Weekly Meander #21: Sick days & sunshine days
Plus one decisive action I finally took this week
Hi! Thanks for joining me on this weekly meander through my week just gone as I navigate a time of personal and professional reimagining. If you’re new here, do check out this post for a bit more about me. TLDR: I'm a documentary filmmaker coming to the end of distributing my debut feature doc -about the history of nuclear power - and currently exploring/expanding into the next steps of my working adventures, whilst also navigating parenting & perimenopause. Some balls may be dropped!
You'll also find recommendations of great reads I've seen on Substack 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.
Hi friends 👋
Meet Pipin.
He's my son's favourite cuddly toy and chief bunny of Cuddlyland, a parallel realm just beyond the world occupied by you and me. He's a pretty clever little bunny actually – and he helps a lot with communicating thoughts and feelings in our family that might otherwise be too hard to express.
And when I saw this picture of him my son added as the lock screen photo on his iPad, it really did seem to perfectly capture the essence of the week I've just had. One ear drooping down, but the other one still defiantly, optimistically, pointing upwards.
Happily I've been granted permission to share Pipin’s cute, equivocal bunny ears with you in this meandering update - I hope he brings you a smile like he does me 🐰😊
All of which rabbit-related preamble is to say, this week was pretty rough in parts. Yet also really quite special in others. A real curate's egg, as the old saying goes.
In trying to get a net over it all in my mind to write this, I drew a little diagram – and since this Substack is my safe space among friends for play & experimentation, I thought, why not include it? If nothing else you'll get to see some of my pretty coloured pens in action!1
As you'll see, it was a real seesaw of highs and lows so no wonder I still feel a bit giddy remembering it. Here's what happened.
After the only unremarkable day of the week on Monday, Tuesday saw me struck down by another brutal migraine that the medication only fractionally took the edge off and which lingered on into a second day of debilitating fatigue and brain fog.
I'm still in the process with my GP of trying to nail down a dose of HRT which will deal with these crippling headaches. She seems fairly confident it's possible, but the past couple of months have seen a definite worsening after some initial improvements, so we will see. I'm choosing to remain hopeful as the HRT has made a big difference to my other symptoms. And I'm so thankful to have a doctor who is taking it seriously as I know this is very much not always a given.
Then, to compound things, that same afternoon I had a call from nursery to collect my daughter as she was running a high temperature (she'd been a bit poorly on the Sunday & Monday – suspected culprit: softplay germs – and we thought she'd recovered ok by the Tuesday but clearly not completely). Thankfully my partner was working at home so he could go and get her whilst I huddled in my darkened migraine cave (bedroom).
She actually didn't seem very poorly at all once she got home – just maybe a wee bit quieter and less energetic than usual – but two days later on Thursday, I in turn felt incredibly unwell, taking to bed with what I guess was the same virus she'd had.
Mercifully it was only a 24 hour thing as I felt truly dreadful. But this too proved to be a cause for gratitude as kind friends stepped in to pick up the slack of school & nursery pickups, as this time my partner wasn’t around to do it (if you’re reading this, you know who you are 😘)
So there was a lot of feeling physically rubbish and mentally rather sorry for myself this week.
But also, there were some really lovely moments to cherish in there too – they're the up arrows on my diagram.
Firstly, on Wednesday, my daughter and I ventured out into the woods to sample the 'Whispering Trees Trail' that appeared there a few weeks ago – with delightful audio recordings personifying 15 different varieties of trees all growing in what’s really only a small patch of woodland tucked into the side of the very steep hill we live on. I wrote a note about it on the day with some pics:
Then Friday rolled around – and the sun was out! I can still hardly believe it but this was my last ever mummy-daughter Friday with just me and my little pandemic baby – from next week my son will be off school for the summer holidays and then in short order after that she'll be starting at school herself.
So we'd wanted to do something special to mark it. And boy, did we do that.
We are incredibly fortunate to live just a short hop on the bus away from a gloriously restored, original 1930s Art Deco lido, the only grade II* listed coastal lido in the country in fact.
When we moved down to Brighton, the lido was derelict and plans had been announced to demolish the pool and (you guessed it) develop the site into flats. But thankfully a campaign was in full swing to save and restore it – I still have the calendar we bought that year as part of the fundraising campaign.
Fast forward to 2024 and Saltdean Lido is back, baby. There are two (heated!) pools, the main pool with lanes for swimming and then a smaller splash pool for kids with a beach area and copious fountains. And in the beautifully restored Deco buildings, there's a cafe and fine dining space, a gym, co-working space (I'm quite attracted by this), and now even the newly rehoused local branch of the public library.2
In the blazing Sussex summer sunshine, we whiled away the hours in both pools and made some truly special memories.
And then on Saturday I took my son to see the touring version of the wildly popular madcap comedy stage adaptation of Hitchcock's The 39 Steps at the Theatre Royal Brighton – a real treat we'd booked a long time ago. It was an absolute riot. And pushed all thoughts of migraines and viruses into a dusty corner.
WORK WINS THIS WEEK
One thing you'll see is notably absent on my little diagram above – with the exception of Monday when I was mostly writing about the previous week – is work.
But I did do a couple of small things which I'm gonna cheer myself for here.
1. Finally purchased domains for new life stories business
I'm embarrassed that this has taken me so very, very long – I've been stuck in a kind of paralysis for months, terrified of not choosing the 'right' name. But without a domain I can't build a website and I feel like I need the website to start to turn my ideas for this new venture into anything concrete (this probably isn't really true either, though that's a conversation for another time...)
And so I've finally bitten the bullet – I've got a domain for the business itself and also purchased my own name to build a personal page to direct people to my film stuff, business stuff, to Substack etc, all from a central hub. I know it's a tiny step in the big scheme of things, but it's one I've procrastinated over taking for such a long time that I want to give myself a pat on the bat for getting it done AT LAST.
2. Susannah Conway's Biz Love Up 2024
was the one who first inspired me to come over to Substack, as a result of taking one of her business courses last year. If you don't know her, she's a heart-led writer and course creator with a gorgeous, calming spirit and last week she invited people to spend five days gently connecting with their business/business idea through a series of inward-focused exercises, with visualisations, worksheets and journaling prompts.It felt like it came at a perfect time when I was wanting to make some progress with my life stories business idea, but also when my capacity was very diminished due to the physical symptoms I was dealing with. I've not completed all of it yet but Susannah's promise that it would feel like a “soft shawl of encouragement around your shoulders” has certainly been realised so far.
WHAT I'M LOVING ON SUBSTACK THIS WEEK
I really enjoyed this deep dive into one of those movies I feel I ought to have seen but somehow haven't. But I’m definitely going to seek it out now. As someone whose work has definitely at times been what I think you might reasonably call ‘journalism-adjacent’ (!), this bit raised a definite smile:
Let me say for the record: God bless metro reporters.
But the job is strictly for maniacs who love punctuation and sensitive souls with authority problems. Journalism is not sexy. Necessary but not sexy. It’s like being a sanitation worker, only you’re up to your waist in lies.
I loved everything about this piece - the fascinating central character, the sense of time and place, the thought-provoking questions it raises, the way
takes us on the journey she herself went on in researching it. Sit down and take your time with this one - and do watch the film if you get the chance, it’ll be 10 minutes of your time very well spent.To finish, here’s a fun and gently provocative piece posing the question, would you rather be 18 or 82 years old? I know how I’d answer - but how about you? Do let me (and
) know!And that’s all for this week’s meander. I’ll see you all again next week - and then I may take a bit of a pause over the school summer break when my schedule’s going to be all up in the air (in a good way). I’ve not completely decided yet but I’ve got a few ideas for other good things I can drop into your inboxes while I’m off day tripping and holidaying with the kids - so stay tuned…
In the meantime, have a good week and I hope at least one of your bunny ears stays pointing upwards for the duration.
Love and thanks as always,
Vicki x
Proudly taking part in the Sparkle on Substack 24 essays club – this is post number 16.
Watch my film on Netflix (in Europe) or Vimeo (everywhere else) - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE
Life stories website – coming soon...
Also my handwriting but I think the less said about that the better...!
The photo above was taken after the restoration of the two pools but before the restored building was fully open, hence the hoardings
Thank you so much for the mention, Vicki! My piece on Rolanda Polonsky was my very first on Substack. I felt a pull, as if I simply had to tell her story. I’m glad you watched the short BFI film, too. Profound insight into the art she created within the walls of that psychiatric hospital.
So glad to have found you here.
Re HRT, have you tried combined patches? I struggled a lot with headaches, but everything settled down once I switched to those.
Ugh, germs! Poor you and poor little 'un. And Pipin is adorable.
I've heard great things about the Saltdean Lido - my folks told me last week that they'd been - not to swim, but for lunch!