Hello - So what is this blog all about, then?

Have you ever been depressed?

I don't mean have you ever been a bit down, or a bit unhappy, or peed off.

I mean, have you ever been diagnosed with clinical depression? If you have, then you have my complete sympathy. If you haven't, well . . .

In March 2017 I was diagnosed with clinical depression. I feel now, with the benefit of hindsight that it had been brewing for a long time, but had come to a head, probably through a change in work circumstances. By March 2017 I was driving to work everyday in tears, clutching the steering wheel for grim death. I was short tempered, withdrawn, and had lost interest in many things which I had always loved. I hadn't quite gone so far as making plans for suicide, but I went to bed every night hoping that I wouldn't wake up the next day. I think the only thing that stopped me, and made me go to get medical help, was the fact that I couldn't bear the thought of my daughters having to explain to my grandchildren what had happened. It was like there was a wee demon sitting on my shoulder, continually whispering to me the worst things that I'd ever thought about myself. In my own voice.

Don't worry.

That's quite a heavy paragraph to read, isn't it? It is important, though.

I went to see my GP, who immediately signed me off work for a month - which became 2 months - talked with me, and put me on a course of medication. And I have no doubt that my subsequent recovery had more to do with the medication than anything else.

However, a few weeks after my diagnosis, I made a long planned visit to Prague. I was only there for a few days, but while I was there I made over a dozen pen and ink sketches. I don't know if the process helped because essentially it meant I was taking the real world - which seemed a frightening and threatening place to me at that time - and taking control over it, reducing it so that it fit upon a page in my sketchbook. But it did help.

I've always sketched a bit. The first couple of sketches I'm going to show you were made before I was diagnosed. But I found sketching in Prague so therapeutic that I made 2 resolutions when I returned. The first was to make 100 'warts and all' sketches of the town where I've lived for over 30 years - Port Talbot. You can see these in a sister blog called 100 Faces of Port Talbot . The second resolution was to travel to European cities as often as I could, during holidays from work, and make as many sketches as I could in a few days.

So that's what's here. I don't kid myself that I've permanently rid myself of the little demon on my shoulder. I take it one day at a time, and today, I'm good. Please feel free to leave a comment about the sketches, even if it's just to tell me that you don't like them.