Slowing Down to Move Forward

Posted on November 1, 2025 by suzie81speaks

At the beginning of the year, I made a deliberate effort to take back control of my life. I had become aware that the pace I was keeping wasn’t sustainable, so I took some fairly extensive steps to create more balance and structure. I wanted to be more intentional with my time, to focus on what genuinely mattered rather than getting caught up in the constant state of being ‘busy.’

For the first few months, it worked well. I felt calmer, more focused, and was far better at managing my time and energy. But gradually, without really noticing, old habits began to creep back in. One small commitment led to another, and before long, that balance that I had worked so hard to create had started to slip away.

The last time I sat down to write a blog post was back in July. As I have done so many times before, I told myself that I would get back into the habit and post more often. Then, as life became more hectic, it all became a bit overwhelming.

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A Quiet Start to 2025

Posted on February 5, 2025 by suzie81speaks

It’s the first week of February and thank goodness… Did anybody else feel like January was the longest month ever, or was it just me?

Despite this, 2025 has been pretty great so far. The steps that I took at the end of last year to reduce my workload and commitments have been extremely effective – so effective, in fact, that I was initially unnerved by how quickly I completed my task list each day. It took a little while to get rid of the nagging feeling that I had missed something, and I had to get out of the habit of triple checking everything just in case.

A pic at Baker Street that I took on my travels last month – if you put Gerry Rafferty on while looking at it, it looks like Sherlock is playing a tiny saxophone…

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Finally Settled, Sort Of…

Posted on June 3, 2024 by suzie81speaks

It has been five months to the day since we got the keys to the new house.

And about three weeks ago, we unpacked the final remaining box.

It has continued to be an interesting experience. Since we moved in:

We have had to give the house a deep clean as it was clear that the carpets was covered in dog hair and smelled of dog urine from the previous tenants pet.
The fence fell down at the back of the house during a storm.
The paint above the shower that had already started peeling got much worse, and began hanging off in a large chunk exposing bare plaster.
The toilet broke.
The boiler broke.

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And So It’s March…

Posted on March 17, 2024 by suzie81speaks

You know where you suddenly look up and there’s a realisation of being present for the first time in what seems like forever?

That happened to me last week. I woke up, checked my phone and realised that it was 7.00am, The Bloke had gone to work, it was light outside and suddenly it was the second week in March. I know that there was a February at some point, but I don’t seem to have fully acknowledged it.

It has been over two months since we moved house and things have been interesting.

We finally have a sofa that was delivered yesterday (seriously, UK residents DO NOT order from SCS), and up until that point The Bloke and I had spent a considerable amount of time since January slumped on an air mattress on the floor of the living room. Getting on and off that thing resulted in a fit of giggles on more than one occasion, particularly when my 67 year old mother visited and sat on it. The actual sitting part wasn’t too bad, it was more watching her attempt to get back up again in a manner that Buster Keaton would be proud of.

Comedy gold at its finest.

Mum has visited on several occasions since the start of the New Year. A few days after we moved, we had tickets to see a Rat Pack concert that we had booked last year, so once she had had the tour of the new place, we went and stayed in a hotel in the city – there were boxes everywhere and nowhere for her to sleep, so it made more sense to go and stay close to the venue. It was nice walking through the Mailbox and the canal at night with all the lights – one of my favourite places in Birmingham.

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It’s Been a While…

Posted on November 3, 2022 by suzie81speaks

Back in July I acknowledged how much my working life had taken over and decided that I needed to break out of the little work / sleep / work / sleep bubble I had created for myself. Thankfully, I have been able to do just that, but this hasn’t freed up much time or improved my ability to sit down and actually write about it. In a desperate attempt to catch up, here’s three months of life experiences in a single post, just in case I don’t get the chance to write another one for a while.

I have still been able to do my regular reviews at the theatre which I look forward to. It’s a great way to spend the evening – a lovely team, great building, and when you get a show that absolutely blows the roof off, it leaves you with a buzz that can last for days.

One of those shows has been Bat Out of Hell. Within the first five minutes when I saw it in January I knew that I was watching something special, despite that fact that I had absolutely no idea what was going on for some of it. Just like my RENT obsession that developed some years ago, I have fallen equally in love and decided that I absolutely had to see it again. So, I booked The Bloke and I tickets to see it at The Winter Gardens in Blackpool and a hotel room for the night.

It’s been a few years since we last visited, so we set off super early to avoid any potential M6 traffic hell, and found ourselves stood on the pier on a dull, but very warn day at 8.00am. For the rest of the day we were shameless tourists – we went to the top of the tower (during which The Bloke mustered up enough courage to actually walk on the glass), won prizes on the horse racing game and played on the 2p machines in the arcades, ate junk food and bought snacks from a shop where the guy behind the counter was actually wearing a bullet proof vest. And then we saw the show, it was amazing, and I was so overwhelmed that I cried on the way back to the hotel. It was just fabulous, even with the drunken men who decided to sing so loudly that two rows physically moved to get away from them.

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Date Night in the City

Posted on July 13, 2022 by suzie81speaks

Part of my Happiness List for July is Date Night – spending time with The Bloke for no other reason than just because. An opportunity presented itself recently to go out into Birmingham and do just that.

Those of you who have followed the blog for a long time will be aware of my obsession with the musical RENT. It has been something that has been a big part of our relationship – he has ‘No Day But Today’ engraved on the inside of his wedding ring, we walked back up the aisle to ‘I’ll Cover You’ after we got married, he even went along with it when I wanted to go and find Antony Rapp when we went to watch it in London in 2016 (read about the whole adventure here). While it’s our favourite show it’s rare that we get the chance to see it, so when an ad appeared on Facebook that there was a performance at the Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter that evening we booked tickets and decided to turn it into a pseudo-spontaneous date night.

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When the Universe Steps In…

Posted on June 25, 2022 by suzie81speaks

… or, Queen + Adam Lambert, doing too much and getting covid.

At the beginning of May I proclaimed that my goal for the next few months would be to take it easy.

The intentions were good, but I ended up doing the exact opposite.

That is, until the universe stepped in.

May and June were filled with lots of positive things and brilliant opportunities.

Work-wise, it was crazy busy, in a good way. I often find that freelancing is comparable to buses (ie. you wait for one for ages and then three all arrive at once) and this is what happened as soon as I decided to take a bit of a step back – it went nuts. I LOVE what I do it, but it isn’t the work itself that takes the time, it’s the calls, meetings, planning and set up that really sucks the minutes from the day. Admittedly, there was a period of a few weeks where I was worried that I had taken on more than I could handle. I eventually figured out the best way to move forward, got into a routine and it has been much better since, but I’ll be more cautious in the future not to take on that amount all in one go again!

On a Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I was downstairs in the living room watching TV, and I heard The Bloke thundering down the stairs. He rushed into the room, almost yelling:

“Want to go and see Queen and Adam Lambert?”

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Taking It Easy

Posted on May 3, 2022 by suzie81speaks

After spending over a week down south, I returned home for a few days and then travelled up north to Manchester.

The main purpose of the trip was to catch up with a group of friends that I have known for nearly 25 years. It has been two years since I last saw them – they were the last social event I had before the pandemic hit the UK in March 2020, so I was looking forward to it.

I was staying with my mum for the weekend and we had a bunch of things planned around it. I was feeling quite smug when I left the house initially due to being somewhat organised for once, only to discover when I arrived that I had forgotten a whole bunch of stuff including socks, make-up and a phone charger. Who forgets to pack socks???

Socks quickly acquired, we went for a meal at our favourite Chinese restaurant on the Friday night. We’ve been going there for decades – I remember having my 18th birthday celebration there, I turned 40 last year and I couldn’t count how many meals our family has had there in between. I was delighted to see that one of the staff members, George, who greeted us during our earliest visits, was still there. There is one particular dish – a sharing platter for two – that both mum and I are obsessed with, so instead of ordering a starter and selection of mains we decided to treat ourselves and had one each without mains. It was fabulous – I couldn’t help but laugh with sheer excitement as they were brought out – but I was so full by the end I thought someone would have to roll me to the car afterwards.

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It’s Oh So Quiet

Posted on April 11, 2022 by suzie81speaks

Yesterday was a little strange. Not that it was bad in any way, but it took me a while to settle in.

I’m currently dog-sitting at my friend’s house. It isn’t the first time I have done this, so I was already familiar with the area and the dog’s routine and we immediately got back into it. Admittedly, I was feeling a bit tired as her barking had woken me up at 1am when the neighbours returned home, and then again at 2am when she vomited on the floor. (While I miss having the cats, I don’t miss waking up to the sound of retching in the early hours of the morning). We walked, had breakfast, I did some work while she snoozed, we walked again etc. It was a fairly relaxed and peaceful day with glorious weather…

I suddenly realised yesterday evening just how quiet it was.

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My Nine Year Blogging Anniversary and a Working Staycation

Posted on April 9, 2022 by suzie81speaks

Yesterday was my nine year blogging anniversary. I received a notification at 6.30am as I was sitting in a very cold train station.

The reason why I was travelling yesterday is because of a friend who I met through the blog 2015. In fact, she was one of the first blog friends who became a social media client. Since then we’ve been to events, a writers retreat and on holiday to Dubrovnik together, and yesterday I travelled down to her house to look after her dog while she and her family are on holiday.