Who congratulates who?

Bloody nora! I'm going to be the last person I flipping grew up with to get married at this rate - and I'm the one who's been with their current partner the longest.....
Two engagements in the last month.
::sigh::
And I keep accidently saying 'congratulations' when I should be wishing them every happiness...

Duly licenced (or will be)

Whew! Finally, some time back again. Preparing for my Holiday License has been *really* intensive. I'm knackered but the girls had a good weekend, everyone went home in one piece, nothing un-toward happened, none of them went under a tube train. The visit from my assesor on Saturday went fine; she signed off lots of things in my book and I was left with a few things for the rest of my team to sign off and my accounts to finish off; which is now done.
The girls went off exploring London in small groups on Saturday; I led a pretty good campfire on Saturday evening and then we did lots of the business-things on Sunday plus devising our own song for a party-piece whilst we're in Peru.
So, once my accounts have been verified I'll be qualified to take Senior Section girls away on Indoor Holidays :) There's some stuff that I would have liked to have done differently but that's often the way and I'm satisfied that I did a pretty good job. I *am* really relieved that there were no First Aid emergencies or other problems. I was more organised and together this weekend than I have been for a long time but it's left me feeling quite strange. I think I haven't quite worked out where I stand on the line between in charge and not in charge. I've spent a long time not being in charge of very much in my life, never mind, in other situations and then to move from that to being totally responsible for the planning and running and safety etc of 20 people for 2 days is quite a jump. And I didn't have a problem with doing it, I'm just finding it discombobulating to come back from it.
It's good that I've managed to do this - I don't feel as pleased as I'd like to; but I do *feel* a little more than I have done about anything (other than fear and sadness) for a long time. It's a real contrast, for example, to how I felt - or didn' t feel - last August when I was singing at the Proms.
So, there you go - that's where I've been for a while - waking up a bit.
And I feel so much better now that the light and sun is back. I guess (for today) I am coming back a bit. It's a bit scary how bad, how sad, how black I've felt this winter. I'm just a little bit scared of it getting that bad again.

Curry

Flipping heck! Thai Green Curry and tamoxifen/zoladex-induced hot-flushes are *not* a good combination.....
I was roasting all last night having had a *small* amount of Thai Green Curry for dinner - and I don't even like it that much so it was so not worth it.....garn!

So, take heed! Don't do it!

Missing you

I posted this in the comments over at Pocketina's - it's an interesting post. I haven't listened to the show - I can't listen to people talking about having cancer. No, let me be more specific - I can't listen to Elizabeth Edwards talking about her recurrence. I'm ashamed, but I still run in the opposite direction when I hear about people with recurrence - I truly am disgusted with myself; I come back again, I get over it (I think). I know logically that what happens to other people and what happens to me is completely unrelated; there is no comparison to be drawn but illogically, I panic and think that if it happened to them then it will happen to me (which of course, it might) and I guess I still haven't really processed and taken on board that whole ' we all die one day' thing.

I was particularly interested by the part that P'ina talks about - the 'missing having cancer' bit and various people have responded by saying - silly question - but I'm not so sure (and I'm mostly copying what I left in her comments field because I want to say this to a slightly wider audience.) I mean, of course I don't miss having a life-threatening disease - I'm not mentally deficient BUT I do miss some of the things that happened/the way things were whilst I was having treatment.

I miss: (::Sigh:: some of these I'm not proud of)

• being cared for rather than doing the caring;
• being 'allowed' to take a back seat - not insisting on 'doing it myself';
• being allowed to slow down;
• not having to do things I didn't want to;
• feeling free-er to say 'no';
• being the focus of my family for a while - the priority;
• people being aware of how important it is to *say* and *show* how they feel;
• being able to say 'I'm not OK, it's not fine';
• the shocking immediacy of everything that made me feel more 'alive' than I had for a long time.

When I say 'allowed' in this context I mean allowed by myself - not others and I know that, somehow, I ought to be able to carry some of this over into the 'now' but it's not really happening so much. And I'm mad with myself for not being able to run at life and grab it and get on with it.

Gosh - y'all were obviously underwhelmed by the previous posts.
I find it interesting that the things I think are interesting posts often get little or no response and the things that I think will float by get comments and emails.
Just goes to show the whole individuals thing!