Monday its August, I wake up thinking about the office floor and my lost seal ring. Not a good way to start the day. I have a protein breakfast and watch a bit of the Commonwealth games. I take a walk to the shop looking for my ring along the way. At the shop I look in the flower bins for my ring as I bought flowers here yesterday. I buy a paper and ask the shop assistant if anyone has handed in a ring and show her a photograph of it. No luck of course but now they are aware.

Back home I feel overwhelmed by the things I cannot fix or cannot find. It is a temporary paralysis so I decide to do at least one or two things that I can control and do. I finish the crosswords of the day and then I fill the tower water butt in order to clean it out and to check that it is working. I discover that there is a leak, most probably caused by the window cleaner using it to climb up to the top windows. Dumb bastard. Anyway I put a temporary plug in and will monitor it over the next few days. I move onto hanging out my washing and then onto pond maintenance. The solar pump needs to be overhauled and cleaned, which I do and get it working again. I clean the pond of fallen leaves and surface weed. A single frog sits and watches me as I do the work. The solar fountain goes back in and I top the water level up. Time for a lunch sandwich and then its onto mending and adapting an old vegetable rack to be a storage rack for my new jewellery tools, which goes into the Shed. With the tools racked tidily I can clean my desk surface. Time to train, its the last thing I feel like doing but its part of the fight to stay well. So I gear up and then get myself into the garage and strapped into the rower. I go for a 45 minute session at my usual resistance level. It turns out to be a pig of a session, really hard and an big effort.

I record the session and then feed the hedgehog and bring my washing in . The evening begins with a meal, more commonwealth games, the drafting of the blog and taking in the Tesco order. I need an early night so that I can get on with the difficult stuff tomorrow. I think sometimes it is necessary to do something other than the immediate perceived crisis. I had a mentor who always advised to have a chat with the frontal lobes when feeling like there is a crisis going on. Asking the question “is this really as much as a crisis as I need to fight or fly” quite often makes me realise that the “crisis” is not one and that there is more thinking and resolution time available than first thought. Today has been that day.