Tag Archives: fun

Wedding Prep, a Birthday and Wagamama

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Last week was my sister’s 30th birthday, so we made plans to meet up as a family for lunch yesterday. As my sister lives 100 miles away, I got the train up north on Saturday and stayed at her house. It was also the perfect opportunity to spend some time with my brother-in-law and Squidge (my niece) who is now 5 months old.

As always, traveling up in the afternoon is always busy, and it didn’t help that my train was severely delayed, but by the time I arrived I was met with this gorgeous face, which made it all worthwhile. Her hair is beginning to grow so she is looking less like Grant Mitchell from Eastenders now, which is always a bonus!

 

Saturday night was fairly relaxed – the delayed train and the awful traffic meant that we didn’t get home until late – and my brother-in-law was out with his own siblings so after Squidge had been put in bed my sister and I over-indulged on the snacky treats and watched our favourite chick-flick – Only You – while catching up and generally talking nonsense. To save her the time and effort of setting up the airbed I stayed on the couch (which happens to be the world’s comfiest) and enjoyed the luxury of Sky TV, which The Bloke and I don’t have. Continue reading →

Baywatch, a CV Meltdown and a Busy Week

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I always wake up with the intention of writing a post, but it seems that of late it hasn’t happened. It has been a busy, exciting, tiring and frustrating time, and I’ve had to focus daily on self-care activities and mindfulness in order to keep myself together at times.

The view of Yeovil

Half-term week was one of the best I have had in a while. I attended my friend’s wedding, which was absolutely perfect, and I’m delighted for her that everything went so beautifully. It was also an extra-enjoyable time for The Bloke and I for the opportunity that it provided to have an extended break away from home for a few days. As the wedding was an almost three hour drive away, we decided that it would make more sense to stay overnight in a hotel in Yeovil (that I will refer to as ‘The Town Where the Internet Goes to Die – I had no signal whatsover for the majority of the time) to avoid potential traffic chaos on the motorway and we ended up having an impromptu date day and night. Continue reading →

A Party, a Squidge and a Time for Reflection

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It’s been a busy few weeks. With a mixture of supply, invigilating GCSE examinations, freelance music, social media management and time spent with family and friends, every day has been different. I went to visit Squidge a little while ago, who is now nearly five months old and stayed with each family member so I had a chance to catch up with everyone, continued with my wedding planning, I have met up with friends for lunch and at the weekend I crashed an 18 year old’s birthday party, which at 35 years old felt a little silly, but it turned out to be a fantastic night. Continue reading →

A Hen Party in Bristol

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I found myself on a train up North to visit the family on Monday evening after just returning home from a two-day hen party (Bachelorette) extravaganza. I had blisters on my feet, a burn on my thumb, I’d had about six hours sleep thanks to a very hangry cat this morning who woke me up at 6am for his breakfast (and I had six hours the night before) and the hangover that I could once shake off in 24 hours in my 20’s was still going strong.

I’m not a huge fan of hen parties, but this one went really well. Four of us, including the hen, trekked to Bristol, where we were joined by nine others throughout the morning. We had been given strict instructions that there was to be no cliche items in tow – penis-shaped objects, L plates, cheap netted veils etc – but as she said nothing about other silly items I took the opportunity to put together a ‘Hen Party Survival Kit,’ complete with Disney plasters, water, chocolate, safety pins etc. We managed to start drinking (and spilling) the wine by 11am, so by the time we arrived I was already feeling a little on the squiffy side. Continue reading →

40+ Useful Ideas for Self Care

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Useful ideas for practicing self care

Things have been a little on the stressful side recently, and those who follow the blog regularly may notice that I haven’t posted much of my own content. With wedding planning, a biopsy followed by stitches (everything is fine and all-clear thank goodness, but it was a little worrying at the time), a truly horrific day of supply teaching (without being melodramatic, I think it was the worst day in over eleven years of working in schools that I’ve ever had) and the general daily tasks that needed completing there has been more than a few occasions where I have found myself a little overwhelmed.

In an attempt to try and overcome the anxiety and general cloudiness that fills me whenever I reach certain panic levels, I have actively indulged in self care – any voluntary activity that helps to maintain my mental, physical and emotional health. This isn’t just ‘hygge’ – they have involved numerous things that I enjoy simply because they make me feel better and I have taken the time to be mindful of them as I am doing it. Continue reading →

A Day in South Kensington

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The other week The Bloke and I attempted to take advantage of a ticket sale from a train company. It went a little wrong, but we still decided to use the offer and have a day out in London, as we haven’t done that for a while.

We decided to spend the majority of the day around South Kensington – it’s a beautiful (and very expensive) area with several museums and it’s one of the few places in the city that we haven’t explored as much as we would like. We were on the train at ridiculous o’clock, as usual, and by the time we arrived at Euston the weather was fairly clear and sunny, so we took advantage of the early morning to get there before the madness of tube travel at the weekends began. On the way there I discovered an image on Pinterest of a ‘thin house’ on Thurloe Square, opposite the Victoria and Albert museum, so this was our starting point. We found it and then spent some time just wandering around the streets, admiring the private parks and the beautiful town houses and flats, along with the statue of Bartok, followed by breakfast in a local Pret a Manger (where I’m CERTAIN that we were sitting across from Julian Lloyd-Webber, although I didn’t have the nerve to go and say anything to him). Continue reading →

Want to Build Your Twitter Following? Join my Twitter Link-Up!

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At the start of 2017 I created a Facebook group – ‘Big Up Your Blog.’ I’m a member of several Facebook groups, but I find that there aren’t very many opportunities for people to actually connect and share their blog and social media accounts, so I started a ‘Social Saturday’ every week where participants could share their social media links, grow their following and connect with lots of other bloggers. Continue reading →

How to Have a Hygge Day

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Hygge

As with most things I am late to become aware of different trends, usually a year or two after they have become popular.

Hygge (pronounced ‘Hue-gah’) is a Danish term for finding pleasure and comfort in simple and everyday things, with an emphasis on comfort and coziness. I only discovered the term towards the end of last year, when The Bloke bought a Hygge book for his sister at Christmas and it was something that I immediately connected with.

After having a particularly stressful few days during the week and being low (partially due to the constant rain and dull weather we seem to have experienced over what seems like months), I decided to devote today to having a full Hygge experience. The Bloke was going to be out for most of the day as he was visiting his family, so it was the perfect chance for me and the cat to indulge in a relaxing day…

I prepared for it the day before by tidying up my living room – the place where I planned to spend the day – bought an unsliced crusty brown loaf of bread, French onion soup and prepped a sausage casserole (one of my favourite dishes) for my evening dinner. Continue reading →

Toilet Humour

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I had a day off today, so decided to spend a bit of ‘me time’ during the afternoon in between my usual social media tasks. I had a lovely nap, watched some Netflix with the cat (who was obviously enthralled by the way he was snoring in my ear) and then arranged to meet my friend for our weekly catch up in the local pub.

She was on her way back from work so I went upstairs to get changed, during which I went to the toilet before I left the house. Our toilet has been faulty for a while – the mechanism inside doesn’t always work which means that we have to wait for the water to fill back up and then manually stop it ourselves. It’s not a major inconvenience, but needed fixing and has been on the ‘to do’ list for a while, along with another bajillion tasks that we don’t seem to get round to. Continue reading →

Meet Baby Squidge!

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After a traumatic two-day labour, Baby Squidge arrived on Tuesday.

She and my sister were kept in hospital for a few days, but thankfully everyone, including my amazing brother-in-law (who was an absolute legend throughout the whole thing) are doing extremely well and now they are at home – happy, healthy and downright gorgeous!

My sis sent me this picture and gave me permission to share with everyone in all of her squidgy glory…

1, 2, 3… Awwwwwwwww!

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