It's summer!!!

To help me make the most of this precious time off I've been posting tweets of what I've been doing. It may not seem a lot but I want to make sure I remember each day for what it is. However, I realise tweets aren't always accessible so thought I'd best keep this up to date too!!

The evening of the holiday. I was so overwhelmed by the generosity of my children and appreciation from the parents this year. It's been a tough one to manage behaviourally but the children have been fantastic.   I will miss them but also I'm looking forward to a new start with the new bunch! 

Day one: After realising the errors of my timing on Monday, my car was booked in for a service at 10 and not at 8! So a lie in was semi possible. But a year of early get ups is hard to shake. Still a drive through to the garage in the nearest city was actually enjoyable. The only feelings of anxiety was as I was nearing the place. My anxiety is becoming a huge problem!! 🚗

Once dropped off my partner whisked me off to the Metro Centre where we enjoyed a gorgeous meal in TGIs and did a bit of holiday shopping :) 🛍

A mad rush back to the garage to find that they'd lost my car (temporarily) and back home for a quick tidy and an appointment to get some new heaters. My partner, who knows no boundaries of shame, managed to talk the business man down to almost half of the retail price. Phew on our bank accounts but I felt huge sympathy for the salesman!! Now I can't wait to get the new heaters in! It'll be like living in the modern age!!

Day two: today was going to be relaxing but my father came along and started to help me renovate the garden. 

Despite feeling rather tired,  I then attacked the house for four hours!! You can tell I'm getting old. 

Just as I thought I was going to have a night in, my friend picked me up for a spontaneous barbecue despite the heavens opening after a rather warm week! 

Gorgeous food and gorgeous company brought the end of Day two!

🍃🌿🍗🌧

Day three: shopping, gardening and a night to myself.  At least the garden is 3/4 done - almost back to scratch!! 

 

The evening saw, what I was expecting to be short 10 minute walk, ending up at my parents house. I guess you shouldn't let a dog choose its own route!! If he'd had is own way he'd be back with my partner's parents house!!

 Benji also got to make three new friends!

Day four: today has been rather boring in terms of what I've been up to! This morning I made it clear that today was going to be a lazy day! However, I felt motivated to get out there and start exercising!! So despite rain starting to fall, I was off on a jog! Although it's hard going with my poor leg muscles the state they're in, I managed to jog three quarters of it. 🏃🏻🏃🏻 Need to keep it up now!! 🏃🏻🏃🏻

After that I've done what I said I would. Camped out on the sofa binging on my reading and Netflix before sampling a game. I think this holiday is going to be full of nights to myself...

 

📖🖥🎮

When did I stop living life...

When you're in your twenties there's only one way to live life. Fast and hard. So why do I feel like my younger years are fading away?

Social media is such a bugger. People are living life to the full. Travelling all the way around the world, discovering themselves. Even just laughing!! Oh how much I would love to hear myself laugh!
When I was taking my gap year, I promised that if I wasn't travelling  I was going to try new things. To pick up a new hobby. And so I tried my hand at sketching, I tried exercise, I tried photography. I wanted to find myself a hobby. 
Fast forward 25 and my life is a blur of working and trying to rest in the little time that I have left. My life is slipping away from me. 
So yet again. Let's try it. Let's make something of this year!!

Maybe happiness isn't found in finding yourself.

...perhaps its in pretending to be someone else.

As I was laid on the bed earlier, shattered from yet another day of work and battling anxieties.  I looked around and took in what my partner and I had made for ourselves so far.  This house was finally beginning to look like ourhouse.

Then I started thinking – was this what happiness was.  Had I imagined that I would be living in what was my Gran’s house when I was 13?  No.  I hadn’t even imagined my Gran passing away.  Yet at that time when I did sit there reflecting to the future, I’d thought that I couldn’t actually imagine life after 30.  I don’t know what I thought back then.  Perhaps I’d hoped to be married and have children by the age of 27.  Yet anything beyond that was just black.  Try as I might I couldn’t think of what the future would hold.

Now being an adult all I do is reflect back to the past.  It was like when 21 happened life stopped looking ahead, but began to look back.  And it’s during these looking back moments that I mused upon one thought.  Wasn’t I so much happier as a youngster purely because I spent so much of my time thinking I was someone else.  Most of the time I was daydreaming that I was some other character – Sabrina, Hermione even Mary-Kate and Ashley.  I was always someone else.  Never plain old me.  And I was happier then.  Being me just isn’t a happy place in comparison.

However is this just because I’ve become an adult?  A boring old adult with no imagination.  Having to run from place to place without a moment to stop and think about myself.  There’s always something I should be doing or some responsibility that I ought to be doing.  There’s no place in all that to just live life and just be happy.

Perhaps for a day I’ll think again that I’m someone else.  Alleviate all the responsibility and just become not-me.

The encompassing feeling of loneliness

I am in a happy long term relationship. I’m moving in with the bloke. Well moved in already really.  But a heavy feeling sat on my chest tonight as I was cleaning up a meal.  I was just feeling ever so lonely. 
For 8 years I’ve been travelling. Not travelling in the sense of moving around the world. But moving around within a few miles. Living out of a suitcase, plastic bags, backpacks until now. And it’s only now when I’m finally becoming rested and stationary that I realise, I’m just so lonely. 

My partner works completely different shifts to me and for the next five nights, all I’ll get to see him is when he wakes me up on a night when coming home. Or when I wake up and see his sleeping form. In the time between I’m busy working, or busy sitting by myself. Now admittedly I enjoy this time for time. Just being by myself and not having to make myself speak to people as is so often the case with my problems. However there becomes times when I do get fed up with my own company. Noones there at the end of the phone or online. All my friends have seemingly disappeared part from one or two. 

So when it’s times like this I’m left feeling rather sorry for myself.  Stuck in my own pit of misery. 

A New Year. A New Me.

  So 2016 arrived in a rather demure manner.  Sober yet bursting with a Chinese takeaway, I spent the night in the same way that the majority of 2015 passed - moany and grumpy. 

However, things have changed so far this year. I feel a sense of being more confident within myself. Something which has been noted by work colleagues. I feel so much more comfortable and mature somehow. I seem to have the right attitude now. 

It may have been due to finding out that my friend has been hiding that fact that he has been suffering from a fatty liver for around 5 years and he hasn't mentioned it. Nor changed his life for that matter. Nothing is more sobering than hearing this while sat there with a can of Fosters in your hand (other lagers are available). 
It seemed to me like this was a sign for changing myself. If he was suffering from such ailments then God knows how I'm surviving myself. And so I pledge to get fit this year. 

My last years resolution was to get sorted into a house and get a new car. I accomplished those. This year it's to fix all the years of damage I've been doing to myself. I mean now I'm in my own house I do not have an excuse.  I can actually buy what I want and eat what I want without having to put up with quick fixes. It's now my responsibility to make that change. And when the weather has cleared up from its incessant attack, I'll be heading back to the gym!!
Here's to a new start. A new me. A new year. Here's to 2016. 

Holidays go by so quickly

Sat all hunched up on my new sofa.  I'm thinking 'Where has time gone?'

I keep thinking back and remember leaving work.  Full of hopes for what this holiday would bring me.  A London trip?  A surprise engagement?  Will the house finally be done?

Now I'm sat here the night before the night before I go back..and I just think - Where has time gone?

We did go on that London trip and we did our Christmas shopping in Oxford Street.  We saw Bill Bailey at the Vaudeville theatre.  We finally spent more than three nights at the new house.  Our sofas arrived and we finally decorated the tree for Christmas.  It was done with four minutes to midnight!  We did our massive shops and spent our money willy nilly.

We had New Year but even that was sober.  And now it's the night before the night before I go back and I'm still sat here thinking - Where has time gone?!

Still six weeks until the next holiday.  maybe then it'll feel like I have a life!

   

    

 

London adventures - 20th - 22nd December 2015

I love London.

I'm from the countryside.  A small rural area that really has nothing going for it.  A previous mining town, it hasn't exactly recovered from the closure of them.  High quantities of people on benefits and living in council estates.  Aside from the occasional crime and police helicopter, life here is pretty much sedimentary.

So  when I'm faced with going to a massive city - the capital city, the senses explode.  There's so much to do, see, hear!  It's overwhelming and I love it!

I got my boyfriend hooked on it too, and now twice a year we embark on 'the London trip'.

It really was just a glorified Christmas shopping trip with us battling the crowds of Oxford Street and working our way through the numerous Christmas markets that spring up for a few weeks and then disappear.  The most impressive of which is the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland - a must see for every age.  It's hard to believe that the structure isn't permanently embedded there all year around.  It's jam packed full of rides, stalls and bars and restaurants, complete with it's very own ice rink.

The only other purpose of going to London was to see Bill Bailey.  He was fantastic live!  So full of enthusiasm and gust!  Definitely go to see him if you get the chance!

Here's a few pictures of our time in London :)

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Just to let you know,

I'm back from London and will get back to blogging more frequently!!

I am still amongst the living!!

The worst thing about packing is unpacking.

Finally finished today!! Yeyy! Break up Friday usually means crash out and drink copious alcohol. Well it's just not the case today (well I might get started on the drinking later...). Today I drove straight home, to my new house, and instead of crashing... I started unpacking!! Excitement or what!!

This project has taken months and months and months   By project I mean moving in.  We've had to change everything about this house. Electric, kitchen, bathroom ... Every room in the house. But now it's getting close to completion. Five rooms down, two to go. And so with London looming on Sunday. I'm trying to get as much work done on it as possible!
Knackered or not knackered!! 

 

Hmm ... How can I get my views?

I am an intensely private person if you've never met me before. However I seem to live my life out online. I'll post stupid Facebook statuses as I want people to know about how mildly interesting my life is. It just gets to the point that what I put up there is actually pretty much the only thing that happens that is interesting. I suppose it's a sort of cry for attention.  However I don't sit counting the likes. I merely put it up there for my own amusement. And for me to look back at this time in history when it should appear on my Timehop in a year or two years time. 

However, being a computing coordinator, I can't help but think about how on earth you could get popularity from a blog. Just watching the Gadget Show last night as background noise, just showed to me that some people are making a sustainable income by living their life through the Internet such as YouTube. But i just don't get HOW. My life is no more interesting than your average Joe.  And I'm certainly not going to resort to endless childish pranks to get views. It's not that I even want people to read my blog like that. I just want to know what makes people that particularly interesting? 

It was just the other day that a friend and I, were watching You've been Framed. This to us was incredibly dull and unworthy of laughing. However as children, the stunts seen would probably have us giggling. Then it struck us. Our standards of comedy have far surpassed grainy home videoes. No, to entertain the public you've got to do something downright dangerous or completely original. Which again isn't me. 

So I don't know. Maybe I should keep plodding on with my blog and see if I can generate more views as a cumulative!

Getting on with life

I do try my hardest to get on here and type but it's getting increasingly hard. I'm between three houses now. Deciding a day in advance as to where to go the following night. Dragging bags of clothes with me, laptop, work stuff. Not taking any chance that I'll leave something somewhere. I'm pretty much back to living in my car. 

We're nearly there though. Carpets and sofas are ordered for the new year and in the meantime we're papering and painting. By two months time we should be up and running and living like a somewhat normal human being. 

On Sunday I went up there to work while the other half was busy with the painting and it honestly felt like home :) for the first time I felt like I was properly living in the house. We only stopped there two consecutive nights before coming back to his house as he was missing home comforts. 

Still it's getting there. 

Today I also procured an inhaler. With poor breathing and back pain I really must get myself back to the gym but it's finding the time. 

At work I managed to get a rise by the skin of my teeth. Still working constantly and having to do more and more extra curricular things that are eating into my home life. My job's one of the worst for not having a life. Everyone and everything comes first but you :( still it has some perks. Anyway that's it for now just a brief note to say I'm still here!!

I'm losing myself, I'm losing it all...

Just wanted to check in.  It's been a crazy few weeks and this half term has flown by.

I've finally managed to get myself a good observation.  Yey!

I thought perhaps that my house may be on the way to being done.
We set a deadline for it.  Halloween we said.  This was a joke.  Then it became real and now it's becoming a dream because that deadline is slipping away.

I hate this.  Hate being in these living conditions.  Sick of it.  I'm still between houses.  In fact I'm between three.  My mind is all over and I have nothing that is stable.

Actually think I'm losing my mind!

Let's see whether I'm in in two weeks or not...

Never a true word spoken.

"There is pleaasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is society, where no one intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more"

- Lord Byron. 

Never ending wall of depression.

I thought I got this sorted. I thought it was just the job. "Oh it'll go in the summer" I said. Then again I recall that in the winter "oh it's only SAD. It'll be gone by spring" but it hasn't. It's just persistent. 

It's the darkness. It's the cold. It's the feeling that you're facing a 10 foot wall you need to scale. It's there all the time. You're stuck with it morning, afternoon and night. Especially night. Night where it starts to ignite your neurons with thoughts you were adamant not to entertain during the day. Or even thoughts you'd been repressing. Suddenly normal day memories are cast in grey and in regret. And deep lived fears start swimming to the surface. By the morning, you're a wreck. You've been up all night thinking about things that you needn't have bothered with and you're knackered with all the tension and worry you're burdened with. The morning is meant to be a fresh start. "It's always better in the morning" they say. It isn't though. It's like a mental hangover. 

And the usual conversation happens "how did you sleep? What did you dream?" And everyone's fascinated by the weird dreams. But they aren't when it comes to the fact that you didn't sleep. "Just don't think about it" they say. But that's the problem. Thinking. You can't stop. It's like listening to someone talking about breathing and then you can't help think about your breathing. Thinking is an ingrained human attribute.  A skill that's considered higher order. It's not so special when it's undermining you. 

How can you have fun when you're busy thinking of the implications of such. Or suddenly feeling guilty that you're having a good time because somewhere along your own time line you've let someone down, maybe two-three years ago. You can't just let it go. 

Is this a sign of adulthood or is this really depression? Either way, I need help.  I can't cope. 

A lot can happen in a week.

I really need to bring you up to date with what has been happening in my first week of the holidays (and it hasn't really been a holiday).

Day One: Saturday

A casual shopping trip and to go get my old laptop fixed.  Faced with a massive charge to get it repaired, I opted to just pay to get my data recovered - brilliant.  Only it didn't stop there.  Soon I'd found the laptop of my dreams.  It was just sitting there purring out my name.  And so, I bought it :(

Now normally this kind of behaviour does not merit a :( but it does this time as I simply can't afford impulsive expenditures like buying a fantastic, state of the art laptop on the spur of the moment.  But here I am, sat typing this blog on it (really this blog is just an excuse to try out the keyboard for something other than gaming! Not that this won't be put to good use next year).  I personally blame my mate for this.  He's a bad influence.  Last time this happened I walked away with a Playstation 4.  Seriously need new money conscious friends in my life!

Day Two: Sunday

Have no real recollection of this day other than spending it on my new fancy laptop and finally getting our old Minecraft server up and running!

Day Three: Monday

Trying to be productive, I managed to secure two appointments that I've been putting off and putting off.  One to do with hair, the other to do with a feminine requirement (won't go into detail!).  

Day Four: Tuesday

Really much of the same as Monday.  I did try to strip a wall at the house, and invited my partner up too.  Within minutes he had put a huge hole in the wall ('It wasn't coming off!) and then broke the water spray to dampen the wallpaper ('I swear you gave it to me like that!).  Just great! So home we trudged and enjoyed a nice meal out before being slaughtered at the usual Tuesday night quiz.

Day Five: Wednesday

A lovely day out to the Metro Centre where I finally began to relax.  One of the many many issues of being a teacher is the inability to switch off.  And even 8 days later I'm still having thoughts about things that are no longer relevant to me.  SHUT UP BRAIN!.  Unfortunately, although we enjoyed a nice viewing of the new Terminator film, bought all the relevant birthday cards, browsed for shopping items, we ended up walking away with 10 new candle holders (really cheap, honest!), one king sized duvet, two new lamps for the front room and a 43 inch HD 4K Smart TV (sigh!).  Honestly, my money is going to be non-existent by the end of all of this!

Day Six: Thursday

Was meant to shop with my future mother-in-law, my actual mother ruined this though.  End of story.

Day Seven: Friday

Actually has time off with the mister, sorted our laptops out.

Day Eight: Saturday

Sunderland Airshow.  Now whilst this is becoming a tradition amongst me and a friend, it is becoming rather repetitive.  What we've seen once we've seen a million times now.  But it was still a great day.  Personal highlights include: finding out we were driving a death trap (no brake pads - could have ended badly!); were utterly convinced that we'd been shot at by an enemy airman having talked through the announcements that this was going to happen (really should have been a bigger warning for that); been offered by an exasperated mother to adopt her children who wouldn't stop touching one of our group; learning that Morrisons have enough workers for one to be at the end of every aisle during the mad rush that was happening; actually spending time with my friend's child who is going through some rough times due to his leukaemia.  All in all it was a good day only to be spoilt by electricians ruining my to-be-house.  They'd left a bomb site in their wake, ruining several goods and throwing out things that were being carefully stored.  Throwing things from windows nevertheless.  I spent the night, not drinking with the friends as envisaged, but rather on my hands and knees cleaning up some of the dust and rubble created by them.

Day Nine: Sunday

Actually a relaxing day, considering the unsettled night I had the night before thinking about what I should say to the electricians that I was to be encountered with the next day.  I was so unbelievably angry at how they had treated the house that I was dying to go up there and meet them first thing.

So what a lovely jam packed week.  Day 10 is going to be spent scrubbing floorboards and seeing a delightful old friend of mine.  That's if my knees and back don't finally give in.

I wish I could just enjoy this holiday and not think about how much this is costing us as a family :( Feel so so terrible.  I hate spending a penny and this is costing thousands :/

I need to clear my mind and think of the future though!

Is the solution to happiness...

forgetting and letting go?

Two days I've now been off work, but there's not been two minutes where I've thought back to it, cringed at something or worried about something. 

A holiday is meant to be exactly that - a break from everything. How am I meant to rest when my mind is completely and utterly consumed by something else? 

It occurs to me that animals don't have this problem. Neither do children. And the similarities and differences are that there memory is yet to be developed to a point as our poor adult brains. They don't over think, over evaluate and over complicate. 

They simply let it be. 

Why can't I live like that? What ever will be will be. 

Feeling optimistic

After a DREADFUL start to the weekend, it's turned out to be quite a good one.

Saturday was met by an early start to get to Durham for the Big Meet. Only the divy that I am meant that I'd left my mobile in the car. With a mad dash back and a quick decision to drive instead, we were in Durham within half an hour and soaking in the already moving banners. Alas we didn't see our home town this time. 

The sun came out and everyone has smiles on their faces. It was a brilliant day and although I had reservations about certain company joining us, it turned out to be a fantastic time. 

Although I must admit the bus journey home could have been done without. 

Fast forward to Sunday and it's more work on the house day. We've cut through the crap and removed four of the cupboards.  Just the ones on the other side now!

Just as we'd spent hours and hours removing the cupboards, one panel finally gave way to show us something that has been lodged there for almost 50 years- The Dandy! An orginal copy too! And the name of our family written in pencil in te top corner. Must have been ordered by the newsagents. It was dated 1967. Whilst my dad thought it could be a time capsule, it looks to me that it's been dropped by accident with some colouring pencils. Although my mam said it could be my grandads sense of humour as they'd moved into the house in 1967. 

Lodged in all the debris was a coin too. A two shilling one with George 6th on it. 1949. That's a load of history just hidden in a load of dirt. 

Can't wait to keep unearthing it all! 

Going too slow

Updates on the house:

And that's it. Yes that's all in the last month. Far too slow. 

In other news, my boss has suddenly started complimenting me. Can't actually understand it. Sure she wants a favour from me. 

Anyways. 6 more get ups!!

A joke of a day

I slept through a storm last night. Hail the size of golfs. Nineteen thousand thunder bolts shot through the air. Many houses were without power. Others burst into flames. 

Whilst this was going on, I was having my very own nightmare. I dreamt about the reality of what life is becoming. No glue sticks. No books. No white board pens. Then the latest development, no printers. 

These endless pains were coupled with the prospect of an observation this morning.  So I heaved myself out of bed and tried to get to work soon.  Yet I lost my car keys. Then behind a car that stuck precisely to the speed limit. Then a lorry. Only when I get to work, no printers are working at all. It takes 40 minutes to check all of this. With 5 minutes to spare, I mention a printer in nursery. Another teacher runs over there and back, tells me he's taking my class and the year up for an assembly giving us time to set up. 

After 20 frantic and tense moments, I've finally printed out everything.  The boss walks past. Stormy look on her face. Yet she has no response. No "sorry for putting you through this". Nope she walks up quarter to 9 and thinks everything will be alright. 

Luckily the lesson went fine. Me roasting in the front. 

This wouldn't have been the worst thing, if it wasn't for the comment. The comment "I'd like people to turn up at the leavers disco this time. I think it was only me and [enter name of TA] last year". That angered me beyond belief. So angry.

So ungrateful. No thanks. 

Speechless. 

Hottest day on record since 2006

Hottest day of the summer. Sweltering hot. Too hot to even go outdoors. 34 degrees. 

I come home. There's a lengthy powercut a thunderstorm. More blistering weather and then boom! A thunderstorm, a full on power shower that this houses' electric shower would be jealous of, and hail the size of golf balls. Almost literally!!

Think I'll take the standard British summers day anyday. None of this Spanish stuff! Though I am currently sat with Benji, all curled up and relaxed :)