Category: 2024

Exploration

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

In my last post, I spoke about my trip to Germany during EURO 2024, and how great it was. Well, we were only in Germany for a few days, so we decided to adventure to a country we hadn’t been to before. So we spent a few days in Vienna in Austria. We had a 5 hour FlixBus from Munich to Vienna, which was a trek. I have never really been on a bus for a long while a few times. I did once get a night bus from London to Edinburgh, which was horrendous. And then a bus the length of Ireland, because someone (me) flew into the wrong airport. The bus did what I needed it to, I was able to get to where I needed to and it was cheap, and fairly comfortable.

Luckily our hotel was right on the bus route for the Big Bus open top tour, so we were able to do proper tourist stuff. For once, as when you are on a football trip, you sometimes don’t get the chance to do a lot of tourist things. I have only ever done one bus tour, and it was in Edinburgh back when I was at school. It was pretty cool going round the city and learning lots of different things. Like, that Pavarotti would run out of the city opera house to get a sausage from the food stand across the road. Okay, that probably didn’t happen, but it was a fun little anecdote that made me laugh. We were able to jump on and off the bus, and get to explore different areas. Like, I never knew that Vienna had so many public parks.

It was such a fun few days. A good thing was that for an additional €10, we got to go to the city’s amusement park and right on this really old ferris wheel. It was a 20 minute ride and you could see an amazing view of the city. Such a cool thing to experience.

I really enjoyed Vienna, it was such a nice city. I learnt so many things that I didn’t know, like the amount of social housing in the city, the fact that Vienna was split into 4 after World War 2. Things that were so interesting, that I had no idea about. There were also so many different museums, that we never got anywhere near, due to lack of time. I would love to go back, and see other things. Hopefully

We Had a Dream…

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have only just recovered from my holiday. Scotland reached the EURO 2024 finals in Germany, so me and my friend decided to join the party. Luckily for Scotland (not), they were drawn against the hosts, Germany. Me and my friend have an annual holiday travelling to another country to see Scotland play. It’s great, we get to meet the same people every trip, so it becomes an annual catch up, and the EUROs have been no exception.

Now Germany, during an international tournament, is very expensive. A lot of people who I knew who were going out to Germany, went out in a caravan, or took out tents to set up at various campsite. It was the cheaper, though not really cheap, option. But as two people with zero camping skills, and no access to a caravan, we decided to stay in a hotel instead. But, again, cost was a factor, so we spent a few days in Munich, the home of the opening match of the tournament, where Scotland played Germany.

Marienplatz, Munich- where Scotland fans met up

The atmosphere in Munich was incredible. Everyone was so friendly. It felt like parts of the city was entirely taken over by the `Tartan Army, it was amazing. When the game was on, the plan was to head up to the official EUROs fan zone, but before we left Marienplatz, we found out the zone was already at capacity, so we stayed where we were. We ended up going to an Irish bar, that had massive TVs outside, and we had a total party. Even though Germany beat Scotland 5-1. Doesn’t mean we didn’t celebrate getting one goal.

Scotland fans watching the game at a pub, Munich

It was an amazing time in Germany, and I am glad I was able to go and be a part of the tournament and revel in the atmosphere. We were in Germany 10 years ago to see Scotland play in Dortmund in Germany. Funnily enough, we were beat that time as well.

We travelled to Vienna after, but I will share that next time. The rest of the tournament for Scotland didn’t go to plan, which was not what we hoped. But, I am not particularly surprised. I was back home for the second game against Switzerland, so watched that at the local pub, where it was a 1-1 draw. The pub was full of happiness and singing, it was a great atmosphere. And then, the final game. Scotland against Hungary. Went to Dunfermline Athletic’s fan zone at their ground, East End Park. If Scotland win, we would be through to the knockout stage of the tournament for the first time ever. The whole country was excited, everyone was bouncing. History was in our grasp.

Fan zone at East End Park, Dunfermline. Me and my friend look like we are having a good gossip.

Unfortunately, things did not go our way, and Hungary scored at the very last minute of the game. We lost 1-0. Devastating. Our tournament was over. Bad choices on substitutes and a dodgy formation, lead to sloppy play, and much sadness. I’m still sad today, but it doesn’t take away the experience we had in Germany, the mood that has taken over the entire country. It has been amazing to see our country represented on the international stage. And true friendships have been created, with German fans wanting an annual game between Germany and Scotland, and the Tartan Army being voted the fans of the tournament.

It’s been great, but I hope that next time things go a bit better.

Hate Mob

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Today a post has been made online by Kelly Piquet, the girlfriend of Formula 1 driver and current champion Max Verstappen. It is in relation to the hatred, and rumours spread by many people on social media.

People have been spreading accusations about infidelity, photoshopped conversations, and more. Things, that can affect the lives of real people and their families. And it is awful, and as a formula 1 fan, I would like to believe that most people don’t want such bullies to be a part of the community.

It’s a thing that seems to be on the rise. People hide behind anonymous accounts spreading hatred and bullying people. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t anything new. I remember having to change Twitter accounts a few years back because I was getting dogpiled on, and every message was telling me to kill myself. Now, fortunately I was mentally capable at the time to close my account, and start again. There are times in my life, where such comments would have been enough to push me over the edge. Because one or two you can ignore, but when it’s hundreds of accounts, it’s horrific to try and deal with.

Now the problem is that a lot of well known people (sport stars, musicians, politicians, etc) and their families are being targeted. They get that hate that normal users do, and get the added issue of people using things like AI to generate fictional content. It has been warned about previously, with the rise of AI, but no one took it seriously. Now people are creating fiction where they allege known people are cheating on their spouses, sometimes with ‘fans’. They can make A-list stars say whatever they want. And it is very scary. Or I imagine it is for anyone with any kind of public image.

The truth is, as it always has been, that you never really know who you are talking to online. As as much as we can build true friendships online, some may act maliciously. Protect your online space. If you see negativity and ‘rage farming’ block the accounts doing so. If people react angrily and try to start a fight, block them. These people who are hateful online, usually hide behind anonymity, and are not worth your time. Report and block when you see abuse occurring, don’t turn a blind eye. Don’t engage, because these people, crave engagement. It all seems like a game because it is online.

Today I have been on TikTok and threads, and I honestly have never felt so detached from an online community. It’s been building over the last few months, in the formula 1 community. Last week I posted on Threads thatl wanted Lance Stroll to get points at his home race, and I had r*pe threats sent to my Instagram inbox, with others telling me to die. What kind of person does that? Obviously there were from ‘bob3482’ kind of bot accounts. It’s horrible. And every person who uses online environments to make friends and build communities should be in agreement.

Report abusers. Block haters. DO NOT ENGAGE. And most of all, support one another.

But… it takes effort

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am currently lying on the couch, lazing in the sun, whilst a documentary about hill walkers is on the telly. I’ll be honest, just watching them walk up Ben Nevis is draining. I think it is because I feel such lethargy for everything at the moment. The world seems on fire, and I am finding it rather hard to do anything other that the basic.

I think the hardest thing for me is eating regularly. One of my aims for 2024 was to lose weight, but I have in fact put on weight. It feels like, yet another, failure. I always need to remind myself that I have been in pain, my arthritis has been a headache for the last few months. With me having issues with medication, causing problems with me physically doing things. My feet, my knees, and my hands are sore and swollen, especially after my work. As a result, I spend the weekend trying to recover, as if you didn’t know, pain is exhausting.

Part of me knows that if I was able to lose weight, it would help things like my pain and my energy levels. But, it is hard to do anything. Especially when recently, I don’t feel hungry, I just get sick. Which, in turn, makes me not want to eat. I did watch a video on TikTok, where a person said that they set alarms for when to eat, and stick to it. It didn’t matter what it was, but they had to eat something, be it a whole meal or just a piece of fruit. Maybe that would be a good shout.

Arrrgghhh!!

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I really am not doing very well at the moment. Work is a pain, health is horrible, and every time I sit down to write or do anything creative, I just find myself staring at an empty page. I am so frustrated. Why?

Work? Work has been okay, and I seem to be preforming well in the tasks that I have to do, which is grand. The problem is, that the money I am getting doesn’t seem to be going further enough. I know people say ‘get another job’, but when I have been with the company for 10 years, it is harder to leave than one may think. I have job security, hours and shifts I can plan my life around, and the benefits (like online consultation with a GP) cannot be sniffed at. It’s the lack of overtime that I am frustrated with. You see, for the last several years, if I ever needed money for anything, I could work an extra shift or two, and that extra £100+ would be there. But there is currently no overtime, and that makes things a little strained, financial wise. And, there is no sign in sight, and I am not used to that. So yeah, I’m annoyed.

Health? I hurt. I have ran into a roadblock with my medication for my rheumatoid arthritis, and I have had to stop taking the tablets that have been working. This means that I am back to sore feet and hands, where I have the energy to do my job, and that’s about it. People often remark to me, that if I can work, it’s not that bad. But, when my hands have no grip, I can’t really cook without dropping stuff everywhere, so I rely on Shin ramen noodle bowls and microwave meals. Which then means my health is shit, because I can’t hold a knife to cut or prep any salad or anything healthier. I can get a small side salad, but they don’t seem to keep well, and the ones left when I finish work seem to be well past their best. Then I have the toothache that has been on and off since the end of January. I broke a tooth when I ate a piece of pizza. They do say, what you love hurts you the most. Anyway, I am not registered with a dentist and it is impossible to find one. I am currently waitlisted for 4 in my area. Some days it is searing pain, other days it’s more like minor sensitivity. It is so annoying. I am muddling through, but I can see why some people get to the point where they try to pull their own teeth out. And then, there is my mental health, which is utter rubbish right now. I feel like I am treading water, but it is really exhausting. It’s like I am throwing everything at just not drowning.

And creativity, I have honestly had problems with my creativity for the last few years. Some would say the start came when I made the decision to formally study art at college. It took it from being a fun hobby, to something that I had to take seriously enough to be my future job. Safe to say that didn’t happen. I struggled to make work for people who didn’t like the same artistic style as me. Like, everything I did was rather messy, I suppose that is because I am messy myself. But, the whole process felt awful, and I struggle to make any kind of art now. Writing, I just feel like I complain about the same things all the time. I guess that happens. But, again, there is that expectation that a blog is there to make money. Even WordPress expects it. Constantly promoting selling stuff, and how to make your blog a business. Like… I put enough pressure on myself to post, that I get so frustrated and post nothing. This blog is for me personally, to document stuff, it may develop into something else, but for the moment it is me and my pondering. I shouldn’t be made to feel I am doing ‘it’ wrong by the very platform that I have used for years.

But that is why I haven’t been around. I am struggling to cope, if I were to be honest. But, I am hanging in there.

The Best Laid Plans

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I had all these plans that I was going to do tonight once I had finished work. I came home, ordered some dinner, and proceeded to do nothing instead. I tell myself that ‘it’s fine’, though I am grateful my to-do list doesn’t have an expiry date. But even if it did, things would probably still not get done.

Procrastination is my best friend, till the things pile up too high, and we fall out. I wonder if it will be old age that ‘gets me’, or will I slip on a rogue sock, collapsing into a pile of belongings that are scattered everywhere. I have this problem, where if I don’t physically see something, I forget it exists. I wear the same 3 or 4 t-shirts, because they are the ones that sit on the top of everything. So if the next time you see me, and I am wearing the same thing as the last time you saw me, it’s probably because I just didn’t tidy it away.

When tidying, I start off so well. I will fill a bag with crap, start a pile of t-shirts and hoodies. Then I find a magazine that I bought 2 months ago, flipped through, and never read properly. So, I sit amongst the mess, having a thorough read, whilst I ask myself whether I needed to buy the magazine in the first place. I should never have bought the magazine, it is boring, it can go to be recycled. Well, it gets added to a bag for recycling, that will probably sit there till the next time I try to tidy up. Because now, I am stuck. I look around at the mess that has somehow got worst in my attempt to tidy up, and I start panicking. Stupid. Useless. The horrible things that come to mind when failure, once again, rears its head.

If you don’t try, you can’t fail. I was working today, it’s a long shift, it’s okay to just relax. There is always tomorrow. I guess I will simply try again then.

Ain’t Too Bad

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago, I posted on here speaking of my nerves at turning 40. I think my brain, as usual, was making a bigger deal out of things than it needed to. Like, I have a tendency of feeling the need to put closure over something, just to a have a fresh start at things. In the past, it has been the only way that I have been able to pick myself up and carry on. But at the same time, I end up still thinking about past failures, and don’t really put my best foot forward.

I honestly don’t quite know what I expected to happen when I turned 40, which happened yesterday. I think I felt bad that I had no real plan to celebrate, and was quite happy having a nice time. I went out to the pub with my family, received some cool gifts (HMV voucher, new Scotland shirt, Lego McLaren F1 car), and generally had a calm day. It was raining all day, but that never stopped anything. I tried to sort my passport out, in the hope it comes quickly.

McLaren F1 car all built and ready to race.

Today I saw my nephews, received some cool books (if anyone ever struggles with what to gift me, a book is always a winner), and finally had some birthday cake. I also went for a wee evening walk, with my folks around Edinburgh. It was dry, and I didn’t think it was too cold. I haven’t been for a walk in Edinburgh for a while, and hopefully, with the lighter evenings, we can do it more regularly.

Looking across Princess Street Gardens, Edinburgh

So, it has been a good start to 40. Long may it continue

End of Another Chapter

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Age never used to be a thing that bothered me. I have friends both younger and older than me, I try to treat people on how they are, rather than how old they are. I say this in a time where it feels like every other post on social media, or news media, is about pitting the different generations against one another. Like, people in the younger generation didn’t have it as hard as you, so what? Is that not the point, that we are supposed to be bettering society for those who come after us?

Birthdays seem to be a logical place to stop and re-assess where you are in life, and what you want to get out of it. I always feel disappointed about where I am, and what I have achieved. That I haven’t achieved what I had expected, by this point in life. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, but seeing as I am 40 tomorrow, I feel a lot more introspective than normal. Everything, down to the celebration. A night or event to remember. None of that is happening. It’ll be just me, being off work, and trying not to simply spend all my time in my bed. I am recovering from being ill and rundown, so this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If I was to be honest, I have certainly had a better 30s than my 20s. I struggled a lot in my 20s, really suffered much of the period in a job I hated, and my mental health was at its lowest. I was also discovering who I was, and coming to terms with something like sexuality, can be a challenging time of a person’s life. My 30s, have had me dealing with physical ailments more, but feeling more settled. Yes, my mental health has been crap, but I have felt a bit more settled, in that I know who I am, and the kind of person I want to present to the world. I do find, that I sometimes don’t have the confidence to actually present my true self. Maybe that’s what my 40’s should be about? Giving less of a damn about what people think.

Out of breath

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have had a cold brewing for a few weeks. And, with being soaked by the rain when out for the rugby on Saturday, the cold well and truly landed on Sunday. I was so ill. My eyes were swollen, I was coughing, I was sneezing, I had a temperature, I felt terrible. I spent a whole 2 days in bed, and am only now starting to feel better. Still a little blocked up, but a lot better than what I was suffering from.

Today, I had a day off work, so I went to meet my friend. I felt, because I had done so little when I was sick, that i have a ‘in between day’, where I can go out and do stuff, rather than just go straight back to work.

I obviously didn’t realise how congested I still was. I have been struggling to catch my breath. It feels like something heavy is on my chest. I’ve never felt like that before, and I had a wee panic over it. It must be because of my chest still being a little blocked up. So I’ll just have to keep on taking my medication and hope that it gets better. I hope it does, cause I’m back at work tomorrow.

Plotting A Path

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Further education has been a thing I have struggled with, over the years. I have always envisioned a life for myself higher up than the entry level where I find myself permanently situated. It is frustrating, but, I have to keep plodding on. It doesn’t feel like there is any other option, if I were to be completely honest with you.

When I was younger, I always wanted to be a Veterinary Surgeon. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to get grades that would allow that to happen, I leaned towards Veterinary Nursing instead. Fantastic. Except, when I was staying in Glasgow, to access the Vet School, I found myself really suffering under poor mental health. I didn’t fit in with anyone, and I felt pretty lonely. I remember being shouted at by one of the lecturers because I was helping look after a dog in the hospital, and I couldn’t remember something she asked me. It was in front of so many people, and I was degraded. I think I was 19 at this time, and it just made everything worse. With my mental health already being awful, I then felt I couldn’t do anything right. It became such a distraction, I failed the end of year exam. I went to work in a local vet practice, and the guys there helped me build a new portfolio to submit and helped me study to resit my exam. Unfortunately, my confidence was already rock bottom, so I failed again. At this point, I couldn’t afford the money to re-register as a student vet nurse, to re-submit another portfolio, and sit another test. I was so stressed, I got a job at Greggs and let it all go.

Greggs was not an enjoyable experience, the manager was awful. She was a bit of a bully, and she had a tendancy of firing people who didn’t agree with her. You cleaned a counter wrong, you were written up. It was horrible, so I decided to find a way out of there. I applied to Lauder College (now Fife College), to do art and design. I loved art, and creating things, so maybe I could do this. So I left Greggs, got a part time job in a call centre whilst I was in college. I made so many friends at college, and it was an enjoyable experience. The only problem was I was at college for 8.30am, and would go straight to work after, by the time I was home it was often past midnight. I’d sit up to the early hours doing coursework, going to bed at 3 am, just to do it all again the next day. No surprise, my mental health took a major dip again, and I failed to keep up with the workload from the college. So I ended up dropping out and working at the call centre full-time. It was a horrible job.

I eventually ended up in the warehouse job, where I am currently working. I have been trying to get an IT degree through the Open University. My mental and physical health problems have made any progress slow, but I am still slowly making progress. I think. The problem is, that I have been in my current job for 10 years, and whilst, once upon a time, working hard would see natural progression up the corporate ladder, that is not the case anymore. There are so many people who have degrees these days, they come in at management level, even without experience. So, the only way I thought that I could fix that, was to get a degree myself. As said before, my health problems don’t make it particularly easy, nor does the fact that my doctor suspects I have ADHD, which would explain so much. I have had to pause my studies for a year, to try and help myself, and am trying to get back into things after the summer.

I have come to the conclusion, that as easy as it seems to be for some people, to pick a degree and simply do it. Things aren’t that easy for everyone. It might take multiple attempts to get to where we need to be, and it might never happen. I do like learning, I just need to find away that it works. There is a special type of uselessness that comes with feeling stuck in the same role for multiple years, especially when it seems like everyone around you are progressing. And, I need to find a way to get rid of that feeling. As well as the possibility that I worry that my work may no longer be around in the next 5 years, so I have to work hard and focus on next steps.