The Wheels Are Moving

This week seems to have been full of activity but in a good way, I have at last got a voluntary job. I start in a couple of weeks for a local charity counselling service in the town. I really like the service and how it operates, it was established 10 years ago and runs from a church hall in the town although it’s not a religious counselling service the church hall is used for various things including blood donor sessions! My role is that of the greeter and receptionist working one evening a week to start, but they hope if they can get extra funding they may extend their evening services! They open Monday to Friday all day and currently two evenings a week but they hope to extend to three evenings a week, the service is very popular but there is also a long waiting list for people who are waiting for their services. I had previously heard of them before going for the interview and upon meeting the manager yesterday I was pleased with finding the job and he sounded like he liked me! I’d been looking since June for something voluntary and had sent off quite a few letters but had just one reply, most can’t be troubled because of the CRB check procedures involved, not actually knowing the college will do that for them anyway! Anyway this job is ideal, it’s local and it in the kind of subject area I am really interested in as well so I’m pleased! I am sure I don’t need to fill you extensively in but obviously greeting clients, telling the counsellor they have arrived, answering the phone, admin work, plus holding the responsibility to put the alarm on and lock up at night. It’s going to give an ideal amount of work experience for university!

I finally got around to getting my eyes tested on Tuesday, we got an unexpected day off college as the tutor was sick. I knew about it on Monday as I’d heard on the grapevine has was sick from another class, so I enquired if he was in on Tuesday as I didn’t want to traipse in for two hours on a bus just to traipse home again come 9.30am and it seemed he wouldn’t be in on Tuesday so I decided to finally chase up getting my eyes tested something I’d been meaning to do for a while. I suspected my prescription had changed as I was getting headaches and was struggling to see the board in class when wearing my glasses plus getting what I could only describe as the odd floater in my left eye which had been happening for a number of months. I knew that Topiramate could make changes to your eye sight and since I’d been on it since March I figured I felt better to get it checked out now. Topiramate can cause glaucoma. I missed my diabetic retinal screening in May, my appointment was the day I went into hospital, obviously having my eyes checked was the last thing on my mind the day I was being admitted to the local psychiatric ward. I never miss those appointments and since changes were picked up back in 2008 it should have been more important to have gone this year!

Anyway I was right, I went to Boots for a change since I was really pleased with how they treated mum when she went there plus they also picked up mum’s cataract’s after Specsavers missed it! My prescription had changed, my right eye the short-sighted one had got slightly worse and my left eye the long-sighted one has somewhat improved – make of that what you will! So it’s new glasses all round which I am collecting later this morning, and new contact lenses which I am still wearing but just for occasions when I am out since I find they dry my eyes and so am just buying them as and when I need them! Thumbs up for the optician in Boots, I had a partial retinal screening done there and there are still slight changes to the back of my eyes and she’ll write to my GP to ensure I get another appointment for a full retinal screening soon. I had to smile to myself, the optician was the spitting image of L1, and I mean spitting image, I had to look twice – I almost asked her if she had a sister, but she didn’t have a Scottish accent! We all know how close opticians get as well… so much for trying to forget about a certain someone!

Tuesday evening I went to the theatre to see the musical Chicago in Manchester, it’s on tour and I booked a last minute ticket on Monday evening, I was just browsing ticketmaster and was bored I fancied an evening out and since I can get a student discount and there was a ticket on the front row I took it! I was not disappointed, it was absolutely fantastic. Sadly well actually cross out the SADLY we won’t (will) talk about the three bottles of wine I enjoyed, the one in pizza hut before the theatre, the glasses of wine in the theatre bar plus the two bottles I bought in Sainsbury’s on the way home and drank watching my new Gessle’s DVD whilst singing along at some strange hour of the morning. You could say I fell well and truly off the wagon after 7 months of being sober and I can slightly recall passing out and waking up at 4.30am with the cat asleep next to me on the sofa, the cat I don’t own! It sneaked in when I got back from the theatre. I did MAKE IT to college, how is anyone’s guess but I did, thankfully I’d finished by 11am since most of the class were heading to the Salford University Open Day but I and some others went to the last one weeks ago so I headed home… and I still made it to the interview for the voluntary job! Still my night out was fun, not clever drinking three bottles of wine but we all have our crazy moments, I’d been craving alcohol for a while, I think it’s been a combination of a few things and maybe it’s partially out of my system but maybe it’s another blog post that needs to be written soon…

Also in the post on Tuesday I got a copy of the letter from the Psychotherapist H I was seeing, it was just a review of our sessions we did a copy of which will go to my GP and Dr G. It was strange reading the letter and brought tears to my eyes but I feel in a good way because it makes so much sense what we talked about. There is also mention of L1 in the letter a few times so seeing the optician on Tuesday morning that looked so much liked her and then coming home to the letter mentioning her name, she steps back into my life again or did she ever step out… I do find though since the therapy sessions I am not thinking of her as much as I was and that is a good thing. I went to the Huddersfield Open Day and I only realised the next day that not once did I think of her not even when there was mention of the hospital where she worked as being a placement place when I was talking to the admissions tutor, it seems talking to H really did help put some ghosts to rest.

Now I want to add some college news to this post, but I’ll do another post tomorrow or perhaps over the weekend when I get to the end of the week at college!