So much for blogging like a maniac! As usual with these things, life has somewhat got in the way.

Had my lovely lovely cousins to stay the weekend before last, don't see them anywhere near enough so I was really looking forward to it. Although it was fantastic to spend time with them we've also managed to pry open another huge family-sized can of worms (and this lot are the normal ones - my dad's are the kind of family that turn up as case studies in textbooks). Evidently, I've now been assigned the role of Adolescent Mental Health Expert, and will be able to solve everyone's problem with a click of my fingers and a wave of my magic wand (silver, with sparkly bits). I'm somewhat less than optimistic.

In other news, my good friend E, who was due to have her first baby in mid-August, gave birth last Tuesday. E has a long-standing medical condition which meant that it was no longer safe for her to continue with the pregnancy. She's still very poorly and not allowed visitors outside the immediate family, although her husband assures me it's nothing to worry about. Baby is very small, but doing well.

All in all, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Thanks to the gang at In Stitches for providing a little light relief on Friday evening. It was so lovely to sit quietly in a corner surrounded by laughter. I know I was quiet, but I really did enjoy myself!

Wrote a long and happy post yesterday evening whilst sitting in with The Foghorn whilst Dad was out at Tai Chi. (Mom in Brighton for a conference - lucky her!). Unfortunately, thanks to Dad's dodgy wireless connection, the entire thing has been lost somewhere in the ether. Bah!

Thanks to everyone who's been nice. It does encourage the warm glow. Although I think now I've started I can't stop. I'm sure the novelty will wear off in a few weeks, but for the time being I'll be blogging like a maniac. I'm just going to go with the impulse on the grounds that it's good for my mental health and everyone else will just have to lump it, so there.

I took several of my recent in-need-of sewing-up projects with me last night. The infamous fair-isle beret is now complete, and I'm working on a photo, hopefully without causing terminal damage to camera borrowed from work.

I also managed to sew two buttons onto the pink lace cardi, before having an attack of messing-up-big-style nerves and having to stop. Luckily Mom rang and "offered" to do it for me (there may have been tears, there may have been begging. I'm somewhat hazy on that point.)

The cotton baby jacket for E still needs sewing up at the sides and (despite the nice ladies at the Guild) something wildly inappropriate embroidered on it. Baby not due to put in an appearance till mid-August though, so it'll probably get finished sometime in September.

Thought - What is the correct past tense of "weave"? wove? woven? weaved? Suggest we institute something new, perhaps "weaven" or (my particular favourite) "weave-did" (a lamentably extinct Anglo-Saxon form of the past tense. Why do I know these things?) Any other ideas?

I may have too much time on my hands.

I should explain, now that people are actually reading this (terrifying, enough to make me never write a single word again), I am very new to the whole blogging business and there's much I have yet to sort out - such as pictures, links, anything mildly technical.

Ginny - I live in East Yorks, in Hull, but I actually lived in Birmingham for 5 years and loved it. I started the much-maligned degree there at Birmingham Uni.

Ok. I'm calming down about people reading this. It's a good thing. Honest. I don't mind being judged. Not in the least. I'm not some obsessive control-freak who can't stand not to be in total charge of every tiny aspect of her life. Much. GAAAAAAAAH!

I have one left.

Just one.

One tiny little essay to write and then I am officially 2/3 of the way through my degree.

This needs to be written, and marked, by the end of the month.

It's the 19th today.

No problem, right? I can whip up 3000 words in a day, no problem. I'll probably get a first (still nothing under 72% this year, although I've not yet received a mark for Jake's exam, which I shall be looking at with my eyes screwed shut). It's all fine, right?

Erm. Sort of. Well, if we ignore the chronic writer's block, and the fact that it can sometimes take me weeks to write a single sentence, and there's no way of predicting when said affliction will strike, if we ignore all that, in a word, I'm f****d.

I'm currently at work, I leave here at 4.15 and go spend a couple of hours with The Foghorn. After much strenuous lifting out of wheelchair, onto commode, in the shower, bend and stretch to wash, fight over hair, fight over towels, lift onto bed, more bending and stretching to get dressed, lift back into wheelchair, then from wheelchair to armchair, then tidy up all the mess, prepare dinner, spoon dinner into Foghorn's mouth, and all the while singing and gabbling in an excitable and entertaining manner, because it makes her smile. Once that's done I can barely drive home. I shall open my books and stare at them in a manner of incomprehension/bewilderment, then collapse into an exhausted heap.

I love my sister more than anyone else on earth. I do. I would not give up my precious time with her for all the tea in China (or something I actually want, like a first-class degree). But sometimes I want to cry. I should point out that I'm small and kind of skinny, and whilst she's not exactly weighty herself (being genetically somewhat similar), I'm still basically lifting more than 3/4 of my own bodyweight. No wonder I have biceps like the Himalayas.

Anyhow, I digress. It's nearly time to leave my desk. This essay will get written, somehow, because it must. It just has to. I just have to.

Things are entirely on the up. Hoorah.

Finished another overdue assignment today. One more to go then I'm all caught up.

I'm pretty excited about September now. I never thought I'd be capable of finishing this degree - it's been so many years and such a battle. I'm now about to transfer onto a full time course again, and I'll graduate next summer.

The plan is to carry on after that with postgrad study, eventually a phd... That's slightly too terrifying to think about, I don't think I'll follow that train of thought right now.

No-one thought I could do it, least of all me. I was so ill for so long. Even since I've been (relatively) well, my head was such a mess it just didn't seem possible that I could be this focused and determined. Consider it a hangover from a decade of mental illness.

It's one of those sparkling days when the world seems fresh and nothing is too much trouble.

It helps that the sun's out, summer is here, and it's forever until autumn and the winter dark.

It occurred to me last night whilst chatting with friends just how disengenuous I can be. I never actually lie, but I allow people to make all kinds of assumptions, whilst never really revealing anything.

I have good reasons for doing this. Facts tend to invite questions, and there's a lot I'm not comfortable discussing, at least not publically.

The difficulty is, I do reveal some personal information. People therefore have the impression they know a lot about me, and I can see the doubt on their faces when I say something which doesn't quite match some assumption they've made. I probably come over as a compulsive liar.

Ah well, enough gloom, it's a beautiful day. Let's just enjoy the sunshine.

I have been writing in my head for days. Sketching words, diagramming sentences, constructing paragraphs in my mind. Every time I consider committing these thoughts to paper something freezes inside me. That spark of fear ignites which constricts my throat and tightens my muscles, until I think later, I’ll do it later and I can breathe again. There is always later.

And so I write piecemeal, as always. Taking breaks – playing pointless digitised card games and smoking endless cigarettes – because that’s the only way I can, and I’ll go crazy if I don’t.

I have had to conclude that the what is not important – the writing itself is the thing. That process which I must endure in order to commit thoughts to paper. I must practice. I must repeat and repeat until it becomes easy, or at least a habit. I am good at habits, after all.