Conquering 2021

Following on from 'My name is Heggie and I am an Addict' I decided to kick off 2021 with a The Conqueror / My Virtual Mission themed resolution. This is what was available at the start of the year:

In 2020 I completed NINE virtual challenges:

• Inca Trail, Peru (walking) 42 km
• Grand Canyon, USA (rowing) 451 km
• Ring Of Kerry, Ireland (cycling) 200 km
• Camino de Santiago, France-Spain (walking) 772 km
• Great Ocean Road, Australia (rowing) 240 km
• Alps to Ocean, New Zealand (cycling) 290 km
• Mount Fuji, Japan (climbing* + walking) 74 km
• Cabot Trail, Canada (cycling) 297 km
• Conquer 2020 (all of the above but with some extras - total 2020 miles)

I started in May and completed everything in advance of the New Year with the intent of having all 2021's challenges similarly completed within the calendar year.

I try to do each challenge in an apt way for the route (so I won't be doing the English Channel until I can swim it). I have an old rowing machine, in mid 2020 I acquired a recumbent exercise bike and climbing machine and, at the end of the year, I finally got an elliptical cross trainer.

I started 2021 with SIX challenges live and a SEVENTH code in the pipeline:

• Pyramids of Giza, Egypt (climbing* + walking) 75 km
• Mount Everest, Nepal (climbing* + elliptical) 64 km
• Ring Road, Iceland (cycling) 1332 km
• Land's End To John O'Groats (AKA LE JOG), UK (walking) 1743 km
• Appalachian Trail (AKA AT), USA (climbing* + elliptical + walking + rowing) 3167 km 
• Conquer 2021 (all of the above) set at 4040 miles being double 2020's target

* Climbing elements are the minimum amount required to cover the height of the whatever using a climbing machine and the conversion chart (1 min = 0.22 km); so the height of Mt Fuji, the sum heights of the principal pyramids, the height of Mt Everest, and the heights of TWELVE specially selected mountains of the Appalachians (namely: Mt Mitchell - the highest point, Currahee, Bear's Paw, Owl's Head, Goose Eye, Camel's Hump, Peaks Of Otter, Dick's Knob, Kitty Ann, Seven Sisters, Pixie, and Misery)

So here we are, in mid September (I meant to revisit this mid year but it's been a bit hectic, as always)... how's it going?!

Well, I got Giza and Everest completed pretty quickly although I have since decided to re-do the distance for Everest as ALL climbing and add that to AT. AT has been extended into 2022 to the max number of weeks as I am MONTHS behind. Not least as the goddamn cross trainer BROKE after a couple of months! I consequently changed my Conquer 2021 to a more attainable 4444km.

In the end I gifted that seventh code (for Hadrian's Wall) to my daughter (who I introduced to The Conqueror gifting her codes for Flower Route and Conquer 2021).. and bought several more for myself:

A Kruger Park challenge was introduced and then withdrawn due to complaints the route was too long & boring (they'll be relaunching it soon) so I signed up to the original before it was discontinued - I am cycling that in tandem (separate distances) with Ring Road. I am close on target with both - catching up and slipping behind again - but basically on track.

I bought the Marathon To Athens one and did the full thing overnight* August 27-28 styled as my Stupidly Long Walk™. I set out before 8pm, walked to Reading, caught a train to Slough and then walked back again via Eton, Windsor, Ascot, Bracknell... Bumped into my dad and daughter at Woosehill and didn't have the willpower to refuse a lift home at which point I discovered I was 1.3 miles short... which I did around the block! It was quite the adventure. The route through Windsor Great Park was impossible as gates were locked overnight so I ended up on country roads with no footpaths or lighting. I took a wrong turn outside Bracknell and ended up having two rest breaks on the same bench!

*I LOVE walking overnight. Less people, less traffic, less heat in summer (so less fluids to carry) and infinitely easier to take comfort breaks whenever needed!

As I set out - 7:50pm

My trainers after a good trashing, just north of Martin's Heron - 4:30am

Fortunately I took spare (if equally pre-battered) spare trainers. Unfortunately I neglected to take spare socks.

I have bought codes for a number of challenges I want to do when I've finished my current lot: Mount Kilimanjaro, Cote d'Azur, Trek to Petra, North Coast 500 and Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).

I will be doing PCT post mum. It's 2485 miles / 4000km but I have a cunning plan:

"They say you don't know someone else's struggles until you have walked a mile in their shoes? Well, I'm adding a mile for every day I've been looking after my mum. She suffered a severe stroke, unusually affecting both hemispheres of her brain, on 16th April 2018. While she was in hospital I visited her and ran errands and prepped the house to become her carer. None of my other challenges has included any distance from physically caring for her... from doing up to six loads of laundry in a day or dealing with the second major stroke which hit during lockdown and we honestly believed was the end... so I have no qualms about having covered an actual mile for each of those days - right up to her passing on [TBC]"

Will I finish LEJOG by New Year's Eve?! Who the hell knows... but I'm still trying.

I bit off more than I could chew this year but I am set to carry on indefinitely!

Rant-19

The advert ends on the note: "look them in the eyes and tell them you're doing all you can to stop the spread of Covid-19"

WHY??? The vast majority of people who contract Covid-19 do not get seriously ill. Indeed, at least a third never develop any symptoms at all. Yet all are obliged - by law and by force and by threat and by fine - to suffer for a proportionally small minority. And now they add emotional blackmail.

Let's have them, those who are seriously ill, those who have lost loved ones, LOOK THE REST OF THE POPULATION IN THE EYES and say I don't give a fuck for your life, your death, your mental health, your education, your future. Because that's what it boils down to. Sure, if you get covid or lose someone to it that SUCKS but so does cancer or stroke or heart disease or cot death or suicide or any disease under the sun.

Babies are suffering abnormal development and non-existent socialisation. This is the largest involuntary social experiment of all time and may well have lifelong negative consequences. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-babies-toddlers-education-development-school-playgrounds-b1042852.html

Children are losing out on their educations. Disruption in the early years we have known for decades is immensely harmful but we also have kids getting 'results' for exams not sat! IF my daughter graduates this summer it will be from having HALF her time at university stripped away. £9000 per year student debt for NO support, NO services, NO library, NO facilities and precious little by way of education. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1390586/coronavirus-news-university-students-fees-online-learning Will her degree even be respected by employers who'll know she didn't attend lectures?!

We are facing a mental health crisis of unparalleled proportions. From the obvious stresses of those on the 'frontlines' https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/31/covid-stress-driving-hundreds-of-childcare-workers-to-quit-profession to the parents who're trying to work full-time from home while trying to teach their kids full time; or people like me who are caring for a loved one with no support and no respite. We're told to 'Protect the NHS' but the NHS has an appalling track record for mental health support. I told my GP I was suicidal; he replied "I don't care", it was SIX YEARS between my kid's suicide and the eventual referral to CAHMS. There'll be multi-generational depression, PTSD, social anxiety, eating disorders and substance abuse. TBH my family already had all of this BEFORE so you can only imagine what a mess we'll be afterwards. Then there's postnatal depression https://www.itv.com/news/2020-12-18/how-covid-restrictions-are-fuelling-a-postnatal-depression-crisis putting mother & baby's lives at risk. This is not a society but a sham; we are not supporting each other, we're cowering in fear and leaving the most vulnerable exposed.

Businesses are going belly-up at an alarming rate https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/0/job-losses-uk-coronavirus-covid/ the future is a terrifying prospect of unemployment, crushing national debt, devastating poverty, and empty high-streets. Y'all can argue that you can't put a price on people's lives but POVERTY KILLS.

People are suffering and dying of covid alone which is horrific and inhumane https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-55725812 but what of the (so far) hundreds of thousands of people who're suffering and dying alone of other causes or the (so far) tens of thousands of people whose cancer diagnoses have been delayed or missed entirely https://www.ajmc.com/view/diagnostic-delays-from-covid19-may-increase-cancerrelated-deaths-uk-studies-say.

Death rites are vitally important for the grieving process but we're severely limiting this crucial rite of passage from denying people contact with their loved ones to preventing funeral attendance. When my cousin Allister was dying of brain cancer his parents did a mercy dash to his bedside; his funeral was attended by hundreds. It was still devastating, especially for his parents, burying a second son in a year and a half, but seeing him one last time, seeing the church at standing-room only must've been some small comfort. To think of people like them being denied that is agonising.

"During the national lockdown, no more than 6 people can attend commemorative events such as stone setting ceremonies, the scattering of ashes or a wake." - www.gov.uk

Six people isn't even the immediate family in many instances!

Telling parents they can't even support each other at the side of their premature and critically ill baby is one of the most horrific, inexcusable things I can imagine https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-55840222 unless it's not being able to register and grieve a baby's loss https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-52663205. Or perhaps this https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-heartbreak-teenagers-funeral-limited-21741773 to lose a child after a life-long illness; having anticipated a celebration of her life as a means for the parents to cope with her loss only to have to settle for near enough nothing. It's beyond cruel.

Look a child in the eyes and tell them their education and future doesn't matter.

Look a stressed out and desperate single mother in the eyes and tell her that her isolation and trauma don't matter. Say it again over the grave of the baby she smothered when it all got too much.

Look a man who's gone bankrupt in the eyes and tell him that losing his business, his home, his relationship and his self-respect to the lockdowns isn't as important as a stranger's health. Look his widow in the eyes after he dies of suicide and say it again.

Look an old woman in the eyes and tell her she can't say goodbye to her husband at the end of her life. Tell her she can't see the children and grandchildren she now hasn't seen in a YEAR. Tell those children that they can't offer their father comfort at her funeral.

If you can do any one of those things you're a truly horrible person. But we're all sitting in our homes, protecting our own miserable little lives and allowing this to happen. History is not going to judge us kindly. The moment I knew we were beyond salvation was when the churches locked their doors. The faithful ministering to the sick and dying during times of plague is inspiring; this is the opposite. We have withdrawn kindness under the false guise of protecting others.

One person's life or death is not more important than another's; the many should not be sacrificed for the few.

Humans are mortal; we're all going to die. Diseases are normal and natural, especially one like this that kills the elderly and the chronically ill - the reason the 1918 flu pandemic was so horrifying was that it killed the young and otherwise healthy. Yet in 2009 when the Swine Flu pandemic killed children and pregnant women NOTHING closed, nothing changed. My kid had it - she wasn't tested or seen by a doctor; her school didn't close or even do a deep clean. She survived, 392 others didn't... but at the time of the first lockdown only 400 or so people had died in the UK. How come nothing was done on the back of nearly 400 YOUNG deaths when the entire country was shut for just over 400 primarily OLD people?! Sure, a lot more have died now but thousands die in every seasonal flu outbreak but we go on as usual. Our population is aged and unhealthy, people have been dying at proportionally slower rates for decades. The population crisis has been under discussion for years - we NEED a pandemic to redress the balance and, for the survival of the species, this isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

In 1900 the world population was approx. 1.6 billion; now it's nearly 7.8 billion and that's with two World Wars (WWI 15-22,000,000 dead; WWII 20-85,000,000 dead), the 1918 pandemic 17-100,000,000 dead), HIV/AIDS (32,700,000 dead), and the advent of birth control! More than quadrupled in 120 years with HUGE losses. Covid's currently at 2,230,000. The death toll, taken alone or in proportion to population, just doesn't warrant the devastation the INTERVENTIONS are wreaking.

I'm not afraid of covid; of dying myself or losing loved ones to it. I'm afraid of surviving this hell and trying to rebuild. People dying is sad but IMHO people who wrap themselves in cotton wool and leave the rest of 'society' to rot aren't worth saving.

My name is Heggie and I am an addict

First up, this is not a paid ad. I am just really enthused for this. Other similar schemes exist.

Secondly, I need to say that as I am bulimic there is a chance that this addiction is not as healthy as it may appear.

I have become addicted to The Conqueror / My Virtual Missions:

https://www.theconqueror.events/

Starting in 2013 I lost a LOT of weight - I was on the Vi Challenge shakes (which as I am now full vegan I cannot go back to) and very active. I got into the best shape of my life by quite a large margin (roughly 7 stone).

2012 vs 2014

Since my mum's stroke (April 2018) EVERYTHING has gone to hell. Being trapped at home has done unspeakable damage to my weight, fitness, mental health, physical health... my bulimia is an ever-present issue as is insipient alcoholism. The only thing I have to look forward to, other than death, is a long overdue mental breakdown.

Covid-19 had not helped.

Back in May I gave in to months of Facebook ads...

It started here with the Inca Trail (Peru) - beautiful medal, super achievable walking distance (done in a fortnight c/o PokemonGO)

I bought a 2nd entry code which I used for The Grand Canyon (USA):

As I happened to have a rowing machine about my person this seemed like a super apt challenge to do. Ye gods I feel like I earned that medal!

Then they released Camino de Santiago (France & Spain). How beautiful is this medal?!

I have 50+ km left to complete this one (walking via PokemonGO again) but I should complete it within a couple of weeks and I am super excited to add this medal to my collection.

Although I was by now halfway through the year I decided to add on the 2020 challenge. I need a medal for getting through this fucking shitstorm of a year!

I started of with a target of 1000 miles... then I upped it to 2020 km... this morning I changed it to 2020 miles. This is mostly the kilometres of the other challenges (I'm treating this as the sum of the year, the challenge is to do MORE this year) but does include some separate distances.

THEN they released Ring of Kerry (Ireland):

I have to admit this medal doesn't float my boat but I am a small % Irish (my mother was a Keating; my kids are named Erin & Kathleen) and I appreciate the Ogham. I did this one on a newly acquired recumbent exercise bike (1st equipment purchase from this addiction).

With Camino I purchased an extra code which I used to register for Alps To Ocean (New Zealand):

This was also done on the recumbent exercise bike.
With 2020 I ALSO purchased an extra code which I used to register for Great Ocean Road (Australia):

I have 6.3 km left to row to complete this challenge.

They just announced TWO new challenges! I am gonna register for The Cabot Trail (Canada) and do that on the recumbent exercise bike this year. How cute is this medal?! Love the puffins!

So that will be EIGHT Medals for the year: 2020, Inca, Canyon, RoK, GOR, A2O, CdeS & Cabot.

I am also gonna purchase a code for Ring Road (Iceland) but to start next year:

My maternal grandfather was eating ice cream with the yanks in Iceland during WWII and I believe it is the origin of the family rock. I will be doing this one on the recumbent exercise bike.

2021 is going to be ALL about the long challenges as I want to complete certain things within a calendar year. Such as LEJOG (UK) which I will be walking:

I honestly thought LEJOG was between Le Walk and Le Run for AGES but of course it's Land's End to John O'Groats (AKA the length of Britain).

Then there's The Appalachian Trail (USA):

This medal also doth not improve the buoyancy of my dinghy but I already bought the Grandma Gatewood book to accompany the challenge so I really had better do it. As local walks are not nearly challenging enough I plan to do this mixed walking with rowing and my climbing machine (2nd equipment purchase) in order to emulate the difficulty level.

The currently available remaining challenges are - English Channel (UK / France) which I DEFINITELY want to do, but only when I can swim it:

Hadrian's Wall (UK) which is arguably the most popular medal / challenge but does nothing for me:

And Route 66 (USA) but I am feeling pretty lousy about America since Drump, the anti BLM violence, promoting fascism and white supremacy issues...

During 2021 they're supposed to be launching new challenges bi-monthly and I am definitely hoping for Africa / Asia challenges so as to get a world tour going ;) 

I have to admit that so far I haven't lost ANY weight despite also using Huel for that purpose, but I must be fitter and healthier than I was. Also, I'm not sure it's helping my mental health beyond motivating me to get outside and to feel as if I am achieving something. I miss Open University and the dream that I was working toward a better future.

I miss hope.

More At Risk From Reducing Risk?

People put at risk by the lockdown, arguably more so than they are at risk from coronavirus (Covid-19)
Examples are chosen from a variety of sources and contexts - no single issue is exclusive to any one nation or group of society, many more examples exist.

At Risk Children
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-52370968
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/coronavirus-child-abuse.html
The Very Poor 
And the soon-to-be very poor - businesses are already collapsing, entire sectors will be decimated
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/coronavirus-could-push-half-a-billion-people-into-poverty-oxfam-warns
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-lockdown-pubs-hotels-restaurants-industry-closures-a9475921.html
https://www.ft.com/content/5d198135-b38f-4512-b611-9f017f76929d
People Suffering Domestic Abuse 
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/21/domestic-abuse-women-in-herat-afghanistan-may-survive-coronavirus-but-not-lockdown
People With Cancer 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/04/coronavirus-crisis-is-stopping-vital-cancer-care-doctors-say
People With Other Health Issues
Due to the cancellation of just about every service people are suffering needlessly. For some this means no monitoring of low risk conditions, but others will permanently lose mobility due to lack of physiotherapy, for example. Meanwhile, others will die awaiting diagnosis, treatment or surgery. It's like people's lives don't matter unless they have the 'right' illness!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-nhs-operations-cancelled-cases-deaths-hospital-a9464726.html
https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/19/dad-pulls-tooth-cant-get-dentist-lockdown-12579357/
People With EXISTING* Mental Health Issues
* no one seems to have clocked that the pandemic and lockdown will be triggering mental disturbances in the previously mentally well
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52302066
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8192449/Coronavirus-lockdown-led-increase-suicides-police-chiefs-say.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-suicide-rates-uk-mental-health-support-a9451086.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52295894
People With Addictions 
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-suicide-rates-uk-mental-health-support-a9451086.html
People with Eating Disorders
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52365945
Future Generations
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/22/we-do-not-have-to-worry-about-paying-off-the-coronavirus-debt-for-generations

I have my doubts whether history will look kindly on the lockdown. I think the fact that we shut GPs / community centres / schools is bad enough, took away community support from those most in need, and hid away in our homes from a disease in selfish fear rather than helping each other is going to be received poorly by future generations. For me, the closure of the churches and other places of worship has been the most brutal thing - in the face of death so many people look for spiritual solace. Saints of past plagues were those who went forth, ministering to the sick and dying with no thought of their own safety; the 21st century 'faithful' chained the doors shut. Personally I think that has a lot to say about the kind of people we've become.

I also have my doubts as to whether it will actually achieve anything. They talk of 'flattening the curve' but they might just be extending the duration of the pandemic rather than actually saving lives. They talk of creating a vaccine but viruses are notoriously hard to vaccinate against - even if it is possible chances are it'll mutate...

So what we have here is that people are suffering and dying, perhaps entirely needlessly, of treatable conditions; people are suffering and dying needlessly because of isolation and anxiety; people will CONTINUE to suffer and die from being terminally separated from their families by being denied the chance to say goodbye or attend funerals; people will suffer and die from poverty and financial hardship, unemployment and the destruction of their livelihoods for MANY YEARS TO COME.

Of course it sucks that people are dying of Covid-19* but people are mortal and communicable diseases exist; it's a normal and natural occurrence. What is not normal and natural is allowing - or more accurately - causing others to suffer and die for the sake of a disease they don't have! Nor is it normal or natural to throw the entire planet into a financial crisis that will take generations to pay off.
*Current thinking is that most people who get Covid-19 are asymptomatic, most people who get symptoms get better without medical interference so still only a small proportion of those affected are actually dying and most of those were either sick already or had massive viral loads!

A lot has been said of the inaccuracy of comparing Covid-19 deaths with those from seasonal flu... but now this virus is here chances are it'll stay (unlike SARS or MERS) and seasonal flu - even outside of its pandemic forms - claims millions of lives yet NOTHING is ever shut down or limited during flu season. Those 'at risk' just have to take their chances while life continues on as usual. Why is it okay to put immuno-compromised people at risk of one disease and not another? It makes very little sense.

Personal pet peeves:

• Someone I was at school with is currently in danger because her essential surgery was cancelled - so she's in hospital for 'pain management' and being put at risk of rupture, sepsis AND of contracting Covid-19 (or other hospital-acquired infections)! Ludicrous! 
• I have seen a company produce a t-shirt calling people who are outside their homes 'dicks'... You cannot tell if someone is a key-worker by looking at them. You don't know if they're shopping, getting exercise or our for their mental heath. Whether they're out for the first time that day or the first time that month. 
• I don't buy into this whole idea that people breaching lockdown are putting the NHS at risk. The NHS is already at risk from decades of gross mismanagement (not underfunding) and as Covid-19 has no treatment they're just using (non consenting) humans as guinea pigs. Chances are the cure (if there is one) will come from people developing antibodies...but they don't want us developing antibodies?! Also, the more people who contract it the more chance it has to mutate to something less deadly. Not to mention that most people who contract Covid-19 recover spontaneously without any medical assistance.
• My youngest is at uni having her education fucked over [yet again] and incurring a huge debt for the privilege. Meanwhile other young people are being granted or denied qualifications based on predicted grades...when I was at school the biggest factor in a predicted grade was whether a teacher LIKED you or not! I fear for their future cos employers will know that the class of 2020 didn't sit their exams.
• My mum has been having a crisis the last few weeks - we honestly thought she was about to die (and in all honesty she still might) and we had to face it all knowing there was no outside help to be had - no care, no equipment, no support. We've coped...heaven knows what others have done! I reckon there are currently a lot of people dead in their homes that no one knows about yet...
• I lost my 20s to child-raising, my 30s to working minimum wage to get off welfare while putting myself through uni, now I'm losing my 40s to caring for my stroke-survivor mum...only now the world is gonna be completely decimated so there's literally no chance of my ever being able to rebuild my life. Imagine being in the current climate, out of work, in poor health and / or approaching retirement age... imagine knowing full well you'll probably never get hired again, you've used your savings to survive lock down and now you face an old age of poverty through no fault of your own? This is BLEAK. Money may not be everything but it helps put a roof over your head and food in your belly.

Additionally it's not just people suffering. Animal charities have been severely affected - rescue centres still caring for animals without being able to claim re-homing fees, stables caring for horses when the income has dried up, zoos threatening to cull their animals... https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/20/zoos-may-cull-animals-lockdown-continues-12582877/ Yet another reason why vegans can't support zoos imho!

A couple of months ago we were in an eco boom - reuseable, recyclable, repurposing were key watch words - now people are buying immense quantities of single-use face masks (with no one asking why the CDC has suddenly decided to endorse them after YEARS of saying all evidence showed them to be ineffective and might increase your chances of respiratory infection). Streets are littered with masks, many more will go straight to landfill...and don't get me started on the NHS PPE plastic face shields! People literally only care about the environment when it's convenient to them.

There's people simultaneously cooing over goats roaming Llandudno or Venice's canals running clear... and then demanding PPE for medical staff despite it's straight-to-landfill nature. Completely oblivious to the hypocrisy. Hopefully I'm not a hypocrite - in general terms I dislike my species and the planet would do well to be shot of us.

Save the planet, not homo sapiens!

End Of The Decade

To tell this story properly, I first have to go back a long way to tell you why I hate New Year so much.

New Year's Eve 1998

Everything was coming together after a REALLY rough run - a new house was lined up, moving in was just a couple of weeks away. My partner and I were engaged, the church was booked, we'd talked endlessly and we were finally - after an awful rough patch - on the same page.

New Year's Eve 1999

DEVASTATED. It had lasted just five-and-a-half weeks and he'd left me pregnant again. So here I was going into another New Year as a single parent, having had a shit year including emergency surgery at 15 weeks pregnant.

New Year's Eve 2000

Well, the 90s had been a complete washout but now I was 21 and SURELY the 21st century had to be kinder? I was a young single mum of two and I clung to the hope that I'd meet someone and it'd all work out for the best.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

2010

So I'm now 31, my daughters are about to turn 11 and 14. I've been alone for the entirety of the last decade. I went into the New Year depressed about that but also ill with stress about the back-to-work thing. 'Back' indeed! As I'd only worked for four-and-a-half months before becoming a full-time mum it didn't seem to count as going 'back' - I certainly wasn't going to drop into a nice admin job on the Home Office payroll again.

A week before I turned 32 I finally got a job - two, in fact. Cleaning. Absolute bloody nightmare. Morning job was in a Gov't quango office we'll call CC and that was 0545-0745; evening job was local Gov't offices we'll call SC and I was working there 1700-1900.

Now maybe that doesn't sound so bad but 4 hours intense exercise a day is not something a morbidly obese single mother was in any way prepared for and then there's the walking to and from each job - half an hour each way, six hours exercise each day and not enough time to sleep properly. By summer everything was falling apart, starting at my feet. Leaking pipes in the kitchen and bathroom did not help my stress level and despite the exhaustion I stopped sleeping.

My youngest daughter had an exceptionally bad year - she actually has been diagnosed with PTSD from it - and she started secondary school in the September.

2011

By summer my feet had all but given up from the mileage I was clocking. Ended up having to take sick leave for plantar fasciitis. My then best friend - who I'll call CD - announced she was enrolling with Open University (OU). Now I didn't think I was eligible for OU but if CD could do it I certainly could. I decided to sign up even though it was clearly impossible given my work schedule.

That's when a minor miracle happened - my boss gave me a promotion / transfer out of evening job SC and another morning job - Site Supervisor at the Museum of Somerset. This way I only had to walk to and from town once a day although it did mean working Saturdays, and working 0800-1000 I could do both jobs (15 mins being ample to get from one to t'other) and have the rest of the day free to study.

Leaving SC after a year and a half was bloody brilliant. I loved the new job at the Museum - I started there before it was reopened after a major refurbishment so I felt very protective of it. The museum was formally reopened by Mick Aston (RIP) of Time Team.

2012

I started my OU studies in the spring which gave me a real boost - no matter how awful the present I was working toward something better. Hope is a wonderful thing to have. I miss it a lot.

In the springtime I overheard a conversation which changed my life - I heard all my symptoms and I thought "Oh, your kid had IBS" and the other mum says "Oh, your kid is probably lactose intolerant, like mine" and I was BLOWN AWAY. I cut out dairy there and then and it took four months for my guys to recover from years of irritation but finally I was well for the first time in over a decade. Later I would go vegan following on from this discovery.

In the summer I took my kids to see three events of the London Olympics (dressage and water polo). A year after Mick Aston reopened the Museum it had a second reopening - this time by Prince Edward. I got invited to that event, possibly because I insisted on coming in that day to clean even though I wasn't scheduled to (or indeed, paid to) but royalty was not seeing 'my' museum anything less than pristine! I had also volunteered to do extra cleaning around extended bank holiday weekends where the museum was open but my company weren't working - this was partly going the extra mile for the museum, partly cos I was in town for my CC job anyway and partly so when my team was back on duty the work wouldn't be quite so challenging. Anything to make life easier in the long run!

Late in the year I hit a difficulty with OU - I had really wanted to do Latin but having started the course I realised my chances of passing might throw my degree in jeopardy and for just 30 credits it wasn't worth the risk. I told CD I was thinking of withdrawing from the course and she gave me a lecture on not being a quitter and how she always finished everything she started. BULLSHIT! She'd never completed anything in the decade or more I had known her and she'd dropped OU completely, don't think she even completed her first module! Not only that but CD was also taking the piss out of me as my mid-life crisis kicked in. This was bloody rich coming from someone older and less mentally stable than me. And that was the point I ended our toxic friendship. Part of me wishes she could've seen what came next but I am definitely better off without her.

2013-2016

At the end of 2012 I hacked off my hair, dyed it green and discovered a band called Fearless Vampire Killers (FVK). Then in April '13 I went to my first ever rock gig...and my second. This was the start of an epic three year adventure that led me all over the country mostly for FVK but it also inspired me to other adventures.

Meeting Laurence Beveridge, singer of FVK was a vital turning point - I lost 7 stone, dyed my hair a load more colours, got a bunch of tattoos, started painting again... Sadly in 2016 FVK broke up - I saw them 21 times.

 Weight loss 2012-2017

 Some of my paintings of Laurence

Some of my hair colours

In 2014 I acquired a black cat named Hennessy and went vegan.

In 2015 I became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. Yep, I'm the Rev'd Heggie ;) Mostly I looked up how people get ordained online and...oopsie!

Also during this period the opportunity to move back home came up. As my kids were growing up and there were precious few employment opportunities in Taunton I decided to make the move - but in summer 2017 when K had finished college.

Both my kids left secondary with an impressive array of GCSEs and continued on to (different) 6th form colleges. Erin passed her A levels and started at Winchester University in 2014; Kathleen had her heart set on Swansea. The move was 2 and a half years in the planning.

At the start of 2016 my job at CC ended as the offices closed. Shortly after I started another cleaning job in a school which was back to the split but no more early mornings and even the evening job was earlier - 1530-1770 - so far more manageable.

2017

I left my jobs in the summer, finished packing and moved to the new house. E got there a month beforehand; Hennessy moved in 10 days before K and I got there.

E and I had passed our degrees - I graduated OU in September with a 2:2 - BA (Hons) Humanities with Classical Studies. E graduated in October with a 2:1 - BA (Hons) Criminology and Sociology.

Unfortunately K's A-levels did not go well but many thanks to her then boyfriend for putting us onto uni foundation courses. It was all mayhem and chaos but we got her into the University of South Wales, found her somewhere to live and packed her off to the land of dragons.

Meanwhile E and I landed on our feet. Shortly after moving in E had a job offer from Lidl and while she was waiting for that to start she got a call on another job interview - which I ended up going to and got the job!

It wasn't great - contracted 4 hours a week, minimum wage and the travel expenses made it problematic but it was vital experience. When I'd been cleaning at the museum I'd applied for a proper job there several times before the manager told me I was getting automatically rejected because I didn't have any customer services or cash handling experience. Although I could no longer work there this shop job should tick those boxes if I ever got the chance to apply for a similar role.
Spoiler alert: Here endeth the good bit

2018

I had planned to do maybe 6 months experience at the shop before moving on but I'd started thinking I should give it a little longer as I had ended up becoming acting Deputy Manager of the branch! Figured that'd look pretty good on a CV.

So, I had been there almost 8 months and I was looking for something new. My contract was 4 hours a week but I was regularly working over 40 although not getting the sick pay or holiday to match. But the change that happened was out of the frying pan into the fire.

I have written other blog entries about my mum's stroke so I'll just do the short version here. April 16th my mum collapsed and was diagnosed 24 hours later (despite it being obvious from the get-go to us non-medical types) with a severe stroke affecting both hemispheres. She wasn't put on a stroke ward for the first week and she received no treatment.

I told everyone what was going on and explained I might have to just drop everything and go permanently; when we had a tentative discharge date I formally gave notice...but my supervisor didn't really believe I was leaving. By the time I got a leaving date set I was expected to learn a new computer system in my last week! It wasn't happening and I had a mid-shift meltdown. I walked out of my job with a handful of shifts left to go. I felt incredibly bad about it but I couldn't deal with the extra pointless stress - I should have left earlier but in all honesty we weren't convinced my mum would leave hospital at all.

My mum was released from hospital on June 21st and I have been looking after her ever since. It's not like I had an especially good or close relationship with her before. Also it means I have to endure my dad and stepdad's company far more than I would ever want to.

K passed her foundation course and transferred to Swansea to do the course she'd always intended to - aiming for a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and Criminology.

2019

E left her job early in the year after 18 months. She's now working in an admin job with much steadier hours. Hopefully, it'll work out for her. 

So here we are, at the end of the decade and I am in much the same place as I started - no job, no friends, no partner, no life. Stuck at home getting no exercise so I'm getting real fat again; no money, no personal freedom, and an endless cycle of laundry / dishes / cooking and cleaning. I HATE IT.

Everything I worked for has come to naught.

Sure, no one SAID life was supposed to be fair but REALLY??? I raise two kids 100% alone and just when they grow up and go off doing their own thing THIS happens. FIVE-AND-A-HALF years working my butt off for a degree and this is how I end up?! Ye gods, what did I do to deserve this karma???

There is only one way this ends and it's not gonna be pretty. Being effectively (experience-wise) a uni leaver in my forties is not a place you want to be, and of course depending on how long she hangs on it could be my fifties or later. My grandad lived 16* years after his stroke. I've told my kids to make sure I DON'T look after my dad or stepdad. Hit me with wet fish, have me sectioned - just don't let me go there. I can't do this again. I'm not exactly coping now - it requires copious amounts of Quince Gin just to get from day to day.

Remembering

• Kathleen Marie Keating Hogben (1919-2010), my great aunt who my youngest is named for
• David Penfold (1978-2012), who I was at primary school with 
• Sean Keating (1965-2014), my cousin 
• Callan McClintock (1998-2014), who my daughter Kathleen was at school with 
• Allister Keating (1963-2016), my cousin
• Rosalind Brenda 'Ben' Beckett Ling (1920-2018), my great aunt
• Michael Barter (1936-2019), ex husband of my godmother who lived on our road
• Serena Cheong Oi Yun (1984-2019), friend of many years 
• Gwendoline Joyce Beckett Oxenham Smith (1924-2019), my great aunt 
• Dave Rowlands (1938-2019), my uncle by marriage 

Home A Year

Obviously I've blogged about this before and, presumably, will do so again - so I'll put the next bit in blue so if you're familiar with the background story you can just skip ahead.

On Monday 16th April 2018 my mum (then 73) had a severe stroke. To us it was blatantly obvious, to trained medical 'professionals' it was a mystery; while she was in A&E they seemed to think she was there with a stomach bug of all things! A consultant in Acute Care the next day said it definitely wasn't a stroke...5 hours later they confirmed it was - as we recently discovered, the NHS can't even record a stroke as affecting both hemispheres of the brain cos their software just won't accept that as being a thing. The usual FAST symptoms don't apply, or at least not so clearly: no facial drooping, no one-sided weakness - because EVERYTHING is affected. My mum was in hospital for nine-and-a-half weeks; this blog marks one year since I brought her home.

There was never a question that my mum would come here after her stroke, it wasn't a 'decision', it wasn't 'considered', it was just how it was going to be. We got the call at 8pm and I stayed with mum until she was admitted to Acute Care a little after 4am. I walked the four miles home, mooching, catching Pokemon, trying to wrap my head around what we'd been through that night... getting in about half past six. Collapsed into bed and got up at 8am when my dad rang for a status update.

At that point we felt certain it was a stroke, but there was still a chance that the 'experts' knew what they were talking about and that whilst she seemed desperately unwell it might pass with little-to-no long-term consequences. It just never really crossed my mind that a day or two (even a week or two) in hospital and she'd be fine. Instinct said this was it: major life changing event.

HOWEVER, even at that point I was planning for my mum to come stay with me. Even if our hunch came down to nothing more than paranoia whatever the problem was she was bound to be weak and in need of some looking after. I had already started looking around the house thinking how best to tidy / rearrange furniture in order to make things more comfortable for her.

I did not however think about the long term. Partly cos I feared we didn't have one, partly cos my grandad lived to 91 after his big stroke SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER. If my mum's future runs to those lines I'll be looking after her until I'm what 55?! And then where will I be? No savings, no pension, precious little chance of a job... 
I was relieved she survived the first year past the stroke but as we then closed in on the anniversary of her homecoming (21st June) the weight of the future really started bearing down on me. A couple of weeks ago I hit a really low patch.

Y'all can think I'm selfish - I don't care. I had a miserable childhood; my parents were not nurturing / affectionate / supportive / whatever. I was bullied at school and my parents didn't want to know. I wonder if my grandad's stroke, when I was 6, may have been a significant factor in my parents' disintrest in all things Heggie-related. At 16 they forced me into an abortion. At 17 I was a single mother and still desperate to get as far away from them as I could manage - I laughed at people who said things like "you'll really need your mum now" like that was even a thing. I got as far as Somerset...where they bought a house for me to rent, ensuring I'd never escape their influence. Twenty-odd years later and my youngest has reached adulthood...and I moved back home-adjacent cos I was out of options after decades on welfare and minimum wage jobs while I raised my kids and earned my degree.
I might've had to come home but my kids were grown, I had my BA - SURELY this was my time??? I had hopes and dreams - I wanted a social life, to meet people, to pursue my interests, to travel. And here I am stuck at home again, drudging. I have no income.
I have been single since my kids' dad walked out...in 1998. And I mean SINGLE. No dates, no friends with benefits, NOTHING. Now I'll never meet anyone, let alone anything more. I kinda suspected after all these years alone that'd be how it went but foolishly I'd still hoped.
I'm grieving hard for the life I wanted, the life I'll now never have. 
Cos even as and when my mum's gone I'm still responsible for my dad (who is an almighty asshat) and my 'stepdad' (who is less of an asshat but only came into my life in my late 20s). AND I DON'T WANNA! 
Firstly, cos I have no inclination to 'caring' - being stuck at home with my kids was hell enough. I am agender and all this caring, cleaning, domestic drudgery shit is entirely too much of a feminine cliche for me to want to touch it with a barge pole.
Secondly, because I describe my familial feelings as Stockholm Syndrome-esque. It's about enforced proximity and bonding through trauma.
But mostly because I want to have MY life. Shit childhood, shit adulthood and everything has been about other people; my parents, grandparents, my kids...no one has ever put me first so why the hell shouldn't I? I just need the dratted opportunity!
I did not have a good relationship with either of my parents before this and the current situation has only made it worse cos we can't escape each other. I wish I was the sort of person who could dump annoying elderly relatives at the gates of a care home and walk away without a qualm. It would be so much easier.

I can't tell you how much I just want to ditch everything and GO...not that have anywhere to go, you understand. Or the resources to get there. To be honest though, just being able to leave the house would be something. Mum doesn't want to go out, she doesn't want people here. I am so bored.

This article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-48458760) is about new mums struggling with changes to their bodies after childbirth and linking it with more profound loss of identity - "I think it's really important in that transition between young woman to mother that people are actually allowed to grieve the loss of their old identity." Well, that's what I've been doing - grieving for the person I was finally becoming.
My midlife crisis was FABULOUS. So many hair colours, gigs, tattoos, piercings...getting out, meeting people (bless the Lost Hearts!), working on the self-confidence I hadn't lost...I'd never had any!

In the last couple of days I've had a glimmer of hope...The Broken Kings (the band 3/5 of my beloved Fearless Vampire Killers have since become) have announced their 1st ever live performance - supporting former LostAlone front man Steven Battelle. With the help of my younger beastie I AM GOING!!! Also the combined blessings that it's somewhere I can get to and from fairly easily from here (and won't cost the earth to do so), and the fact it's almost 2 weeks before her new semester begins. My adults can look after her (she also agreed to it, I hasten to add) for one evening so I can have a very special break.

So that's where I'm at. Glad my mum's doing okay, but generally fucking miserable because I'm not.