I took this photo of the Azure Window on Gozo in October 2015.  Now it is gone - severe storms destroyed it.

Whilst visiting I bought some painted pebbles for gifts from woman who sold them to raise funds to feed the island's ferral cats.  The one I kept - which now seems all the more precious - depicts the Azure Window with a beautiful clear sky and a mill pond sea.

Nature is beautiful and fragile, and wild and destructive.

I think of those who made their living on that beach, selling nick-nacks and the like, and wonder what the future holds for them (and the cats) now.

I'm not sure when International Women's Day became a 'thing' but clearly it now is, with hashtags and everything!

This morning, as other people have been identify women they consider inspiring, I've thought very briefly about some of the women who pioneered in the two areas of my adult life... nuclear physics/engineering and ordained ministry.

Marie Curie, discoverer or co-discoverer of assorted radioactive elements, physicist, wife, mother seems to have maintained a benevolent and philanthropic approach through her life.  It is fitting that she, and her husband, are honoured with having a unit (the Curie, Ci)  and an element (Curium) named after them, and also that her name is linked with work on oncology and, in the UK, care of terminally ill people.  Whatever your views on all things radioactive and nuclear, Marie Curie was certainly a pioneering woman whose aims were, so far as I can ascertain, peaceable.

Violet Hedger is not a well known name unless you are a Baptist.  She was the first woman who trained for Baptist ministry at Regent's Park College.  She must have been one determined person because her story is full of obstacles overcome at a time when women had virtually no rights and no voice.  Her name, along with that of Edith Gates, another pioneering woman Baptist minister, form a mantra that I recite to myself on days when the going is tough and attitudes towards women in ministry are ungracious.

There are plenty of other women upon whose shoulders I am privileged to stand, most of whose names I will never know, but today I choose to honour Marie, Violet and Edith, three women whose courage and tenacity I really admire.

Choosing hymns for Sunday, I usually look at various versions to see what the editors have done to them.  For one of them I discovered this verse, which I cannot recall every having seen, let alone sung.  Do you recognise it?

Preserve me from my calling's snare,
And hide my simple heart above,
Above the thorns of choking care,
The gilded baits of worldy love.

I'm not going to use this verse but, actually, it fits quite well with where I'm going with the sermon!!

A couple of weeks back, I posted here about my experience of the horrid menopausal symptoms and the fact that my GP had prescribed low dose antidepressants to help with this.  I have hummed and hawed quite a lot about posting again on this topic, mostly because thus far I am having a less than pleasant time with the new drugs (according to my GP I am just one of those people who gets a lot of side effects) and also because I was warned it could take a couple of weeks for the initial effects to wear off and that I might feel worse before I felt better...

So, the good bits... no more Ms 'Mardy Cow', irritable, grumpy and not nice to be around, and no more being awake most of the night.  I'd like to say no more night sweats and flushes but, after an initial improvement they've come back with a vengeance (this drug can cause as well as alleviate them!)

The not so good bits... for the first few days, I was very nauseous and experienced some flu-like symptoms: shivers, headaches (I NEVER get headaches) and general bleurghness.  Thankfully that soon passed. I had a week of no appetite followed by a week of permanent hunger, that too seems to have settled down.

However other side effects continue and show no sign of 'attenuating' (the technical term, evidently) as I near a month of swallowing the pills...

Not being grumpy is good, but not feeling anything much is not: comedy doesn't make laugh, sad things don't make me sad, and most strikingly, my natural joy, awe and wonder have upped and left... Beautiful sunset, full moon, lovely flowers, cute kitten: so what... Not liking that at all!  Except I can't even not like...  it's very wierd!

Sleeping better seemed great, until I found myself falling asleep at the drop of a hat, easily sleeping as much as 12 hours a day and never feeling refreshed or awake.  Lethargy looms large and it's only because I am someone with huge self-motivation, and that I have regular commitments, that I get on and do anything at all... it would be so easy to turn into a blob.

Physically, I am as ever side effect prone... dry mouth (I'm getting through two glasses of water on a Sunday morning just to keep going), grinding teeth and some strange facial muscle twitches.

Intellectually my concentration - which I was finally starting to feel had recovered - is impaired and I'm more forgetful again.

So, what have I learned thus far...

I had no clue about the impact of antidepressants on daily life, and now can glimpse just a bit of how hard life can be for someone with depression when the drugs can do this to you.  This is, I think, a good thing, it will give me greater understanding and empathy longer term.

I am due to see my GP later this week for the one month review and I'm really not sure about carrying on with this drug, even though I don't want to go back to being Ms Mardy Cow.  Suggestions from others, who know far better than me, are that the current dose may be too high or too low, or that there may be an alternative drug that is 'cleaner'.

In the meantime, it's practically impossible to annoy me, so feel free to make the most of it! ;-)

My free weekend has seen me getting back to the decluttering exercise, sorting and giving away most of my sheet music and my recorders, rearranging my living room so that it is no longer buried under boxes of stuff waiting to be sorted or disposed of, and then this afternoon, sorting through my tool boxes, etc. to identify which things I actually might use and which would be far better going off overseas with TWAM.

What has surprised me, and continues to surprise me, is how liberating it feels to have less 'stuff'... along with a kind of 'eek, just how much did I spend on all this over the years?'

Whilst it's slightly odd to recognise that my days of car mechanicing or recorder playing or dressmaking or whatever are now past, it stirs many happy memories of the rich and diverse experiences I have enjoyed in my adult life.

Quite a bit more cullling, clearing, donating and chucking still needed but I think I will actually like this leaner, cleaner lifestyle once I get there!