Autopilot Bimbling.

It has been an odd couple of days.

Firstly, after five months of stress and anxiety, sleepless nights and at times, utter despair and frustration, the DWP have changed their mind regarding a decision they'd made, and I've been properly categorised once again. Maybe it was because I'd started Tribunal proceedings and they knew they were on a sticky wicket, I don't know, but I'm glad that it has finally been sorted.

You might think that was cause for celebration, and people I've spoken to all say it should be, but it's not really, as I'd rather be healthy physically and mentally and not claiming any sort of benefit at all. I'd have a chunk more money too of course! What these things do, like when I have to explain all my issues again to someone, is reinforce just how useless I feel, these things sort of confirm it, even though I know it anyway and have been arguing such for months. One of my ways of coping is to just live in the moment, not think about the past, nor the future, nor all my troubles, just live in the 'now' and take things as they come. It's sort of shutting out the issues, but it helps me cope. Going through it all again just drags all the depressing stuff back to the forefront, despite the final outcome being the correct one in my current circumstances.

This mixture of feelings were also felt yesterday (Wednesday) when I went out for a ride I had planned and prepared for.

I had decided I'd head over to the Carnkief area West of Zelah and spend some quality time bimbling around the network of Bridleways and Byways around there. I'd woken up not feeling at all lively, and even a double strength dose of the sort of coffee that would revive a three day old corpse failed to inject life into me.

But, as I've battered on many times in this here blog, a good ride in the countryside can work wonders when it comes to a little mental healing and therapy. So I persevered and poked Fatso out of the village and down the lanes, thinking all would come right in the end.

It was not to be though. When I get days like this – and they can go on for days on end sometimes too – it's like wearing ear plugs and seeing everything through glass. There's a strange feeling of detachment, I still see and hear, but it's like there is something between me and those senses, and whilst I was riding along in the sunshine on beautifully quiet lanes, it was just something that was happening to me, it's as if I was watching it on telly (boring programme that would be...).

Oh ok, another fuzzy beggar...

Everything ached too, my legs had little go in them and it was all a lot of effort. I abandoned the plan to head over to the Byways and decided to stay local. I could've turned back but somehow persuaded myself to carry on around a loop that gives many options for turning for home. At each junction though, I managed to keep heading around instead of towards, home, but I still wasn't at the races. However much I hoped things would pick up and the head fog would clear if I just stayed out a little longer, it just wasn't happening.

 The sun was shining but an Easterly wind as chilling as Tony Blair's smile meant I haven't ditched the cycling jacket for shirt sleeves just yet.

I took some snaps as well, as I do, but again, I just wasn't functioning properly. I was a proper biking zombie, utterly flat and devoid of inspiration and enthusiasm. Like an overworked Pathologist examining stool samples, I was just going through the motions.

So the countryside bimble failed to revive me, as it has done on occasions in the past too, but that's the way it goes, and thankfully, this time I've picked up again fairly quickly and feel a bit more with it today.

This was nothing desperate, on a depression scale of one to ten where one is happy and ten is my boots swinging below a tree somewhere, it scored a four. I've had far, far, worse of course, this was just one of those days everyone gets I think from time to time.

It could be wrapped up in the DWP decision reversal though, as all this time I have been on edge and a bit frazzled, so maybe I've relaxed a bit and tiredness has kicked in in some form or other, I don't know.

So that was that, a non ride ride, as it were. I went out, came back, and it barely registered with me at all. But hey ho, with a bit of luck normal service – whatever that is with me, will be resumed again shortly. If I'm lucky, tomorrow, after a trip to the doctors which should wake me up a bit – going into town always makes me want to escape into the countryside on a bike as soon as I get home to purge away all the stress of a busy place*

I try not to post too much glumness on here, the last thing I want is sympathy or to make other folk miserable, but this blog is about depression and how biking can help combat it, most of the time, so this failure to chooch is relevant to the topic. So there it is, more positive guff to follow with a bit of luck.

*I say busy place, this is Truro I'm talking about, hardly the whirling hub of the universe, but you can't throw a pasty thirty feet without it landing on a car's roof or some bugga's head, and that's too busy for me... 

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