Most of my thoughts this week have been scary as I’ve had an unprecedented headache since Sunday night, though headache doesn’t really cover it. Severe pains in my neck muscles and a banging throbbing thing go off in my head when standing up from bending or sitting, followed by a dull ache when it’s finished beating my brain up. I am not a headachey person as a rule so this is uncharted territory for me. Of course I googled the symptoms (rather than go to a doctor) and ended up with a possible migraine/brain tumour/stroke but finally settled on Tension Headache as that one fitted the symptoms better than any of the others.  Painkillers have turned out to be useless assassins and so I’ve been ‘putting up’ with it all, but not that well.  Poor Phil must have a headache from me moaning on about it. Anyway, today it seems to have settled down somewhat, though I don’t trust it to stay away completely as yet.  Fingers crossed it’s gone by tomorrow.  The thing that’s most upsetting is that I’m NOT tense about anything, so don’t feel I deserve it really.  If I was a freaked out stresshead I could at least accept my fate, but 5 days of it for no reason in particular seems most unfair. Still, life isn’t, and we must soldier on.  Phil thinks it was due to the mad hot day we spent walking out to The Toppings (Universe blog report to come on that) on Saturday, as I really had a bad time with the heat that day, and maybe he’s right. No more tromping about in 33 degrees heat for me!

Luckily we in the North only got 3 days of the heatwave that has been sweeping through GB for the past week, and yesterday and today have been back to normal temperatures, with rain due tomorrow, which I quite like as I won’t have to water the plants.  The cauliflowers and potato plants are are doing well, though I think something is eating the leaves.  I will be off to buy a Bug Gun tomorrow, death will come to the munchers.

It was Fathers Day here on Sunday and Phil’s son Carl visited with two of his brood,

but Shelley and the others couldn’t make it.

Along with the endless ‘Thanks to my wonderful Dad’ posts on Facebook I had a fair few thoughts on Fathers too.  I can’t relate to any of it as I never had one.  Well not a real one. I mean, of course someone (who already had a wife and 2 kids) donated a bit of you-know-what to my Mum, but that was what was known as ‘out of wedlock’ back in the day, and my Mum was sent off to the next county to produce me so as not to bring shame on the family.  Luckily I was a bonny baby 🙂 and my Mum’s parents fell in love with me and brought us both back into the family 3 months down the line.  I had an idyllic childhood growing up in the wilds of Yorkshire, my grandparents and Mum looked after me, and when first grandma then grandad died, the neighbours stepped in when Mum was at work, and I never even thought about not having a Dad.  Then when I was 11 my Mum met and married my step-dad, who I wasn’t keen on. I loved my life as it was, and where we were. But we went off to live on RAF camps which was cool, a whole different world, and when George left the RAF we moved to Bedfordshire.  By this time I was a teenager and I didn’t get on so well with him.  After a couple of years I left home to go into nursing accommodation and was relieved to get away.  Later on, my Mum found my step-dad kissing her best friend and declaring undying love for her on the stair steps of Mum’s house at her 60th Birthday party, and that was the end of having a step-dad.  The only thing ‘father’s’ taught me was the perfidy of men.  So I was never anyone’s protected little princess, and I never had a heroic role model to base my future relationships on.  I’ve not looked for a ‘father figure’ to fill the void, as I never considered there was a void.  My Mum brought me up to be strong minded, self sufficient and independent, made sure I could survive a life on my own if necessary, (which I did for several years) and rely on my self awareness for approbation or criticism.  I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if I’d had a ‘real dad’ so in my mind they’re quite overrated  😀

Today, as with the last few days I’ve been taking things easy to try to circumnavigate the head-banging, a bit of house work and shopping but no big movements.  This afternoon I did some still life photography in my shed, and was quite pleased with the results.