Incidentally, I am not actually a Play Therapist. I am a Play Therapist in training. Actually I am a Therapeutic Play Practitioner in training. Next year I will be a Play Therapist in training. It is all very complicated.

Play therapy is, as you may have guessed, therapy through play. Generally it is aimed at children usually under 11, although there are play therapists who work with teenagers and even adults. It works largely within metaphors through the play resources and thus with the subconscious. The primary aim is to give the child the space to sort things out for themselves. It is hard sometimes to explain how it works, but the evidence is that it does. I have currently done about 20 sessions myself and my feeling is that the power in what I am doing is largely behind the fact that the child gets 40 minutes a week with someone where they are able to do whatever they want, where there are no judgements (good or bad), where no one is telling them what to do or how to do it…. where they can just be. A child can sit in silence for 40 minutes if that is what they need (though I will admit that I am thankful that none of my 3 children have done so yet, as it would be a challenge to sit with someone in silence for 40 minutes and remain with them mentally rather than think about my own problems). This is an incredibly powerful thing as when you think about it, most children (and probably most adults) spend a large proportion of their life doing what they have been told to do and being judged for it in some way or another.

It really is an incredible thing and I am so very proud to be a part of it, to be a part of making a difference in these children’s lives.

However, it is not without its difficulties. I am having to learn to try to put these children aside in my mind after their sessions and this is difficult for me. I am an obsessive sort of person, I always have been, but it is finally beginning to exhaust me. This is not helped by the fact that I am a Play Therapist on Mondays and then between Tuesday and Friday I squeeze in 40 hours of work as a Deputy Manager of a Day Nursery. I work very closely with children who have equal difficulties to those that I work with as a therapist and that is a lot for my mind to cope with. It saddens me that there are so many young children out there with such deep emotional difficulties. I would like to take all those worries and struggles away from them but instead I must help them find ways to manage them, to cope with them themselves because I cannot fix their lives.

I am finding ways to clear my mind, to relax (I am not a relaxed sort of person) and to use my free time in a way that regenerates me.

Unfortunately this week I have a cold, and having just worked around 48 hours this week I am extraordinarily exhausted and I feel that I will never feel awake again.

My husband has made me an origami butterfly and I am hopeful that will make everything well.

There are many reasons behind my love of Winnie the Pooh. I am of course referring to the books by A.A.Milne and not the travesty that is the Disney version. I am not convinced that Winnie the Pooh can ever be fully portrayed on the screen because it is the words that make it so magical – the vision is to be imagined.

Pooh is a wonderfully loveable character intended to amuse readers with his simple thoughts and antics. However, on closer look the reader will realise that he is not at all ‘simple’, he is in fact incredibly wise (as are most of the characters).

We could learn a lot from his eternal optimism and love for those that are close to him and in his faith that every day will be a good day. It is very easy to get caught up in worries and concerns about the future – both short and long term, to forget to assure those that we love that they are loved and to start a day convinced that it will not go well.

Good things happen every day, no matter how small they might be, but they often go unnoticed, overshadowed by the things that we perceive as ‘bad’. We all have people in our lives that we love in some way or another but it is up to us to make sure that they know how important they are to us.

“What day is it?”
It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
My favourite day,” said Pooh.”  

Pooh is right, we should embrace each day as our favourite day but in doing so we must embrace what we consider to be negative. We must embrace what we are worried and concerned about because that is as much a part of our lives and who we are as what we might think of as good. This article from The Guardian shows us how by constantly chasing security and safety we are actually increasing the risk in our lives. We can choose to stay inside but the increased risk of heart disease as a result is far higher than the risk of something happening to us when we are outside.

I am an insecure person in many ways, I worry constantly about seemingly tiny elements of my life. I worry that I am not good enough, that I am not thoughtful enough, that I am not helpful enough…. but perhaps I need to embrace those elements of myself rather than constantly feeling as though I am in battle with them.

I have three fish. They are Eberhard, Earl of Ergemont, Professor Jeramiah Esq., and Dame Penelope (or it might be Lady…. or maybe Lady Dame… who knows).

The rain today is cold. I don’t mind rain and I don’t mind the cold but cold rain is just plain annoying. My house is also cold, but that could be because I haven’t put the heating on. However there is no rain in the house which is definitely a bonus.

Aside from 4 hours of training tomorrow (for some of which I am the trainer rather than the trainee which is slightly daunting) I have finished work until the 8th of January. This is wonderful news.

I have been seeing one child on my Play Therapy placement for 10 weeks and I have been informed by the Head that he is ‘like a different child’. This is also wonderful news because I wasn’t too sure if I was actually doing anything useful. Apparently I am. I will be seeing 3 children after Christmas.

I do not know what to have for dinner because I have been eating party food on and off for most of the day and now my stomach feels a little bit of something along the lines of bleeeeuuurgh.

I have a large amount of Christmas presents left to buy. I have wrapped none. I have written cards but they are not in envelopes and I’m not entirely convinced that we have any stamps in order for them to be posted. They are however the first cards written as Husband and Wife. That is quite nice. It is also quite nice receiving cards addressed to Mr and Mrs (they do have our surname after that, we are not simply known as Mr and Mrs, though we are THE Mr and Mrs). However someone I work with did ask why I hadn’t signed the card that I gave them from Ben as well as me. I said that he didn’t really know her. I have never understood why people sign Christmas cards from all members of the family even if the other members of the family don’t know them. It seems odd to me. But perhaps I am the one that is odd.

We sat down to watch Mission Impossible 4 yesterday. I was reasonably looking forward to it because I hadn’t seen it. But then it started and it turned out that I had seen it. This was annoying.

I will decorate my mothers Christmas Tree tomorrow and also make the Christmas Pudding. This is good.

The Lions Club just bought a pretend reindeer down the street on the back of a truck with Father Christmas (yes the REAL one) walking beside him while beautiful Christmas songs played. They knock on everyone’s doors and charmingly hold out their money-collecting-pots for you to put some money in. And of course I did because it was all so beautiful. Particularly the pretend reindeer. But mainly the Christmas songs filling up the street. I would personally advocate there being permanent music playing in the street. Only if I can choose the songs though. It is certainly a good way to get money off people.

Delightful December #7

I love to sing. My voice is not the best in the world, in fact, I am sure that it can be downright awful at times. But I prefer to ignore this and sing all day long.

I make up songs about what I am doing….

‘I’m making some dinner for my husband, I’m making some dinner for my husband, because he is hungry and he needs some dinner…. yeeeeaaaah’ (my most regular songs are husband themed)

‘I’m cleaning the house, I’m finding a mouse, but I hope that I don’t and I’m sure that I won’t because miiiiiccce aaaaaare scaaaaaary’. (I just made that one up right now believe it or not. I am totally going to sing that on Saturday when I do that housework that I have been meaning to do for quite some time….)

I sing the same few lines of whatever song is stuck in my head repeatedly throughout the day. At the moment they are all Christmas themed, my favourites being Winter Wonderland and Away in a Manger (I know ALL the verses to this… there are surprisingly many).

When I find a song that I love I listen to it over and over and over again (I feel sorry for my neighbours sometimes….) until I know the words off by heart. Most recently this has been Cough Syrup by Young the Giant and One Day Like This by Elbow.

One Day Like This is my current theme tune (yes, I have theme tunes). I heard it for the first time during the closing ceremony for the Olympics where it was sung while all the athletes walked into the stadium. This was incredibly emotional for me (although I had also cried to an X Factor audition that same day so perhaps I was feeling slightly hormonal….). It was something about the power behind the fact that all these people from all the world’s nations were coming together in one room. It made me want to fight for world peace. Of course, I didn’t actually do any fighting for world peace but what I did do was download the song and ingrain the lyrics on my brain. Listening to it gives me an incredible feeling of joy and happiness in who I am and in my life.

‘Cause holy cow, I love  your eyes
And only  now I see you like
Yeah, lying with me half awake
Stumbling over what to say
Well, anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day
So throw those  curtains wide!
One day  like this a year’d see me right

Delightful December #6

Insipired by @BohemianLotus and this post

As many of you may be aware tea is the national drink of England (Disclaimer: I have no idea if that is officially the case but I am saying that it is and therefore it is). It is drunk hot, with milk (and occasionally sugar) and most commonly at around 3pm. I actually do not do this terribly often, in fact I mostly drink tea on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at around 7.45 am and then again at 10.30 (very specific, I know). However, if asked I would say tea should be drunk at 3pm precisely, (hence the term ‘afternoon tea’).

Making the perfect cup of tea is a difficult procedure. Everyone has slightly differing opinions on what is ‘perfect’ and there are so many questions to consider….

….. made in the cup or made in a pot?

….. which kind of tea? leaf tea, tea bags, and which brand?

….. how much milk? none, a drop, a splash, half a cup?

….. how strong? a vague taste of tea, a medium taste of tea or a strong taste of tea?

…. how much sugar? none, 1/2 a spoonful, 1 spoonful, 1 1/2 spoonfuls, 2 spoonfuls?

….. what kind of cup to have it in? (you may wish to read this post for more information on that) The traditional cup is of course a teacup such as this….

 … but it is now considered perfectly acceptable to use a mug, unless of course the Queen is visiting. You cannot give the Queen a mug.

I will take you through how to make the best cup of tea in my eyes (which are the best eyes when it comes to tea).

I choose to make it in the cup. I have no issues with making it in a teapot but it is certainly easier in the cup.

You will need: a suitable cup for your tea drinking needs, a tea spoon, a tea bag, boiling water, milk

Instructions:

1) Place the tea bag into the cup

2) Pour the water from the kettle into the cup as soon as it is boiled. I like to ensure the water is hitting the teabag as it lands in the cup because it looks nice.

3) I often leave it for a minute ‘brewing’ and then I use the spoon to stir the water, squeezing the tea bag against the edge as I do to ensure there is a nice strong taste of tea (I see no point in tea that tastes like water, you may as well drink water).

4) Before removing the tea bag I carefully tip the milk bottle to pour an ever so tiny droplet of milk into the cup (I do not want my tea to taste like milk either, you may as well just drink milk) which takes the edge of the bitterness.

5) Stir one more time, squeezing the tea bag against the side again then removing it from the cup and placing it in the bin.

6) The tea is now ready to be taken to the place you wish to sit and placed somewhere nearby while it cools to the perfect temperature ready to be drunk.

7) Dipping biscuits (cookies) into the tea is also pretty scrummy.

Choosing your tea:

There are now many types of tea. I personally use teabags rather than leaf tea because it seems like less work (I am very lazy). I only choose teabags that have just tea in them, but I have no preference of which brand. My Husband likes Yorkshire Tea so that is what we have…

… there are also other kinds of tea such as Earl Grey which many people love, however they have other ingredients (bergamot in Earl Grey’s case) giving it a flavour other than tea. I just like my tea to taste of tea.

How do you like YOUR tea?

Delightful December #5

One of the (many) advantages of living in England is that you never quite know what the weather is going to be. We can fit many different temperatures and weathers all in to one day and many more in to one season.

This leads to one of the (many) things that makes us great – our eternal faith that we have in the consistency of our country. Despite the fact that our nation’s weather is completely unreliable we are still convinced that actually it happens the same way every year and persist in being surprised at what comes. We take what happened once, probably last year, and decide that actually it happens EVERY year and are incredibly shocked when it doesn’t.

‘it’s May, why is it raining? it usually rains in APRIL!!’

‘it is unusually warm for the time of the year, last year it was much colder on this day – look, I have it recorded on my daily weather diary’ (Disclaimer: that is not a direct quote from me. I do NOT have a weather diary)

I love our weather. I love the fact that there are approximately 8 weeks of summer a year but you NEVER know when they are going to happen (though you can usually guarantee most of it won’t be actually in summer). It is always a surprise which means you never know what to wear because you can’t base your clothing choices on the weather or temperature of the day before. This can of course be a mild annoyance when you find yourself on a hot sunny day wearing 12 layers of clothing or out in the middle of a torrential downpour wearing nothing remotely waterproof… but we won’t dwell on that.

I am very glad that it is ‘typically’ (by someone’s definition of typical…) wintery at the moment which is good because I get to wear my hat. It is very annoying when you have to wear a woollen hat in warm weather just because I bought a hat so I must wear the hat. But in our true British style we continue to express our amazement at the coldness in winterno less and remark daily on the fact ‘that it is just so cold outside!‘ but that is why we (and I) are awesome.

Disclaimer: If any of the following apply to you…. 1) you are not English, 2) you are not me, 3) you not regularly remark on the weather, 4) you haven’t got a cool hat…… I am in no way saying that you cannot be classed as awesome. I’m sure you can, but you really should get a hat.

Delightful December #4

On the 28th April 2012 I married my Ben. It was one of the best days of my life so far. Becoming his wife and having everyone that I love (and that he loves) all together in one room to celebrate with us was incredible. Whilst the planning of this day had driven me half insane and I would never EVER plan anything on that scale ever again, the results were worth it. We had a fairly relaxed wedding, which had next to no organisation on the day… it was pretty much along the lines of ‘shall we do the toasts now… I don’t mind, whenever you like… should we tell everyone we are doing that or just start talking and hope they listen…‘. But as I tell everyone, that lack of organisation is very representative of our personality’s. The whole day was fun, it was the complete opposite of formal and designed for us to enjoy ourselves – which we did (Though my husband wishes that he danced more rather than talking to people. I just ignored all the people that weren’t dancing and just waved my arms and legs around like a crazy person).

We got married in a church, and though it was an Anglo-Catholic church we had possibly the most relaxed Reverend in the world which suited us down the ground as it meant we could have Footloose and Tiger Feet playing while we signed the register and one of the readings could be Us Two by A.A.Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh). One of the best moments was during the last hymn when we were facing the minister and she was making up the words because she didn’t know them causing us to laugh through most of the singing.

And we had our own thrones!

Our amazing cake made by my brother’s fiancé

We had a Christmas Tree for people to hang messages on…

And a very yummy hog roast (which we had to queue for outside in the cold wind and rain)…

There was a bouncy castle which was greatly enjoyed despite the fact that it rained all day…

And then there was the dancing…

Plus also, I had a CAPE!

 It was a Wonderful Day.  

Oh and there was haribo! Which I felt should be mentioned since it is in my username and the world is definitely a much happier place due to the existence of haribo.

Delightful December #3 (Disclaimer: Please don’t think that these posts are in order of my love. I completely do NOT love Post Offices more than my husband, I swear. And I’m not just saying that because he reads this)

I met my husband on 27th November 2009 at a mutual friend’s birthday meal (incidentally, both of us nearly didn’t go to this but then decided that we should and thus met each other. It was fate! aaawww). (Please note: He was of course not my husband at this point, it would be pretty weird to meet your husband after you had married him)

This was the night that we met. He was clearly very pleased to be sat next to such an attractive woman. We proceeded to bond over a lengthy discussion about cuttlefish and also Giant Jellyfish and Giant Squid (seriously, they all blow my MIND). We then spent the next 1.5 years in blissful happiness shown briefly in the photos below….

A trip to Wales where there is a really small house….

Some Part-ay-ing….

A 150 mile journey (I think… it might be more and it might be less, but it was definitely a looooong way) on a motorbike…

Some eating….

Some posing…

(I do the posing, Ben takes the pictures, that’s just the way we roll….)

and various other events until on May 14th 2011 he proposed to me and I said yes. There was then another year filled with more events  (shown below) intertwined with the planning of a wedding (which I am very glad that I never have to do again. I am not the planning sort)

My graduation….

A holiday in Bath in a tall thin house…

2 hen parties….

And then finally our wedding (which is the next blog).

My Ben is the most fantastic husband in the world and I love him more than anything (even post offices and stationary), except possibly my family, but then he is a huge part of my family so loving my family equates to loving him anyway. He knows me better than anyone which unfortunately for him means he has to put up with a greater amount of the more insane parts of my personality than other people, but luckily for me he loves me despite all those (or because of those, at least that is what I tell myself). He is definitely a reason to be happy in December and indeed any other month of the year. 

Delightful December #2

I have a secret (though it isn’t much of a secret) love of post (you may prefer to refer to it as ‘mail’, though you would of course be wrong) and of Post Offices. My current favourite Post Office is Arundel Post Office….

This is me pointing with great glee-ment into the door of Arundel Post Office. And if you zoom out, it looks like this….

… this is possibly the best building that a Post Office has ever resided in. I think you will now understand the joy I experience when I come to Arundel to see the Post Office. If you ever come to England to see the Post Offices, I would certainly recommend that Arundel be your first stop.

 Incidentally it does have some other attractions such as this castle…

Another great place to go is the city of Bath. Their Post Office is not particularly wonderful looking on the outside, but inside it has a POSTAL MUSEUM. That is right, a museum about post inside a post office. It is a pretty incredible place to go.

The enjoyment of this museum causes me to make faces such as this…

which causes my husband to make faces such as this…

While you are in Bath you may also wish to visit places such as….

The Ancient Roman Baths….

The Jane Austen Museum….

The river…. (you can go on a boat trip down this river, though they do lure you on to this with the promise that you might see a kingfisher. I did not see a kingfisher.)

Bath is also a good place for a stationary hunt, but you will have to wait for another post about that love of mine.

Delightful December #1

… approximately 3 years ago ‘TheMarriedFreshman’ initiated the use of the word ‘Claire-some’ to replace awesome. This prompted me to create this post about awesomeness in which every time I used the word ‘awesome’ I linked it to a Xangan who I considered to be awesome. Re-reading it leaves me with a sense of happiness at the memorys but also sadness as I realise that many of those Xangan’s have either closed down their sites or stopped posting in my 3 year absence….

AnamcharaConcepts, MomGoneMadd, EsotericTheaterLover, Fairywife, shatterFocus, the_fur_pimp, TheBigShowAtUD

It makes me sad not to know what happened to them, why they left or why they stopped posting. But I can hope that it was all for good reasons.

However, I am also pleased to find that many of my favourite Xangan’s still continue and that I have been able to pick up where I left off with most of those people. In that light I feel the need to repost parts of my post about being awesome because it is important that we all realise our own worth. It makes me sad to know how many people don’t and I wish that I could find a way to make everyone realise what makes them wonderful and unique.

Now, as many of you may know (and some of you may not yet realise), I am in fact, awesome. So much so that three years ago Xanga’s favourite Married Freshman put to me that the word awesome should be replaced with ‘claire-some’. In response to this I rather modestly insisted that I am not at all awesome, not when you look at all the other wonderfully amazing people in the world… oh…. wait… that was a different person. I actually liked the idea so much that I decided to write an entire post in reference to my own awesomeness Or should I say… Claire-someness.
We all have different ideas of what can be defined as awesome. What do you picture when you hear that phrase?

       

We all have something that makes us as awesome as all of those images. The strength of our character, the depth with which we love, the intelligence of our thoughts and ideas, the power with which we fight for what we want or what we need, our faith, our ideals, our talents, our beauty, our joys.
To learn to love yourself is to learn to realise your own awesomeness

Take some time to look at yourself, and all the things that make you who you are. All the things that make you beautiful, wonderful and awesome. Don’t focus on the negative. Yes, you may have a bit too much weight around the middle, you may get angry too quickly, you may find it difficult to trust others, you may find it difficult to keep friends, you may find it difficult to study. But that is not all that you are. That is not what defines you. And seen in a different light all of those things can be turned into positive things. You just have to try. Look at yourself through someone else’s eyes.

 
You are awesome. Just look.

Disclaimer: If you have read this and not been linked it is not because you are not awesome, you are full of awesomeness and I would very much like to get to know you to find out how amazing you really are.

@myxldove @garistotle, @persiankitty, @Fairywife, @shatterfocus, @the_fur_pimp, @karoline1982, @kidzandk9z, @mellibella, @randaness, @randomneuralfindings, @sarahfus, @SimplyNita, @SUMRdaisy, @thegirlwiththecamera, @TheMarriedFreshman, @TheTheologiansCafe