After years of a chronic fear of flying, I’ve always envied people who had the ability to travel the world, care-free – hopping onto planes and jumping from hostel to hostel without the constant fear of ‘oh god I will die on this plane and if I don’t, I’ll definitely get murdered or Bridget-Jones-style imprisoned somehow despite not committing any crimes!’…
After watching David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, and finally being made to see the devastation that we, as humans, are having on the planet we call home, I decided that this year I wanted to try a little bit harder to make a difference.Whilst I can’t go totally off grid and live in a wooden hut on a commune, I became aware that there were some small changes I could undertake in order to make sure that I was doing my bit, even if it was only a very little bit!
I struggle with my body image. I’m ashamed to say I have had many days where my entire mood has plummeted because I’ve looked in the full-length mirror (rather than the face mirror) before I’ve walked out of the door. I dread when the photos start being snapped at family events, because I know I’m going to see a ‘real’ picture where I’m off guard, not breathing in, and not a picture of what I like to think I look like, that’s been orchestrated to be taken from about 20 ft above my head to give the illusion that I have a chin [singular]…
Hello YOU.
It has been ever such a long while since I posted on here… It’s strange really, I have loads of posts, with photos, queued and ready to go.
I have a Buffer subscription that is gathering dust.
I have notebooks filled with good post ideas, pretty much prime and ready to be written up.
There’s no real writers block, or any discernible reason why I just haven’t been… bothered. I’ve been up – I travelled Sardinia on a solo kayaking holiday (more on that later!), and I’ve equally been down, I lost someone really special to me.
It’s just all been so … hectic! I love blogging, but I like it as my online diary, that I’m fortunate enough to have a few people read from time to time; sometimes life isn’t that thrilling and sometimes its just all too much to share.
One of my best friends recently returned from Oz for a brief visit, and reminded me of how good it is to have goals and things you want to do and achieve. We talked endlessly about the past year, relationships, friendships, living in new cities, living in old cities, and reminisced over situations we thought were well within our control, only for them not to work out and place us on some pretty amazing trajectories (career, travel, boys…).
It’s made me feel a bit more focussed about what it is that’s giving me itchy feet, why I don’t feel settled at the moment, and what I need to do to make myself feel like I’m working towards something important.
I’m excited to blog again, I’m excited to have plans again and I’m excited to have a ‘bigger picture’ focus to look at again…
It’s not going to be easy, but I definitely think its all going to be worth it 🙂
More soon!
X
It keeps freaking me out that it’s somehow July already!? We have literally just surpassed the halfway mark of another year which is crazy and frightening in equal measures!
June was, for the most part, a good month despite a few unsuspecting issues cropping up here and there…
A big highlight was my brother, his wife and my nieces returning from Singapore. I have 8(!) nieces and nephews, family events tend to be a whirlwind of someone crying, someone shouting, losing an important toy, and barely getting through a conversation (or a sandwich) without a little person interrupting. But, we wouldn’t have it any other way! My other nieces and nephews live in the UK, but as the twins have been in Singapore we met them once shortly after they were born and have had a few months gap since then. Having them back in the UK is lovely, and they’re at that lovely cuddly age where they’re not walking or crawling so love a carry and to have a sleep on you.
I also had a blast going to Rugby 7s at Twickenham – in the past year or so I’ve started to really enjoy sporting events; we took a friend to a local football match at Loftus Road to watch QPR against Middlesborough and despite not being a huge football fan the atmosphere was heaps of fun! 7s was no different and I thought the atmosphere was great – there were families and a few drunken stag dos but everyone was just there to have a great time; fab day out! And the weather was so great, too!
I am so, so enjoying reading again. I’ve set myself a small target of 20 books this year, and since January I’ve managed to rattle through 16 books. I’m also part of the excellent ‘Blogger Book Nook’ on Facebook – which I’ll be doing a separate post on soon, but let’s get into the good stuff shall we? Get yourself a cup of tea and your Kindle at the ready because I’ve got a real mixture of recommendations for you today!
As you’ll know if you’re one of the very kind people who keeps popping back here to check if there’s anything new (and you’re not my Mum, who – let’s face it – is definitely my main reader ;)…), you might have wondered why there was such a quiet period…
I’ve moved (which was insanely stressful but home finally feels like home – hurray!), but the stress of that induced a bit of a bad mental health spell. I’d just started to get into a regular running pattern with my housemate and then as I was showering, felt something not-quite-right in my right boob (my favourite of the two, in fact!). A little, pea-sized lump. Shit.