Tag Archives: thoughts

A New Year, A New Home

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There’s nothing like moving house to remind me that I have the upper body strength of a toddler and I’m insanely unfit. 

Brace yourself. This is a long one. 

The Bloke and I moved house at the beginning of January. It’s been a long time (I think about eight years!) since our last move and not one that we had planned on – our landlord suddenly suggested late last year that he was thinking of selling the house, leaving us in the precarious position of potentially being given notice and needing to find somewhere new in a very short amount of time, in an area that is very much in demand. We decided to take ownership of the situation and found somewhere ourselves, and struck lucky with a beautiful property not far away. 

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2023: A Year in Review

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As you may be able to tell from my previous post, the end of 2023 is not the relaxed and restful time that I had hoped for. We’re in the process of moving house, we’re up to our eyeballs in boxes, and I’m more than a little anxious about everything that we need to do over the coming week. 

Consequently, and after everything else that we have had to deal with, it’s difficult not to look back on this year with a level of negativity. 

2023 has been tough. My mum spent the first four months of the year in and out of hospital, The Bloke’s auntie passed away, my father died, my workload has been insane and on more than one occasion I have had to start putting my foot down and set boundaries with a few people who have made constant demands on my time and energy while being rude and dismissive in the process – something that has gone on for far too long. The year has felt like a constant battle and I’m tired. 

However, in times like this I turn to the opening pages in my Bullet Journal, titled ‘Memories and Highlights.’ It’s one of my favourite things – a double page of all the great experiences that The Bloke and I have had throughout the year. 

And despite the nonsense, the double page is filled. 

This year we’ve seen over thirty shows at five different theatres. My favourites were Rock of Ages (which I think we’ve seen four times now), SIX (which has been on my list for a long time), Sinatra at The REP, and The Bodyguard. 

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Twixmas Packing

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I’ve seen the term ‘Twixmas’ thrown around a lot over the last week. Apparently meaning the period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, it has represented a feeling of nothingness – Christmas is over, many are off work (or at least, have had a few days off) and it’s often a time of relaxing and recovering from the festivities before preparing for the start of a new year.

My ‘Twixmas’ usually involves a little bit of work, lots of sleeping, eating snacks and watching movies. This year, however, we’re up to our eyeballs in boxes, packing tape and bubble wrap. 

Because we’re moving house. Next week. 

Great. 

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The Benefits of Being Productively Unproductive

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On Friday night I logged off and sank back into the couch. Last week wasn’t particularly bad, but it was certainly intense in the sheer volume of work that appeared on my daily lists. While everything got done I was left feeling mentally and physically exhausted. 

Additionally, my sleep patterns have been all over the place (thank you, peri-menopause), and this has resulted in lots of my working hours being conducted through what has felt like a hazy fog behind my eyeballs recently. 

Working for myself has a number of positives… in theory. I don’t have an awful daily commute, I can set my own hours, choose who I work with and I don’t have a micro-managing, passive-aggressive line manager to deal with (of which I have experienced many). While these are all things that I appreciate on a daily basis, I have found that as my client base has grown, an increasing level of fear has accompanied it… 

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The Universe Steps In… Again

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Isn’t it strange how, when you find yourself in a difficult situation, the universe seemingly steps in and shows you the direction in which you need to go?

I discussed recently about the challenges that The Bloke and I have faced this year, particularly with the death of various family members and my mum being ill. We’re both tired and a bit stressed, we both struggle with depression and anxiety on occasion and both of us have found ourselves getting through the day on autopilot when things have got really tough. 

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Time for a Change

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On 1st January 2023 The Bloke and I sat on an enormous couch in a suite in a nice hotel. We were surrounded by our favourite snacks and were watching a film while talking about our hopes and expectations for the coming year.

“It’s going to be amazing, I can feel it,” I remember saying, and at the time, I believed it. After the world shut down in 2020 things had plummeted, and 2021 had been tough, so had 2022. Surely 2023 couldn’t get any worse, could it?

As it turns out, yes it could. 

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My Father Died

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It’s taken me over a month to write this. I’ve been back and forth with myself, repeatedly drafting and deleting, hoping that the urge to write would fade… but it hasn’t. So today I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and post – albeit a much more concise, less angry version of my initial ramblings – but at least I’ve transferred my thoughts and sent it out into the universe. I may decide to delete it later, but we’ll see. 

My father passed away at the beginning of July. 

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Ten Years and Counting…

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Just over ten years ago I was writing furiously in my journal after having a crappy day at work. I was into my seventh year of teaching, hated almost every minute of it and as a result had become severely depressed. One thing that eased the dark cloud was writing my thoughts down and I had developed a habit of buying notebooks and spending hours of my evening scribbling down my frustrations of the day. 

The Bloke, perhaps a little overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of my ever increasing collection of notebooks that had started to litter the house, suggested that I start an online blog. My knowledge of blogging was minimal, but I signed up for a free WordPress account and began to write. There were no expectations behind it – I was careful not to use my real name and avoided including too many personal details and discussing anything that would get me sacked should the school discover it.

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2022: A Year in Review

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At the beginning of 2022 I set up a double page spread in my bullet journal titled ‘Memories and Highlights.’ This created a space where I could record all of the individual exciting things I experienced throughout the year and served as a reminder that this year hasn’t been as bad as I thought. 

Because let’s face it, in terms of the year from a national perspective, it’s been a dumpster fire with a dose of accelerant thrown on top. Three prime ministers in a year, the worse economic position in decades, food, gas and electric prices skyrocketing to the point where people are having to choose between heating their house during the winter or feeding their children while utility companies boast about record profits, workers from our postal service, trains, nurses, paramedics have been forced to strike… and to top it all off our Queen died. So many of us are tired, worried and angry. 

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Christmas Burnout

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Usually in the build up to Christmas I post at least something about getting ready for the festive season, what I plan to watch and comments about our wonky tree (that is now so ancient I’ve started to refer to it as ‘Old Faithful’). 

This year, however, I was whacked by all the flu and cold germs flying around and my body semi-shut down and went NOPE for several weeks. I know exactly where it came from too – in early December a woman who had a raging cold sat next to me on a train when I went up north to visit my mum and for the entirety of the trip she was coughing and spluttering and wiping her nose on her sleeve. I started to feel ill about four days later. Nice. 

Combined with the fact that I had been caught in multiple downpours and the freezing temperatures that hit the UK, I also think that I was burnt out. The last few months in particular have been ridiculously busy and I haven’t been great at taking care of myself. In a way, it felt like the universe was stepping in and telling me to rest. 

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