I wrote and scheduled a blog post on a very dark day. Then I got better and forgot to delete it. Please accept my apologies! I am well and doing each day better. I know I have a multitude of messages to answer to, I will get to them, but please know:
“I am well, I am not in any distress, I am getting better every day.”
Please forgive me for any distress I have caused you, it wasn’t my intention!
More in an upcoming blog post tomorrow or so.
I am well, please stop worrying! And thank you all for your concern and messages!
First and most importantly, this is not a ‘please some pity for poor Sybille post’, instead read it as a post on how to get the help you need. If pandemic brain fog and similar doesn’t allow you to read it to the end, here are some starting points to get help:
Speak to your GP/primary healthcare provider.
If you don’t even know who that is: google ‘mental health + the area / country you’re living in’
20+ years ago I was diagnosed with clinical / chronic depression. And I managed just fine. With a daily routine and, yes, the occasional really long walk. Then Covid hit …
The pandemic really did me in:
I never got sick.
I never got Covid.
I always was ever so careful not to run any risk at all to transmit it to others.
BUT
Whilst I did the right thing to keep everybody safe, I myself went down. I ended up in social isolation.
And I didn’t even realise how poorly I was, until I got into treatment. I am better now, better, but not fine. And tomorrow I will have another appointment with my GP, called Dr. Camino (no joke!, real name!) and together we will get there.
Most of my days I feel overwhelmed by such simple tasks as answering an email.
ALL of my days I appreciate my friends that are sticking to me and don’t let me go.
What keeps me going:
Helping others.
Growing plants.
Just breathing …
I didn’t write this blog post to get any pity, I wrote it to tell that one person that needs to hear this:
“You are not alone! There is help available! The only thing you need to do is say: “Help!”
Hugs from Santiago!
SY
PS That email or comment you sent to me will still take some time to be answered …
As promised on Facebook, I will share here on the blog the tips and tricks I have learned so far with my ‘balcony farming’ as a friend calls it. Please, meet my biodegradable, homemade, pretty much no-cost, seed or plant pots:
What you need:
Empty toilet or kitchen paper rolls
Scissors
Kitchen or newspaper (tissue or toilet paper works as well)
A waterproof container
Soil
Seeds
Step by Step Instruction
Flatten paper roll and cut horizontally in half, or, in the case of kitchen rolls, in threes.
Make cuts, one in the middle and one at each side half way up the roll.
Press back into shape and fold the cut bits overlapping each other, just as if you would close a cardboard box.
4. Place a tiny bit of kitchen paper or similar in the bottom to avoid soil leakage.
5. Put soil and seeds in it and place in any water proof container you have at hand.
6. Water well and then continue to keep soil moist but not soaked.
7. Place in a warm, sunny spot.
8. Watch seeds germinate.
9. When the plants are ready to be transplanted into bigger pots or in your garden/backyard/allotment, simply open up the folded corners at the bottom so that the roots can emerge more easily.
That’s all!
Not my idea, but as I forgot to bookmark the blog where I found it, I sadly can’t give due credit to the inventor(s). But the photos are mine and what is in these pots now are ‘dwarf winter beans’ that can be grown here in Galicia pretty much all year round.
A win-win for everybody and Mother Nature; we save money by recycling empty paper rolls and less plastic needed for these kind of growing/germinating pots that in the end would end up in the rubbish. The less plastic we use (especially use only once) the better for all of us!
In 1998 my life was crushed in an instant as my partner died before my eyes under horrific circumstances. It took me more then a year, and three suicide attempts, to find a way, any way, out of it. I found the Camino de Santiago, very little known at that time. By then I had lost everything. I was homeless and penniless. Shortly before arriving at Saint Jean Pied de Port, hitchhiking, to start what would result in the one thing that truly turned my life around, I entered a French bakery and asked: I am hungry, can you give me some stale bread from yesterday for free? The answer was chilling me to the bone:
“No, we can’t do that, we sell yesterday’s bread as animal feed.” That moment I learned that for some people, those without money will always be less than animals.
I didn’t give up, I hitchhiked to Saint Jean Pied de Port, took a look at the Pyrenees and hitchhiked to Roncesvalles. The driver that had picked me up let me out a few hundred meters before the colegiata and I was worried. I knew that the albergue was a donativo, but I didn’t have a credencial and not a single penny in my pocket. Something caught my eye, before my feet lay a 50 pesetas coin, exactly the amount of money I needed to ‘buy’ a credencial and become a pilgrim. I filled out the paperwork and ascended the stairs to the albergue – Only pilgrims allowed, no tourists past this point. I didn’t feel I was either. I didn’t feel I fit anywhere anymore.
The hospitaler@s announced the program of the evening: Mass with pilgrims blessing followed by a pilgrim’s meal in the nearby restaurant. I went to mass, I needed all the blessings I could possibly get. I went back to the albergue, hungry. I wrote in my journal, another pilgrim shared the table with me, we smiled at each other, we both knew we were both outcasts – pilgrims that didn’t fit in.
The hospitaler@s passed by and looked at us and asked ‘Not at the Pilgrim’s Meal?’
‘No.’, we said quietly.
Shortly after they came back again and put a plate of tortilla before us.
‘Enjoy the meal, pilgrims.’, they said.
And suddenly we were human beings again.
Miraculously I made it to Santiago, and, over the next four years put my life back together and found a new reason to live, a new raison d’etre, I got my life back together but I vowed that nobody that would knock at my door would ever leave empty handed … As long as I have food in the house, I will share it gladly with whoever knocks at the door.
Tired of all the Facebook memes making fun of the difficulties of folding a fitted sheet and the dangers involved in it (apparently you might even become a ghost failing at it!) here is my fool-proof method. And no, you don’t need anybody to help you with this task, you can do it alone. You are more than enough to subdue a fitted sheet and force it into submission, sorry, into a a neat and pleasant shape that fits perfectly in your wardrobe, drawer or wherever else you want to store it. You are welcome!
Getting from this to that …
Sorry, living alone I hadn’t anybody to take the photos of me doing this, so you can only see the steps the sheet went through, but not my hands 😉
And now my easy to follow steps:
Take sheet out of the dryer or from the clothes line/rack and give it a firm stare – telling it “I will get you in a neat shape!” Reassure yourself that You Can Do This 😉 Take a deep breath and JUST DO IT. And then follow the following steps …
Find a flat surface that is at least half as large than your fitted sheet, your bed is ideal, but any flat surface will do, in a pinch even the kitchen table and, with a bit of practise, your ironing board (finally a use for that one!).
Place fitted sheet upside down and short side up, meaning with the surface that you sleep on now touching the surface you are folding it on and the shorter side of the sheet on top.
Gently stretch the top of it until nicely horizontal by placing your hands inside the corners and stretching it. Don’t worry about the lower part here.
Turn the lower corners inside out and THEN tuck into the pockets of the upper corners. That’s the whole trick, the rest is easy-peasy!
Stretch, again, the horizontal top (now with your hands in the corners formed by both ends of the sheet) until it’s nicely straight.
Now gently, whilst keeping one hand in the corresponding corner, pull down each side.
Gently stretch lower end of half-folded sheet until it’s parallel to the top half and extended to its maximum.
Now you have trapeze shape. Keep your one hand in the top corner made up by both sheets ends end fold the lower half in just a notch narrower than the top half. Repeat on the other side.
From here you have two possibilities, the folded and the rolled one.
A) Folded: You should have by now a perfect rectangle that you can fold up anyway you like and that fits your storage space.
Getting from this to that …
B) Rolled: Fold your sheet in half and roll it up for space saving storage.
You see, folding a fitted sheet is really easy and if we ever meet in person, I am more than happy to give you a free one-to-one personal workshop on how to do this. Until then you are welcome to buy me a coffee, you know to whom it will go to anyway: https://egeria.house/santiago-day-neighborhood-pantry-fundraiser/ And any further questions, just leave them in a comment below 😉
Oh, and pat yourself on the back/shoulder, you have finally conquered the fitted sheet folding quest!
PS This blog post is the result of some hilarious exchanges on Facebook about this, expect more silly but hopefully useful blog posts like this in future …
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