An accidental month off. April summarised...

I don't quite know what happened but I seem to have gone over a month without blogging quite accidentally, I just never had that urge to sit and write about anything, I'm really not sure why. I also felt the longer I left it the less I knew how to come back and what to write. So, I'm sat here at my laptop with no real plan hoping that I can summarise what I've been up to while I've been  away from the blog! I got the idea from Charlotte to do a Someday Summary from blogging days of old, but I felt I needed to update people reading (and my future self that I see reading to remember like a diary!!) about the month I was absent for!

Okay so this was actually at the end of march over Easter weekend, we finally had all of our family together for an engagement meal/party, a difficult task when Sam's siblings are based all around the country, with us also at the opposite end! It all started well with a lovely Italian meal booked and a few bottles of champagne paid for. It ended with me hugging my Sister in Law and bridesmaid to be after I fell asleep on the stairs and hugging the toilet not long after. I discovered after not being much of a drinker since my college days that I actually quite like champagne. Especially it seems when it's being used to toast my future ;)

These are probably 2 of my favourite pictures from the month of April. The top one is where I pulled over on the side of the road on my way to the place where I was going to learn to take blood (yeah!) and I realised how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful part of the country. The bottom picture was of our first day off together in the month of April, around the 20th, where we packed ourselves off to Keswick and got the boat round to do the fairly introductory walk called 'catbells'. I'd highly recommend it to anyone in the Lake District to walk, we're not hardcore walkers and this is very little work for great rewards of amazing views! It definitely felt better than slobbing around and tidying the house! We also went for a particularly lovely meal and ice cream in Keswick afterwards.

I can barely make it through a conversation without mentioning wedding planning these days so I could hardly leave it out of this! The month of April is our wedding month to be and this sweet little countdown is something I got for Sam (and myself, I mean, we live together) for our pre-wedding anniversary. It's also reversible with something for after the wedding so I feel like it was worth the investment ;) I honestly can't believe we're under a year to the wedding already. this whole year is going so quickly. We got engaged in January!!
The picture to the left is the best response we got to someone receiving our magnetic save the dates, Sam and I really do not face swap well. I had never really considered save the dates but we're having a weekday wedding and so wanted to give people more notice than just the invites. I just did a simple design and got them printed through printed.com as recommended by Rosie. We're doing the same with our invites (although they won't be magnetic and face swappable!) and hopefully, if I can manage it, our stationery too!


Hope you've enjoyed my little disjointed summary of April and a bit of March, I'm hoping I won't leave it quite so long next time!! I always post over on instagram if you're ever really looking out for what i'm up to ;)
I'm so excited at the moment because we had our engagement photoshoot this week with our wedding photographer and he's slowly releasing a few sneak peeks of our pics as he edits them, so exciting! I'll do a whole post on them once we get them all i'm sure!

Little Loves #2: London Edition.

Sam and I recently had a week off together, we used the time to spend some time at home visiting our families and having a quick 3 day midweek trip to London. We like to be tourist-y every now and then and we had booked a show before going but ended up seeing 2 while we were there. We had a list as long as our arm of places we wanted to eat, shops we wanted to visit and places we wanted to see. We actually managed the whole 3 days without seeing Big Ben which looking back seems strange but I didn't really need another picture of it!
Getting on with the post, these are a few of my favourite things about our trip to London, they're all phone photos because I'm the kind of person who's paranoid of making locals angry by being an annoying tourist heaving a big DSLR about (there actually won't be any proper pictures for about a month because we ended up leaving the DSLR 200 miles away at my Grandparent's house, gahhh!)  or taking a suitcase on the tube, so we did neither of these things!


The 2 shows we saw. 

We saw Les Mis for the first time and it was amazing, when we saw it there were about 6 stand ins but it really didn't take away from how amazing the show was. I was expecting to get emotional as loads of people said they cried all the way through the second half but I didn't. It was amazing though, the stage work is so good, I wasn't sure how they'd do the barricade and everything but it did not disappoint. On our second night there we decided to try for another show and ended up getting amazing seats for Wicked, we had seen it before last year but it's a show I really feel I could see again and again, I was like a little kid watching it, grabbing Sam's arm at all my favourite bits. My favourite of the 2 was Wicked, Sam's was Les Mis.

The Natural History Museum. 

Last time we were in London it was a weekend and the queue for the museum was absolutely crazy, we put it on our must do list this time because Sam had never been and the last time I went I must have been around 7 or 8. I just loved going here, even the architecture of the building makes it worth a visit, everything is so beautiful and I could have taken a million pictures.

The Breakfast Club. 

As I said before, a lot of what we wanted to do while in London involved eating and we had to have a trip to The Breakfast Club. We went to the one in Soho as it was closest to where we were most of the time, the food here is amazing, and the waitress brought us a whole jug of maple syrup without us having to ask, an all round great experience. I think this was tied with Wahaca for my favourite places we ate, I didn't take a picture of my food from Wahaca though because I was full on hangry when we ate there.

H&M beauty. 

I know this isn't a London exclusive but honestly the selection of beauty products in other stores I've been in has been either non-existent or a tiny range. The H&M on Oxford street was a beauty haven! I can't believe I managed to walk away with only one thing, this green eyeliner/eyeshadow pen. I have become obsessed with this, all I did for this look was basically drew it all over my eyelid, blending it out and blended a darker colour into the crease. In my opinion I think it looks like a lot more effort has gone into it and the green makes it a bit more interesting than a normal smokey eye.

❤

I wasn't sure how to caption this without it being super cringe but really it was just amazing to spend some free time with Sam. We've lived together for a few months now but with shift work and rare days off together it was a complete luxury to spend 3 solid days together just in each others company. We had so many laughs, walked about 15 miles a day, enabled each other to spend far too much and just had a great time. I love this dude.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed a little look into what I enjoyed the most during our trip to London! It's not a good tourist guide because we just swanned around doing a lot of shopping and looking at nice buildings. We always know we're going to go back so we don't feel the need to rush everything and do it all in the space of 48 hours. I really feel like we made the most of all of our time there and enjoyed it to the full though.

Just a quick added note, I'm not really sure how blogging will continue for the next month while the DSLR is 200 miles away (sob) because the reason I wanted to write this blog was to enjoy photography and writing again. That means half of the hobby is missing for me! I'm going to try and do some bits and pieces but otherwise things will be back to normal within a month after we've visited home again.

Sense of Self.

Ingrid Nilsen has done a series on her YouTube channel called 'Sense of Self', I love the format of the videos, so far she has done 3 episodes of it with other youtubers. The premise of the series is her exploring their space (with their help) and looking at one thing which represents each of the 5 basic senses. I've found with this series it offers an insight into what someone places around them that means something to them, because to choose their 'item' for each of the categories I really feel it has to mean something. I decided to use the basis of the sense of self series to create this blog post (after a bit of a crisis as to whether it would be plagiarism!) to show you a little more insight into my space and the things around me that I really feel represent me. 

S M E L L 

This candle is just all kinds of awesome, before moving in together Sam and I went to a little boutique style shop in my hometown and found a tiny version of this candle, we picked it up on a whim after both being completely surprised by the smell. Often when we're shopping in a place with scented candles we spend ages sniffing them all and only offering the other one a sniff when it smells particularly bad (TK Maxx is a good place for this game) and I really thought I would have hit the jackpot with this one on the bad scents game but it smells AMAZING. It's really heady and smokey but not in the way I expected when I picked it up, the patchouli adds a subtle earthy scent that I'm really failing to describe properly! After we had sparingly burnt all of the small one and moved 200 miles away from where we originally bought it we were on the hunt for a big version of it.
It turns out paddywax is stocked quite well nationally, Urban Outfitters in store and Beauty Bay online being 2 of the places I've found them but not this scent! After much trawling I eventually found them (for a reasonable price, after seeing them on eBay for about £80) on Amazon, this was in the middle of some trouble i'd been having where my wages at my new job hadn't come through but I immediately ordered 2, thats what credit cards are for, right? Since then it has been the smell of our home together, being burnt regularly but sparingly, the scent fills the room quickly and theres even a hint when the candle isn't lit.

T A S T E 

In my opinion there is no better food than humble peanut butter, I remember my addiction to the stuff starting as a teenager when it was the best snack to have on toast and I was frequently told off for eating it out the jar 'Joey style'. After moving out I definitely went through a phase of doing that or eating just a spoonful of peanut butter since I was an independent laydee who could make her own damn choices but soon realised it wasn't so great for the healthy eating kick i'd been on! I've tried the peanut butters that are all 100% natural and meant to be used as added protein in smoothies etc, and they're good, but they don't serve the proper purpose of comforting, salty spread that I will use anything as a vehicle to get into my face. My current favourite for eating peanut butter are the little aldi crackers pictured above, the cranberry in them adds a nice contrast of sweetness (similar to the peanut butter and jam sandwiches i consumed almost daily as a teen) and I find they're perfect for an afternoon slump snack when needed. I didn't realise I could write so much about peanut butter, and thats with some of it cut out as well!

 T O U C H

 It's no secret that I'm addicted to comfort, I love nothing more than getting snuggled up on the sofa with a cosy throw and lots of cushions, it's the hermit lifestyle that I love. These 2 are my current favourites, the furry one my most recent purchase from Primark, I think it's to make up for not being allowed pets in this house, and the red throw is from Sainsbury's. It's also now on sale (in store only) for half the freaking price I got it for :( Never mind, it was still quite a steal at £25. I've been looking at and longing for more expensive throws from the likes of Anthropologie and The White Company for some time and even though we are a young couple with no pets or children I can't quite bring myself to get them in case of any spillages or clumsiness (on my part) that could ruin something so expensive, I know, that's what being brought up poor does to you! These being reasonably priced mean they can be changed on a whim whenever the next fluffy thing catches my eye, within reason Sam, don't worry!

S I G H T 

This may seem like a strange one, but for my whole life I have been someone who is rarely seen without a book, if I'm going to the hairdressers I often take 2 books in case I finish one while I'm there, i always misplace books in the house because I carry them around with me to read as I'm doing various tasks and I'm going to need to get another bookshelf soon because mine is overflowing a bit. I am a book hoarder, always have been, always will be. When I was younger and only had one room to contain my things in, there wasn't a surface in my room that wasn't covered in books. I don't understand how someone can do the 'one in, one out' policy of buying books, I'm all for sharing the book love with friends and charity shops but I just can not bring myself to do it often! I've had maybe 3 major book clear outs which have gone to the oxfam bookshop but a few months after my last one I accidentally bought a book back that I had previously donated. After that happened I just bought a bigger bookcase so I could keep all my babies safely instead of balanced all over the place. I'm a rereader of books, I've lost count of the amount of times I've read the Harry Potter books, I honestly wish I'd kept a tally somewhere because I think it's in the hundreds, no exaggeration, reading books for me is how some people are with fragrances, they can transport me right back to a feeling I had the first time I read it. I have books I always read around christmas, books I read when I'm feeling sad or happy, there are old books for every mood and yet I'm constantly buying new ones. The top picture is the book I'm currently reading and the bottom picture is my current to read pile, not including 'Girl on the Train' because Sam is reading that. I've mentioned before that I'm doing a Goodreads 'reading challenge' this year because I felt like I hadn't read enough in 2014. I'm doing okay but need to get cracking if I'm going to complete it!

S O U N D 

I am sorry that this post contains yet another picture of my phone on a marble background, I should have really had some foresight into the 'Now Playing' post I just did as it left me stumped for what to do for sound for this post! I don't really have an ultimate favourite artist and my taste changes so much based upon my mood. When I thought about it I thought about an app I've got on my phone called 'Sleep Pillow', this was a lifesaver when I lived in flats when I first moved out alone especially with doing night shifts and having to sleep during the day when there was grass cutting going on around me etc. Its a white noise app with lots of different sounds to choose from, some of them are crap and i would feel completely ruin good sleep but my favourites are the rain and fan noises. Now Sam and I live together I don't need this on every night like I did when I lived alone (I know, I'm so bloody co-dependant) but it's great still for sleeping during the day, either after a night shift or y'know, when napping. I also like it for if I'm working on something and need some noise going on that doesn't distract me like the TV or music does sometimes.

That's me all done with my sense of self post, I have to give all credit to Ingrid Nilsen for the premise of this post, I was so inspired by her videos that I had to give it a go myself. I hope you feel like you've learned a little something about me :)

10 things I need to say about weight loss.

I've been, as my doctor put it, 'actively losing weight' since New Year and with that happening I've noticed an awful lot of social norms seem to go out the window, all of a sudden people can comment on everything about what you eat and how you look, but it's okay because you invited it, didnt you?
Here's a list of the things I've noticed.

1.  If you tell someone you're 'on a diet' (I hate that term but it's for ease here) they immediately start offering sweets and 'unhealthy' items trying to tempt you away from it, would you do that with cigarettes to someone who's stopped smoking? Don't tell people to 'loosen up' and offer them things you know will tempt them, they're probably trying really hard to avoid this and just want support, it doesn't mean you have to give up eating that stuff. Just because your friend is dieting doesn't mean you can't eat a donut, and if your friend shames you for that, they're an asshole, its not because they're dieting.

2. You don't need to lose weight! Don't make me make this uncomfortable and tell you the reasons why, I personally, do need to lose weight. I can get all serious about my self esteem or even my health, its probably not what you want to hear.

3. People become health experts, they tell you why what you're doing is wrong and what you should be doing instead. Everyone has a story about how their auntie's, hairdresser's, niece's dog groomer's son found a miracle weight loss cure that works. Or how they know a nutritionist or a trainer or they've read an article in the Daily Fail that say the next big step to weight loss is drinking 200mls of water heated to 26 degrees with 0.34 teaspoons of honey and a dash of eye of newt. Leave me alone, let me eat my lunch and don't tell me i'm not allowed bread because I'm dieting, I need carbs.

4. Calorie counting is just disordered eating, it makes people obsessive. I have actually had someone say this to me, calorie counting does not work for everyone, I have tried it multiple times in the past and given up because it's felt too restrictive or it made me feel like a failure if I went over my calorie goal, but for some reason, this time it stuck. It's working for me and I like it.

5. People asking if you're allowed to eat that when you're on a diet, or worse still as I found when I was once seen eating a SINGLE DIGESTIVE BISCUIT 'aren't you supposed to be on a diet?' The problem here stems from society's views that a diet is about deprivation, its cutting out joy and taste to become skinny, and it couldn't be more wrong. For me, this is about longevity, I'm coming at you with the hard hitters now, its a LiFeStYLe ChAnGe. Forgive me for using that phrase. 

6. Being accused of body shaming for posting before and after pictures. There’s a lot of controversy around before/afters with regards to body shaming your own body and others who may look like you did in the before picture. I’ve found a lot of ‘real life fitness’ kind of people on instagram have been my biggest motivators, not the personal trainers who sweat green juice but the people who are in the same boat as you but a bit further down the line. The ones who know it’s absolute bullshit that you have to make time in your day that could be used for playing The Sims to exercise but that help you to stick at it because really being healthy is for yourself and no one else. I’ve posted pictures along these lines on my own instagram, above is a picture of me wearing the same dress with a difference in my weight, I put the pictures together for myself as at that stage I was feeling unmotivated and like there were no changes happening. I decided to post it because of the reasons above, maybe it would help someone else who sees that other people are doing the same as them. 

7. People have assumed that I think I’m better than them because i’ve been able to lose weight, I’ve even thought this about other people who are losing weight in the past when I wasn’t. (A kind of fuck you, I’m eating this donut, just try and say anything, like they would have done!) Weight loss is really fucking hard, it sucks, it feels never ending and no matter how much someone says to you to eat less and exercise more that is not how this is about to go down. I stress eat, I eat emotionally that can't be overcome by eating less, moving more. You have to have a change in mindset and I completely understand people who says they're not in a place where they can lose weight right now, i don't think just because its working for me right now (and who says it will continue to work?) doesn't mean i think I'm stronger or have more willpower. Weight loss is really really hard. 

8. Exercise makes you SO HUNGRY. I've spent most of this post complaining about other people when you're dieting, oops, guess i just had some things to get off my chest, but this one, this one is the killer. I am always ravenous after I work out and could quite easily devour £40 worth of dominos in one sitting, I've had to learn to be clever with pre/post workout food (by clever I mean pinterest and instagram are my friends) to kind of make this work for me, but there have been days where I've worked out and being doing amazingly well with my eating all day then ordered pizza. It happens. 

9. Weight does not come off all over the body at the same rate, it just doesn't happen in equal parts. I am an odd shape, I could wear  probably up to 4 different dress sizes in different parts of my body. It's so great. 

10.  Junk food is great, and I will never be one of those people who loves kale, also, dates and raw cocoa powder do not a sweet treat make. I'm sorry. 

This post isn't in any way supposed to offend anyone, I am a big believer in loving your body and accepting what you've got but also (and to completely contradict myself) I think if you want to change it in someway, as long as its safe, all power to you, whether it be through surgery, a haircut or weight loss. This is meant to be a bit of a tongue in cheek view of the things i've noticed since I started losing weight, even though I'm moaning a lot through this over this year I really have had a lot of support so it's definitely not all bad! 

Little Loves.

My little loves of the moment, no particular theme or order, just as they come to mind! Hope you enjoy.

This guy!

Since moving in together in July I often look over at this lovely bearded face with a mushy look of appreciation that my past self would hate. He makes me laugh every day even when I'm a big ball of anxiety and I feel like there's a cloud looming that will never go away. Plus that beard is pretty magnificent. I know, I know, mushy mushy but we've just moved 200 miles across the country together, its a big deal y'know?

Lucy Rose. 



I had heard Lucy's song Like An Arrow on Radio 1 a while ago and really enjoyed it but once I'd arrived at wherever I was going forgot about it completely, I was then looking for local listings for who was coming to the Brickyard in Carlisle and saw her name on it. Unfortunately Sam and I are both at work when she's playing here but since discovering her again through that website I've been playing her songs non-stop on both youtube and spotify. I don't know enough about music to describe why I like her music so much but it's just my cup of tea.

Jillian Michael's Burn Fat, Boost Metabolism. 

Let's pretend when writing this section that I didn't spell it motabolism and wonder why spellcheck was being such an idiot trying to correct me, it didn't happen.
I have always had a thing for Jillian Michaels, something about her telling me 'not to phone it in' and 'you don't get to where you want to be by just taking the stairs every now and then' really manages to get me to try harder. I kind of hate her, but I love her so much. I've been on a 'weight loss journey' (yuk, I know, I don't know how else to phrase it, I sound like a dick all the ways i've tried!) since the beginning of the year, I've lost 3 stone (not looking for praise) and I've only been to the gym twice, I like to workout at home and I really feel like Jillian's videos make for the most effective workout I've tried but without making me feel like i'm going to collapse. I track calorie burn using a polar watch and I always get a bitchin' burn that makes me feel like a superhero and I only sometimes counteract it by ordering pizza. Like 30% of the time probably. You can find most of Jillian's workouts on youtube, this one is my fave because of the kickboxing aspect of it, makes me feel bad ass, even if I don't look like one ;)

Goodreads.

I've always been an avid reader but last year I really felt I hadn't made enough time to read as much as I usually did, it was my first full year of proper employment and Sam and I lived 100 miles apart nearly so there was a lot happening all year! I had seen friends and Sanna from books and quills doing 'reading challenges' before on Goodreads. I decided to download the app and set myself a reading challenge, it started off as 30 books but when I realised how behind I was getting I cheated a bit and reduced it to 25, I don't like failure okay?! It's really helped me keep track of what I've read and i've found some amazing recommendations on there. My favourite book of the summer was 'I'll give you the sun.' and I saw it on their homepage one day. My goal is to spend a day scanning all of my books so I have a list of all the books I actually own, it would take me such a long time though, so maybe it's a task for a week off, done shelf by shelf a day at a time! You can follow/add me on Goodreads here.


There you have it, pictures from my phone on this post, some from instagram, follow me here :)

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After many an unsuccessful attempt including my blog being blacklisted for explicit content (!!!) I'm now finally up and running on bloglovin'. Yay!

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! 

Can I call it a hiatus?

Oh hey!
So, I used to do this blogging thing and I've been thinking more and more lately about coming back to it, not as the blog used to be because I ended up hating it and it's probably the reason I took a 2 year break from the blogging and internet world.  I was definitely comparing myself to other blogs and bloggers and making myself write about things I thought would be popular instead of what I enjoyed.
I was so unsure about if I could even remember how to blog that it put me off for a long time, that and not being able to think of a name. So, creatively, I decided to just use my name. I know, groundbreaking.

Since I've taken such a long time off blogging I'm not going to be so egotistical as to think anyone remembers anything specific about my life, so lets treat this as a little intro, a lot has changed in the 2 and a half years since this little blog was used last. Mostly the fact I will never use iPad photos in my posts again, iPhone is a different matter!

This is me, in my current home county of Cumbria, I moved to Cumbria with my boyfriend Sam in July of this year for his job. Previously we both hailed from North Lincolnshire so that's nearly a 200 mile move for the both of us! I'm a staff nurse, which is lucky in that my job really can move anywhere. I feel that this blog will be my outlet for anything and everything not related to my job, quite different from those who's job is related to blogging or even is blogging but thats the beauty of it I've realised now, you do you boo! (Why can't I put the sassy emoji here?!)

It was really this move that has made me want to start blogging again, it's such a scary, exciting and sometimes lonely time living so far from family and friends that I really felt like for me it needed documenting, it also might be just a little bit more interesting to read now! 

I kind of don't know what else I can say at the moment, so I suppose I'll just sign off here and see how we go! I'm hoping to make it through without another 2.5 year break ;)