IT'S CHRIIIIISSSSTMAAAASSSSS!!!!!!!

All right, I'll admit it: I am slightly tipsy (I say tipsy because it's possible my mother is reading this), but it's the festive season so why on earth not? Why anywhere not, indeed?

My day has been a most unusual one. It is the very first time in twenty-five years that I have awakened on Christmas morning alone in the house. That was a remarkable twist. I always knew there would come a Christmas day when I would wake up in a house other than my mother's but now that the day has arrived, I do still feel odd.

It is also the first Christmas my nephew fully understood as Christmas. He turned two last month and though has always been rather quick on the uptake, this Yule is the first one where he has been able to wish people a happy Christmas. Well, his translation was "'appy Kissmas", but that's better than the barely intelligable burbles of last year.

At the risk of sounding repetitative, there is another first this year: I discovered sherry the other day on the East Lancashire Railway's Santa Special ride, which we took Leo on, and having both decided sherry is actually rather nice, Mum and I got some in for Christmas (by Mum and I, I mean that I got it off the shelf in Tesco and she paid for it). Anyway, blame sherry for my mild inebriation. And I hasten to add (another first!) I've never been drunk on Christmas till this particular occasion.

I think that's about it, except I feel it necessary to say I now rather fancy a bar of chocolate....

!£$%^&* BOILER

It is a thoroughly fed up and miffed young woman sitting in the armchair in front of the TV at her mother's house at 2.30am, typing this. My flat, my new flat, my beautiful flat is without hot water or central heating until further notice.

I returned home a couple of hours ago and went into the bedroom to turn on the central heating. As soon as I opened the door of the boiler cupboard I was almost knocked out by the stink of escaping gas. This being my first own home, and therefore my first boiler, I texted my Mum: 'I can smell gas in me boiler cupboard.' She duly rang back, asked several questions and rang off to call the emergency line for this sort of thing (I also had no phone credit - talk about everything going wrong at once!).

The engineer arrived within twenty minutes and diagnosed the problem, but not before I'd had to stand outside (apparently there's a danger or explosion with gas leaks) in my pyjamas, in five-inch-thick snow.

So after just spending just two nights in my new home, I am now back in the old one....

STRANGE CHILD

My nephew (like all children) is fascinated by things most adults find totally uninteresting. However, this morning's experience rather takes the biscuit.

Since accompanying my Mum on a dog walk and telling our Norfolk terrier/ Jack Russell cross off for doing his business on the floor for Grandma to pick up rather than on a potty like a good boy, Leo has developed a penchant for poo.

It doesn't matter where you are, if he sees it, he shows you but this morning has to have been the most surreal. He climbed up to look for it out of the window then sang a little song I can only assume he made up himself, which consisted of the repetition of the following sentence "Doggy pooooo! High in the sky, Doggy pooo! Up the sky!"

I can't wait till he's old enough to understand the question 'What on earth goes on in your head, boy?'

IT'S SIX IN THE MORNING...

...And I am still not abed. To be fair I did retire at a reasonable hour but sleep eluded me so I got up again and I've felt wide awake ever since. I did feel around three-ish like I would sleep but this feeling, sadly, did not last long.

Why on earth would anybody else give a toss about a twenty-five-year-old woman in Lancashire getting little sleep? I don't suppose they would but insomnia, of which I have suffered quite severely since childhood, can be a lonely affliction. Being the only one awake has it's advantages if you can work out how to use your sister's DVD player to watch any of her extensive collection of films in peace, or if you have unfinished tasks to complete. But if you happen to be experiencing one of your bleaker moods at the same time as insomnia hits, it's horrible to be awake.

Well, this is my blog not a confessional nor the psychiatrist's couch so enough self-pity.

In just over five hours I'll be signing the tenancy agreement on my new flat; my very first home away from home (barring student digs at university, which don't count because my one room was the size of my Mum's kitchen).

I have a somewhat eclectic taste in everything, including homeware so I predict several "Oh my God"s from my sister when she sees how I have decorated (elephant-shaped salt and pepper shakers are DEFINITELY on my shopping list, as well as a chimp 'cuckoo' clock, eventually).

The one thing that will be hard to get used to is the absence (hopefully temporary) of small people. For the last seven years I have shared a home with my wonderful little Norfolk terrier/ Jack Russell cross, Pal, and the last six weeks staying with my sister (who is a titch, admittedly but not the dwarf I am referring to here), two-year-old Leo, my gorgeous nephew. How I will get used to it just being me I don't know. I have considered getting small pets when I'm settled, but I can't decide what type. So far I've thought of fish, cockroaches, shrimp, hamsters (a safe one since I've had one before) or to start slowly on the solo-parenting, a cactus. I'll let you all (three) know what I end up getting and post pictures....

NEW READER!

By the way, folks, I have great news! You are now three! I have been meaning to gleefully announce this fact for some time but keep forgetting: Richard and Jon, please welcome Naomi to our tiny community of Inside a Blank Mind readers.

:)

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE BIBLE

I've recently been discussing the Bible with my friend Richard and was surprised to find out he knows someone who makes notes in their Bible to help them understand the scripture. I wanted to blog on this because I'm quite startled both that someone writes in the Bible and by my reaction, which I guess some people might find melodramatic. In fact, I think I sort of do too, actually.

I have never heard of anyone making notes in the Bible before. Perhaps I'm sheltered or naive. I know that when I was studying literature in the sixth form and at university I bought cheap copies of the set texts to make pencil notes in the margins because I found that easier to study with but somehow I never in a million years expected that anyone would consider doing this in the Bible.

For me, even though my Bible was a present and therefore it is my property, I consider this book more God's than mine and if a friend lent me a book from their shelf I wouldn't make notes in it even if I intended to rub them out before I returned it.

I am kind of embarassed to admit this because I think it probably does sound rather melodramatic as I said before, but I actually found myself getting quite upset at the thought of someone writing in the Bible, even though the person is doing it to aid their understanding of their faith.

What do other people think?

It's Going To Take Some Time

It's sad of me to use a Carpenter's song as a title for a blog post I should imagine but it's definitely apt. Thinking about it, how annoying is it that often we unwittingly compile the soundtrack to our own lives, playing particular songs in different given situations, and yet because life is not a Hollywood movie, no one else realises the significance of certain songs?

It's four in the morning and I'm waffling. I can't sleep as usual and although I didn't actually decide to post a blog, the mood suddenly took me.

The afore-mentioned song is about sorting one's life out once and for all after many pit-falls. Well, at least that's how I understand it. "It's going to take some time this time to get myself in shape...it's one more round for experience and I'm on the road again."

I'm not used to public frankness but maybe that's the point. If you had told me just twelve months ago I might be blogging about my mental health in the future I'd have thought the notion preposterous. Having said that, I'm normally so private, perhaps 'you' wouldn't exist.

I've had several breakdowns over the years. Some people reading this will know, some won't necessarily. I don't know which has been the worst in terms of how I have been left feeling but I suppose putting myself in hospital this year by overdosing is probably as serious as things have ever got.

And that's the point of this blog and its title. It IS going to take me time to recover, which has never been my strong point (time and patience) but when you get to the stage when you can frighten your loved ones half to death by attempting to bring about your own; well, that really does call for a change, I reckon. I've rushed into life as it had been before each troublesome episode and probably that was a big part of why each time I just set myself on another path towards my own semi-destruction yet again. So, this time it's going to take some time.