Morning!
I can't look at you, I've got to look out there,
Yeah, keep your eye on the road.
because we're in Jeeeeeeep!
Jeeeeeeep!
Seven E's by the way.
Everybody keep saying, what are you calling your jeep
and that's what it's called, it's called Jeeeeeeep!
[Laughs]
Hello, good morning and welcome
to the A9
on the northeast coast of Highland Scotland.
It's part of the NC500, the North Coast 500 route
and just on our left-hand side, on our left-hand side,
is Glen Loth,
do you remember that's where we started the vlog from last week.
Beautiful place.
It is really nice and there's a small river called a Burn,
it's called Loth Burn and it runs through Glen Loth,
it goes under the A9 where we are now,
it goes under the Far North Railway,
under a lovely bridge, remember we showed you that last week as well
and it flows out at Lothbeg Point into the North Sea
and there's something a bit special about Lothbeg Point, because there's a beach there,
called Crackaig Beach.
Your favourite beach.
And it is my favourite beach, you can probably guess why.
But that's not why we go in today.
No.
We'll tell you why in a sec.
[Music playing]
And here we are.
On Crackaig Beach.
Crackaig Beach,
which is near Helmsdale on the northeast coast of Scotland in Sutherland.
It's very very quiet here
It's cold today as well.
and it is a bit chilly.
It is a designated nudist beach which is why [Laughs],
which is why it's one of my particular favourites
and it's not far from where we live
and it's the furthest north nudist beach on mainland Britain
And it's cold!
And it is quite chilly which is why we've got, well one of the reasons why we've got clothes on,
because there's a chilly easterly wind coming off
the chilly North Sea it's about 10ºc
and we know you wouldn't appreciate, like, the kind of buff theme.
You don't want to see me.
I get comments you know.
Do you?
Yeah.
We'll leave that there shall we?
So why have we brought you to Crackaig Beach?
Well it's not to show you my crack... aig.
[Laughing loudly]
You can't say that!
I've been waiting to say that for months.
As some of you know, I've not been right
on it lately have I?
No you haven't.
And there was a rumour circulating on social media that I'd gone, that I'd died.
Really?
Mmmm
I didn't see that, it's a good job I didn't see that,
I'm still here, or this is a bloody good body double.
Have you noticed, would you know if i were a body double?
Yes.
Apart from like down there, would you know just by looking at me?
Yeah, because there's nobody as crazy as you.
And...
yeah, so moving on.
Yeah there's a rumour that I've not been quite and I was talking about it on social media.
I always knew that one day my anxiety would kill me.
Try and kill him.
Or come blooming close to killing me
and I think it just did.
About five weeks ago when we were filming the sheep vlog, the lambing vlog,
that all looks like it was filmed in one day wasn't it?
A week.
Try a week.
On the first day of filming it, I collapsed,
literally just felt the energy draining away from me.
Managed to hand the camera over to somebody
and I was flat out on the deck
in the middle of a dirty sheep field,
with sheep poop everywhere,
I found some in my pocket.
[Laughs]
No, I did, when I was washing, yeah.
No!
And I came around about five minutes later,
not knowing what was going on.
Shaun took me home and I was a bit out of it and ended up in hospital in Inverness
and I thought, I literally thought I was dying.
I made the mistake of googling the symptoms.
He's barred from Google.
My doctor has actually barred me from Google,
if they could block it off my internet, they would wouldn't they?
But yeah, I made the mistake of googling symptoms
and long story short, I was convinced I was dying.
I do suffer with health anxiety so i am always worrying,
as well as everything else that's going on in my life,
Yes.
I do worry about my health and that's not a good thing
and so I've literally convinced myself that I was dying,
to the point where I was developing the symptoms to suit the condition I was convinced I had.
Now that makes me sound crazy and I feel a bit embarrassed talking about it
and the only reason I'm talking about it is because
I know that other people suffer it.
Yeah.
Now if you don't and you think I'm barmy and you want to have a go,
then fine go ahead.
Because you'll just get blocked.
Stop being rude to people. [Laughing]
[Laughing]
But I'm kind of recording this because i want to reach out,
because I know there are people and I've spoken to a few since it happened
that kind of have to deal with the same thing.
Yeah.
Now with five weeks on
and
all the tests and I had a lot of tests,
my doctor was getting pretty annoyed with me,
he's like, Colin, there's no more tests we can do.
They even tested him for trench foot.
and which, which I had, which I had. [Laughing]
Yeah, I told you I should have got some athletes foot cream when I had the chance.
No I haven't got trench foot.
No he hasn't.
I have got really nice feet.
Do you want to see them.
No!
And so all the tests have been coming back over the last couple of weeks saying you're okay,
in fact, Colin,
these results are saying you're actually very very healthy.
Fit as a fiddle for a 50 year old.
But I wanted to talk about health anxiety, because it just goes to prove,
I mean, I'm an intelligent man,
I am!
[Shaun] He is. [Colin] Shut up!
and the problem with being high functioning autistic like me
and like a lot of people is that
you're kind of treading a fine line because,
when you say the word, autism, people think learning difficulties,
That's wrong.
because they see one extreme side of autism.
But then there's another group of people who think well,
you keep going on about you've got a really high IQ,
I have.
So if you've got high IQ and you're intelligent,
why do you let yourself suffer from anxiety,
because surely you can see things as they are
and be practical and logical about things.
Well that's just, that's too much because,
It's a fight between autism and logic.
Yeah.
So anyway long story short, too late,
is I think I'm fine, I'm waiting for one test, which apparently is going to come back negative.
Doctor's 99.9% sure.
Of course I'm focusing on the 0.1% now aren't I?
And yeah, I always knew it would kill me, but
I didn't think it would be like that, I thought I knew
that it would come
and it just goes to show how crazy your mind can be and you can convince yourself of anything, doesn't it?
And it's weird, right, sorry I'm distracted. We've just gotta go and get Otis he's just going a bit mad.
[Music playing]
Sorry about that, we've got him under control now.
Anxiety is weird
and I think if you don't suffer from it
or understand it, it's difficult to understand what other people are going through
and I've been trying to think of analogies, Shaun don't even know what that means,
do you?
Allergy,
it means you're allergic.
Yeah, see what I mean.
[Laughing]
I thought, well,
go back to the canal days.
So if you imagine how a breach in a canal starts,
where you've got the water in the canal,
which is your mind, okay, and all your thoughts flowing along in the canal very nicely
and then you get this little breach,
which just starts off as a little trickle
that breaks through the soil and water starts trickling away
and anxiety can be a bit like that, because
your thoughts are being distracted and they're kind of getting away and then
when you start concentrating too much on the thoughts,
the breach gets bigger, so more water starts to escape
and then eventually what happens is the breach gets so big,
that all of your thoughts are kind of swept and drained away
and you can't think properly, because instead of going forward
with the flow everything is being concentrated into these anxieties and these worries and
you're not even able to think properly if you wanted to,
because it's all just been swept away.
That's a good allergy.
It is isn't it...
like hay fever, you want some antihistamines for it don't you.
And the crazy thing is, is I'm actually conscious that this is a waste of time,
I know it's a waste of time.
But it's,
do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I was pretending to ride that rocking horse,
that horse on a stick, do you remember you do it that?
and it's a little bit like that.
What?
Nothing.
It is, because
it's like, it's like, it's like riding the horse on a stick.
It's something to do,
but when you look back on it you feel a bit daft,
do you know what I mean?
I know what you mean.
and it don't really get you anywhere does it, you need a real horse, not a horse on a stick.
Getting quite used to that, it feels quite good, it feels better when I squat and do it like that.
What?
[Music playing]
Otis was getting a bit mad on the beach,
so we've come back up the hill a little bit and put Otis in,
you can probably see him just staring over there look.
He's not happy that he's back in the car.
He's not talking to us now.
[Laughs]
one of the worst things when you have anxiety,
is that more often than not if you've got a partner who doesn't understand anxiety,
care, but don't understand it,
it's the effect it has on them
and the feeling of guilt and
[Sighs]
it can cause more stress and more worry, because you're then worried about
the impact you're having on your partner or your family or anybody else that's caring for you.
if you're lucky enough to have somebody to care for you.
And I know I'm putting you on the spot because we haven't talked about it, but,
how does it feel?
Uff!
To the point where you don't want to function
where you just want to sit there and do nothing, it's so stressful.
Mmmm.
I was 100%, 100% convinced I was going to die
and
Shaun wasn't worried that I was going to die at all.
No not at all.
He was worried about what was going on in there,
but I wasn't worried about what was going on in there and that's a weird thing
Because he should have been.
to get your head around.
So anyway,
four weeks after it all started,
all the test results were coming back and saying I was fine
and that started to make me feel a little bit better, but,
I think like a lot of electrical products,
if something isn't right or there's a bit defective what do you do to fix it?
It goes back.
You switch it off and then switch it back on again
Oh I see what you mean, yeah.
and most of the time that works.
Now Shaun's quite good at turning me on and then off.
No, I don't mean that like that do I?
Rephrase that.
Shall I rephrase that. [Laughs]
Shaun's quite good at being able to reset me
and
the Crick Boat Show was last weekend
and we weren't planning on going,
Not at all.
it's a long drive, it's a 10 hour drive
[Laughs]
from where we live in Scotland down to Crick.
But we decided to do it at the last minute, we got some tickets
and we took Otis and we got somewhere to stay
and we went down to Crick
and that was like the reset wasn't it?
It was.
like switching me off and then switching me back on again when we got back
and I actually feel all right now.
Still a bit Argghh!
but I think I always will be.
He'll always be a bit
Argghhh!
and we've got all these adventures now to do over the summer,
which is really going to distract me.
We've got the new Foxes Afloat 2023 calendar coming out
WoooooHoooo!
in about a week or so I think.
If you're a Patreon or a YouTube member,
you can actually pre-order those now
but we're releasing them for like public pre-orders in a week or so, I think
and we've also, just last week, released our 200th vlog,
WOW!
So we're gonna have a little celebratory live chat tomorrow,
if you're watching this on the Friday it's released
I've got to buy some gin.
on the 11th of June at 7 o'clock.
So join us for that live chat if you're about.
We're inviting a lot of people to tell us their favorite clips from the vlogs
and we're gonna play the the messages, the video messages, we're gonna play the favourite clips
and we're just gonna have a bit of a laugh and Shaun's bringing gin.
I'm not allowed wine [Laughs]
right otis is looking really sad,
I don't know if you can actually see him through the window.
He's giving us a death stare.
He knows how to manipulate you with the eyes he does.
so we're gonna we're gonna take him out for a walk again.
We hope you've enjoyed this, if you have and if you're not already,
subscribe to the channel.
Hit the thumbs up button and give the
old
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Can you see it?
[Laughs]
and YouTube will notify you every time we release a new vlog.
If you want to help support the channel, join as a YouTube member,
or on Patreon, there's a link up above her head.
Her???
Yep!
[Laughs]
and we'll see you either tomorrow for the live chat,
or we'll see you next week, take care, bye
Ta-ra!
[Music playing]
you