Weekly Meander #15: Half-term, HRT & hanging from a great height

Working around the edges of life

Hello! Thanks for joining me on a weekly meander through my week just gone – with a focus on my working life (a way for me to document a time of professional transition as well as a little shot of motivation and accountability to keep me pushing on!) And in case you're new here and wondering who on earth I am, do check out this post. TLDR: I'm a documentary filmmaker coming to the end of distributing my debut feature doc (all about the history of nuclear power) and currently exploring/expanding into new professional avenues, whilst also navigating parenting & perimenopause. Some balls may be dropped!

I'm still quite new to Substack and really enjoying finding my way around so you'll also find my recommendations of great reads I've seen in the past week. If you enjoy it, do feel free to leave a comment. And of course I'd love it if you would consider subscribing to get all my posts delivered straight to your inbox.

Ok, confession time. It's been half-term and though I didn't officially give myself the week off, it certainly turned out to be a pretty light week work-wise (not completely empty though – if nothing else, writing this weekly update does make me pull my finger out to make sure I've got something to record here if only to avoid looking like a complete slacker!)

But work definitely had to fit in around the edges, with impromptu, boredom-busting kids' playdates jostling for space alongside other, previously arranged, life appointments.

Specifically, this week I had my first follow up appointment with my doctor since she prescribed me HRT three months ago.

This did entail some minor irritation as 1) my appointment was over half an hour late starting, despite my booking it at what I thought would be a sufficiently early time of day to avoid any such waiting times... and 2) my local pharmacist didn't have the patches I needed in stock, entailing a bus ride and further wait at the big Boots in town, whilst dodging a series of apocalyptic downpours.

Though actually these were weirdly quite enjoyable and, later, a fun source of bonding between me and the merry band of local pensioners I often get the same bus with up our comically steep hill. And with whom I took refuge at the bus stop till the risk of full body drenching had lessened somewhat.

Photo by Zach Reiner on Unsplash

These minor hassles aside though, this was a good moment. Reporting back to the GP necessarily entailed my thinking about what difference the hormones have made since I started on them – and generally, the difference has been very positive.

I feel a lot less out of control with my moods (and my nearest and dearest confirmed that they've appreciated me not flying off the handle in quite such spectacular 0-60 style). Plus my migraines have reduced substantially from 3 or 4 a month to just a couple across the past 3 months.

I feel like I've just been much more myself – and back to being able to motivate myself to start and, crucially, complete tasks without feeling like I'm walking through treacle with my brain wrapped in cotton wool.

It's perhaps no coincidence that I started regularly posting these weekly meander posts at almost the exact same time I started on the HRT.

I don't want to get ahead of myself. I know perimenopause is a long haul and we're not there yet with all my symptoms, especially my skin (I have NOT enjoyed seeing my spotty teenaged face come back out to play, only this time with added grey hair and frown lines!)

But I do feel like I'm in a much better place than I was 3 months ago. And I’m thankful to live in a time when the challenges of this stage in a woman's life are so much more openly discussed¹, not least by many wonderful writers here on Substack.

And then there was the other big date in my diary for this week – which in a neat but totally unplanned coincidence of timing also saw me feeling very thankful for my physical health when I took my son for our first ever session of bouldering.

Yep, climbing up a series of 4 metre high walls with multicoloured plastic lumps sticking out of them – without any ropes. And a danger of death, according to the insurance waivers I signed for us both. I didn't tell my son that though.

Scaling the heights!

This was meant to be something we were doing mainly for his benefit (taking him for an introductory session was one of his Christmas presents but it's taken us this long to get it booked in). But I ended up really, really enjoying it too.

The other climbers were a varied bunch of ages (and body types – it very much wasn't just muscly Ninja Warrior types as I thought it might be). It was easy to get started and with so many levels of difficulty we quickly found ourselves pushing to try and tackle climbs just above what we found comfortable – so a genuine challenge, but not in an intimidating way.

It was also a proper full body workout and completely mentally absorbing – nothing like dangling off two small hand-holds trying to work out where to put your foot to avoid falling, to send all thoughts of whatever might still be lurking on your To Do list completely out of your mind..!

The upshot then is that we're definitely planning to try and make it a regular thing. Now I just need to come to terms with the size of my bum in the photos - or at the very least encourage my son to find a more flattering angle 😁

WORK WINS THIS WEEK

As previously caveated, I didn't get a whole lot of work done this week. But it wasn't totally devoid of activity. In amongst all the other business of living, here's what I did achieve:

1. Annual review meeting with my accountant

Strictly speaking I probably don't need to have this meeting every year – my lovely accountant James² is always happy to answer all and any of the idiot and/or sensible questions I may have for him. But it's a habit I got into after my previous accountant, used by many, many folk in the British TV industry, turned out to be a criminal mastermind. Well not actually a mastermind, but certainly a criminal who was very publicly busted and sent to prison for 5 years. More on that juicy story here if you're interested: Jailed: Accountant to the stars who conned taxman of £1m

This year James and his team have set a new record for getting my company tax return prepared so early into the next tax year – for which I'm particularly grateful as I have a nice refund coming courtesy of the UK film tax credit after I finally made enough sales of my film last year to pay some of the long-overdue producing fees to my incredibly patient producer. Happy days indeed.

2. Reading & thinking about a new documentary short I'm developing

One of the new documentary idea I'm working on is inspired by a mini-memoir written by a colleague I met through my feature doc, who's since gone on to become a good friend. We've talked in broad terms about how it might work as the basis for a short doc and this week I went back and re-read it much more closely through a visual lens, starting to think about how I might bring her beautiful writing fully to life on screen and what new elements and approaches we might want to add into the mix.

The film, if it happens, will touch on a number of themes, one of which is the impact of chronic illness and hidden disability.

I'd love to read a lot more around this topic, especially first hand accounts, so if you have any recommendations for Substackers sharing their experiences in this area, please do let me know.

3. Binged the first series of ‘Vigil' on BBC iPlayer & the second series of 'The Bomb' on BBC Sounds

I don't know if I can really get away with claiming these as work wins – but what the hell, I'm going to try! My curiosity and fascination around nuclear issues remains undimmed and as such, I have an ever-growing list of cultural goodies with some nuclear connection just waiting for consumption. And this week, perhaps precisely because I felt like I wasn't doing very much else, I ended up diving headlong into two of these and devouring them in their entirety.

Neither was new – I was aware of them both when they first came out but for whatever reason didn't watch or listen to them then. Both were excellent, each in their different way grappling with deeply troubling ethical questions of how to act morally in a world that has nuclear weapons in it.

While I can't say for sure how, or even if, these will feed into definite future projects, they one hundred precent do fuel my knowledge and creativity around a topic so vast and imponderable, I feel certain I will tackle it in some way again.

And frankly, Vigil was such a bonafide edge-of-your-seat thriller, with two quite phenomenal female leads, that I'd have lapped it up even if it had nothing at all to do with nuclear. In fact, the second series falls firmly into that category, delving into drone warfare in the Middle East (please, no spoilers if you've already seen it!) So plenty still to look forward to 😀

WHAT I'M LOVING ON SUBSTACK THIS WEEK

Writing is bouldering, bouldering is writing

Yes, I admit it! I had such a great time bouldering that when I got home I started looking on Substack to see if anyone else had written about it. So I was pretty stoked to find this. With my extensive 2 hours of bouldering experience under my belt, this really resonated. Bouldering *is* anti-thinking. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much!

Haircuts and YouTube in midlife

From the pleasure of trying to climb up a wall, to the pain of sitting in a chair while someone most likely younger and cooler than you are cuts your hair - and in my case, asks if you’ve thought about a touch of colour to cover up the grey (I’m fine, thanks). I do not enjoy this experience and do it as infrequently as possible - leaving usually somewhere between 12 and 18 months between every visit. I always thought I was pretty weird in this respect. So I bloomin’ loved finding this piece from

Nelly Bryce

- and she does lovely journalling stuff too. I’m in!

Separating the Weetabix from the Chaff

Vittles is a food newsletter I was vaguely aware of, but didn’t realise lived on Substack. But now I’ve found it I can see I’m going to get a lot from it. I’ve been eating Weetabix since before I can remember, but had honestly never really given its history or the economic and global political context of its production all that much thought (though reading this, I realise I should have thought about it much more than I have, especially given that I was out manning street stalls campaigning for food sovereignty well over a decade ago - we can sometimes be so blind to the things that we see every day). I really appreciated this thoughtful piece, especially given the author’s personal connection to the story. Definitely worth a read whether you’re a Weetabix eater or not.

2.20 Filmmaker Interview with Courtney Dixon

Lastly I enjoyed listening to this interview about what sounds like a fascinating new short doc soon to premiere at Tribeca. Hopefully it will get some screenings on this side of the pond but till then I’m looking forward to checking out Courtney’s earlier doc, on narcolepsy.

And that’s it for this week!

So do let me know, who should I be reading on chronic illness and disability? Have you seen Vigil? And getting your hair cut - love it or hate it?!

Till the next time.

Proudly taking part in the Sparkle on Substack 24 essays club with Claire Venus – this is post number 9 😊

Watch my film on Netflix (in Europe) or Vimeo (everywhere else) - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE

Find me on X /Twitter & at LinkedIn

Life stories website – coming soon...

1. I still remember a conversation I had with my dad, 25 odd years ago, when he commented on my mum going bright red in the face all the time - and when I said to him, well she's going through the menopause, he replied, what's that?

2. He very kindly just subscribed to Meandering Over the Pebbles this week so if you're reading this – hi James!