A Weekend Away

I suspect it would be accurate for me to say that I feel as if I’ve actually had two weekends away in paralell as it were. One was utterly amazing and a fantastic holiday, the other was depressing and full of anxiety and stress. I’ll describe the not so good one first so we can end on a high.

What Didn’t Really, Really Occur:
The Youth Hostel (despite booking a four person room) put us in a six person room – this was not a big thing by any means and well get-overable except that it put me in a stressed place. I’ve been having my background axiety levels gradually build up and up since last August. I was quite surprised earlier this year therefore to be free of my annual nightmares. They usually come early on in the cold depths of winter. This year they didn’t come. So on Thursday night/Friday morning I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to have the traditional dream (scaffolding, sewerage pipes and something chasing me). Friday night was alright, I woke up with tears on my face I think but no actual memory of the dream and none of the others had been disturbed by me. Saturday night/ Sunday morning I had the dream again but the Jellicle woke me up quite early on during it. Sunday night/ this morning I had a different dream, something about my Mother, boxes and wrapping paper being incorrectly applied, I got more and more worked up in the dream and woke up and cried… no, I haven’t got a clue why either.

I met up with Last NS which was wonderful, except that it brought home to me just how negative I am about things at the moment, just how much I need a job and how grown up all my friends who’ve managed to make it away from Castle Moon seem to be right now. (I mean Last NS, Cuddles and the Torch). I feel like nothing sometimes (read my poetry, I’m finding the walking away from things that the Lisbon girls did attractive again – no this isn’t an angsty cry for help, it’s just attractive not a personal desire), I feel utterly trapped and totally separated from everyone in a bad way. I love isolation but theres something else that happens when I can’t get away from people, I retreat so that I’m alone within each social (and not so social) situation and when that increases the feeling of separation happens. Thats the sort of loneliness thats not so good and it doesn’t seem to matter how crowded the room is at that point.

I love Castle Moon but whatever I try to do here seems to fall away from me like shaped clay into water. It all dissolves. And being in Edinburgh just meant that I knew I had to come back. What with the general background anxiety levels and the fact that I was pretty tired by Sunday night I was over-reacting to everything, also, my nice weekend had come to an end after all the planning that had gone into it and so emotionally I just crashed – feeling like sobbing into pillows territory. At that point actual events seem to pull back from the utter and certain truth of emotional ones (ie. the nightmares and the dread of returning) even if the emotional ‘truth’ is anything but. Lucky for me I’m good at becoming happy, no I can’t make myself happy, happy, but I remember enough of the hand holds to aim pretty close. It’s just the background anxiety that I can’t seem to make go away.

It’s strange but I think that I often experience things in paralells, theres what is happening in my head or inside me and theres what is really happening and they can be so totally opposed to each other that it’s not even funny.

The Actual Events Of The Weekend:
So on Thursday the Jellicle, Foxy Jonno, Princess Lex and I set off for the capital of Scotland, on the train I did some drawing. When we arrived in Edinburgh we heard bagpipers and sat in the park for a while before heading to our hostel. After escaping the hostel we wandered around Edinburgh, got a map and some touristy information and decided what we wanted to do for the weekend whilst playing silly card games and poker… I got very happy from half a bottle of wine (mainly down to me being tired) and then we went to bed.

There was snoring, there were loud youth hostellers and I don’t think any of us slept very well that night, but we woke up in the morning and the Jellicle and Foxy Jonno got bacon and sausages! Hurray for breakfast!

On Friday we did a three hour tour of Edinburgh which made me feel very full of information (most of which I’ve forgotten) and then a tour of the Edinburgh vaults on which the guide complained about the night club which had bough some of the historical vaults nearby and made evening tours quite difficult. Then there were more card games. Also I rang Last NS and agreed to meet up on the Sunday. We explored one of my favourite parts of Edinburgh (the park around the city observatory) and the boys looked very happy at the idea of the Transformers movie (which we didn’t in fact go and see – thank gods!) I realised that at some point I had turned into Cuddles and started thinking of the Jellicle and FoxyJonno as ‘the boys’…

Saturday we set off for Arthur’s Seat and had a very happy walk around it – there are photos! We really did make it up there! In the afternoon we had a bit of a shop and I went to have a look at some tatooist’s artwork… I think I know who I want to tattoo my mer-hare… there may also have been illicit smoking outside an Italian restaurant…
On Saturday night Princess Lex, FoxyJonno and I went out dancing. We left the Jellicle Cat behind because he wasn’t feeling well and then Princess Lex ended up feeling sleepy so she left us after a drink in the World’s End pub. Of course the club we went to was the one that the tour guide had been complaining about… a fact I only realised after I’d been dancing there for some time. The music was loud, the dancing was fun because I was out with someone who enjoys it… there was even some occaisional people watching. We decided, walking home, that we’d need to do it more regularly ( apparently it was suggested by the people left at the hostel that we ought to do it more regularly to get it out of our systems…), I was tired so we left the club early but I am so up for getting together trips to Manchester (maybe even London). I do so love dancing!

On Sunday we met up with Last NS and checked out of the hostel. We sat in the Edwardian teashop until the lady in there got fed up of us and then sat in the park where I had a hot dog. We wandered up and down the Royal Mile and looked at all sorts of shops and eventually played cards in Chocolate Soup – no really it is as cool as it sounds! I had such a fantastic time out with my friends, and then we got on a train and came home playing twenty questions.

I had a brilliant holiday, even if it was had in paralell.