Nic Dempsey

As we come to the end of October and with the advent of the clocks going back, I’m thinking about next month. November is tough. It’s dark, I’m SAD and the month is full of anniversaries and sadness.

There is also the pressure of it being the last month (and payday) before Christmas. There is a lot of pressure on being festive in December and November can feel like the beginning of all of it.

This year I have much more going on with Mum, and I’m still working on the balance of that my full time job (that I’d really like to keep), home, allotment and my life generally.

At work, I write a weekly priority list for my SLT so they know what I’m doing and what capacity I have for extra tasks and planning. It helps me be clear about what I need to get done, and I feel I need a November priority list so I can do some personal capacity monitoring!

So this is the priority list for November:

Mum. We’re in a groove with this. I stay at hers from Tuesday night to Friday and work from her house. I get Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday in my own bed. Although, I go back to Mum’s on Saturday for shopping and house work. That way Ma does exercises and treadmill for four days a week and treadmill only one day when Ben comes to visit. Despite her protests, the exercises are helping and we do like hanging out. We should be getting a wheelchair for Mum next week, so I’d like to work on getting her out of the house at least one day a week too!

Work. I feel like I’m always moaning about being busy but I like my job and I want to do well at it. There are some projects I really need to get finished.

Home. I need to really get to grips with the things I need to do at home. So I need a Friday night reset and Sunday prep so that when I am home, I can relax.

Weekly Plot. I’ve been doing at least four hours on the plot every week, come rain or shine and it’s been good for my mental and physical health and I am so close to having it in a good place in time for the new season. So that needs to continue.

Physical Self Care. Staying at Mum’s is good for everything except my hips and back. I’ve been pretty consistently hitting my other gentle exercise goals but need to get back into daily yoga and stretches because my back is banjaxed. The other piece of this is sleep, Ma and I are generally always in bed for 10pm but I don’t sleep that well at Mum’s (as I write this a combination of no HRT, a flu jab, the sore back and the floor has meant four hours sleep even though I was in ‘bed’ at 9:50pm – as you can imagine, I’m a delight today!). So when I’m in my own bed, I have to go to bed early because I really need my sleep!

Mental Health Self Care: I think I’m in pretty good shape for the end of October but three things has worked to help remind me that life is not all doom and gloom, it’s like press ups for optimism!

I’m not planning on doing more than that, these are the priorities, I’m just going to plough through the month and remember that there are good things in November too, I’m going to Paris for the day, Mum is getting a wheelchair, Oli, Jane and Christelle have birthdays! (See I can even do ‘Three Things’ for the month!).