There are days when mustering up the confidence to go out solo into the big city alludes me.  Today is one such day.  I really want to go out to The Shanghai Botanic Gardens to see the mass plantings of peonies before they go over – I enjoyed them so much when we discovered them in Beijing in May two years ago that I know I shall kick myself if I miss the chance to repeat the experience in Shanghai.  But somehow I just can’t get myself to go outside the front door of our apartment at the moment.  We’ve had a difficult few weeks with Richard out a lot with work, coming home from work often after 9pm and at the end of this week we shall be back in the UK for a fortnight – dashing round seeing loads of friends and family and getting various things seen to.  The pace of life for Richard is so much faster than it was for him in the UK – China’s business world is operating on steroids and if you can’t keep up, you will get eaten up by your competitors and he is often working late or out with customers or colleagues for evening meals.  At the weekends he is still fizzing.  Whilst I have never really been able to keep up with Richard, I’ve been even slower since my breast cancer and I cannot keep up with his now frenetic pace at the weekend so we both find ourselves at odds.

With two children on the other side of the world who have both been encouraged for years to be as independent as possible I have been suffering from empty-nest syndrome.  They are so independent in fact that they often don’t respond to several of my messages in a row.

In the midst of all this I stupidly started reworking a business idea that I’d had some time ago and ended up not going out and about in Shanghai, which normally not only gives me new things to see, think and write about, but also makes me walk at least 3 miles a day which keeps me fit and helps me sleep at night.  I’ve got a back-log of stories to tell you all about and yet I stupidly starting working up a business idea that can only be done in the UK and can’t be done here in China. It also kept me awake at night getting excited about it.  Which is all very very stupid really, especially as I have no idea in reality when I will be able, if ever, to get such a thing off the ground.  And when reality hit me that none of this was very sensible, that I was wasting my time and not doing what has actually been very good for me I could feel Churchill’s black dog running around behind me as I crashed down in mood.

I’m lucky in that I can sense when the black dog is trying to come and say hello.  And ever since it first happened to me as a teenager I have never really let it get a lick in.  When I sense its presence I usually get my act together and change something about my life before it has got close enough to jump on my back.  The plan to go out and about and write about Shanghai when we moved here in January was my plan to make sure that the black dog did not get a chance to clamber up on me.  And it has been very successful so far.  People have asked me if I’m going to learn Mandarin whilst I am here, but my answer has always been that I’m only here for a year and so I don’t want to the miss the opportunity of seeing all that Shanghai has to offer.  If I had decided to learn Mandarin instead I would be stuck inside all day learning impossible characters and sounds and I believe that that would be a waste of the opportunity I have been given, but also it would not be good for me as I would rapidly spiral down in mood.

And sitting inside all day for me, a shy extrovert who can swing easily swing into introversion –  a difficult combination, believe me – is not good.  So I’m going to sit down now and do some mindfulness training in an attempt to reset my brain so that I can get out of my home and go and do what is good for me.

Mindfulness as a technique was introduced to me whilst I was being treated for breast cancer, although the National Childbirth Trust introduced me to the same technique, without actually calling it mindfulness, and I used it very successfully in labour with my first child.  Both my husband and daughter can easily put their minds in neutral – what are you thinking about? Nothing.  I can never think about nothing.  For me, with a constant stream of neurons firing off in my brain, mindfulness is the only way I can get my brain close to being in neutral, in which I force myself to think only about my breathing.  The trouble is, I know it is beneficial to practise this every day, but I only remember to do it, eventually, when I get myself in a tizzy.

I’ve had my 15 minutes of mindfulness and now I have done it I am much calmer and less scared that the black dog will climb up on my back.  In fact my sense of him is already fading. The less scared I am of his presence, the more he fades.  It is the fear of him jumping on my back that makes him so vivid, so crippling and most likely to get a hold.

I now feel capable of opening that door and going out alone into the city to see what I can find to amuse me.  Why is it so difficult to recognise what is happening and grasp the solution that I know will work?

I won’t get as far as the Botanical Gardens now as it is too late, but I shall go tomorrow, if there weather is fine.

Poodle having his booties put on

Same treatment for the lady’s other dog

I’m back now and whilst I was out, I found my dogs, although none of them were black.  Their owner was having coffee with a friend and was putting booties on all of their eight paws.  They and the dogs’ mate had all been given similar treatment of clothes and booties, even though it’s 21°C at the moment:

A dog coat Shanghai-style

The smallest of the three dogs

Walkies! (and carry)

Dog in pram

When we were in Taiwan last summer we noticed a lot of toy dogs being pushed around in doll-sized prams and being carried in shopping bags.  We have only seen one dog pram so far in Shanghai, but give it time…..

A couple of weeks ago I walked past a large crowd of people standing watching a sheep dog being thrown a ball.  Every time it caught the ball – which it always did, even if having to jump up for it – the dog got a huge round of applause.  The people of Shanghai seem to have lost track completely of what in my opinion dogs are all about.