I must be truly delicious!

In the last fortnight, I have been bitten by 3 ticks, 6 clegs, a host of midgies, several fleas, a mosquito and an ant that crawled into my pants. I must be truly delicious!

This is the downside of all this outdoor living I've been doing in the fine weather.

I have had another injection into my hip. I have to rest this for a bit and then I’m hoping the problem will settle down altogether and I can get settled back into a regular exercise routine before the autumn kicks in.

Generally, I have been keeping pretty well lately. However, as well as literally having ants in my pants (I should be more careful where I sit down when out hill walking), I have definitely been getting a bit hyper. I am even more talkative than usual, I'm not sleeping that well and I am over organising things again. I like to make lots of plans about where I'm going and what I'm doing, then to worry about random details and change plans and make more plans. It's not a major obsession but if by trying forward planning to avoid stress, I just bring the stress forward instead. It doesn't really have that much effect on me but it can be a bit irritating for anyone else involved.

The only other stress lately has been my partner giving up smoking. This has been quite a long term project involving several false starts, months of nicotine gum followed by nicotine patches, then cessation followed by launching himself off the wagon at high speed in a frenzy of boozed-up fag smoking. However, the resulting hangover seems to have done the trick: nothing like a bit of aversion therapy.

He has been trying very hard but has still been a bit grumpy at times, understandably. His kids and I have been trying very hard to be tolerant and not always succeeding. On the whole, though, apart from the odd melodrama, it has gone pretty well. Fingers crossed he has cracked it this time.

Week commencing 17/07/06

Medication: Roman chamomile
Exercise: 8 hrs
Alcohol: 15 – had a big night out at the weekend
Anxiety: Some anxiety early in the week.
Anxiety Level (0-10): 4
Number of Panic Attacks: 1
Severity of Panic Attack (0-5): 2
Depression: Still pretty good apart from a bit of hangover blues.
Depression Level (0-5): 1.5
Mania: Restless
Mania Level (0-5): 2.5