Not the best of weeks this week.

Karen’s mood was on the turn at the beginning of the week, and has seen a downward spiral since.

She did have a really good Wednesday however. Marie came up and spent the day with Karen. Knowing how much I detest women’s clothes shopping, kp had arranged with Marie to go to Next and Tesco (in Durham) to spend hours and hours shopping for this and that. kp REALLY enjoyed it. They had lots of laughs along the way.

Karen had bought some big items in Matalan and the walk to Tesco was a canny distance away. Karen told Marie to take the trolley (Matalan’s trolley) from Matalan to Tesco instead of carrying all the big items. As Karen inhaled on her fag, Marie explained that it wasn’t right for the trolley to leave the Matalan part of the car park.

kp:- Oh, you’re a right scaredy cat you !

Amusing at the time ! Marie is known for obeying all the rules that noone else gives a thought to.

They started shopping about 2pm, and I picked them up from Tesco at 7pm – although they had stopped for refreshments, kp was absolutely exhausted !

The rest of the week was quiet. kp is in a funny place at the moment. She is really appreciating her own time, but left alone, she has time to ponder life and its meaning and Thursday saw kp take a turn for the worse mentally. She has really low self esteem at the moment. She doesn’t feel she adds value to any group gathering, she doesn’t feel that we have the relationship we used to have and that “all she ever does is whinge”. When kp is down, I am down, so it’s really hard to pick things up again. I will be calling the neuropsychologist tomorrow and asking her to pay a visit and work her magic.

Friday night saw me go out with Nigel (fellow workmate) to a gathering in Sunderland of our ex work mates for a couple of staff’s leaving doos (Caroline and Gregg). kp was keen for me to still go and was looking forward to a night “in charge” as she put it. We all met in a pub in Sunderland and had a few drinks before heading to an Indian for a meal. It was an absolutely cracking night ! It was so much fun to catch up with the MTC crew. I drunk far too much and was paralytic by 9pm. Vague memories of the night after that include…..

• Picking up a dropped fag from the floor, then
• falling down and looking up at the ceiling, then
• Being thrown out of the pub by 2 bouncers (I could have had them, but I didn’t want to cause a scene).
• Dancing with Monique around the pub

and allegedly…..

• Feeling her bum as we danced. Yikes !

Sorry to the MTC crew if I embarassed you. Big thanks to Craig who looked after me when I got chucked out. And of course, big thanks to Nige, for getting me home.

On the way home in the taxi, I remember phoning Karen from my mobile and that it took me about 5 minutes to type the number in. I don’t recall the conversation, but Karen tells me it went something like this….
dp:- I am a little bit tipsy love.

kp:- You sound drunk

dp:- Nah, I am just titsssy.

Cracking night as far as I can remember.

Saturday, I remained tipsy most of the day, and was much worse for wear. kp was knackered after being up most of the night worrying if I got home ok. Sorry love ! So we spent a good portion of the day asleep.

Sunday has been a bad day. Saturday night was full of tears, and these carried on through a lot of Sunday. kp’s heading for rock bottom. She sees herself as having no value to society, family or friends. She doesn’t feel the same in group situations and can’t find purpose in life. I feel much the same re “purpose in life”, but told her how valuable work is to me now as a deterrent from thinking about things too far. I suggested she come in to work with me for a few hours per day for the banter. It would need “ok”ing, but I think it would do her a lot of good and I know there are things she could do that would help us. I have planted the seed. We will see what comes of it.

Fingers crossed, for a better week this week.

I’ll end this entry with a couple of photos. Here is one of Friday night. I was semi-drunk when I took this, so apologies to Gary for me blocking him out with my finger. To be fair, it is probably for the best.

Also, here is a nice letter we received from the Intensive Care Unit thanking me for a letter I wrote to them a couple of months thanking them for everything they did.