Still here

Given my post of a couple of weeks ago I thought I should find the energy to explain my sudden silence.

In fact my mental health continues to improve, but since mid last week both Deb and I have been struck down by a nasty virus.

I hope to be back on deck over the next few days.

Before I go I have to say something about Lilli.

Lilli the Labrador

A usual family joke has been that she is called Lilli because she is lilly-livered.
Well she seems to have discovered that we have a dingo around (weeks after we first spotted it).
Somehow Lilli has decided she is in fact a guard dog and has taken to patrolling the garden fence and barking at said wild animal.
Something that has been totally out of character before. In the past she has been only too happy to flee dangerous animals - like kittens.

Patrolling the perimeter

Tale of a Black Dog

Despite the title this post is not about our Labrador Lilli.

It is instead about me and why I haven’t been posting for sooooo long.

Since before Christmas, I have been battling an episode of depression. Hence the title of this post, Winston Churchill called his bouts of depression a “black dog”.  The sad truth is posting has been a casualty of my illness.

What follows is an account of what I have been going through.

It will be somewhat personal so you can of course stop reading now.

Still reading?

Well here is some of my story:-

I suffered with repeated episodes of major depression (clinical depression)  from my teens until my mid to late thirties - to the extent that I was frequently suicidal. Fortunately, I never attempted, because I always retained some inkling of what my death would do to those around me. I did the typical male thing and hid much of what I was going through all that time.

Then around 2000 I was introduced to a psychotherapy called cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and achieved amazing results - from about 2001 - 2002 until recently I had been well. I was essentially controlling my illness using CBT techniques.But I guess like a recovering alcoholic there is always the risk of a relapse...

Then, as readers of my blog will know, I have been putting myself under a fair bit of stress with a new job (ironically working in mental health) and rebuilding our house etc. etc.

The final straw was my mum getting very ill. We have always been very close and her condition deteriorated to the point where I thought we were going to lose her.

The end result was last year I became unwell. Perhaps surprisingly given my history it took me some time to realise that I was ill again.

It was quite a strange experience.

I knew depression well and it seemed that my bag of mental tricks was still working. I experienced nothing like the despair I had known in the past.

What I did experience was a growing sense of anxiety, which got so bad that it became virtually crippling. As an example I spent 36 hours worrying about how to cancel an appointment.  Oddly, at the same time I was still positive. I didn't understand what was happening but I knew I had beaten mental illness before, so I assumed I could do it again.

This time I did the right thing, talked to Deb about it, made an appointment with a GP and got a referral to a psychologist.  After discussion with the GP and Alice (my psychologist) we decided not to medicate, but to hit me with CBT.  After all I am an expert at using CBT on myself after all these years.

I was seeing Alice nearly weekly from December until February and have dropped the frequency of visits now. In terms of diagnosis, Alice has plumped for depression rather than anxiety. I have some of the other symptoms such as exhaustion, lethargy etc (hence no blogging) so she argues it is the best fit.  I am not quite sure I agree, because my experience of depression was always agonising despair. And as I said I have felt surprisingly positive the whole time, I guess that part of CBT never stopped working for me. In any case CBT seems to be working for this new species of dog I have had visiting me. I would not say I am well again, but I am very much on the mend.

I am back at work and more or less functional there.

We have the house to the point where it is comfortable enough to allow me to ease up on it. There is still a lot to do, but we won't freeze in the coming winter and the kitchen and bathroom are fully functional. In fact I have barely touched it for weeks.

We have also been deliberately taking it easier, making trips so I can point my camera at things, visiting our girls who live only a couple of hours away now, spending more time with mum while I still have her (her health is improved at the moment). 

Dangar Falls (near where we live)

 Speaking of mum, I have been more involved with her medical journey. That has, I think, been positive. I think when it happens it will be "simply" grief. Part of my problem has been grieving in advance.

As a measure of my improved mental state I am even thinking about my writing again!  I haven't written a word for months, but the creative juices are beginning to churn.  I think I have worked out how to solve the problems I was having with my book Veil of Iron. I have also been composing this return to my blog.

So for me, it is a case of one step at a time, and hopefully most of those will be forwards.

Lilli: doing what she loves most

My creative juices were flowing a little last night. I thought more creatively about my writing than I have for ages.

My piccie of the day is of Lilli fetching her ball.

Jaws? Jaws schmaws!

For those of you who dropped in looking for Wild Flower Watch I must apologise.
Yesterday was rainy and wet and today family business took us up the Yarra Valley.

After our business was concluded we went for a picnic by the Upper Yarra River. The area we were in was not in the National Park so Lilli came with us.
As you know Lilli is a ball retrieving maniac.  Well one of the things she likes more than retrieving a ball is retrieving a ball and getting wet doing it!

So this little photo essay is about Lilli and her imitation of a fearsome aquatic beast.

Lilli standing at the edge of the river beseeching Lu (my youngest) to throw the ball.


Lilly leaping energetically into the current after said ball.


Closing in for a kill! Jaws has nothing on Lilli!


Doing what most Labradors do best: retrieving!


Landing with  her prey.


And finally, sharing the fun!


Now for those of you who didn’t get a wild flower fix

This lovely callistemon was growing on the Yarra river bank.


There are dozens of species of callistemons in all sorts of colours, from this lemon, to purples, pinks and reds. A number of species have the common name of “bottle-brush” and you can see why!

Showing the ball who’s boss!

I thought I might share some recent piccies of Llli.

Now Lilli might be very frightened of the kitten over the back fence, but when it comes to tennis balls she knows who is boss.

 “I’m a Labrador Retriever right? Are you going to throw it so I can retrieve it then?”

 

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!”

 

“Oops missed”

 

“caught it this time!”

 

“After all that exercise I am going to have a quiet lie down”

A starving dog!

My piccie of the day is a potrait of Lilli I took yesterday.

We stayed close to home yesterday. Deb and I both had a number of chores to catch up on.
In the evening we went to a nearby park to have a BBQ (sheer madness; it was freezing!).

Anyway, it was a dog friendly park so Lilli came along. This is her mournful, "Can I please have a piece of that sausage?" face.
You can tell she is wasting away can't you?

A Tail of Lilli and a Trip across a range.

First up (and because I promised) a quick story about Lilli the Labrador.

As I said the other day Lilli is now becoming really quite well trained.She is a funny thing really eager to please but quite anxious about things she doesn’t know. I think I told the story about her being frightened by the kitten over the back fence (which reminds me of other Lilli tails).  

Any way back to the story.

She is still young and bouncy (which is very nice) but having 29 kg (64lb) of Lab bouncing around can be quite disconcerting not to say dangerous. So one of the things we do with her is get her to sit before we feed her or put her lead or do any of a lot of things.

“Sit” was the first command she learnt so she is really good at obeying it. The rules are that if one of us says “sit” or gives a hand signal Lilli has to sit and stay until we say “free”.

E our eldest discovered how good Lilli is the other week. E had been planning to take Lilli for a walk so she gave the "sit" command so she could put Lilli on her lead. As E got the lead the phone rang so naturally she answered the call. It was one of her friends from University, so without thinking E went into her bedroom to talk.

E chatted for about half an hour. Then she checked what was on TV. About an hour after she answered the phone she heard Lilli whine from the back room. Thinking that wasn’t like Lilli E went to check what was wrong. Only to find Lilli still loyally sitting in exactly the same spot she had been left!
E decided the whine was an “excuse me, I think you have forgotten something”.

Lilli at the park

Like a small miracle it actually dried up enough this morning so I could mow the lawn.
So Deb and I set off late again today. We headed up to the Yarra Valley and paused in Warburton at a favourite café for a coffee.
 
I sat and played with my camera (nothing new there) and took this piccie through the front window.

It is a cottage on the main street of Warby (as locals call it)

As we left I paused to take a piccie of the main street to catch a bit of the fast disappearing blue sky.

As I have posted recently we have been having a wet miserable and cold winter.

From Warby we followed a road we haven’t used before.
It climbs the flank of Mount Donna Buang before swinging up through the Acheron Gap into the central Highlands of Victoria.

I say road, but muddy track is more like it.

We paused as we climbed into the Mountain Ash forest that is a feature of so much of the Yarra Ranges.


Just over the Acheron Gap is a pocket of rainforest.

I had to pause to catch this mini waterfall that tumbles from a spring just above the road.


The water up there is crystal clear and probably as clean as you will find anywhere.

As you can see this spring literally tumbles into the table drain alongside the track.


As we came down the other side I paused one last time to get some shots of the Acheron River which is made up of the water collected from hundreds of springs like the one I snapped.
The Acheron is also clear and clean and is a popular trout stream in season.

By the way the blue vehicle is our “other car” a Renault SUV. I have resisted owning a gas guzzler for ever but eventually early in the year I admitted that we were abusing our poor FIAT too much on mountain and outback roads. So we got this second hand Renault all-wheel drive, It goes anywhere we want to take it and it is diesel so it is still pretty light on fuel (about 38 mpg) which is the same as our little FIAT.

In which one person is 100% right!

When I posted my WIIW piccie last night I thought there might be a few types of answers. I thought the right one might be among them.

Linda G guessed “a bungee--a multi-functional elastic cord used to tie things down easily.”
 We call the same stuff bungee too. But no it isn’t bungee.

Marcy guessed “I was going to say a rope.” Well I guess it is made of rope (not elastic) so that is worth 50% but no it isn’t just “a rope”

Deniz guessed “A rope on a dock somewhere, mooring a boat. Wish I was on a boat!”
Well you fell into my trap Deniz, I thought people would see the rope and the water and guess a painter (mooring rope).  It is securing something, but not a boat. 50%

Normally I would agree with you about the boat Deniz, but we have gale force winds down this way at the moment and it is freezing!

Susan said “Looks like a bungee to me, too.” Nope, not elastic not bungee.

John D was with the consensus with “Bungee Tie or a length of Bungee rope - usually utilised as a 'permanent temporary fixture' until the bungee disintegrates and you then either (a) Effect a more acceptable repair, or (b) Find another Bungee Tie/ length of Bungee rope!”
Nope still not bungee.

Which leaves us with the one last guess

 Jennifer (AKA old Kitty) guessed “It's Lilli's leash!!! LOL!”
Take a bow Jennifer you are 100% right!

Now here is our star (and her leash)

I took this last November, we went fishing so Lu could try out the new rod she got for her birthday.
Of course Lilli came too, and while she is a really well trained girl, we were not quite confident that she wouldn’t take a smelly bait hook and all so she had to stay tied.
The arm on the left belongs to Io (daughter number 2) while the pink painted toes in the background are those of E (our eldest).
Lilli had her annual vet check-up and immunisation booster today and was pronounced tip top A1 health!
If I remember tomorrow I will tell you another tale about Lilli.

Lilli turns One!

Lilli our lovely Labrador has had her first birthday.
This piccie was taken this past weekend at the oval where we take her to chase balls and run.

The harness is what she wears in the car to keep her safe if we have an accident.

She is an absolute delight to have around clever, loving, companionable.
Also idiosyncratic, very idiosyncratic!

Like most labs she loves water, loves digging, loves retrieving.
Unlike most labs (or most dogs for that matter), she is fairly indifferent about food. She often leaves her meals half eaten. Yet as you can see from her build she isn’t in any way over fed.

She loves people and dogs she knows, but is nervous, really nervous about strangers.

As for cats, they are quite simply terrifying!
Lilli almost never barks, so the other day when I heard her barking nervously I knew something had frightened her. She had come in out of the back yard and was cowering in the corner of the lounge room, as far from the open door as she could get.

I went to investigate, assuming a stranger had come into our back yard. Lilli kind of followed me standing carefully behind me and barking (still nervously) at the would be intruder.
The terror that had caused her flight?
Our back neighbour’s kitten had climbed up on to their roof!

Now some more piccies,
As I said Lilli loves fetching the ball!

But because of her thick black coat she quickly overheats, so when we go to the oval we take a water bowl with us.

Now one last piccie I just had to share because it is just so funny!

Catching a ball in mid-air is hard work, “Dang missed again!”

Happy New Year and an Answer

Well this week no one was even close to guessing what this image was.It really was droplets of water cascading off our excited pup Lilli on Christmas day.Many of the places we go on our weekends are National Parks so dogs are banned. But for our Xmas BBQ last Sunday we went to a spot on the Yarra River where dogs are welcome. Our Girls and Lilli had a great time in the water.

A ball, water and getting to run around - a mix that is pretty close to heaven for a Labrador!

You will have to forgive me but this rather silly story has just popped into my head while I look at these photos.

"I can't see my ball. Can you?'"No mate, I can't""Lu, I've lost my ball, can you see it?""We can't see it either""Found it!""Now back into the water."Lilli did actually lose two balls on the day.
Lucky we travel with spares.
As to the Kookaburras, they were busy hunting for food for their young on the ground along the river.

Lilli

A quick post about our pup Lilli.

Lilli continues to grow and is now getting close to adult size.One of her favourite things is the time almost everyday when we take her down to a local cricket ground so she can play with other dogs and chase her balls.

A lab running with a ball, the epitome of happy?

As you know Labradors have really floppy ears.

A bit more dignified.

But then Lilli's latest trick trying to catch the ball when Lu throws it straight up.

Dang Missed!

And again!

By the way the train in the background is the one I do my writing on to and from work.

In which Lilli the Labrador becomes…

A bucket-head! Our beautiful pup Lilli is now 6 months old which means today she went to the vet to be spayed.
She was dropped early this morning and the girls picked her up this afternoon.

Our vet fits a smart collar to every pet they do surgery on.

No messing with stitches for Lilli! The poor thing looked so funny mournful when I got home that I had to share. She has to keep this on until her stitches are removed. Somehow we are meant to keep her quiet for the next 2 weeks.

Not hard today, but I don’t know how we are going to keep a bouncy half grown Lab quiet after the initial discomfort wears off.