Steps Backward
14 March

Well, there are two unhappy bunnies in the house this weekend.

Ross feels exhausted after attending a course which lasted over three half days at the Liverpool Museum. He deals with this sort of tiredness much better these days. He simply sees it as a necessary price for getting out and doing things he wants rather than a reason to avoid doing things. He had a good time, enjoyed making some digital art, met some creative folk with whom he might work and met someone from the Museum who might use him to lead workshops.

As for me, well I may have only had a three day week but it was a three day week from hell.

Tuesday afternoon brought a very difficult meeting with an emotionally overwrought customer. Wednesday saw me working in the training room alone whilst Dave, my partner, was absent for a day on sick leave and, on Thursday, operational necessities meant that Dave took one class whilst I took another. Though I saw it through, I felt exposed and at risk the whole time and, whilst I was glad to have shown willing, I probably bit off more than I can chew at present and my stress levels rose as a consequence.

The result was that I've been in the grip of anxiety for most of the weekend so far despite Yoga and Reiki on Friday. I've felt nervous of being in company, unsure of myself in conversation, physically maladroit and more detached from the realities of everyday life.

For the past seven weeks, I have been using a questionnaire to determine my stress levels. I do this with Ross so that the answers have some external objectivity. It's probably not scientific but the results do mirror my own perceptions. Seven weeks ago I scored 48. This had dropped to 20 before I returned to work. Unsurprisingly, the scores oscillated a little as I returned to work. Now, the score has climbed to 31 and the current trend is upwards which raises a concern for me.

I have also noticed that my energy levels have been very variable during the day. Blood tests show that I am neither anaemic nor suffering from diabetes and so this is probably a part of my reaction to my chemical imbalance. Added to all that, I've noticed that I have been using my asthma inhaler more over the past ten days and that I am drinking more caffeine to keep myself going. I have frequent tension headaches. Not good all round.

Still, I've used the break as a time to relax even though I resent losing time for me in order to be well for work. I backed out of spending time in Liverpool with Ross on Saturday afternoon as I just wanted to get back to home and keep myself quiet. For once, I missed out on Quakers just to give myself some further breathing space and to take the pressure off myself. I've decided to put all of this in writing for a review meeting which I am due to have next week. For my own protection in the future, I want to have something in writing so that no-one can say I never told them.

I also managed my first opera trip of the year. Scottish Opera came to town for the first time in many a year with two productions that have been panned by the critics. I avoided The Magic Flute on the moon like the plague and went to see Aida instead.

Unlike the Chisinau National Opera performance of some years back, this at least sounded like the real thing with a full orchestra conducted with aplomb by Sir Richard Armstrong. The production was very silly in some places and effectively simple in others. It would have been better if it hadn't tried to keep telling us things.

My sole reason for going was to hear the soprano, Inessa Galante. She did not disappoint. She was able to sing on a fine thread of a voice and shaped and moulded the line of the music with great skill. I also liked Anne-Marie Owens's fiery and haughty Amneris. She was erotic as well as scheming. She should have received the best cheer of the evening but that went to Gregg Baker as Amonasro who sang loudly. Disappointing was John Hudson's Radames. He started well singing Celeste Aida softly as an inward prayer, as it is supposed to be sung. But then he went on to sing everything like that as though he had a cold and his voice was trapped in the mask of his face. Still, it was musical and graceful.

I'm not going to rate it with more than two stars however because I have seen much better performances of this work.