Summertime Reflection.

Someone said to me that other day that I needed to update my blog. This made me realise I actually did need to do this, and also that I have people that enjoy reading my ramblings of unimportant things. I was quite chuffed, if I'm honest. 

At the end of the day the blog is just another egocentric way of putting down all of our own thoughts down hoping that others may take notice. Life has been full speed recently; I haven't had time to sit and muse. I take that as a very good thing, however I do miss having the time to sit down and just think about things.

My hayfever has been at an all time low this year; it's kept me awake, it's kept me swollen, puffy and looking like the elephant man for most of the day. I sit at work with permanent sniffles, everyone thinks I'm sickly. (To be fair, they're kind of right there!) 

I've been told it's been extra specially bad this year. However, it was extra evil at midnight, and now it's woken me up at 5:30am this morning. My sinuses feel like they've peeled away from my forehead and my eyes; well, I won't give a full description but it's not pretty.

So, I've sat outside on the decking with a cup of tea and my iPad.. Writing this note. Every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose. It's very peaceful. Even if I have to have an allergy tablet and a supply of tissues with me on the bench at all times!

I'm off to Dahab (Egypt, my second home) on Thursday. I've been counting down the days since January. My home away from home is finally just forty-eight hours away. It's amazing, as soon as I'm on the plane my allergies quite simply disappear. The dry, arid desert is wonderful, a few full weeks of being able to breath through my nose without choking, or soreness, or sneezing etc. I think half the reason I've been so focused on the flying date is specifically because I've suffered so much this year.

I know what you're thinking, #firstworldproblems. I know, I think it too. Of all the things to whinge about, hayfever is pretty low on the list of things. All I can say is that when it becomes a constant for months on end that it starts to fray your nerves. Either that or the lack of sleep is finally beginning to make me twitch!

Anywho, little blog over and out. I shall sit in the sunshine and report from the beach next week, honest! 

 

A touch on the poorly side.

So, my immune system has taken a nice little nose dive again.

I’d like to think it’s just bad timing and bad luck being Winter and all, but having the flu-like symptoms (Including an evil reoccurring cough)  from the end of November till now kind of hints at a more sinister underlying problem. I’ve been in remission from ME/CFS for nearly ten years now, it only tends to crop up for me to catch colds and bugs a lot easier than others. It’s quite obvious that I’m not the healthiest person, despite my efforts at a balanced diet and exercise. I’m always the “diseased” one, or the “unlucky” one. It doesn’t take long to see that if there wasn’t the drugs there are today, natural selection would have come for me a very long time ago. All I can do is fight, the problem is that at the moment, every day is a fight. I think this is why I’m writing this blog post, a few friends have recently pointed out that I have a “cold”, not to sound over dramatic, but it’s anything but a cold.

Lately, every morning I wake up and struggle to get out of bed, let alone get moving. I keep myself buzzing by a shot of caffeine and sugar and foods throughout the day for energy.. and by about 4pm every day I’m about ready to crash into bed. I’m lucky I last that long really, I make myself. I miss feeling normal otherwise. There was once upon a time when I couldn’t even manage that. Getting out of bed and having a shower was about it for my day. My Mum would have to help me with everything else. Being bed bound, day in, day out for a very long period of time is not a fun thing.

I’ve been to the doctor; she says there’s nothing she can do after two sets of antibiotics.. It’s viral. No amount of antibiotics will cure. It’s a case of looking after yourself. So, instead of my normal bouts of exercise, I find myself laid up in bed with another book, or in the bath trying to stop my bones from aching so much.

It’s not doing my morale any good. No exercise makes Jen a grumpy girl. I feel fat, depressed and lower with every evening that passes. Every time I go to bed thinking, “Ah well, tomorrow is another day, I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning”. Every morning I wake up the same: cough cough, splutter splutter… urgh! Every morning I promise myself that night I’ll go to the gym, or for a swim and then it gets to the evening and I’m wiped out on the sofa. I’m going crazy, I’m desperate to get fit, but knowing how lifeless I feel, physical exertion is the worst thing I can do.

I’m keeping positive and hoping this isn’t the beginning of a relapse.. Staying positive is the way forward. Just a blog post to say bear with me, really.. I hope now you see that it’s not just a cold. I’m not a hypochondriac, I’m genuinely trying to battle with my immune system.

I’m just going to think that in a few months time I can look back on this post and think, hell… I’m so glad I’m not like that anymore! In the meantime, my bed is my saviour. If you want to know the best way that M.E can be described... Pease check out this link: 

http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/wpress/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

I've spent years trying to explain M.E. Conversations that lasted for hours...  This wonderful person managed to sum it up in a 5 minute piece.

Aldis vs Waitrose

 

 On twitter tonight:

"@freelanceliz: Discussion on aldi coming to Herne Bay & whether waitrose would be better. @jennieledwards says she doesn't want snobs in HB but normal folk"

Please let me explain the context, I spoke with Liz after and she fully agreed it did not come across the way she meant it to. When the subject of Herne Bay having an Aldis, there were suggestions that we'd sold ourselves short as the original plan was to have a Waitrose. Well, as much as we wanted Waitrose, they didn't want us. Unfortunately, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. 

When Aldis vs Waitrose came up, certain Councillors and others around me started to murmur things like:

'Aldis!?? Bloody awful, I would never shop there' and 

'oh, I only shop in Waitrose, Aldis is disgusting Herne Bay could have done so much better'

So when I stood up to be positive over Aldis, I first mentioned the fact that I'm pleased, Aldis is actually excellent, it was voted Supermarket of the year and I for one am quite pleased that Morrisons will not be monopolising Herne Bay as it's main supermarket anymore. I could, once again hear very snobbish comments from all around me. It was then that I looked around the Guildhall as I spoke and made my comment about snobs and normal people.

To be honest, I think I've been into a Waitrose three times in my life. Not by choice but quite simply as there isn't one near me. My brother buys his cheese from the Ashford store and says its pretty awesome for day to day stuffs. If there was one near me, I'd probably use it. I tend to use my local independent shops for my meat and veggies etc, then the supermarket for the staples.

I did not intend for that comment to sound like I was snubbing all Waitrose shoppers as snobs, any more than I would look down my nose at Aldis shoppers.

Hope that clears it up a bit. Not something I can get into a couple of tweets!

Ras Abu Galum - Dive photos to Follow

I was last in Egypt back in June, and missed out on the trip by a day. I also didn’t get around to doing the SS Thistlegorm, which I promised myself I’d accomplish this year. Jake (the better half),  was joining me out there to do his advanced, and considering he only had a week we decided it was best to put it on the backburner as time slips away whilst your on holiday easily, let alone when you pack extra adventures in. When we arrived this time in November, I was hell bent on doing the SS Thistlegorm. Oddly enough, once again I didn’t manage to do it. However, I managed to do something far more special and elite and I’m so thankful for the opportunity.

We went to this tiny little Bedouin place by the name of Ras Abu Galum. It is tiny, two families live there, a population of about 20, give or take a few stragglers. To get there you either go by truck up to Nuiweba and back down again, which takes 4 hours, or you camel it from the Blue Hole for an hour. Of course, we opted for the camels! H20 Divers are only one of a couple who offer a diving trip to Ras. I’m so pleased it did it. I’m probably only one of 50 divers who got to experience it this year.

The journey itself is a total experience worth doing. We arrived at the dive centre for 7am, and by 7.45 all of our kits were loaded up, tanks and all onto these odd creatures. I’ve never been a camel fan as a rule; they smell, they feel uncomfortable and all you want to do is hurry them up. This might be because when travelling on four legs I’m too used to being on a horse. Getting onto them itself is entertaining, it’s like watching someone climb onto an extra large clothes horse in the way their legs concertina and fold underneath their bodies. The amazing thing was that once you were on board, they were away! No leading, no direction… they knew exactly where they were heading. A very odd experience, but within ten minutes I was absolutely loving the laid back style. I just chilled and started to look around. My opinion was very much changed.

The seafront path you ride along is ridiculously rocky, but so very totally stunning. It’s like walking back into the Jurassic period. The cliff side and rock faces are so old you can just tell that so much history must have taken place along the trail. Frankie, our guide explained that the trail was actually originally used by the Romans, and they regularly used it to transport goods. You could just picture the Legion pacing down the sands, heading up to cross into Arabia. It really was quite breathtaking. As you carry on around the rocky path you can suddenly see these little dark dots in the distance, these dots turned out to be the wooden huts of Ras Abu Gollum. It works out to about 5 miles north of the Blue Hole. The sun is just beginning to pick up heat as you close into the destination. I was quite sad when I got there as I was quite happy just to carry on taking in the coastline. However, that was just the beginning.

We chose our “hut”. Which literally consisted of shoots tied together in the sand. Keeps you out of the direct sunlight. We offloaded the camels and the Bedouin Sheikh (Sheikh means leader, this man was the leader of his village) greeted us and brought us fresh Bedioun tea which was deliciously refreshing after our trek. We met the local cat, a well looked after grey who was very cuddly and friendly. Also the local dog who was the happiest dog in Egypt! You could almost see her smiling.

Frankie showed us around, not that there was exactly much to show. We were situated on the beach. Stunning views all around. A functioning toilet was about 50 meters away (Don’t expect luxury though) there were mattresses for us to chill out on. Blankets encase we get cold over night.. and stunning reef diving wherever we went! By 10am we were wading into the water for our first dive. Jake, my buddy was half way through his Deep spec, meaning he was learning the science of diving down to 40m and gaining his qualification. It was quite simply stunning. The corals were alive with colour and there were shoals of all forms of fish no matter where we looked. The first dive lasted 45 mins and we came out feeling so refreshed. I always thought that Dahab had the most stunning reefs of Egypt, but Boy, did I not know! This was something quite special.

We changed our kits over and settled down to chill in the sunshine and await lunch. Frankie explained that the Sheikh’s family would be cooking for us. We had fresh battered Grouper (caught about an hour beforehand) with rice and fresh salad. I’ve never tasted fish like it. But to fair, I don’t think I’ve ever had such fresh fish before. We let that settle for an hour then kitted up to head up to the Rocks.

The Rocks is a drift dive on the far edge of Ras Abu Gollum. I’d been told about this dive beforehand. It’s known as Triggerfish Alley as it’s a nursery ground for the Red Tooth triggerfish. You sit at about 20m and just let the current take you. I’ve never seen anything like this dive before. The colours and the beauty is just beyond compare. No matter where I looked, I was surrounded by thousands of these stunning bluey/greeny triggerfish. It really could not be described. This went on for a good hundred meters, and just when you think it ended, another shoal would appear. The masses of colours from all the groups and goatfish was just… well, wow. I came out of that dive in another world. I couldn’t wait to get back into that water to experience more.  The last coral rock before we excited was covered in Lion fish too, which as you know are a regular in the Red Sea, however I counted 17 on this tiny rock! A gorgeous big-eyed puffer sat in the middle of them staring out at us.

That was it for the first day. We chilled out in the sun, drank the beers that we’d brought with us and took it all in. We had roasted chicken for dinner, with pasta and more fresh salad, which again was delightful. Chatted away as the sun went down and the stars started to appear over the mountain. Now, living in the UK I live in quite a populated area, so I’ve never particularly seen the sky at night in a way which makes you stop and think. Up at Ras, with no light pollution once again rendered me speechless. We camped out underneath the stars, and for the first time in my life I saw not just one, but three shooting stars! We slept soundly on our mattress and enjoyed the sounds of the waves against the beech.

We woke up at 6.15.. the sky was beginning to lighten but there was no sign of the sun just yet. We’d all decided to do an early dive, 7am in the water before breakfast. We went up to a sit between the house reef and rocks but had no specific name. The one thing that made it stand out though were the amount of pinnacles sticking up throughout the corals. Very striking and different to the other sides only a few hundred meters away. Jake needed to finish off his deep spec so we planned to go down to 38 meters. The sun had just risen above the water as we went down and getting to 30m was quite a view. Where the sun wasn’t high in the sky it looked like we were almost diving into the abyss. The night sky was still reflecting downwards. A very eerie feeling at the back of my spine as I watched the colours change in front of me. A pretty dive, not as so many fish in this area as Rocks, but the colours and the pinnacles still made it stand out.

We got out of the water just before 8 and once again set up our kits. Breakfast and tea were served, basic breads and jam but delicious all the same. We let our surface interval time climb as the sun came up and once again, we chilled. (As you can tell we did a LOT of that… but, in such a serene place it’s hard not to do anything else. You don’t want music blaring.. or loud chatter. It’s just you and a little piece of paradise)

The last dive we chose to go back and do Rocks again. The current wasn’t as strong the second time so we had a longer time to reach the exit point. It was a similar experience to the day before but nonetheless anything but beautiful. Knowing it was our last dive we took the camera and got a few shots, as you can see the results are on here!  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do the beauty justice. My friends who dived here with Frank back in June managed to catch site of a Manta. Unfortunately we didn’t, but our experience was just as amazing.

After the dive we packed up our kits and sat down for lunch. Today it was fresh Goatfish. I found it so weird as you could still see their little feelers under their gills. It was just as good as the Grouper on the previous day, if not better. The Bedioun family couldn’t do enough to look after us. Such a friendly bunch too, they have a couple of little children that come round and say hi every so often. Always smiling, always happy despite having no electricity, no internet, no computer games! They play in the sand every day with strong imaginations. Simplistic but heavenly.

Our camels arrived earlier than expected, but the sun was still high in the sky so we did not want to move too quickly, otherwise it would be sunburn ahoy! Curled up on the beach for a while and took in our last views before getting onto our walking clothes horses for the journey home.

All I can say is that it was worth every penny. I visited somewhere which only the rare very lucky tourist gets to see. You can keep your Pyramids and museums tours, sandboarding and quad biking….  Give me the peace, tranquillity and absolute beauty of Ras Abu Gollum any day.  It’s magical. If I get a chance, I’ll be heading back there again.


PS – Thank you Jake. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have done it x
PS PS- Thank you Frank, for convincing Jake! X

Fear of flying?

Now I'm never one to admit when I have a fear of something. Unless it's small spaces it's rare when something bothers me. 

Now, writing this post 36,000ft in the air it's sprung to my mind how much older I am, and therefore how much more aware I am that life passing me by. If the plane dropped out of the sky right now, that would, be it. The end, c'est fini.

Not to curse the rest of my flight but it feels kind of odd to look out to the jet engine, which I happen to over viewing from my surprisingly comfortable Easyjet seat and think that that particular engine is keeping tonnes upon tonnes of heavy metal and not to mention the human, living cargo alive as we motor on across the continent. Caught myself staring out at that engine for a good five minutes in wonderment of what the human race has managed to create over the years.

I love flying as a general rule. As a child I always used to sit next to my father and he'd hold my hand at take off just encase we didn't lift off the ground (Great bout of confidence in survival there, Dad.) Dad has no fear of flying at all. He enjoys the same rush as I do from life, always happy to jump onto the next adventure. Whereas my Mother always had this feeling of danger throughout. Don't get me wrong, she's a happy enough flyer but always quite cautious. She'll always spend the  week before flying a little uptight, however she's got the same fear of small spaces that I have. As much as I love flying I can totally see her point of view, I hate the thought of spending 5+ hours cooped up in a tiny seat with someone sitting next to me who happens to have a knack for elbowing my kidneys ever ten minutes.

I always find it funny, when I leave to go on holiday, Mum will ask me to send her a text upon landing to let her know I'm safe. The generic response from me being that if I hadn't landed safely, I'm quite sure she'd hear about it before I did!

I have found that, recently my survival instinct has kicked in. When I mean survival instinct, I mean the fact my brain kicks into thinking that this flight could be the last one I ever take. Morbid, eh? Such happy thoughts!  I have no idea where this has stemmed from, but it's a constant when I've flown in the past few years. I wish I knew why and as I said before, I can only put it down to having this awareness of age and life. Maybe the thought that things can be so sudden. The world is so very big, especially as you look down from this height. Makes you realise just how insignificant you really are,

On the brighter side, I am on my way for a bit more of the good side of living... Scuba heaven. Even ticking off the SS Thistlegorm from my bucket list. If that's not something to live for, I don't know what is :)

Signing off. 

J L Edwards.

Seat 8A

EZY3031

My Nan.

Now before you read any further, this is not an obituary. My Grandmother, Audrey, is alive and kicking. She's 92 years young and she lives directly across the road from me.

Nan is bleedin' wonderful for her age. Even last year we thought she was on her way out, with blood clots throughout her body and yet she still came back and carries on going. I swear she must run on Duracell, or something.

She puts many of us to shame, she walks into Herne bay every morning to keep herself fit, although she needs to do this with the aid of a trolley as she has zero balance without support. However, she zooms down the hill quicker than me!

My wonderful mother looks after her by cooking her lunch everyday, then once a week she needs assistance showering, mostly because of the balance issue. I digress, though, as the reason I'm writing this post is because over the last few years we have noticed the Alzheimer's set in. Old age and Alzheimer's are terrible. She's shrunk from 5"4 to 4" nothing for a start, not to mention all the illnesses and body issues that follow with it.

We're lucky with my nan, in the scheme of things her mind is wonderful although over the past years she has definitely become more forgetful. She struggles to remember conversations from 15 minutes ago, and yet can regail you with stories of her childhood, the war and stories of when my dad was a schoolboy. It's upsetting to see when she struggles to remember you've planned to visit her, even when you've only spoken an hour beforehand.

When my family are on holiday (As they are at the moment) I end up caring for my Nan, this year with the help of my Auntie Sue.

Every time I go across to her house I get the same stories, the same conversations and the same questions asked, she gets fretty over the simplest of things. I have to be mindful not to get irritated and annoyed as the routine can get very frustrating, very quickly. (Especially when she brings up the fact I haven't had children, and my mother had all ready had my brother by my age...That one is a regular moment about once every 20 minutes, amongst other poignant remarks) I know she never means it in a bad way, I think she feels she's got limited time left and would like to see me settled. I keep on repeating that I'm getting there but the sproglet idea is a loooong way off still.

I wash her hair for her, and set it into curlers once a week, and it's only when she sits there in the chair, smiling at me in the mirror, I remember that I'm so very lucky to have the time with her, even when she's driving me stir crazy! I know she's been on borrowed time for quite a few years now.

Today she came back down on her stairlift to give me a present. I was shocked, she'd made a scrapbook of when I was MHB In 2006 and wanted to give it to me, in the folder there was every photo and mention of me from every local paper in the area. Needless to say I ended up in a flood of tears by the sweetness shown.

I'm very blessed to have my Nan at 28. Most friends and family's grandparents passed years ago. Long may she live past a ton, I just hope her memory stays as it is... X

Jen's adventures... Part 1?

It's been a while, once again. Time flies when you're having fun, and personally I've been having a blast.

I was going to write a few decent blog posts from my adventures in Dahab,

Only for my iPad to pick up that I'm in Egypt and turn everything into Arabic. A slight nuisance to say the least! Especially as I'd written everything down on my notes before hand and then was unable to transfer. Now I'm back, nearly 2 weeks later and feeling far to lazy to retype it all out again. So, in a nutshell:

I made 15 dives in my new kit. I need to adjust a few things slightly, but I looked awesome, I must say! I got my deep speciality qualification. (40m). I saw some stunning coral. I saw some even more stunning fish and turtles. I drank a hell of a lot of sakara (the local beer), and learned that drinking to excess is stupid. (A lesson I tend to forget every so often). I had an amazing time with amazing friends, some new and some old. I also had a bit of a panic attack when the boyfriend got delayed on his flight home by 30 hours, but on the brighter side easyjet have compensated us... With free flights to return in the Autumn. Panic attack and his stress = well worth it!

So.. All is grand. I had the best week of my life last week really, my last dive at the  Southern Reefs was one of the best ever! I then returned home safely to go to Hard Rock Calling, of which I saw two of my favourites out of many bands, Temperance movement and the Boss. The even cooler thing was that I stood next to the Temperance movement for the whole Sprigsteen set. (How awesome is that?!)

I then proceeded to have a nice week at work, and then jumped out of a plane at the end of the week. With a parachute, and a tandem random strapped to me too... Obviously. 'Twas probably the scariest moment of my life... The physical movement to drop from the plane, I just simply cannot put into words how much I thought I was going to die. Instant thoughts of how suddenly my life is too precious began to surface as the plane started to descend above the clouds. However, as soon as I was out.. Wow. 40 seconds free fall.. I hit 128mph and boom.. The world is in front of you from and angle I never thought I'd see. The parachute opens at about 5000ft and the fun begins.. Softly and slowly through the clouds to the ground, playing and spinning as we went. No broken arms or legs, totally safe and sound. Amazing.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photographic proof, the company wanted £140 for a video, and to be honest, I'd rather add the few extra pounds and do it again! Not to mention said video would have just been me screaming profanities for a half a minute, not exactly something to be proud of!

To top it off, we had the titanic ball at the King's hall on the Saturday night. Amazing effort made by every single person that went, I felt like I'd gone back in time! Baypromo once again rocked it. Long may the town's enthusiasm for fun and craziness carry on :)

Anywho, update of sorts completed. Off on adventures for a few days next week too so I shall blog again shortly. i'm off on a magical mystery tour for the boyfriend's birthday. I hope he likes Southend at this time of year ;)