I've been a poor friend ....

I have not spoken/eMailed been in touch with my friends in real life.  It is easy to keep in touch with Twitter friends but not so easy with real friends for this I am truly sorry.

It is nothing that my friends have done, just me, it is easier to think I’ll contact them tomorrow, but before you know it a month has gone by, then two, six months, a year, 18 months, so I need to rectify that.  I know I should be eMailing my friends directly instead of writing about it on my blog, but this way I am able to sort things in my head as to what I want to say.

One friend was upset that I hadn’t kept in touch, but after she had cancelled coffee twice I thought she didn’t want to know me, not that she had other appointments on those days – no excuse but since I was so low I was convinced that she didn’t want to meet me.  It is just one example of how my depression has separated my from others.

I have not even sent Christmas cards for at least two years, didn’t even bother with a tree in 2010, I usually wrote a Round Robin letter with my cards, but nothing not even an explanation let alone card or letter.  I have chatted a bit via facebook, but even then not answered messages to friends.  I was always going to do it tomorrow – but as usual tomorrow has never materialised.

It was my birthday recently, not a big one but am using it as a time to make birthday resolutions – like new year but made at my birthday not 1 January – so if I write them on here, then I will update my blog as to have I am progressing, so here is my list

    1      Contact my friends – apologise to them for not being in touch – then try and keep in touch

    2      Update my blog regularly, not just when I remember & reply to comments made – if someone has been kind enough to make a comment I should be polite enough to respond/answer their question

    3      Be more social – text my friends more

    4      Try to go out and meet others more – want to help at local cricket club as well as watching cricket

    5      I need to start thinking very positively and not thinking woe is me as it’s not healthy for me or my daughter as she is the one who is most affected by my low moods.

So filled with good intentions I am off to write some eMails and respond to comments made on earlier postings

Still learning to chill out – taking a bit longer than I had hoped 

Cricket

For those who follow my tweets you may have noticed a few cricket tweets, something like

100 for 2 from 20 overs RR 5.0 chasing 200 #engVsl

Makes perfect sense to me and other cricket fans but an American follower did ask me what on earth I was taking about!!  Let me explain very simply the teams have 11 men who have to score the most points – runs.  One team is hitting – batting, the other team are throwing – bowling and trying to stop them scoring runs – fielding.  Once 10 men from one team are all out – an innings, then the teams swap similar to rounders or baseball.  In test cricket, the matches last up to five days and both teams have two innings.  In one day matches each team has either 50 or 20 overs to throw – bowl (six throw/bowls = one over) at the other team.  There are ten ways to be out, but that is another story!

I love cricket, prefer test matches but one day matches and Twenty20 matches are still good to watch.  I watch cricket on TV the way I used to with my dad, TV volume turned down, TMS on the radio.  It is made more difficult with the satellite TV being slightly out of sync with the radio.

Some people say cricket is boring, and it can be at times, but to me it is a fascinating sport.  The England cricket team have not always been very good, for years they lost series after series, were bottom of the ranking tables.  It was never easy being an English cricket fan, the Australian media even called the English travelling fans Barmy.

Then slowly they started to win matches and even win series in 2005 they won the Ashes – beat Australia - in England but when they went to Australia in 2007/08 they lost 5-0, making it once again very difficult to be a England cricket fan, especially as the matches were on in the middle of the night.  I was either staying up or sleeping with the radio on.  They lost the 2008 series against South Africa so it looked like England was returning to losing again!

In 2009 they beat the Australians at home, then last winter 2010/11 they won in Australia helping to erase the nightmare of four years earlier, at the time I tweeted that I’d rather win an Ashes Series than a football world cup – not me personally you understand but the England team!  The cricket world cup did not go so well for England, some absolutely brilliant nail bitingly close matches, but going out in the quarter finals.

However, this week England have become the ICC number one ranked test team, it is a fantastic feeling although I am really enjoying this feeling I keeping wondering how long it will last for, it makes a change for the glum faces in the grounds not to be English, but I am making the most of it for now.

It all helps me to CHILL