Hello again, it’s been a while.  And as before there is a musical link for you and this time it has to be The Sound of Silence.

 I am not known for being silent.  Many have suggested it, craved it and even demanded it but I stood my ground and kept on yapping.

 So why haven’t I been blogging for my country, and why would you want to know?

I wasn’t sure anyone would want to know why.  But when I looked at the blog page and saw that it wasn’t only me who had fallen silent I thought it was important that I told you.

 Because if you don’t know my reasons then you may make assumptions, and those assumptions may be way off the mark. 

You may wrongly think that I am too busy living the high life to blog.  Or that I and others en masse made a conscious decision to stop blogging for The Diary Project.

When I started this blog I did so for a number of reasons.  One was to inform people about our lives.  My understanding is that the diary project will be presented to the Scottish Government so that somewhere there is a record of our thoughts and feelings throughout this project. I also hope that this informs those who make decisions.

I can hazard a guess about the other participants’ reasons for not blogging,  but it would be a guess and perhaps they ought to tell their own stories.

Me? Well there are a number of reasons. 

Shortly after I posted my last blog it was suggested that there might be a conflict of interest because of the nature of one of my posts.  The fear was that people might confuse my personal views with those of the Organisation I worked for.  That matter was resolved but it did make me think twice about  all things blog.  Making sure people know who you are speaking for is important.

Another reason is that I didn’t want to sound like a whingebag, always harping on about my difficult life.  I am in fact very blessed.  I have family and friends who love me, sustain me, keep me safe and make me happy.  I have food on the table (ok maybe I need a bit less food!) and a roof over my head (again that is in dispute as today is December 8th and the wind is threatening my roof and many more).  I am a lucky woman and as I type I am a happy one.  But I will be very happy to see the back of this year.

I like to inject humour into my blogs.  Because life is like that isn’t it?  No matter how awful the tragedies we witness daily are, we will still turn over to The Big Bang Theory and crease ourselves.  How often have we been crying one minute and pretending the world is tippy ding the next?

However I found it hard to find anything fun to write about.  I have had some wonderful moments this year there but there have been many dark, sad and scary moments too. 

At the turn of the year I was signed off work with depression. I know my family will cringe at my being so open regarding this but the more we talk about this the easier it will be to deal with. While I was dealing with this I had to give thanks for the NHS’s policy of screening people under the age of 50 if a family member has recently had cancer.  As per the last few years I had my routine mammogram. I was then recalled, had a biopsy and waited.

Ten days. 

 Let me tell you this peeps (imagine female Rab C Nesbit voice) that was the longest ten days of my life.  And I want to know why my sister in Berlin had her results in one day and I waited ten.  Luckily for me, and mine, the lump was benign but due to the size and location I still needed a lumpectomy.  Not the happiest of times. And not easy to deal with when you have a 15 year old who wants to climb all over you.

Then I had an issue with Dancing Queen’s school.  I can’t talk about it because I am currently waiting on confirmation from a solicitor that my complaint has been referred to the Additional Support Needs Tribunal.  Bottom line, I removed her from school, lost all faith in most things and had toots home from 21st June to 26th September.  I love my girl but as previous blogs have testified there is only so much you can take about Strawberry, the Beatles and now The Smurfs (oh yes we have a new one and with Alvin and those squeaking rodents currently all over the telly she will be talking about them too soon).

 In amongst this I turned 50. 

 Yep.  Here’s the good bit.  I got the news it was all ok about the lump in time for thon eejit (the Beatles loving love of my life) to take me to New York.  See, told you I’m blessed.  I had a party, met up with all my lovely friends from school and started to re-assess my life.

Ooh look how much I’ve yapped already!  Time to split this up.  What I decided to do and why is coming up.  Along with my plea to those reading this to realise that silence doesn’t mean nothing is happening.