Hiya!

Hello you beauts!

It's been such a long time since I've blogged, I'm really out of practice. I just wanted to stop by and say hi while I write another post in the background.

Here, have a photo:

Insert interesting post title here

I'm lacking the inspiration to create a good post title today so this is what you're getting folks!

I hope all is well with everyone. I'm aware that quite often, I pose that question and then write some banal text about how great life is when actually, not everyone is as fortunate, and maybe things aren't that well.

I didn't even know where this post was going until I started writing. But let's discuss homelessness.

You've probably heard of something called Crisis for Christmas, which is a UK based charity that provides shelter for the homeless over the Christmas period. Let's just think about that for one second. The year is 2014, we are living in probably one of the most affluent countries in the world, yet there are people living on the streets. I find that a hard concept to wrap my head around. How many times have you walked past someone on the street, asking for food or money and you've just ignored them, put your head down and kept walking? I'm no saint, I'm guilty of it too, but if I look deeper the reason I do it is probably because I feel uncomfortable at not doing more to help the situation. Think about how much money you earn, or think about the richest people in the country... Having £10m in the bank surely can't feel good when there are people out there trying to find somewhere to sleep while the temperature drops to freezing at night. I sound harsh but sometimes it's important to confront these realities. 

For the past few years, I've volunteered at Crisis and it's a real heart and eye opening thing to do. There are different volunteering roles available at different centres across London (where I'm based) so you can be involved in anything from making tea to manning the drug outreach rooms, to serving dinner to just *being* with the guests. I've met some truly inspirational people. A lady forced to live on the streets after her and her husband divorced and she wasn't able to earn enough to support herself and her children. A man who'd left the army and a) found it hard to re-acclimatise to being a civilian (I can't remember the real term for that) and b) was unsupported by the government and so ended up on the streets. The saddest I will always remember is the chap whose wife and son had died in a car accident 8 years previously and he just couldn't.get.over it. He'd become an alcoholic and was homeless because he couldn't move past his grief and didn't know where to get help.

The thing is, throughout the various struggles, some of the people I've met still find the strength to smile and find happiness despite their situation. How inspiring is that? Makes our day to day stresses and issues seem minute now. I'm not trying to trivialise anything serious that people are going through, it's just important to keep perspective.

Thankfully, Crisis offers help, support and shelter to people in need around Christmas time. Hundreds of volunteers come out around the festive period to get stuck in and help, and so I guess I'm ending this post with a big, fat and totally obvious.. Plea? Suggestion? Please get involved if you can! If you can't spare the time, then please spare some cash as donations go a long way to keeping Crisis going.  The website is www.crisis.org.uk. 

If you can spare neither time nor cash, then please stop and talk to someone in need next time you're walking down the street. They're human, and all humans need warmth and interaction, even from strangers.

Much love xx

Hello World!

Hi world

This must be some kind of silence record for me, right? Well let's get a cup of chai and have a catch up.

What's new? Lots is new and different in my world. I'm now a resident of Holloway! Yes, that's right, I've moved from the borough of 'ackney and am now a fully fledged Islingtonite. I likes it in Holloway. Holloway isn't pretentious, it's just cool in it's own way, and I'm now the perfect distance to Camden so I can get my weekly fix without getting sick of it. My new place is a gorgeous Victorian house on three levels with a big kitchen and a big bathroom with...wait for it... A HUGE BATH! A little weird mayhaps to get excited about the size of a bath but the tub in the old place was gross and not good for relaxing and soaking your cares away. Interestingly, since being able to have a bath here, the aches and pains I'd been feeling for months in my legs from too much dancing and yoga has completely gone, aided and abetted by this amazing arnica salve from Neal's Yard. My getaway sticks feel transformed! No more limping and no more shin pain. S'nice.

The other new thing is a new job which I started about four weeks ago. I'm enjoying it a lot! It's been good to challenge my brain and feel busy and useful again. It's so easy to fall into the trap of doing something because it's easy or because there's little expectation of you, but I think that's a dangerous path to tread. You end up stagnating, and feeling lethargic and unmotivated. Who wants that? Seriously?! Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning and to feel as though they've achieved something by the end of the day. It gives life purpose! 

Back-tracking a little to the new house, we have a garden here which Bo loves! He got into a fight the other day with one of the neighbourhood cats but only came off with superficial scratches (phew!) but the vet had to shave his eyebrow to have a closer look. As you can imagine, he was SUPER happy about that.

"I hate you so much right now"

See...SUPER happy. He's been tentatively venturing into the garden again but I think he has his marching orders as he doesn't wander far before coming back home. There's another black and white cat who comes into our garden who could possibly be the scratchy eyebrow  perpetrator, but on a dark night, it's impossible to tell difference between them. I've stood at the door calling Bo when Other Bo has appeared over the wall and then Real Bo follows shortly afterwards...I like to think they're playmates but who knows. One of the other neighbourhood cats has also made herself at home inside the house a few times...Apparently she's popped in and eaten the old housemate's sausage in the past. That's not a euphemism. Time to get a microchip activated cat flap methinks!

I don't want to bore you COMPLETELY to death (though I realise that yes, I've just written about houses, jobs and cats. Soz).

Next post will be about something more interesting...maybe...possibly... Let's just hope!

Could I live on a bus?

Yes, that it the question of the day. Hi internets, how are you? All good I hope. I write to you this morning with Dave Brubeck playing in my ear and with sleep still in my eyes having overslept and arriving half an hour late for work.

 

So yes, the question of the day (or of this post really) is: could I live on a bus? Let me fill you in... You might want to grab a coffee and get comfortable.

 

I want to start off by saying that I love living in London. I love London itself! It's a beautiful city; not all cars and smog and busy tourist areas like a lot of people think it to be. It's green and grand, and full of great parks and markets and places to visit and things to see. It's diverse and brimming with different nationalities and personalities, a big melting pot of life. There are, of course, darker sides to London which I could delve into, but I won't.

 

So yes, London is wonderful, but it's also very draining. I very much absorb and consume the environment around me, and for someone who hails from the almost-countryside; city life can prove to be quite fatiguing. I know you'll all know what I mean when I say that travelling on the underground can turn even the calmest person into the Incredible Hulk. It brings out a self-centred side to people that I'm sure we wouldn't even know existed were it not for public transport. People pushing, shoving, stealing seats, standing in the way of people trying to exit the train (I think this is my number 1 pet hate on the train/tube) and the one I think I will never understand, which is steadfastly holding on to the rail when people are trying to depart, lest you should lose your spot. Is it illegal to karate chop people's arms from the pole? If not, I'm totally using that one next time.

 

Anyway, I digress. Back to the point of this post. My yoga teacher, Mark Freeth, and his wife Anna (is there a more lovely person on the planet? I don't think so...) live in Tunbridge Wells and have recently opened a yoga studio on the High Street (go check it out...it's awesome!) Mark used to live on a groovy bus that he converted years back, which he now uses mostly for weekend breaks. I wish I had a photo so you could see just how groovy it is! It's fully functional with a bedroom, shower, toilet, kitchen, living area; pretty darn cool if you ask me. On my last visit, Anna and I were talking and she made a comment about me moving back to Kent and living on the bus, and then teaching and practicing yoga at the studio. I responded with "Anna, if you honestly said I could live on the bus, I so would" in a half-joking, half-serious kind of way. Anyway, 10 minutes later as I was in the car with my Dad driving back to Tonbridge, Mark texts me to say "come and live on the bus...seriously".

 

So...could I live on a bus? My initial reaction was "it would be SO.COOL! and so ME." I started to imagine a dreamy life living on the bus with my cat, Bo. Taking everything back to basics, living in the countryside with the fresh air around me, living yoga, living a calmer life, seeing my family more often...but I have a tendency to imagine the very best dream-situation where everything is rosy and happy, and nothing ever goes wrong (and I'm sorry, but life is life, and sometimes things don't go like we planned). A bit like Stepford Wives I guess, but with less robots. It's the hazard of being a dreamer! My thoughts then came back to London. What about swing? What about troupe?! What about my friends, and adventures at my doorstep, and my lovely London life? And it IS lovely, despite the ups and downs. So I spent weeks agonising, thinking, pondering and wondering whether I could upheave myself; and my decision? For now, I'm staying put. In my heart, I don't think I'm done with London yet, and I don't want to move and wish I hadn't done it and be yearning for what I had before. I know, I know, life is an adventure and change is good for the soul, but I'm a firm believer in trusting my instincts and they are currently telling me to stay where I am.

To answer the question: could I live on a bus? Not right now. But some day, maybe I will :)

I'm realising that I have little concept of time passing

Hello internets! How the devil are you? It appears to have been eight months since I wrote on this blog and in all honesty, I completely forgot it existed, such is the passing of time, and life. And wow, haven't things changed a whole heap.

 

Where to start? Work wise, I began temping for a company near Regent Street in October/November time last year and I am now a permanent member of staff. Yep! All that talk of the freedom of temping, but actually, I had a spate of illness over Christmas and being ill & off work = no pay, which = no rent... As beautiful and freeing as temping was, security had to come first. But thankfully, I like the company, my colleagues are lovely and treat each other respectfully, and even better, I get to teach yoga every week!

 

My love life is non-existent but I'm currently navigating my way through dating websites and you know the old saying, it'll come along when you least expect it... I'm not sure I have the capacity for a relationship at the moment; I'll come back to that shortly.

 

About two months ago, I adopted a sweet little cat called Bo. Here's a photo of the little beauty:

 

 

He's such a sweetheart; he's really affectionate and playful, and he adores having attention heaped on him in spades. It's really lovely having a pet in the flat; like having family to come home to. (Cat Lady probably springs to mind right about now)

 

Now onto swing and yoga... My big passions in life. Honestly, since 2013 started, I've been feeling very up and down and can't seem to muster the enthusiasm and energy to do either with any passion... and here's what's really happening with me this year. Depression.

 

As is common with depression, I've been trying to fight the feelings (a useless task) and pretend that it hasn't returned, but I had a therapy appointment yesterday and The Lady confirmed that I'm depressed again. This time though, I feel totally hopeful and optimistic about it, because firstly, I've taken the right step in getting help for it and secondly, I know that the way depression makes me feel isn't REAL. Depression is a big fat liar, but a liar that needs dealing with. So yes, I may sit feeling low, anxious, and sometimes like I want to cry, but I can deal with those symptoms, because I'm taking steps to deal with the cause.

 

In the appointment yesterday whilst discussing my symptoms over the past few years, I felt a little silly, because for about 18 months, I'd been feeling happy and joyous and more positive about things, and in that joy, I thought that the depression was fought and beaten! Smug probably sums up how I felt. HA! Goodbye depression, I've beaten you and you can NEVER return! How wrong I was... Now what I feel is humble; humble that it has returned and that it has taught me to never feel smug again. Now I want to accept it and work with it.

 

So that is me, right now, in a nutshell. Do I want to feel depressed? Of course not. I want to enjoy life, feel joy, and feel my passion return for the things I love. And they will...it'll just take time and patience. Some people feel really uncomfortable discussing mental health issues because they're invisible to the naked eye and somehow intangible. Physical pain is easier to deal with than mental pain, and yes, maybe I'll wish I'd never put it out there on the internets for all to read, but if my experience reaches out to just one other person, then I can't ask for more.

Harro!

Harro! Well it's been a lot longer than I realised, I last wrote a post in June; doesn't time fly when you're having fun!

I write to you on a cold, wet, windy October day, sitting on my sofa in a big thick cardigan surrounded by tissues and hot drinks from having a stinky cold. Lots of changes have occurred recently. I finally left my job at the engineering firm and am now temping and loving it! Without wanting to get too deep on y'all on a Monday morning, I feel so free having decided to stay true to myself and do something that makes me happy instead of letting the fear hold me back. I'm trying to learn to go with the flow and to stay positive and hopeful that things will work out which I'm sure they will.

I wanted to write something fun and lighthearted so here's a list of things that I'm loving at the moment:

• Swing dancing!
• New friends.
• Jamie's Italian.
• Pinterest and Instagram!
• 1940s fashion...that's right.. I'm embracing a new look :D

I hope you've all been having a smashing time of it lately and are enjoying life, whatever it's throwing at you. I'm hoping to get back into blogging more regularly again but the best laid plans and all that...

Have a great week and Happy 1th October everyone! :)

xx

I'm Joining the Circus!

Ok, I'm not actually joining the circus but I'm super excited because I've just signed up to this:

http://www.gorillacircus.com/fts.html

Trapeze session in Regent's Park! It's not until August but I'm crazy excited about it, mostly because I get to monkey around and spend two hours hanging from a trapeze. Who wouldn't want to do that :) 

Just for Today...

...tell someone how awesome they are. Or that they inspired you somehow. Or that you love their hat. Doesn't matter what it is, but spread some love today.

Inspiration

This is just fantastic:

(from www.mindbodygreen.com)

As is this:

Enjoy!!

It's Been Quite a While!

Sorry for the radio silence, it's been quite a while since I posted anything. How's it been going in the Land of the Internets?

I've had the busiest, craziest, most stressful and fun times I've had in quite a while lately. There's been a whole HEAP of stuff going on, most of which I won't bore you with but this weekend just gone, I had the absolute pleasure of attending the London Swing Festival where along with my swingy friends, I danced my little socks off, not to mention an inch or two off my waist. I've never had so much fun in my life!!

Six hours+ dancing every single night for four consecutive nights. I'm exhausted I can tell you but it's been the most thrilling, exciting weekend in the history of weekends. I feel as though my dancing is on another level - how can it not be after dancing with so many fabulous leads :)

Saturday night was themed "Best of British" so Amy and I hand made our own skirts, rosettes and fascinators as shown below. The material for the skirt and rosettes was from a company in Cornwall, with little red London buses and phone boxes all over it. Cute! Much like our escapade to Bestival last year (where funnily enough, we discovered Swing Patrol :)), nobody really understood our outfits unless we stood side by side. At least we didn't have to pretend to be sisters this time.

I'll post some more photos soon once Amy's emailed them to me. I didn't take any of my own snaps as I was too busy dancing my butt off but I know a few of the gang have some excellent pics!

So, that's the latest update for you. I'm trying to recover from the weekend's antics at the moment but I'm feeling buzzed and more motivated than I have done in a while. That's the beauty of finding a passion, no matter how unexpected. It moves you to do the things you love in other areas of your life. Like blogging :) 

I'll be back soon, hopefully it won't be so long this time!

Turn That Frown Upside Down

I keep re-writing this first sentence and deleting it; indecisiveness is a sure sign that I need to meditate and bring myself back to centre. 

The theme of this post was to say that I'm feeling a bit blue and therefore need to write a grateful list, which reads thus:

1. Yoga

2. Meditation

3. Living in London

4. Weekends with new friends in the sunshine

5. Septum piercings

6. Lars and the Real Girl - or more specifically, Ryan Gosling. A modern day acting genius in my opinion.

7. Cycling in London. Or anywhere for that matter.

8. Swing dancing

9. Next door's staffies - the most loving dogs I've ever met!

10. Our front room - an oasis of calm and comfort

I would also like to share the following picture with you, just for shits and giggles.

Namaste, love and peace y'all.

Sunday Sounds

Here's a Sunday Sound for you to chill out to:

Enjoy peoples!

p.s. check out the new tab "If You Want More"... I've been a busy social media bee today!

Peace, namaste and love to all.

Walking and Thinking

Tonight I walked home from work - that's 3.85 miles, 1 hour and 237 calories burned. I have a clever little app on il mio telefonino that tracks your route and calculates how long you take, how many minutes per mile, calories burned etc etc. It's a handy little tool and one I shall use to record my progress for the Race for Life training.


It felt good to walk home; it gave me a lot of time to think about things. I've been in a funk for I'd say 95% of this year and I've let it go on for far too long. Time to get myself out of it. Walking was satisfying, an achievement in itself. It made me realise how wasteful taking the bus is - it takes me almost the same amount of time to walk as it does to take the bus and not only that but walking is free! Another bonus surely.


I haven't practiced any asanas today, I have a chesty cold (again!) and I feel that resting is what I need. I used my neti pot this morning, it made me feel more congested though I'm not sure if that's a side effect that occurs when you irrigate your nasal passages whilst in the middle of a snot fest? I need to ask my soon to be yoga tutor for some advice. I'll be meeting up with him and Anna on Saturday. Anna is one of the other ladies I took the yoga foundation course with last year; she's lovely! She trained with Mark as a teacher last year and is now a fully fledged YAUK certified yogi AND, she and Mark are engaged. It'll be nice to catch up with her and finally meet Mark himself.


Gareth just texted to tell me to look to the west at Venus and Jupiter so on that note, I'm off! 


G'night y'all. Sleep well.

It's Happening, It's REALLY Happening

So I've spent the past week glued to the internets searching for cheap accommodation in Leamington Spa for my yoga course at the end of this month and after emailing local B&Bs and finding prices for hotels online, all of which are horrendously out of my price range, I called the local college to see if they had any student accommodation available for people visiting the area. The very helpful lady at the end of the phone, Sandra, took my details and called me back 30 minutes later with the name and telephone number of a host couple who said they would happily put me up for the week. Huzzah to thinking outside the box!

I'll be staying with a couple called Gemma and Adam who live ten minutes away from the course venue with their three cats. I've spoken to Gemma on the phone twice now and she seems absolutely lovely! How lucky am I to have found a place in such close proximity to the course and with such lovely people! And with cats! Double huzzah!

It's made me realise... this is REALLY happening people! I begin my yoga TT in two short weeks and by the end of the year, I hope to be trained and ready to go forth in the world as a yoga teacher. Seeing a plan come together really is satisfying, especially one that I've been thinking about for the past 3 years. That seems like a long time but for me, finding the right course and the right tutor was really important.


I'm excited to see what unfolds this year and where this next step in my yoga journey takes me.


I'll keep you updated with photos n ting as the course goes on.


Namaste and peace to all of you.

Little Bit of Something and Nothing

The smell of burning popcorn is wafting through the floorboards and directly into my nostrils... I think Clare just returned home and is making her favourite snack. I'd go and say hi but I have to be honest, I've got a slight stomach upset and moving from a semi-foetal position is not an option just yet. Too much information? Sorry...

As the title says, this is a little bit of something and nothing. More just a reason to say hi and waffle on about my weekend. I had a really spontaneous day yesterday! Gareth text me at just gone 8am (not long after I'd woken up and was still dozing in bed) to say he had a spare ticket to go to the Harry Potter set tour and did I want to come. Did I want to come? Does a bear poop in the woods?! I pretty much had to hot foot it to Belsize Park in double quick time but I made it with enough time to meet his sister, eat some scrambled eggs and then head out to Watford with Gareth and his cousins. Felt a little bit like a hobo turning up looking uber tired, eating their lovely food and then leaving! 

Anyway, as is the norm now, here are some photos of the tour in no particular and by no means exhaustive...

 

Dumbledore, Snape and Professor McGonagall in the Great Hall

Some owl cages in Diagon Alley

Costumes from the Yule Ball in the Goblet of Fire. Emma Watson's dress (the purple one) is unbelievably tiny!

Ron's bed.

Nearly Headless Nick's Head

Professor Dumbledore's Office

Drinking butterbeer!!

Dobby!

A replica of Hogwarts. Absolutely stunning!

More wands than you could shake a...wand at.

The tour took about two hours for us to walk around at a regular pace and there is just so much to look it. It's amazing to see how much time, effort, energy and love has gone into making every single set, costume, prop - they didn't miss a thing. The newspapers contained real stories and "in-joke" advertisements... One of the tour guidey helpery people told me a story that when Michael Gambon was eating lunch, he kept his Dumbledore beard protected inside a beard bag so as not to drop food down it, so they used that idea and created an advert for Beard Bags in the papers. Every book contained real text in case, say, a book fell off a shelf and opened on the floor and was caught on camera. No expense was spared but when you're going to make a film that is adored by so many then you have to do it right! 

We even tried some butterbeer - it was ah-may-zing! It tastes really sweet and completely delicious; it's been compared it to shortbread which I guess could be too much for some but Gareth and I were both really impressed by it. Gareth was particularly taken by the "secret ingredient" that they put on top of the drink to give it a beer head... No idea what it is (obviously, being a secret ingredient) but it's really tasty.

The tour doesn't officially open until next weekend methinks, but Gareth works for Warner Bros so was offered free tickets for the tour before it opens to the public. I think tickets will be priced at something like £28 but it's worth it! 

So with the tour over, we drove back to Belsize Park and took a wander into Camden Town, had a little mosey and then headed home. I spent last night vegged in front of the telly watching a program on musicals then went to bed and fell asleep watching Midnight in Paris. I need to watch it again from beginning to end but from what I have seen, it seems like it's trying to be Vicki Cristina Barcelona but with cr*p acting.. I'll get back to you on that!

Today I've been a little hermit; I woke up this morning, meditated, fell asleep again and then got up, cooked an epic breakfast omelette, watched about 20 minutes of TV, realised it's rubbish, practiced some yoga, did a load of washing, tidied my room, popped to the shops for some essentials and then came back and now I'm in bed with a slight upset stomach. Sure it's nothing, I think it might have been the eggs.

This weekend's been awesome and had reminded me yet again how awesome life is and how great my friends are. I've been worrying a lot about money lately but a thought occurred to me earlier that I may be financially skint but I am abundant in life. That's something to hold onto and be grateful for.

If anyone has any photos from their weekend they want to share then please do! I'd love to see what you've been up to :)

xxx

This one's for you Amy

Happy birthday my beautiful friend!

Best Night...Ever!!

Oh my gawd, I'm so unbelievably tired/hungover after last night. I got in at 4 of the o'clock this morning and woke up at 11.30 - I haven't slept until almost lunchtime since I was a teenager! I've since spent the entire day on the sofa surrounded by orange juice, food and watching Home Alone and generally feeling sorry for myself. It just dawned on me that I haven't even had a shower or brushed my teeth. Gross.com. 

What happened last night I hear you ask? The Swing Ball happened that's what! It was one of the greatest nights of my life. I had a bunch of the swing gang round to my casa before the big event for some munchies and drinks and then headed to the venue, Shoreditch Town Hall, for  an entire night of swing dancing... They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here's a few thousand for you. They need editing so I'll probably update later.

Livia and Cameron

Me, Cameron and Livia

The Highbury Banner

Beginner's class before the social dancing began

Some of the Highbury gang

More Highbury swingers plus our teachers, James and Gen.

<3

Out and About

I've been out and about in London and decided it's high time I took more photos. So feast your eyes below. The first six pics were taken in Borough Market this afternoon.

All taken with a Samsung something or other mobile phone and edited with an app called Pixlr-o-matic. 

I was shopping in Dalston earlier today and found myself walking behind an elderly couple who were going about their daily business and holding hands. I had to take a picture. <3

I'm having a burst of creativity today

The all important ingredients

Sugar and butter in all it's fluffy goodness

It's beginning to look like cake mix

Layer one complete

Oh yeah

Out of oven...needs a bit of work

Cravings

Snippet of actual conversation with a friend to plan meeting up for breakfast:

Him: I have a craving for huevos rancheros.

Me: Of course you do.

On a different note entirely, this was the view from my front door last night:

I'm about the head out to my new favourite cafe/vintage shop for a lovely morning coffee so I best dig out my wellies from the Cupboard of Things.

Have a great day.

Peace.