Can’t beat a good stake…

There’s been something odd about this week that I just can’t put my finger on. For some reason since last Sunday I haven’t been able to get to sleep. Often I go to bed and lie awake for a while, maybe mulling over the day’s events or whatever, but all week I’ve been lying awake for hours and then only getting very intermittent bursts of sleep. On Friday for example I went to bed about 2am, read until 3am when I felt like I was nodding off so put the light out, and was wide awake for about 5 hours. I couldn’t believe it when I looked at my clock and it was nearly 8am and I hadn’t yet slept a wink. I then slept sporadically for about half an hour at a time. I gave up at 2pm after a total of 3 or 4 hour’s sleep and got up, feeling pretty tired. Last night wasn’t much better despite, I would have thought, a lot of sleep to catch up on. Never been like this before. Oh well.

Perhaps I’m not blogging enough. Maybe I’m taking in lots of information and not getting enough out of my system. Maybe family things are on my mind, haven’t heard from dad since about October, brother has been giving me his opinions again, though of course mum continues to be a rock. Maybe it’s just the time of the month…

Well anyway, never mind. Tonight was the first episode of the BBC’s "The Virgin Queen", for which mum and I were extras, so I recorded it as I expected our appearances to be rather fleeting. Bit of an understatement actually. I had to watch "our" scene a few times frame by frame before I spotted us, caught for a fraction of a second during a fast pan across, with someone being burnt at the stake in front of us, amidst lots of smoke. Good scene though, very dramatic, took all day to shoot, and lasted about 2 minutes. I was called at the last minute to do another scene the next day, not an angry peasant this time but a royal groupie, courtiers I think they called them, watching a game of indoor tennis. They stuck me on the end of the row though so I doubt I’ll get any more screen time, if I’m in shot at all. Just have to wait and see. I’ll record the rest of the show, 3 more episodes, just for posterity, then I can say, "I was in that!"

It was mum’s birthday this week so I invited her over for dinner one night, and cooked teriyaki salmon, delicious, she was most impressed, and we had a really good chat about, stuff. I’ve been enjoying my food this week, not that I don’t always, but I’ve been trying a few things I’ve never made before, including the above, and one night I made myself beef en croute, as I saw someone do it on telly and it looked easy. It was, and it was heavenly. I do like cooking, and especially eating, which I could do for England if it was a national sport. It’s some sort of miracle that I never get above 10 stone, or maybe it’s just my metabolism. Anyway I am trying to make sure that all the food I put into my body these days is healthy, apart from the occasional piece of chocolate, which no girl should live without of course. I’m now looking ahead to surgery, FFS and SRS both hopefully within the next 12 – 18 months, and for which I will need to be fit and healthy, so I need to start exercising a bit more too. As a member of 4 support groups for these issues I read about people’s experiences every day, and have been doing for about a year, so I have a pretty good idea what to expect, and it’s going to be quite gruelling; I need to be sensible and prepare myself fully. I’m no spring chicken and I haven’t lived the healthiest of lifestyles, though that has all changed since coming out and feeling much better about myself, apart from the occasional binge, which I simply must give up doing. What I plan to do is serious and heavy going and will take its toll on my body, and I must approach it all sensibly and realistically. So I don’t just eat rich food (also this week I made lamb steaks in a white wine and cassis sauce with roasted root vegetables, mmm), but make sure to include lots of fruit, plenty of vegetables and salad, and now have juice instead of coffee for breakfast, and always, always – lots of water. It must be doing me good, mustn’t it?

After 3 or 4 days of not being able to get off to sleep I decided to spend some time pampering myself, in the hope that it would relax me. So I did a clay face mask, soaked in a hot bubbly bath, applied eye cream, face cream, foot cream, and moisturised just about everywhere else, gave myself a manicure, even put my hair in curlers just for fun. I have to say I felt wonderful after all that, extremely relaxed and refreshed, like my soul had been cleansed. Still didn’t sleep well though, bugger. I have no plans for this week so I intend to do some more of that, I have so many lotions and potions lying about that I rarely use. Today I got out my micro-dermabrasion kit and did some more moisturising and stuff, and my skin is now positively glowing. Nice to indulge one’s self now and then, and when it’s with things that aren’t bad for you there’s no need to feel guilty about it!

I think I will keep up this "regime" all week, and hopefully I will be looking and feeling my best when I go down to visit Pippa at the weekend. Girly time is great, but even better when it’s shared with someone you love.

xx