Hiatus

This might be the most pretentious post I have ever written... But here we go.
I'm going on hiatus.

This might not be a particularly big deal as, let's be honest here, I don't post on the reg anyway. However, my boyfriend is some sort of technical genius and over summer I'm going to hand my blog to him so that he can make it beautiful and sexy and professional and all those good things. So until that moment arrives, I won't be posting anymore.

I'm still going to be writing though! So when Septemeber (or before) rolls round I will have loads of new content and stuff to talk about and things to catch you up with.
I love blogging and part of me just wants to take it a little more seriously and less casual than what I do now, so I'm knocking my two brain cells together and coming up with posts so that EVERY WEEK there will be something new to read.

That's the gameplan anyhow.

So until I see you again. Take care, good luck and as always, much love xx

I Have a Boyfriend

When I started my previous relationship one of the first things that I did was blog about it. I blogged about the day he asked me out, I blogged about the lead up, I often casually mentioned him in posts. He was very prevalent.
But now I've been in a relationship with a different person for six months and I haven't blogged about it. Not once.

I don't feel bad about this. My boyfriend isn't crying or moaning to me that I haven't posted on my blog about him so I clearly don't care. In all the months of non-blogging I could have easily filled up that time with a post about him, (he is my favourite thing to talk about and show off). And it wasn't that I didn't have the time to post I just...didn't.

I think my brain became clouded with thoughts that any posts I wrote would be seen as 'mushy' and 'disgusting' and for some reason, I took these hypothetical views to heart.
But I'm over it now and so. Without any further ado, this is a post about my current relationship (posted on our six month anniversary).

To begin, I'm incredibly lucky. I'm sure everyone says this at the beginning of their relationships but I know, I actually know, that this is it for me. Not in some depressing ominous way, but in a happy, I've found my soulmate sort of way. From when we first met we've been completely at ease with one another and I think I've yet to find that in anybody... Well, anybody other than his younger sister who is my best friend/soul sister for 5 years and going STRONG. And that's another reason why I'm lucky, my boyfriend is my best friend's brother, I'm already part of the family and I get to see two for the price of one.

I complain a fair amount and I'm very demanding but he takes it all in his stride. Never letting it get to him, usually laughing it off (and thinking I'm adorable in the meantime, which is incorrect). It's very good for me because otherwise arguments would probably ensue and it brings me down a level - which I probably need. In addition, he brings me a cup of tea every morning and is under the impression that I am a beautiful goddess who needs to be worshipped and he enjoys telling me this. Often,

He's all the usual things you want in a boyfriend - funny, handsome, intelligent, down to earth, gets along with friends and family but there's something else about this one. We're 100% supportive of each other and I never feel alone in everything I do. He may be a 4 hour train journey away but somehow, I still feel like he has my back. Genuinely feeling like I have another half, a person that is willing to stand with me at every crossroad and outside every pizzeria is just, incredible. Now I've felt that feeling and love the support that we give one another, I can't imagine life without it.

It's a head-over-heels, love-at-first-sight kind of love. It's encapsulating and unconditional. It's the kind when the idea of being with somebody else is completely incomprehensible. Why go for someone good when you already have somebody amazing?
So, I'm in love. Entirely and completely and irrevocably in love. With someone who loves me back and always tells me so. And I'm thankful and appreciative of that, I always need the loving, and his love is my favourite.

Honestly, I wouldn't have it, or him, or us, any other way.

Top Tips to Fall Asleep At Night

I had a lovely year and a half break after my A Levels ended. I slept, I drank, I put on weight, it was the best of times.
After Christmas this year it struck me that my second year counts as a third, A THIRD, of my degree. It's time to knuckle down and do some serious grafting.
The problem with serious grafting is, you need to have a good sleep so that you're rested and functional and able to complete the work that you need to do. Lie-ins this term are a thing of the past.

So, here are my tried and tested top tips to get you to fall asleep at night, and they work like a dream...

1. Shower-time! Put on your 'Hits The Spot' playlist and make the shower as hot as you can take it as to relax your muscles. Use every hair and body product you own (not sure if this helps, it just makes the shower longer and more glorious.) Let the water literally wash away the days stresses and struggles and allow the music to cheer you up, from the inside out. Happy showers make happy people.

2. This might not be for everyone, but I have extremely dry skin so whenever I come out of the shower I have to moisturise every inch of me but I find an especially important area to moisturise before bed is your feet. A little bit of reflexology goes a long way and it helps to de-stress the muscles of your feet before bed and tells your body that the day is officially over. The Soap & Glory Heel Genius is especially fabulous and softening.

3. Herbal tea. Herbal teas before bed might be better than ice-cold Pimm's on a hot summer's day. Be careful to always buy the dreamtime varieties though. My current favourite is the Whittard's Dreamtime Flavoured Fruit Infusion - courtesy of my sister. But this Pukka Night-time also works a charm (and a little more purse-friendly.) I find herbal tea works best when piping hot and sipped slowly. It absolutely never works to it's full potential when it is gulped down. Are we in a rush here? Oh hell no. We are relaxed to the max.

4. My new favourite thing to do when drinking my herbal tea in bed (by candlelight, just to intensify the relaxing atmosphere) is to listen to an audiobook using the Audible app. Currently I'm listening to Middlemarch which is read by Juliet Stevenson, I'm only a couple of chapters in but it comes highly recommended.
My brain throughout the day is constantly working and thinking forward to everything else I need to do. Stopping and drinking some tea while listening to an audiobook just helps my brain to slow down to a pace where all it has to do is keep my body operating,

5. The fifth and final thing once I've turned off my audiobook, set my alarm and blown out the candle, is to take seven good deep breaths. Every time I do this I am nearly instantly asleep. For me it's like an off switch, all the extra carbon dioxide is out of my body and the oxygen filling me up - as well as all my previous tricks - sends me to sleep quicker than drinking a bottle of wine (which is also another foolproof way to fall asleep ,,, also tried and tested.)

If you want to be extra smug and extra rested, lighting an incense stick helps de-clutter my room of negative/stressful energies, thus creating a better sleeping environment.


So there we go! I hope something on here helps you in someway. Next week, top tips on how to get up in the morning...

Much love xx


(Footnote - if you have a noisy child/father/housemates/animals these Boots Wax Earplugs cancel out all noise. I've used them whilst sleeping in the same bed as my boyfriend, who snores like nobody's business, and they have not failed me yet.)

Beginning

On the 7^th of May 1996 I was born in my parent’s bedroom in our family house. I don't know if I screamed or cried as I entered the world or how much I weighed or what the time was. I do know that my shoulders were so broad the midwife thought I was going to die as I came out and I nearly broke a collar bone. Sometimes, just before I fall asleep I feel as though I can remember this experience. That I can see my parent's ceiling and my mother’s face as she held me for the first time. I focus so hard on this thought that it slips away as easily as it first appeared. It’s like water, it doesn’t matter how tightly you hold onto it, it will indefinitely slip away from you. I obviously don’t remember these formative years, although I’ve heard they were not easy. My elder sister Isabelle was 3 years and 7 months old when I was born, my mother had severe post-natal depression, my father was working full-time and my grandparents were in the South of France. I was just sort of shipped around and loved in my car seat – the only thing I would sleep in at that age and I would allow anyone to look after and feed me. Which isn't so different to me right now.  There aren’t many baby pictures, there’s just me, right now, acting as proof for all those years and that nothing fatal happened to me.

My first actual memory was of my sister at a swimming gala. I don’t know if she won but I remember her with a blue swimming hat on. Our mother always used to make us wear it because she didn’t want to have to wash our hair in the swimming pool showers. My next memory was a day or so later (this I don’t know if it is a real or a dream) but it was of me in a hospital bed and my father in a bed sleeping next to me. My mother and I had been sitting in the balcony watching my sister and I had been playing and looking over to watch her. Whatever was supposed to stop someone, especially a child, from toppling over and crashing into the pool clearly wouldn’t have passed any health and safety tests as, well, that’s exactly what happened to me. I didn’t crash into the pool, however, just next to the pool. Apparently I bruised like a peach when I was younger because as my mother screamed and fled down stairs (not the one step route as I had taken) my face had become black and blue and my hair spread out around me like an eagle’s wings. My mother said that when she was in the ambulance with me she could feel a presence, a huge angelic presence, and she prayed like fuck that it would help me and not take me away from her.

Luckily for all, it didn’t take me away. It helped. I left the hospital with a broken wrist and a cream-coloured plaster cast. The second time anyhow. It wasn’t until we were leaving the hospital and dad tried to hold my hand but I told him it hurt too much and he carted me back in, that the doctor realised I had a broken wrist.

And this, was my beginning.

The First Year of University

I cry all the time. Not in a depressing way, I'm not suicidal and I don't find life so hard and dark that I feel the need to cry. More that I'm emotionally attached to everything. Namely things that don't reach me personally - soldiers fighting that aren't my family, children dying in Africa that I don't know, Grey's Anatomy characters that aren't real and songs that are often written about other lives that bear no comparison to mine. This being said, I cry often.

Tonight I'm crying because my first year of university is over. I remember that Rhys (ex-boyfriend to those that aren't avid readers...which you should be) was at my house, happily watching a film with me when I left the sitting room and cried my eyes out to my mother. I simply couldn't comprehend the reality of leaving home and living in another place. I didn't want to leave the simple, everyday, wonderfully-loved, tea-filled life that I knew so well. I didn't think I was particularly a 'home bird.' My sister definitely is, subconsciously things would often happen that stopped her from leaving to go back to uni - a mislaid debit card, not having packed, forgetting train times, Mum said she would be happiest if the conservatoire was at the bottom of the road so she could come home every weekend.
When I was crying in the utility room that weekend, I really felt like that person. Even though I was so sure that I wasn't.

As university went on, I adjusted. I made fucking fantastic friends. Some people who I wasn't sure how I had lived without before university life, some who I felt I could tell everything to. People who helped me through ridiculously tough times of life. I learnt that I REALLY wasn't morning person and if lectures were before 12 o'clock in the afternoon I probably wasn't going to attend them. I learnt, more than ever, that I enjoy doing essays as soon as they're set rather than leaving them to the last minute. Also, only 8 hours of lectures a week? Absolutely no idea what to do with myself or how to fill my time. As much work as I may have to fill this free time in second year, how to fill it in first year English is still a complete mystery to me.

I've no idea what knowledge to impart to anyone attending their first year of university this September. I never understood the whole "reinvent yourself" idea; Sometimes people get on with who you are, and sometimes they don't. If they don't, that's okay, there's other people to make friends with. I can't tell you how you should fill up those empty hours when you feel alone and emotionally exhausted and drowning in your empty thoughts, you have to figure it out for yourself.
All I can say is, remember it, in what ever way you can. Clearly for me, it's writing it down and I'm looking forward in 20 year's time to sitting down (probably with my sister) and reading about much of an idiot I was, via my blog. Whatever happens, however uninteresting or wasted the year has felt, write it down. I promise you - you'll get to the end or the year and you'll be sitting in a pub, drinking your new favourite drink with your new best friends and you'll suddenly realise that this isn't a year that you'll want to forget. It was full of happiness, and gut-wrenching sadness, of incredible dance moves, muscle-pulling laughter, and of love. Of a crazy love that you haven't felt in years, a love that is all-consuming and all kinds of wonderful that you can't quite place your finger on or put into seemingly meaningless words. It's a kind of love you won't want to forget.
This is the most accurate way I can explain the first year of university.

Much love xx



#blog #blogging #blogger #university #friends #friendship #love #truth #thankyouforreading

My Exam and My Birthday

Throughout high school I worked my ass off. I had extra curricular every day of the week, I finished school with 4 A Levels, grade 8 flute and a desire never to take an exam, or work, again. My grandfather died at the end of 2012, near the end of year 13 I had an extreme emotional and mental breakdown and experienced my first panic attack. It was difficult, a lot of the 2 A Level years, were difficult. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything my school did for me and I would not change one part of my education experience - it shaped who I am right now.
Tomorrow I have my first exam at university standard. I have done below minimum of work, I have watched obscene amounts of Netflix and not felt guilty about it. I don't feel guilty because I worked so freaking hard last year. All foundations for learning, they're there. Things just stick now, my brain understands that once you learn how to learn, you're set for life. And in first year, you're allowed to slack off a little - to heal from the stress of the year before.
I know A Levels are coming up for a lot of you - work like someone is putting a gun to your head. Because it's worth it, and not doing well in your A Levels is stupid. A friend of mine went to university, got a great degree, left university with the hopes of getting a great job but because his A Levels were so poor, he had to re-do them. One step forward, two steps back. Don't be that guy.

In other news, it's my birthday tomorrow (yep, the same day as my exam, what joy.)
I'm a pretty positive person and I've never been someone who doesn't look forward to their birthday. Hey, it's a day to celebrate me - what's not to love!
I don't feel that way about this birthday. Part of me wants to get it off my chest and say why, but another part of me knows that once it's out there everyone will know how I feel and right now, I don;t like that. I've never felt a need to run away from things before. I deal with them, because if you don't they will never go away. But recently, I've been running away from a lot of things. Sometimes in my mind but in the case of my birthday, I want to literally run away, Would it help? Probably not. It wouldn't matter that strangers don't know when my birthday is, it would still be my birthday, it would still be happening. And anyway, I can't run away because of the exam. Everything happens for a reason, right?

I don't feel content after writing this post and normally, I feel pretty soothed once I've posted. Things can definitely be harder than what you want them to be and sometimes you are simply unsatisfied. Right now, I don't have any advice on how to deal/cope with that.

Much love xx

The Bucket List

In all honesty, I am not a particularly deep thinker. I am surrounded by a lot of people who have these incredible thoughts in their brain, they inspire and they perceive the world in unique ways and they come and tell me these thoughts. I am filled with awe of these people. There's no need for me to deep-think because, well, they've pretty much got it covered for me.
Apparently, for me, thinking about my own life is about as deep as it gets. Recently this has been happening more than often, sitting back and taking in everything that is happening/has happened and being entirely perplexed by it all. How people become strangers, situations get so complicated, what you are getting out of life and what you feel you want. I'm under no impression that I'm going to live forever. In actual fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to die between the ages of 30 - 35. I don't regret anything I've done from the past 3 years or so (and I'm no saint) and I'm all very content with life. So this doesn't really bother me.
What bothers me is that I'll be on my death bed and realise that there is something I should have, or could have done, and it'll be too bloody late by then. It's all very well sitting on the sofa all day and not regretting it (which I never do) but at some point, that may seem like wasted time.
Whilst walking along the beach with a friend the other day they told me of something they had done that they could 'tick off their bucket list.' So, as the title suggests, I compiled one. Because everyone needs a little something to live for, and it seemed silly not to.
There are only 30 things so far. Maybe I should call it "30 Things To Do Before I'm 30" but it may grow, and then that title would annoy my OCD.

Little apology to any family/teachers/close family friends reading this. There are items about sex included. Take a deep breath and make a brew before reading if you have to.

The List 
- See the 7 Wonders of the World
- Ride an elephant
- Bury my mother
- Own my own Mini Cooper
- Bunjee jump
- Have sex under the stars
- Go to every Disney world
- Enjoy every job I am in. However, difficult that may be.
- Own a Polaroid camera. Use it.
- Actually complete the 'Wreck This Journal' (ughhh)
- Go to the Hardy Tree
- Swim under a waterfall
- Write an autobiography. Even if no-one reads it,
- Ride a hot air balloon
- Have sex in the back of my own Mini Cooper
- Visit Ireland
- Achieve a washboard flat stomach. Pierce it.
- Go to a drive-in film
- Go skinny dipping in the sea
- Graduate with at least a 2;1
- Live with someone I love
- Solve a Rubik cube
- Learn how to play poker. Win a game
- Play Truth or Drink with someone I'm dating. (Watch this version too)
- Learn how to sew properly. Make my own garment.
- Float in the dead sea.
- Be a vegetarian for a month. Don't complain.
- Plan my sister's wedding
- Watch all of IMdB's Top 250 films
- Race a Go-Kart


Much love xx