10 years

It has taken me 10 whole years to be capable of writing this blog post. Ten years of fairly regular remembrance of a time and place that now seems even more unbelievable than it did while it was occurring. For 3 and a half years, between May 2002 and December 2005 I worked for Claims Direct. Actually, to be more accurate, for 90% of that time they were correctly called Claims Direct in Administrative Receivership and were under the governance of Deloitte & Touche Receivers.

From the get go, I realised this was not a normal workplace. My previous role was with a London law firm, based in the heart of the City square mile, very formal, full of old school process, tradition and observed rules. The contrast between this and the workplace I was now to experience could not be more wildly different. You have seen The Wolf of Wall Street right? This was the legal sector version of that. I kid you not.

I should state, my employment was never meant to be anything more than a maternity cover for 9 months to a year. I never got a hand over with my predecessor though because by the time I had arrived from London she had left, I cannot remember now whether this was due to early arrival of baby or not, I just remember feeling utterly thrown in at the deep end. I had gone from PA to two solicitors in a busy but quite mundane law firm to being PA to 1 Director of a legal department. A fucking crazy legal department.

I spent the first few weeks literally sat on my own in an office space that was physically on the other side of the building from the rest of the legal department. My desk was outside the large, flamboyant office of the ‘Head of Legal’ who was my new boss. But he was not around. He was on some kind of large scale tour of the UK having meetings with the law firms who were Claims Direct’s key delivery partners.

So during my ‘induction’ I read through some scant handover notes my predecessor had left and I had a series of batshit conversations with a woman who nobody seemed to know had been employed. She was apparently a shithot lawyer but she was also mad as a box of frogs, wore 80s make up (like serious blue eyeshadow, tons of it) and because nobody had any work for her to do she spent her days with her feet up on the desk reading Danielle Steel books and occasionally stopping to talk to me. Her office was the opposite one to my bosses and my desk sat in between the two rooms. She had only been in post a few weeks and I think she was just relieved to have somebody to talk to. I NEVER established, in the craziness that followed, what it was she was employed specifically to do.

Also during my first few weeks, one particularly arrogant legal hotshot decided I should be her personal secretary and dumped a pile of files on my desk along with a dictation tape. She wanted me to do her audio typing seeing as I must not have much to do. I complied, it was better than counting paper clips for another few hours, but this was a mistake as she then, for the rest of her tenure, treated me like her own personal typist. Despite the fact there was an ACTUAL POOL OF TYPISTS in her department who were there to provide this specific service.

Anyway, one random afternoon a few weeks in, I got a phone call from my new boss. He was, as he had been on all of our conversations to date, in his car at the time. The crux of the phone call was that he would like me to organise a conference for 200 delegates for the beginning of July. I had about 5 weeks in which to organise it. From a standing start and with no idea who to invite or what it was for or actually anything to go on at all. It is fair to say I was a little panicked by this request. In later months it would seem actually hilarious and a tad sinister that I was asked to do this because the Directors of Claims Direct clearly knew some key pieces of information whilst I was booking this event which rendered it utterly pointless.

I remember having a conversation about this event with one of the Legal Case Managers. She was actually one of my saving graces during my time here – a genuinely down to earth, awesome, funny, strong woman. She gave me the guidance I could not get from my actual boss, some pointers for who to invite, what needed to happen and expectations for such an event and I think without her I would have probably quit on the spot.

The conference itself happened on 1^st and 2nd July. I remember this because I remember that I had to head to the conference venue on the Sunday afternoon which was the 30^th June. It was the first time I had had any involvement in an event on this scale. It was kind of exciting. Most of the legal managers had also arrived on the Sunday. I remember being excited at having my own hotel room and being catered for as a corporate guest for the first time. In years to come I would look back on this experience and realise how different it was from any other conference I would attend afterwards. Like most of my experiences with Claims Direct it was formative and unusual.

For two days the champagne literally flowed as the senior managers and directors wined and dined this large group of Solicitors. Mostly these were named partners of law firms from all over the country. They played tennis and got massages and had ‘sessions’ around personal injury claims and context so that the whole thing did not look like one big jolly. Which is very much what it was.

I remember taking a call from the venue, an expensive retreat style hotel in the midlands, on the Friday of the same week, asking where to direct the final bill and bantering with them about the extent of the bar bill, which I knew must have been impressive. Little did I or the hotel know that the following week, on Wednesday 10^th July, Claims Direct would go into Administrative Receivership.  

I never saw my boss again. He had briefly appeared in the office in the few days after the conference but was due to be back on the road during the week when this news broke. Indeed, on the morning of the 10^th July I took 3 calls from media reps looking for comment on the revelation before any official news was announced. I was, of course, as always, sat a million miles away from the rest of the department as the news broke and crazy lady and I were visited by an increasing number of panicked looking managers who were desperately seeking my (absent) boss and some clarity.

Mid-morning my phone rang and it was him. He was, as always, in his car but he sounded far more sombre than usual. He did not mince his words, simply stating that he would not be coming back to the office. Ever again. He asked me to help his deputy pack up his personal affects when she came round and wished me all the best. I had been his PA for approximately 8 weeks at this point and had seen him in the flesh a handful of times. I was slightly shell shocked when I got off this call but at least one thing was clear. Claims Direct was in the middle of a shitstorm.

I did not expect to keep my job. There were a number of reasons why – I was on a temp contract for maternity cover, the Director I was PA to had walked, I had no reason to believe I would make it past the weekend. Somehow I stayed in post for another 3 years. I watched 250 staff dwindle to around 20 who stayed the distance. I watched people lose their minds in the boredom, low morale and malaise that comes with running a company into the ground, milking a cash cow for the last drops of cream.

Over the next few blog posts I will tell the story of what happened during the craziness of those 3 years as the world of Personal Injury claims was forever changed by the outcome of one major legal case and as those of us on the ship as it went down tried to stay sane.

Happy McHappypants

Are you a mood hoover? Are you sure?

I have begun to realise how limited my patience is with these personalities although sadly I still have not got the balls to fully eradicate the ones that have become part of the fabric of my everyday life. I have, in the past, attempted to address a mood hoover (a particularly vivid one) and it went horribly wrong and therefore I have not tried again since. Even though a large part of my brain desperately wants to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to stop it. Loudly.

If you don’t know what a mood hoover is, maybe I should explain. I can guarantee you know at least one and probably many more of them. You might call them a ‘Nagative Nancy/Nigel” or just label them as pessimists or cynics, but they are much more than just people with a less than optimistic view on the world. These are people who suck the joy out of situations without even knowing they are doing it. Or maybe they do know but they thrive on being assholes. Who knows?

These people have a problem for every solution and would like you to know about it. You can NEVER actually help a mood hoover with his or her problem. It seems what they actually want is someone to whine at and NOT someone to think of ways around whatever the issue is.

If you work with one of these people then they are the one that will sit in a meeting, braced in a distinctly aggressive position (perhaps looking like they would rather be eaten by a crocodile than actually participating) and generally nay-saying everything anyone else suggests. About anything. It might go something like this:

Rational person: So we need to discuss what we might do about X.

MH: No we don’t. We need clarity on Y and Z first or there is no point.

RP: What kind of clarity do we need? I thought it had been decided in our last meeting that we would do B?

MH: Well I don’t think anyone was clear on what B was. And in any event, I don’t think it was an appropriate solution.

RP: What are your thoughts on an appropriate solution?

MH: (Rambles/rants for 5 minutes with no clear alternative solution until someone steps in)

RP: Ok, so what about if we….

MH: (Interrupted) There really is no point in discussing this further, it is a waste of everyone’s time until there is a decision on Y and Z.

Rest of meeting: …..uh….

Sometimes they have a particular pitch and tone that they adopt when they flip into this mode. Sometimes their natural face really is just a resting bitch face (or whatever the male version is?) and so they perpetually come across as standoffish and awkward and downright rude even when they might not have meant to.

Although the above type of individual can be confronting with their downright aggressive approach, even more annoying is the passive aggressive type (in my opinion). The one that snipes and belittles and pisses all over the crisps of the people around them without being in-your-face abrasive. I think I dislike this kind of personality more because it doesn’t have the backbone to actually be so downright rude but generally achieves disruption and negativity in your day by sneaky, manipulative ways.

By this I mean that person who has a face like a slapped arse the whole time you are engaging with someone other than them and makes you utterly paranoid that they are unhappy/uncomfortable/in need of something urgently, thereby managing to distract you from actually concentrating on the person you are meant to be engaging with.

Or the one who corrects everything anyone says even if it is a tiny, inconsequential error, a factual but miniscule mistake. Usually, in my experience, this is witnessed in marriages and long term relationships that have arrived at a state of perpetual bickering. It is truly exhausting to watch and runs like this ad infinitum:

RP: So I bought the more expensive one, it was $10

MH: No it was not, it was $9.95

Or

RP: I took the route back via South Road and Anzac Highway

MH: No you did not. You did not take South Road you took Cross Road. We were on Cross Road remember because we went past the Uniting Church.

Neither of these corrections adds any value whatsoever to the exchange. They achieve very little except for highlighting to the people you are with that you have an overwhelming need to nit-pick and belittle your partner and some strange need to prove that you are right, even if it is only about inconsequential things. It is painful for people to observe on a continual basis and probably makes them question the stability of your relationship with the person you are correcting.

I do realise the irony of my choosing to blog about this, which could in itself be construed as a passive aggressive way of communicating. But the thing is, I have been burned by trying to rationally discuss this kind of behaviour with these kind of people and life is too short to try that again. I hope, by putting this in a blog post instead, that it circumnavigates the need for addressing it face to face while maybe just making perpetrators think about the affect these behaviours have on people around them.

Anyway, I just wish everyone could be nice to each other and not turn situations into painful and cringe-worthy experiences by their mood hoovering.  

Exciting Times

Some of my favourite UK moments

Yet again I sit here with January over and February bowling along, finally sorting my thoughts into a coherent summary of what happened between mid-December and last week. This seems to be a recurring feature of living in Adelaide. I think this is because the Christmas break has become an opportunity for catching up with family and the emotional craziness that tends to accompany it renders me brain dead for a few weeks. I also tend to mentally want to distance myself from events until I feel ready to hammer out the words – it hasn’t helped that the past two Christmas/new year intervals have involved job news as well as family stuff going on.

That’s right, not content with the stress and anxiety caused by the 2014/15 job change I have decided to manoeuvre again, albeit this one feels instinctively more sensible than the ‘any-port-in-a-storm’ approach I took previously. I feel very lucky in that I have managed, in what is deemed a very hard job market, to find an opportunity that ticks all the boxes and then successfully land the position. I am SO EXCITED that I want to make a squealing noise. But I shall refrain.

This post was advertised before the xmas break. I took the position description with me back to the UK so I could think about the application and formulate a plan. I had that worrying, intense, DESIRE to land this role. I did not dare tell myself it was possible because nothing that seemingly perfect on paper comes easy. Instead of throwing my hat into the ring for anything and everything (which had previously been the case and led to a stressful 4 interviews in one week scenario in late 2014) I had taken on board some advice from a mentor and been far more selective. But then I read about this role and I just absolutely had to go for it. Even though it was advertised as a 0.8 FTE. 

I did the math. It was a grade higher than my current role so I knew I would not be taking too much of a hit to drop to 4 days a week. And think of the work/life balance! I had quite settled on the idea by the time I found out I had an interview. I went along to it with a determination to just take it in my stride and be me. I felt like I clicked straight away with the team and then the awful thing was that by the time I left I WANTED IT SO BADLY because of that, so I had to try and rationalise that I might not get it and would be sorely disappointed. And then, quite to my amazement, they called me that night and offered me the post. Not just that, they offered it to me full time if I wanted it.

Luckily, it seems the feeling of connectedness was mutual. They want me in their gang as much as I want to be in it. I cannot tell you how much that matters to me as an employee – feeling that you are in the right space with the right people. So, in a little over a weeks time I will be leaving UniSA for University of Adelaide. Hopping back into a CBD base with a new sense of purpose. Leaving behind the world of Research Support (I have a whole other blog to write on what this last year has taught me about that).

So, my head is spinning and I have heaps to sort out ahead of the move. I figure, then, I should probably capture some thoughts around Christmas in the UK before the chance is missed and life snowballs into the next chapter.

I already documented the hellish arrival and escape fromHeathrow in another blog post, but aside from the airport traumas the visit was pretty darn awesome. I managed to catch up with good friends and spend some great QT with my wonderful Nana, I refused point blank to turn the whole thing into a whirlwind of back to back visits and that worked wonderfully, I actually got to have some down time and some me time (mainly for clothes shopping and sitting watching films in my pyjamas with my parents).

Highlights included:

•          Managing to squeeze 4 curries into my 10 nights back and enjoying every single mouthful of every single one
•          Meeting my soon to be sister in law who is wonderful and cooked xmas dinner for 10 people without being stressed (she is clearly some kind of supreme being)
•          Laughing so hard at technological woes in my parents ridiculous gadget den that I felt like I induced a hernia
•          Christmas day family craziness – you just cannot buy that shit – with my two sisters, the three of us giggling uncontrollably at another gadget related malfunction and the resulting exchanges it caused between our beloved relatives
•          Getting to spend some time with the older of my two sisters who was due to give birth in January, seeing her heavily pregnant made me feel so old but it was also joyous to see her and her lovely partner preparing to welcome the new arrival.
•          Shopping like a maniac. My luggage allowance was so close to being busted on the way home, I finally have what resembles a decent wardrobe in Australia for both work and casual clothes. Man, I miss Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, River Island etc…

So there you go. This is not the blog I thought I would be writing about xmas in the UK but it is the one I have written.

2016 is panning out to be a pretty exciting year with not just my new job on the cards but some awesome looking holidays planned later in the year. Adelaide Fringe starts tonight and we will be catching up with a lot of friends, doing heaps of socialising and enjoying the sunshine as the city enters Mad March, my favourite time of year here. We already have tickets for 4 different Fringe shows between now and the end of March so it will be a pretty busy time.

Once I am settled in my new role I will update and reflect on stuff, it’s all just a bit too vivid at the moment, here is to an exciting year ahead!  

Heathwoe.

So I am sure everyone has at least one hellish tale of a trip through an airport; perhaps running to make a connection, maybe the stress of a security queue much longer than you anticipated, or even the stomach churning realisation that your luggage really has gone missing somewhere between check in and arrival at destination. I have experienced all of the above - the lost luggage serendipitously happening on our honeymoon when we stood, bereft, in Mexico, in only the clothes we travelled in and learned that our luggage had mysteriously gone to Glasgow instead of Cancun. Stressed in airports? I could have written the book.

But on the very last day of 2015 I experienced an airport adventure which made me question what I may have done in a previous life to insult the god of international travel.

I should probably rewind a bit to state that my arrival in the UK on 20^th December was also not without incident. I forget how spoiled we are in Adelaide to have a small, quiet, clean, efficient airport which generally processes arriving passengers within 30 minutes (from stepping off an international flight to walking out the front doors, luggage in hand and immigration cleared).

On arrival into London Heathrow after an unexpectedly long flight from Kuala Lumpur I was fairly dazed and confused anyway. That flight is usually no longer than 12 hours maximum, but since the shooting down of MH17 and the various war zones and airspace issues since, the route has changed to avoid flying directly over various countries, with the result being that this leg (with Malaysia Airlines at least) is now a gruelling 14.5 hours.

So, we landed at around 6am on a Sunday morning, I wondered, in a moment of utter craziness, whether this might be a quieter time for getting through immigration at Terminal 4. Ha! I had forgotten that this airport never sleeps. There is no such thing as a quiet time. HERDS of people were trying to queue to get into other queues in order to get through the official UK border. Queues to get into queues….how marvellously British….

I have the kind of passport that can go through the electronic visa machine thing (I believe that is the technical name) but the queue for the 2 working machines was longer than the queue for the old fashioned person-in-booth deal so I went for the latter. 25 minutes later I was finally at the luggage carousel, but my luggage was not. The belt was not even moving, in fact the flight was not even listed yet, although the crew on board had told us which belt we could expect to use. I switched my phone on and settled in to wait.

Another 20 minutes passed before the luggage belt began to move and then another 20 minutes before my luggage appeared, I breathed a massive sigh of relief, this was not my first rodeo with the whole ‘lost luggage’ ordeal. In fact Malaysia Airlines have twice in 2 years lost a piece of my parents’ luggage on the same route…but that’s a whole other story.

Luggage finally obtained, I make my way through to arrivals where my mother is doing an impression of “most excited person in the room” (very convincing). We both burst into tears. I mistakenly think the ordeal is over…but not so…

We exit the airport and make towards the payment machines for the parking ticket. There are two machines and two queues. Mom gets to the front of one queue and the machine gives a message to say it is not accepting cash payments. Mom subsequently gets in the other queue, makes it to the front where the machine eats her money and refuses to issue a ticket. We call for assistance and a man with a walkie talkie duly turns up and opens the machine and after an agonising wait manages to get it working. Finally, I think, we can get out of this hellish place!

Not so. Gridlock on the car park means we sit in the car for at least another 20 minutes waiting for someone to move enough to let us into the gridlock pattern. From landing to leaving the airport took at least 2 tortuous hours. This experience made me consider one of the most glaring differences between the UK and Australia, namely the difference in population size and the impact this has on infrastructure (or most pointedly, failure of infrastructure to cope). The same amount of people live in London as live in the whole of Australia, which gives you some idea of the context.

Anyway, with this experience in mind, on returning to Heathrow on December 31^st (ironically, my birthday) we arrived with a good 3.5 hours to spare before my flight. Little did I know I would need every moment of this time and more patience than it is possible to muster.

I have never done the trip to/from UK/Australia on my own, I actually don’t mind travelling on my own, I just kind of zone out and get on with it, but the bit I hadn’t factored in as being difficult was the aftermath of the awful goodbye. It never gets any easier letting go for a massive amount of time, even when you know the exact dates when you will see each other again, it still sucks. Usually I have Stu with me to calm me down fairly quickly and rationalise the whole thing. Not so this time.

So, I join the queue for baggage drop in absolute floods of tears, snot pouring from my nose, hair sticking to my face, looking like a deranged woman. Bewilderingly, the queue for bag drop (online check in) is longer and moving slower than the regular check in queue. Only one desk is open for bag drop and a family of 8 with around 20 bags are currently holding up the process. I try and just stay quiet in the queue, using a multitude of tissues to stem the crying, breathing deeply. A small child behind me remarks to his mother “that lady is broken, mommy” – quite right, I am a hot mess right now.

The longest queue for bag drop finally gets me to the desk where I point out it’s my birthday and the crew member assesses my tear stained face and decides I am clearly too much of a risk for any kind of perk/upgrade. Oh well, I tried.

Next I take an elevator down to what I can only describe as a parallel universe level of the airport that only exists if you are emotional and off your head on prescription drugs (for a cold). Signs have directed me to “level -2” where strangely, given the footprint of the floor above it (departures) and the floor below it (arrivals) the elevator opens into a room the size of a tesco express and with about the same level of shit-togetherness. ALL the tourists who have been to London in the last week or so have congregated and are trying to claim the VAT back on goods they have bought. I want (as a non-UK resident) to claim the VAT back on my new Macbook. That’s 1 item. Most of these people are clutching REAMS of receipts and bags and bags of expensive handbags and shoes. I sigh. This place is the equivalent of platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross. It only exists if you really believe it does. I am also sure it is staffed by muggle born wizards who can’t get a job at the Ministry of Magic.

A man/muggle spots me and decides I don’t look particularly touristy and helpfully tells me I can do the VAT refund thing after security and avoid the queues. Fabulous, I think, I will do that.

So I approach security. Man, this has changed since I last flew out of the UK. I am now addressed by a freaky hologram and have to navigate a bunch of self-service checkout style machines to get rid of excess fluids and organise my belongings. This is BEFORE the queues for the security checks. The hologram is barking things about laptops and ipads being out of bags…

After the zig zag through the weird machines there actually isn’t much of a queue at the security screening itself. I start to feel like this is all ok. But then I beep as I go through the doorway screen thing (technical name) and so they decide to swab my shoes. And they find a trace of explosives.

WTF?

Yes. There is apparently a trace of explosives on my shoes. So now I have to go be frisked, 360 degree scanned and swabbed again all over. And meanwhile all my worldly goods are sitting in the trays waiting to be claimed by anyone over the other side of the room.

A very nice person asks whether I have been around Christmas crackers, with the sincerity of a priest. Why, yes, I believe so, seeing as its FUCKING CHRISTMAS. Apparently, crackers can give a residue off which reads as explosives on airport swab testers. You have been warned, people. (Australian readers, I mean bon-bons not eating crackers, that would just be mental).     

Finally I am through security and head to collect my bags, except one of them has been stopped for a thorough search (clearly they think I am a terrorist now). I patiently wait while the man digs everything out of my small hand luggage suitcase and raises an eyebrow at the contents, (monster munch, frazzles, after eights, yes I have a problem, ok!?). And finally I am on my way. 

To the VAT refund counter. This one is not staffed by muggle born wizards but by stony faced arseholes (SFAs).

Weirdly, the same amount of tourists brandishing receipts are queueing here as they were at platform 9 ¾. I spend 30 minutes listening to an SFA requesting to see each individual item on a 6 foot long receipt to a Chinese tourist and then conversing via google translate regarding paperwork. It is laborious stuff. 

Eventually I get the stamp I need on the form to claim the VAT back. Where do I take this now? (I enquire). Travelex (he barks). Right oh.

To the Travelex stand. Guess what? Fucking huge queue of the same people who were at both Platform 9 ¾ and the SFA outlet. I glance nervously at my watch. There is now only 1 hour until I am supposed to be at my gate. 20 minutes later I am still in the queue and have not moved and 1 of the 2 guys staffing this stand is just leaving for the end of his shift. Then, as I get to the front of the queue, a cheeky motherfucker asks me if she can queue jump because her plane is about to leave and she only has one item and being a spineless British person I smile pleasantly and say “yes of course” and then SCOWL at her back and hope she misses her flight and chokes on the Toblerone sticking out of her bag. Bitch.

So I finally, by some kind of miracle, get to the desk with my form. I present it with a sense of relief that this admin nightmare is nearly over. The guy looks at it and says "We don't process these forms."

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

Turns out (though no one up to this point had known their arse from their elbow in this process), that when the store in question gave me the form they should have also given me a pre paid envelope in which to return the form to them once it was stamped. The travelex guy pointed to a large post box directly behind me which was allegedly there for this very reason. Sadly I was not carrying either an envelope or a UK stamp so at this very moment I realised that a) I was going to have to post the bastard form back to the UK once I landed in Adelaide and b) I could have spent the last half an hour at the champagne bar.

Cursing Heathrow for the sack of fucking weasels it truly is (and not for the first time), I did the only sensible thing with half an hour remaining until I needed to be at the gate. I marched straight to the champagne bar, ordered a glass and then burst into tears in a combination of residual sadness and utter frustration. Yes, Heathrow, you truly broke me with your mad, bureaucratic, psychotic, shitheap of a set up. On my birthday. What a wanker.

Cheers, Heathrow, you utter shitbag.

The kindly barman asked me what was up and I gave him the short version, namely "birthday, goodbyes, nonsense" whilst trying to breathe and speak through that annoying bit of crying that makes you wheeze and hiccup and generally resemble a 2 year old having a tantrum. By this point I seriously gave zero fucks what I looked like and was just desperate to get on the plane and on with the show. 

This story must end on a positive note after all that whining (!) - a lovely man at the bar had overheard my tale of woe and paid my bill, as well as sending me a second glass of champagne and wishing me a happy new year. Humans can occasionally be awesome. He didn't even want a conversation, just quietly raised his glass to mine and nodded. I think it may have been Jack Nicholson (or that could be the mix of high emotion, prescription drugs and hastily skulled champagne).

Anyway, happy new year one and all, more blog posts to follow about UK christmas when I get chance.   

Anxiety Bites

It is November. This is baffling to me because it was, like, May 5 seconds ago right?! I know the years are supposed to go faster as you get older but I swear someone has put this one on some kind of sonic skip forward while I wasn’t 

looking.

It’s been a strange year and the last few months, since the beginning of August, have been particularly challenging in many ways. Some of those challenges I set myself (like simultaneously completing two diplomas just for the hell of it – never again) and some were completely unforeseen and bizarre, they never could have been prepared for. I feel utterly exhausted by the whole period of time and this is well reflected in the fact that I have been particularly fragile over the last few weeks, including an incident where I burst into tears in a completely unacceptable situation where I should have been able to hold it 

together.

I feel like a period of intense activity has gone on and left me with nothing further to give. I was in Singapore for a conference at the end of September and the week I was there was nothing short of an ordeal in many ways as I battled the worst period of anxiety I have suffered in about 5 years. It had been a long time since I had been so anxious as to have physical symptoms (I get a lump in my throat that just won’t go away and makes me feel like I am being suffocated) and despite being aware of the tools and tricks needed to cope with such a situation, sometimes it just grips you so bad that you have to take it minute by minute until you can calm down enough to form a plan.

To get through the worst parts (which happened once Stu had left for a trip around Burma – don’t ask) took every ounce of mindfulness I could draw upon. Writing down what exactly I was stressing about and then rationalising why there was no need, making lists of things to look forward to. Deciding on plans of action to keep myself busy and then the hardest part, forcing myself to leave the sanctuary of the hotel room and go out into hot, sticky Singapore to keep my mind full of enough distraction to block the anxiety pangs out.

Me down at the Harbour with the Merlion

I made myself wander, enter temples and smile at strangers and slowly but surely the savage fears subsided. In the daytime, at least, this is possible. I believe it is a particularly evil feature of anxiety that (for me at least) the pangs that are worst, the ones I can never quite get a handle on, are the ones that either wake me in an uncontrollable panic or totally prevent me from descending from half asleep to fully asleep. In this morbid, limbo mind-space it can feel like I am drowning, literally being dragged into the depths with no air, physically gripped with a fear that cannot be shaken.

Even when I manage to break the moment and properly wake up, the overwhelming sense of failure, despair and fear still lingers. Everything seems so completely out of control, broken, disappointing and mortifying in these moments.

Anyway, I managed, moment by moment, to get through the time I had in Singapore and actually enjoy some aspects of it. I also managed, by power of the mind, to bury a huge amount of anger over a particular incident that I had been successfully ignoring. I kind of knew this would eventually need to come out but I sure as hell did not want it to do so while I was away from home.

I don’t think I have ever been so relieved to get home from a trip abroad (for business or pleasure – and this was technically both). 

Most people who know me will think of me as a text book extrovert and usually that is pretty accurate. On the whole though, I really disagree with the labels introvert/extrovert because I think that although people might naturally lean more towards one or the other, everybody has elements of both. I think one of the most interesting things about anxiety for me is that it makes me want to retreat and spend time only with Stu or by myself. The whole rigmarole of socialising becomes an utter chore and the very last thing I want to do. I crave the intimacy and security of just us in these times.  

I have spent the month or so since I returned trying to focus on the things I needed to do to soothe my frenzied brain, sleeping a lot, walking wonderful Fin (our new puppy) and spending time outside on the beach in the beautiful place we live. I still feel fragile but I also feel like the worst has passed. Now I need to concentrate on not being defensive and letting go of some of the residual anger and not letting it colour future plans.

I am heading back to the UK without Stu at xmas and I can feel this being a trigger for further anxiety so I am trying to manage that and not let it spin out of control. I need to be more assertive with how that trip will go and ensure that I spend time only with the people I know will make me happy instead of trying to accommodate too many demands on my time. I need to be selfish on this trip and make it a real respite and not a frantic dash around without stopping and relaxing. I guess this might mean pissing people off but to be honest I think I no longer care too much on that front, I live 10,000 miles from the UK, I don’t need negativity from that direction any more, life really is too short.

And then 2016 will roll around and we can wipe the slate clean and start again. I guess this blog post needed crafting (and it has been written and rewritten more times than you might think to get it into a publishable version) to work through the residual sticky bits in my brain. I am not ashamed to talk about suffering anxiety, I am just lucky enough to have had sufficient help in the past that I can talk about it and manage it when it happens.     

Incredible India - Part 4 - Varanasi

Varanasi.

It is a word which will, for the rest of my days, inspire incredibly vivid emotions in me. I fully understand now why G Adventures place the Varanasi experience at the end of the Essential India Tour. Quite simply, to put it near the beginning or to jam it in the middle of everything else would be insufficiently respectful of this wondrous, mystifying, technicolour befuddlement of a city. You kind of have to work your way up to it. And also, you can only really witness and experience it (without losing your mind) if you appreciate that it is the pinnacle, the apex, the crescendo, of your north Indian adventure. It makes sense at the end. Like one last hurrah for old time’s sake.

On the Ganges at sunset

Looking at the banks of the Ganges

If you started your India trip here I reckon you would simply stand around blinking in astonishment until a cow knocked you into a ditch. And that is not a good place to start, let me tell you. 

So, first we had to get here, right? Which involved, I shit you not, the most hilariously terrible overnight train experience of my life. Ok, so it’s actually the only overnight train experience of my life to date but I am pretty sure in my mind it was never meant to turn out like this. I had romantic images and notions in my head of nodding off all relaxed while being gently rocked in a comfortable bed. Ha.

It went something like this.

22:30 A group of fairly bedraggled and mostly hungover travellers arrive at Jhansi station and attempt to board the sleeper train to Varanasi in an organised fashion. This was mostly thwarted by the usual stampede for the train and also the fact that the group was split into 2 smaller groups of 5 in entirely separate carriages. It should be noted that on this train you cannot walk between carriages so once we had gone our separate ways that was it for the night.

23.00 After a great deal of ticket checking and Jai frantically jumping on and off each carriage making sure we were all ok, we were finally settled and the train had started moving. Stu, Bina, Isaac, Emma and me were in one compartment. Each compartment sleeps 8; 3 on each side wall and 2 on the back wall. Some kind of deal had been done, in Hindi, between Jai and a group of 3 middle aged Indians who had swapped their bottom level bed for one of our back wall beds. It turned out they had bought 1 sleeper ticket between them but were planning on sitting next to each other on the 1 bed for the duration of the night (bargainous!). It was easier for them to do this with the beds on the back wall because there was only 2 of them so a taller gap to sit up in. This will later come back to haunt us.

Stu on the top bunk, me in the middle

Bina looking glam as ever on her bunk

Isaac in his bunk opposite me

23.01 Isaac is up on his middle bunk having a right lark when Emma and I notice that his bunk is hanging on only 1 of the 2 industrial hooks meant to support the weight. We both panic, try and secure the other hook, and thoroughly rattle Isaac in the process. How the bed did not break is beyond me, the boy is blessed.

23.10 I am on the middle bunk of 3 with Emma below and Stu above me. I attempt to sleep. I am trying to sleep on a shelf. It is, supposedly, a bed but it is not very wide and it appears to be made of concrete. Getting comfortable in this space is literally impossible. Isaac is laughing to himself opposite me at the strangeness of the situation and the other passengers in our compartment are just watching us, curiously but not menacingly, like we were the best soap opera they had ever seen. I need to keep my bag in my arms so I know it’s safe. Have you ever tried sleeping whilst holding on to all your valuables? It is not very conducive to sleep. I toss and turn.

01.05 I need a wee. This is not ideal. To get into this bed in the first place required hoisting, climbing, double-jointed contortion and a complete loss of dignity. And that was with the light on. It is now dark and the train is moving. *sigh*

01.15 Fucking hell. I really have to go. I begin unravelling the many layers of blankets and sheets I have cocooned myself in and shuffle on my back to the bottom of the bed. Somehow I manage to get down from the bunk without any major incidents though I am very aware of a number of pairs of eyes silently watching my progress. Isaac, Bina and Stu are all snoring. The bastards. I peer at Emma despairingly, she’s awake. I search for my flip flops which were on the floor when I last looked but the bastard things have disappeared. Something tells me I will really need something on my feet before I face a toilet on an Indian sleeper train. I start shifting luggage round in the dark but to no avail. Pitifully I turn to Emma and say the dreaded words “may I borrow your sandals to go to the loo in please?” and because she is totally all the awesome she just laughs and nods. Toilets on these trains are literally holes about the size of a dinner plate. An actual hole. You can see the tracks going past underneath you. There is a recommended footplate to use. Note the word ‘recommended’. Somehow I pee through the hole in the floor of the swaying train and make a mental note to punch Stu in the face when he wakes up. I somehow manage not to get pee (that I can see) on Emma’s shoes. I shuffle back to our beds and sheepishly declare to Emma “I didn’t get pee on your shoes, honest” and realise that this holiday has made me say so many things I never thought would come out of my mouth ever.

01.25 After a substantial amount of what I shall term “scrambling about” I am back in bed. I try to sleep.

02.10 A pair of very rude, very loud and very angry Chinese tourists appear to have decided to ruin the 5 minutes of sleep I had so far achieved. Groggily, I sit up in bed. They are waving and shouting at someone “Get up, these are our beds, you are in our beds!!” and the 3 people who originally were in Emma’s bed (and are now in one of ours on the back wall) are all pretending not to understand and just repeatedly pointing at Emma. Bina, diplomat extraordinaire, intervened at this point from her upper shelf (note to self, do not fuck with a German’s sleep) and asked to see the Cockface’s tickets. The seat numbers are the same as ours but the carriage number is different. Bina calmly points this out to Cockface. Cockface responds by asking to see OUR tickets. There is a slight problem with this as Jai has them and he is not in our carriage. Thankfully, before world war 3 kicks off, a ticket inspector has been roused from his (no doubt delightful) sleep and has appeared. He double checks the tickets and makes the same observation as Bina. They are in the wrong carriage. Without a single word of apology or even acknowledgement of the fact they have woken everybody up so aggressively, the pair turn on their heels and walk out. At this point I notice we are in a station and have been for the duration of this exchange. Lucky really as if these people had been trapped in our carriage until the next stop, they *may* have been subjected to a blunt trauma injury to the head.

02.30 Everyone else has gone back to sleep. Isaac is lying on his front and snoring. I did not think this was even physically possible. Emma is becoming a little freaked out by the man on the lower bunk opposite her who is groaning in a very erotic way. Both she and I are relieved that this noise is not coming from Isaac but are a tad unsettled by it nonetheless…

03.15 I AM STILL AWAKE AND TIME IS GOING SO SLOWLY

04.10 I AM STILL AWAKE AND THINKING ABOUT A CHEMICAL EXTERMINATION OF ALL MOSQUITOES AND HOW AMAZING IT WOULD BE

04.55 I AM AWAKE AND A BABY IS CRYING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BALSA WOOD WALL AND I AM FANTASISING ABOUT A CUP OF TEA

06.20 I AM AWAKE AND ALL THE CHILDREN ARE AWAKE AND MAKING THAT MONOTONOUS NOISE THAT THEY MAKE AND I MAY NEED ANOTHER WEE….

07.00 By this point I just kind of give up sleeping. My eyeballs are on fire. My brain is starting to taunt me with hallucinations, I didn’t eat all day yesterday because I kept vomiting and for the first time in 48 hours I am hungry. I have scratched a mozzie bite on my foot until it has bled. My nose is running. I think about the time difference to Adelaide and my team who will probably be going for their coffee around now and I HATE THEM for being in Australia. I tell myself not to be a bitch and to enjoy the experience. I laugh hysterically at that last thought and start drafting this very blog post in my head in an attempt to while away the remaining 6 or so hours.  

   

09.00 Everyone is pretty much awake now. I have eaten 3 out of date cookies from the pack we bought at Jhansi station last night. It is the first solid food I have kept down in a few days. I would literally crawl over hot coals for a cup of Twinings Earl Grey right now. The train has thinned out some, the 2 men travelling on their own got off a while ago and the 3 middle aged people left at the last stop. We pretty much have the compartment to ourselves. 

12.30pm - So close and yet so far. We have come to a stop about 10 minutes outside Varanasi. The train has not moved in a good 20 minutes but as we are not in a station we cannot get off the carriage and go find Jai. Emma phones him, "The train has stopped" he helpfully confirms (!). 

13.00 - We have packed up the beds and are now sitting on the normal bench seats, which are still covered in random bits of bedding. Isaac and I are sat on the lower bunk that the 'orgasmic moans' bloke was asleep on this morning when Isaac absent mindedly picks up a crumb of something off the sheet...and eats it. I nearly lose my mind, Isaac is horrified but laughing. What happened in my life to lead me to this point?? 

13.15 - Isaac has gone back to sleep and the rest of us are starting to feel like we are on some kind of hidden camera show. The train is getting very warm because the air con has gone off. I cannnot remember my life before I got on this train. It feels like I have been here for ever.

13.45 - VARANASI WE ARE IN YOU! Thank christ our hotel is literally across the road from the train station. 5 minutes from disembarking we are in an actual restaurant in our hotel ordering food and connecting to wifi and so excited to get a room key and to know that SLEEP is on the cards in the near future.

So, I think it is fair to say I have no urge whatsoever to repeat the experience of an overnight sleeper train in India ever again. Maybe it was just the perfect storm for me, being over tired and ill - I am glad I can say I did it but I feel like I survived some kind of endurance challenge. Nothing about it, to me, was relaxing or particularly enjoyable. That said, most of the people I travelled with (including Stu) slept through it almost entirely and enjoyed it to some extent.

Varanasi, from the get go, is IN YOUR FACE. The roads are particularly mental and that is exacerbated by the fact that this is a place of pilgrimage for Indian people as well as being an international tourist magnet. The traffic here makes Delhi look like a fairly sedate and organised place. We had a number of near misses with traffic, all over India, but the ones that literally had a hairs breadth between life and death/injury were all in Varanasi and included:

• A cycle rickshaw vs school bus moment which defied physics in how nothing actually touched
• A cycle rickshaw vs 10 ton lorry moment at an intersection where the lorry was so close I could taste the paint 
• A tuk tuk rolling backwards with no handbrake into a gutter with 4 of our group in it

View ahead from a rickshaw

View behind from rickshaw - Dean and Jade and crazy roads

But from the moment you near the edge of the Ganges the sounds of chanting and the vibrancy of the people and the smell of the incense becomes overwhelming and hypnotic and you can feel this powerful vibe about the place, which must be because of the importance and the history of it in the lives of so many Indian people.

On our first evening in Varanasi (after some restorative food and sleep and showers) we went down to the Ganges at sunset and went out on a boat to view the riverside activity from the water and to perform our own blessing ceremony.

Stu and I on a boat on the Ganges as the sun sets

Our group preparing to perform a candle flower ceremony

We also got to see the funeral pyres burning at the edge of the water which, despite my previous reservations, were not as disturbing as I imagined they would be. The Hindu religion places such a wealth of value and importance on a person after their death, part of which is through this ceremony and actually, after spending so much time in and around Hindu people it made a lot of sense and felt right for them to honour their departed in this way.    

Although our boat were respectful and did not take photos of the funeral pyres but just sat very quietly observing, it was a little uncomfortable to witness other boat loads of tourists doing exactly that and making literally no attempt to be discreet about it. Sometimes, I am ashamed of my fellow human beings and their lack of restraint.

After the boat returned we watched the prayer to the river ceremony and had free time to wander along the banks, which was not as relaxing as you might imagine due to the sheer volume of people selling things and the tendency of them to try and hoodwink you into parting with cash in all kinds of innovative ways. One of these which I can't really see a way out of involves a 'blessing' being performed, whereby a fellow with a bowl of the sacred red dye sticks his thumb between your eyes to leave the special mark and then demands money for this service. Unfortunately, this happened to me when I was completely not expecting it, I turned round from looking at the river to find him right behind me and his thumb was between my eyes before I could even open my mouth. I was having this blessing whether I liked it or not. On this occasion I was so cross at having been duped I refused point blank to pay any money which led to a rather uncomfortable and prolonged exchange. 

The blessing I was bestowed with (and did not expect)

A continuous problem for the men in our group (though not the women) was the offer of a massage. Offer might be the wrong word. Poor Dean got thoroughly massaged despite repeatedly telling the guy "no thanks" and it is a bit of a strange situation as they will persist in massaging your shoulders despite this, completely ignoring your body language and clear protestations about it being done. And then of course there needs to be payment for the service. Basically you just need your wits about you continuously here and being assertive and persistent is key. 

What was far more relaxing and I would thoroughly recommend is revisiting the river at dawn. It is far quieter, you are able to people watch without being bothered and the atmosphere is much calmer at this time of day. My favourite memory of Varanasi is the boat we took out as the sun started to rise, watching people doing yoga on the banks, enjoying the serenity and beauty of the temples and the ancient buildings. In this atmosphere Varanasi feels like a salve for the soul and I feel truly honoured to have experienced this holy place.

The river at dawn - much calmer

In the late afternoon of our second day in Varanasi we went for a tour of the silk factories in the Islamic quarter of the city with a fabulous, delightful elder of the community whose name, I believe, was Dada. He was so thoroughly charming and took us down small alleyways, into workshops and machine filled spaces where incredibly talented weavers spun silk into the most beautiful designs.

Silk being woven into amazin designs

Despite the fact it was around 43 degrees we managed to spend 45 minutes to an hour exploring this amazing side of the city and one of the younger guides in a thoroughly charming and gallant way positioned himself with a large fan every time we stopped and became a punkawallah for the ladies. I cannot tell you how grateful we were for this service.

At the end of the tour we were taken into the studio/showroom of one of the local silk merchants and he led us into a wonderfully air conditioned room with heaps of cushions on the floor, plied us with masala chai and showed us his wares. The best thing about this (and again we have Jai to thank for it) was that from the word go we were told "you are not obliged to buy anything" and he meant it. 

There was no pressure at all, it was one of the most interesting and relaxed experiences I have ever had. It turned out this guy sells to retailers across the world, that's his bread and butter so the pressure was certainly not on to buy from him. Around half the group bought some bits and pieces, I bought a beautiful scarf for myself and we got scarves for our mothers too. A lovely touch at the end of the session was that he gave every member of our group (even those who bought nothing) a basic silk scarf as a gift.

I have to say here, this was another example of the wonderful job that Jai did as our guide. Every encounter we had, such as the one described above, was so thoroughly researched and checked out by Jai. He never took us to anywhere that we were even slightly pressured, he never let us head off with anyone who he was not 100% sure would look after us as well as he would. I have never met anyone who is as diligent and committed to their job as he. The fact that he does all this and is also one of the nicest, funniest blokes you will ever meet is astounding. I am honoured to say he is my friend and I know that our paths will cross again in the future. G Adventures must think themselves incredibly lucky to have this guy on their staff, I feel incredibly lucky to have had him as our CEO.

Me and Jai

So, the final night in Varanasi was also our final rum party. It was a LOT more subdued than the Orchha affair (but then most other things in my life have been to date). Somehow it was us hosting again (must be the British desire to be polite) so everyone piled into our room and we broke out the final bottles of Old Monk. By now we were all so relaxed with each other that this just felt like a family gathering and I think it was probably on all of our minds that it might be the last time we had such an event. 

Final rum party in Varanasi

Next morning we checked out of the hotel and headed to Varanasi airport in a bus seemingly driven by The Stig (although by now we just didnt even flinch at such hi-jinks). Along the journey, which rattled the teeth of us all, I pointed out to Jai that the most common vehicle make in India (Tata) is a word with a rather different meaning in Australia and Europe. This tickled him enormously and coined the innuendo filled phrase "Touch the Tatas". 

We flew from Varanasi back to Delhi for one final night in the hotel where the tour began (at the aptly named Good Times Hotel). The familiarity was particularly appreciated as we were all pretty shattered by this point. Everyone started making arrangements for getting back to the airport the next day, organising their next tours and travel onwards - except for Stu and I, the only members of our group who were heading back home after this tour. It was sad. 

This two week period of my life will be ingrained in my memory for the rest of my days. India truly is a remarkable place, full of life and colour, amazing food, good people, sights and scents and sounds that are distinctive and vivid. We were so incredibly lucky to have a brilliant, open minded, laid back group of people to share it with and a CEO who made the experience so joyful. I came home absolutely knackered, completely overwhelmed and with a whole new perspective on the life I lead and what it all means. You cannot spend time in India without questioning what you need to be happy and I think I will always now be calmer in the face of adversity thanks to the train ride to Varanasi. 

Strangely, we have not eaten curry once since we got back but my appetite for it is returning and it won't be long before we are back on that wagon too. We gained some awesome friends and some amazing stories on this holiday, the anecdotes are still making us laugh and the pictures are still making us smile and I believe they will continue doing so for many years to come. We have already had out first mini India reunion (less than 1 month since returning!) and I am pretty sure it will not be the last.

Thank you India - never has the description of 'Incredible' been more aptly applied.