souls (a patronising reference to how evolved we are, in terms of how many lifetimes we’ve lived) who are at the stage of power, pushing, striving and proving, they may look peaceful. They may sleep at night. So here I am, steeped in my potato shoe wisdom, fighting off demons every night. How can that be, Miss Understood rages? After all this work I’ve done, WHY AM I NOT HAPPY, and THESE people who tread on worms and pull nose-hair out of their wives as they sleep, are? Jess says if you look at a baby sleeping peacefully, and then watch it wake up, it begins by fidgeting, restlessly twitching, facial expressions contorting, grumbling and squeaking before they finally open their eyes and, hopefully, smile. There’s probably word for it, but Miss Understood can’t be bothered to engage with a dictionary because Miss Understood still harbours a deep mistrust and loathing towards babies. So we are at the grumbling stage. It’s all part of waking up.

Oh hurrah.

So much has happened since I started this blog that I’m pleased to say that Miss Understood and I came to an arrangement. There was a lot of emotional fall-out and a lot of inner child healing, and eventually a recognition that what is needed here is more self love. More compassion. Miss Understood rolls her eyes because she doesn’t believe in vulnerability. Miss Understood is very firmly rooted in the old world where if you had time to love yourself you weren’t working hard enough. And you would inevitably, be punished. Or mocked.

Miss Understood was still present, though slightly mollified, in Egypt. We went on holiday, for me the first holiday in 4 years, apart from a couple of week retreats (and we remember how restful the last emotional rollercoaster retreat was), but the first holiday abroad and with Gary. Somehow we ending up opting to learn to scuba dive, I should have realised that a course is not the most restful holiday but as somehow I overlooked that. This involved several weeks of online training learning of the technical stuff before you get there. I didn’t expect it to be hard, I don’t buy into this premise that learning is harder when you’re older, no you just have more choice how you spend your time so you go and do something more pleasurable, that’s all. And the one thing I am sure of, courtesy of Mum, is that I am very clever (I have removed the word “very” several times as that was her word, I wouldn’t use it, that’s just too congratulatory, but I’ll leave it in just to make me sweat). So I didn’t expect to struggle, but actually it was hard. And scary. If you come up too quickly your lungs will explode. Oh. That hadn’t occurred to me. The whole fear of being without air thing had been safely filed away with: “well we won’t be that far down”, confident that I could swim up to the surface, I mean, we’re not caving.

We got through the training and arrived in Egypt at a camp in the dessert on the Red Sea at 5am, having had no sleep. THAT I AM too old for, that’s for sure. We got a couple hours of sleep and the course started in the afternoon. It would have started after breakfast if the other girl on the course, a Swedish girl Freja, who had arrived with us, had more sense than us by sleeping through the morning. She was only 22 and ironically probably perfectly capable of staying up all night and running a marathon with a hangover.

It all went reasonably well, especially for our beautiful companion. Blonde, lithe, pretty and serene, I wanted to dislike her but I couldn’t: she was a joy to be around. But she did everything perfectly, first time, practically without instruction, calmly and gracefully. We weren’t bad, but I felt like a blundering rhino compared to her, but surprisingly, Miss Understood stayed quiet. Confident that Freja would have her downfall eventually. So not so much a spiritual acceptance as another limiting belief that sooner or later it would go to shit for her too.

As we learned more they obviously focus on what can go wrong and I was aware of a growing unease about the whole thing. What were we thinking? What was wrong with snorkelling? We’ve always been more than happy to snorkel, who in their right mind would deliberately put themselves in danger by going underwater “for a deeper look”? Surely it’s much the same down there, probably not even as beautiful as the light changes with depth. Then a panic about not really wanting to do it at all. Followed closely about a fear of letting Gary down. If I didn’t do this, where did that leave him? That was another source of unease, all this focus on being a “buddy”. Not only do you put yourself, consciously and willingly in a situation where you’re relying on equipment to enable you to breathe, but you’re also responsible for the life of your buddy, and you can’t take your eyes off them, not for a second, because if they run out of air it’s up to you to share yours. And in the even more horrific scenario that you run out of air, and they aren’t watching you like a hawk, you’re fucked. Doesn’t sound like fun, put like that, does it? Not a great place for someone who is already hypervigilant of the comfort of others.

I’m not a particularly dramatic person about safety, I didn’t think anyway. I’m quite stoic about death. I realise I may feel differently as the event occurs but I was brought up in a world that if you got into trouble in the water, you drowned. You didn’t expect anyone else to arrive on a white mermaid to save you. I’ve got in trouble in the swimming community who frown in disapproval – I only take my tow float because I’m obedient, not because I think I need it. I do realise I am hideously naive, but I have learned to respect the cold water and the tides. I quite like Reckless Kate though, we need more of her.

Day 3 I imploded. Not in a dramatic way, just voiced my concern that I wasn’t really sure I even wanted to do it. Gary didn’t seem overly concerned, maybe he knows me better than I give him credit for. I managed to find my guides – all my self-care goes out the window when my routine is disrupted so meditation and yoga just hadn’t happened. It’s hard to do these things when you’re sharing single room, and to be honest, I don’t have the discipline, and then once the routine is broken, all bets are off. As my guides helped me rifle though the emotions I realised that it wasn’t a fear of death that was behind it all, but the fear of getting it wrong. Of letting down the instructor, a young, handsome Egyptian named Mo who was funny and charming. Of not getting it right. Not getting it right? As if Mo gives a toss about a 50 something overweight white woman learning to dive on holidays who can’t get her CESA (controlled emergency swimming ascent) right. And as if I really give a shit about getting it wrong or looking stupid in front of Mo. Jeeeez. These cliches are embarrassing. Logically I don’t give a stuff, but these beliefs run deep, programmed into us, etched into channels. In my subconscious there is no logical examination of what may or may not happen if I get it wrong, just the fear. There is no perspective or rationalisation. Just the belief that I must always get it right, because in the past, getting it right kept me safe.

The fear doesn’t go away just because you identify it, but it’s easier to edge past it quietly and as long as you don’t poke sticks at it, you can co-exist with a wary eye on each other and as soon as we started swimming in the sea the fear went away. Or rather, became irrelevant in the eye-watering beauty of the Red Sea Reefs.

On my return I have realised that I need to step back and take care of Miss Understood. Properly. Disarm her. Fold her into the arms of love. I can see that I’m still pushing and striving despite all my attempts not to. Pushing for my guesthouse business. Pushing for my healing and intuitive business. Pushing to make money, be successful, pushing to be more spiritual, pushing to be be more healthy, pushing to be thinner, locked an endless cycle of abuse and contrition against myself. I have mastered so much in my journey but the self-love eludes me. I’m better at it, for sure, and I can recognise and help heal it in others, but there is still a huge void in me that I can’t ignore any longer. Until I address this I just move from one punishing schedule to another. I gave up a corporate job to be my own boss only to find that I’m a horrible boss. The fact that most of my work is unpaid, is irrelevant. I’m still on endless schedules and quests, for quality and environmental responsibility awards in the Shed, for more healing and intuitive techniques, courses and self-improvement, for exercise and diet regimes to whip my poor tired and wounded body into shape.

So it stops here.

I have committed to a exploration of self-love. I can’t put it off any more, and I don’t know where it will take me, but I know it has start here. I learned so much in October with all my new clients, and one of the biggest themes was about compassion for ourselves. How I long to hold Miss Understood in the same compassion that comes easily and readily for others. So with that in mind, as the holiday season approaches, hold yourself with compassion. At every turn.