Jibber

Currently making plans for a small holding. This would be a dream come true. It's complicated by a fear of recurrent illness - but the fact remains, I am far more fortunate than many who suffer from Depression or anxiety related illness. I have a supportive family and opportunity to work again - doing something that fires a passion in me. I have asked myself whether I'm rushing forward into something I am not fully recovered enough for - and frankly, the answer is, I am really in need of purpose beyond recovery, rushing or not, I want to take the opportunity while it presents itself (the farm next door has just vacated). It seems like this planned element of our future is one worth accelerating to reality.

Listen!

http://coltsplayground.blogspot.com

A subject too complicated and personal to be served by text. Here's an audioBoo I recorded to pose a question. If you can be bothered to listen to it all, then I value your opinion.

I'm not proposing the drugs don't help - or that I stop them without doctors guidance. I'm just suggesting that daily thoughts, weekly appointments and monthly reviews, along with CBT and CAT can only really guarantee one thing - that my life remains full of reminders that I have suffered a mental breakdown and am considered mentally ill.

My new life, away from the stress of London living, in peace and with no urgency at any point, is anxiety free, stress free, depression free....and currently Psychiatrist free. I'm due to sign up with the health service....and frankly, I've found my closer proximity to family, fresh air, exercise and quiet are doing more for me than any of the 'mental health services' I've been offered could.

I'll leave the rest for the recording. I don't want to feel like a victim / patient any more. I want to move on. I'm not 'in denial' - I know i'm suffering from a mental illness and will go straight to the doctor if the panic attacks return, or the self isolation,....or depression. I'm not stupid. What I am sick of though, is having a life dominated by a kind of 'patient psychosis'. It's made worse by the shoddy state of mental health care provided by the NHS. I can do without it I think....and if I get a little low, there's always my vegetable patch to talk to ;)

Listen!

http://coltsplayground.blogspot.com

I thought I'd post a quick update for friends and family, since I haven't been online much due to lack of broadband. Using my iphone tethered to my Mac to post. Works well, but had limits so i'm being careful how much I use it. Having said that, I appear to have just uploaded 2 AudioBoo (1 from 1st day, one from this morning) accidentally using the tethered connection - so I must be getting near my limit. Hopefully O2 will switch broadband on soon. Slightly confused why it's going to take them another week to do, when all the kit has arrived here. I find it hard to believe it's not a simple matter of them flicking a virtual switch - it would seem very antique if someone had to physically plug a wire in!

http://coltsplayground.blogspot.com

Still, I've enabled tethering on my iphone, so I will have laptop access to the net while waiting for my broadband (limited at 3Mb due to remote location :/). Going to be a change from my current Cable internet 20mb! Running my game community will be a challenge but there's a good team of peeps there who'll keep it all smooth. I reckon my tethering should allow me to blog and keep up with Buzz. I'll probably stick to my iphone for twitter and simple surfing and save the tethering bandwidth. Looked at MiFi but too extravagant for a temporary need.

Boxes are arriving soon so we can pack up some stuff. The removals company arrives tomorrow and they do all the packing...then we leave on Thursday morning. It's definitely freaking me out. I'm leaving behind a kitchen that looks out on Prostitution and Crack activity, nightly - but we built this house from a shell - and I'm attached to it!

Claud is going to love it. Poppy is going to love it. I am too - once I'm there.

Since I've been recovering from my stress induced breakdowns, I've been under strict instructions not to tax myself. So, I'm kind of trying to float through the whole experience as much as possible. I pick small jobs. Do them. Then pick another. Everything seems to be going smoothly. If I'm honest - if my wife wasn't so superb and organised, we'd be in chaos now. Makes me feel useless - and my depression of late is not welcome. Still, whatever happens, I know that in a few days I'll be surrounded by fields and farmland, and I am certain that will do us all a world of good.

I'll be leaving my 'control room' - ideal for any hermit / agoraphobic geek. It's like a comfort blanket of tech.

It's been intense living in London. From the early student days, DJ'ing and living it up, to my most active studio recording times - 10 years of them - to a stressful period in my career and 8 years of IBS...all the while in a day job that involved face to face negotiations with FTSE 100 CEO's at it's worst. I lost 3 cases in the Court of Appeal before having my breakdowns - and I'm absolutely certain that where I'm heading, that life is going to seem a world away. Forgetting about money, career and socialising, there really is nothing about the move that I should fear.

I wish I could convince my nervous system of that!

http://coltsplayground.blogspot.com

Sometimes, it's easy to forget the Open Social Web is, well, open and social. I guess you never imagine the 'big players' will ever read anything you write about them. I'm sure he didn't take any notice of it - but it made me think that I need to be careful what I say. From a 'no reason to go pissing people off' point of view.

Then again, I've been openly talking about my mental illness online for over a year. Hardly the best CV. I guess I'll just continue doing things because I enjoy them and have passion for them. The business can build itself around that :P Epic fail possible!

I often worry about saying something anti-social. Maybe I should worry more specifically, about the fact that I plan to launch several web applications in the next 12 months and will need friends....

http://coltsplayground.blogspot.com

I have always been keen on gardening, particularly for the kitchen.
I lived on a farm for a while and it was one of the most inspiring periods in my life.
I guess the magic of helping to deliver a Foal at 4am probably contributed to that but, the most inspirational part was the family spirit (which appeared to be fed by hard work and feasts), their relationship with their land and livestock, and their farm shop.

All the food it sold was local. Without exception. A good chunk of it from their own herd, crops and processing (Cider, Cheese, Jams). If it couldn't be produced locally, it wasn't sold. (anecdotally, this was a philosophy my wife and I employed for our wedding 3 years ago - allowing a 50 mile radius for all produce except the champagne....which was understandable when your sister is a Pol Roger rep ;)

This was 20 years ago. The family worked exceptionally hard running their farm - each was ruddy faced and fit as a fiddle. It seemed to me that whatever madness was going on in the outside world, they lived in a self sufficient nirvana of hard work and reward. Most obvious was that every mealtime was a very special time - a celebration of life at it's best. Centred around gloriously loved produce. Pigs that we'd all rolled in the mud with, made the sausages and bacon for our breakfasts, Beef roasted and delicious was often commented on with sentences like 'You see gang, I told you 531 was going to be a beauty"... It was, however, apparent that they would all be alot richer if the large supermarkets weren't making such effort to undercut cost of produce with full on mechanised intensive food production. It didn't make sense to me that their main worry was money - when their produce was so popular and so amazing when set next to supermarket junk. It was apparent that the Supermarkets agenda was simple, force as many farmers as possible to produce food as cheaply as possible, then process the hell out of it, to ensure it remained valuable to them once delivered to their distribution centers.

It seems unbelievable that it's taking so long for us to wake up to the fact that you get out of something what you put in - food being one of the best examples of this, and shocking it's taken 20 years after my small revelation about food, where it comes from, what it really costs and what it means to our lives (not just health but social and family), for a public 'movement' to start gathering real momentum.

I hope that this revolution builds and that tools like the social web can open up a whole new market place for agriculture. Not just because I'd like to be part of it in some way. No, I hope it grows because now I'm painfully aware of the harm we're doing to future generations health, not to mention our intensively farmed agricultural lands, and I'm also an uncle 4 times over. I want my nephews and neices to grow up respecting food, glorious food...and appreciating how much the stuff of life it is.

http://coltsplayground.blogspot.com