A community that should be proud. #CumbriaIsOpen.

As I'm sure you've all seen Storm Desmond hit parts of the UK this weekend. We're currently living in Carlisle which has been hit terribly by devastating floods throughout the city. Thankfully we haven't been flooded, but the waters came up to the end of our street and we were without power for a few hours. Massively lucky in the grand scheme of what has happened round the city.

8am Sunday. 

What I'm going to write about here isn't about how terrified I was when the rain wasn't letting up and I was checking the severe flood warnings religiously every hour to see if the red line had crept up our street yet, it didn't, it stayed just about 10 metres away, but rather I'm going to talk about how proud the people of Cumbria, and particularly Carlisle (because thats what I've been exposed to) should be about how well the community has come together.
We only moved here in July so looking as an outsider, I can't imagine how it must have been waking up on Sunday morning knowing that your city was under water again, or even worse, watching the severe flood warnings on Saturday and knowing that evacuation and losing so much was inevitable. Following what was happening on twitter there were preemptive offers of places to stay that would be free of floods, people offering comfort to each other and making sure people they didn't even know were safe. It immediately felt like a community gathering even on the internet.
When we got up on Sunday morning we could see the water from our bedroom window and despite it being 6:30am there were people everywhere looking to see how they could help. We were without power but thankfully we had running water. Sam went off for his 13 hour shift at the hospital which his fellow doctor left a flooded flat by boat to get to so he wasn't covering the wards on his own. So I was home alone with no power and no one around that I knew.
I was going to go round and offer hot drinks with water boiled on the hob but someone had beat me to it and there was a steady stream of tea being passed around the people stood looking at the damage and those helping that could, people who had electricity were offering to let others charge their phones to stay in contact with relatives and all the while twitter was still inundated with offers of help and places to stay for people who were stranded. It really was something that Carlisle should be proud of. There was massive devastation throughout the city and yet all people could think about was others.

I have since seen unbelievable offers on the internet of help. I'm linking some here in case anyone in need hasn't heard, and so everyone else can be as amazed as I am about the lengths people and local businesses are willing to go to.

Free hair wash and blow dry for anybody affected.
A rally for all builders/plumbers/electricians/plasterers etc to help where they can. 
Hairdressing seats and equipment for the hairdressers who have been flooded. 
Generous money donations.
Pet sitting. 
Restaurants and cafes taking food to the refuge and community centres. 
Carlisle football team helping those affected. 
Lots of cafes who weren't affected were offering hot food and drink to anyone out on Sunday and Monday.
And more than I could ever list throughout Carlisle and the rest of the county.

The floods around us looked devastating and seemed they wouldn't clear for days because of the huge expanse of water that just looked endless, lots of homes and businesses near us were flooded. I have been amazed at the clean up, in less than 24 hours this was the difference, and by Tuesday morning, only 48 hours after the flood, the road around us was open again.

3pm Sunday and Monday afternoon. 

This has really made me realise how scary nature can be, especially being new to the area and not particularly remembering the devastation in 2005 or 2009, this relatively small place has banded together so impressively and stood up to show that even in the face of such devastation they are proud to be Cumbrian and they will not be defeated. Shops are opening, people are out doing their shopping, neighbours are helping each other with the clean up and the small businesses are the ones offering whatever they can to help.
Be proud of yourselves Cumbria, I am feeling very grateful to be living here with all of you.

#CumbriaIsOpen

A 'Saturday style' Monday.

I've seen hour by hour posts floating around the blog world and always loved them, I decided to try it for myself as a photography exercise. I actually studied photography at A Level but always stuck to film photography meaning settings and buttons and electronics in a DSLR confuse the hell out of me.
I've tried reading books and blogs about photography to enhance my skills but really I think I'm only going to improve by doing. So here we go, a photo (or 2) an hour for a Monday that we treated like a Saturday. I love that about working shifts, my Friday feeling can come any day of the week depending upon my days off!

7am

Even on a day off I always try to wake up reasonably early to make the most of the day, gone are the days where I could sleep in until 1pm and feel okay, if I even lay there for too long now I feel a bit iffy. On this day the alarm was set for 7:20 and I only snoozed once! When we moved in together we decided to get some decent high thread count (i think high is better?!) bed sheets and let me tell you, they improve your sleeping situation times probably 1 million, you can quote me on that. Another thing which improves your sleeping situation is cartoon character pyjamas from Primark. Grown up bed sheets, not so grown up pjs. That's the scientific formula you can quote. 

8am

Being a nurse and often having to leave the house before 6:30am to go and do fairly manual work I don't spend time on my makeup very often. I have a fairly modest collection and it's something I really enjoy shopping for and doing. All the make up in the first picture is what I put on my face, I feel like it looks like absolutely loads for a fairly natural make up look! The naked smokey palette is the newest big addition to my collection and I am loving it so far, I can't wait to try out its's full potential with a properly smokey and maybe a bit glitzy look in the coming months. 

9am

We decided to head into town fairly early for our first PSL of the year, I am an unapologetic lover of the PSL, they are delicious, granted they don't taste like real coffee but boy do they instagram well. 

10am

After spending a good hour in Starbucks catching up (the joys of a couple who work shifts) we headed into Lush, I had a note on my phone of 2 things I wanted to buy, shampoo and lip balm, very sensible, but of course the bath products beckoned. My collection has depleted since I figured out my way of storing them was making them go a bit crumbly but I've stocked up a bit again now! The staff in Lush Carlisle are always so lovely and were quite happy to let me take these pictures, asking about my blog and if I was on instagram. (I am, follow me here, that segway!) I could always spend hours in Lush and it's always been my idea that if I weren't a nurse I would have loved to end up working in Lush or somehow with the company. 

11am-12pm

This hour was spent doing some more shopping, going to the bank and taking a slow walk home via Sainsbury's, very exciting stuff. I had to have a look in Waterstones as I always do, managed to avoid the novels by repeating to myself how long my 'to read' list is but I had to pick up this 642 things to draw but, yes I really did have to! I also need some validation that I'm not the only person to buy random cards in Paperchase with the idea that I'll frame them for our as yet unframed picture wall. 

1pm

Sam was taking pictures of me on my laptop editing the photos from earlier on in the post and complained so much about my resting bitch face, I actually quite like how the pictures turned out but you wouldn't think it! We then decided to order some lunch from our favourite American style deli in Carlisle, they do proper Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (I know you've seen it, don't pretend) style sandwiches, all freshly baked bread and amazingly cooked and seasoned meat. Drool. 

2pm

Im cheating a little bit because the food arrived at 1:50 but the estimated delivery was 2:05 so I had already planned to do this as the 2pm picture. Sorry. 

3pm - 4pm 

After our lunch time carb-fest it was a struggle not to just nap on the sofa, so instead of napping I just slobbed on the sofa, caught up on youtube, read a magazine, watched everybody's snapchat stories. I wish this post was #spon by Starbucks but really I just love their coffee and this is the biggest and best mug I have for the afternoon slump. The day is getting more exciting as time goes on. My particular youtube favourites at the moment are The Michalaks (pictured above).

Lily Pebbles.

Vivianna Does Makeup. 

HayleyGHoover. 

5pm-6pm
After a thoroughly lazy time in the afternoon we decided to head out for a walk around a park near us, they call this a park but I would say it was much more, with a river running through, a cenotaph, and a whole herd of cows wandering around i'd be loathe to call it just a park. Having only moved to the area in July we're still exploring and finding places to go and when I spotted this on my way to work one day I couldn't wait to go, the only thing I miss is having a little pup running around with me on my walk. That has to wait until we go home to visit our family since we're in rented accommodation. Boohoo!

This was where the pictures ended as it got pretty dull and there wasn't much more to be seen, the rest of our Saturday style Monday was spent catching up on An Inspector Calls, (yay, Lupin!) eating pasta (yes, more carbs, my fave) and watching Fear The Walking Dead, I can't stop watching despite the recurring zombie dreams I have.

Thanks for reading, speak soon!