I walked into Taunton town centre this morning.

*stop the press*

It was the first time I had actually left the new house on foot since we moved in as Belle is still on crutches; our outings so far have mainly been to Sainsbury’s where she can wheel herself around in a complimentary wheelchair and we can pretend we are anywhere other than Taunton.

As I walked I tried to think of the positives of having moved out of Bristol. “It’s really handy,” I thought to myself, “that it’s only a ten minute walk to the bank for me to pay this cheque in.” In Bristol I had to go all the way down into the city centre for a branch of the Halifax.

And then I ran out of things. I had been walking for more than five minutes and there was not a single Boston Tea Party in sight and I started to cry.

I totally realise that crying in the street is not a normal reaction to not being within walking distance of a decent eggs florentine. I am clearly the most ridiculously spoilt, ungrateful woman ever, but I waited so bloody long to move to Bristol and even though no one apart from me seemed to like it, it was everything I ever thought it would be. It felt like home. And now I’ve left and I can’t help but think ‘SHIT SHIT SHIT WHAT HAVE I DONE??’

*stamps feet like a toddler who has been refused a giant candy floss*

Eggs florentine Taunton

I do try to remember that I felt like this when I moved to Bristol as well, that it always takes a while to adjust to somewhere new, but that’s part of the problem I suppose, that Taunton isn’t new. I lived here for a few years ten years ago, and never really liked it much then. Ten years on and am I really simply back where I started, only older and more tired?

So I paid in my cheque – that really was handy – then it started to rain so I went to Starbucks and cried in there instead.

This post is an extract from my new novel – 1001 First World Problems to Experience Before You Die 

Follow:

Last night I played my very last netball match for Sefton Stingerz. Belle drew a picture to mark the occasion.

Netball

I’ve been playing netball in Bristol for about two and a half years now. It was something I thought I would try after we moved here, a way to make a few new friends, and I never for a minute imagined I would grow to love it so much. I’ve never been a sporty person and it took me completely by surprise. I also never expected to make such lovely friends.

At our training session yesterday morning I was taken by surprise all over again by the trouble everyone had gone to – I had a card, flowers, a signed ball and even a cake, freshly baked before our 9am practice! I genuinely wasn’t expecting anything, and may have had a little tear in my eye. I was so touched though, it was hard not to feel emotional.

Netball

I’ve talked before about the difference netball has made to my life, so I’m not going to bang on about it, suffice to say that I will miss it a lot when I leave Bristol. I’ve been made to feel so welcome, made so many new friends and discovered skills and a passion for a sport that I never thought I would find.

Our final match last night was the most enjoyable match I have ever played. We were beaten rather conclusively by a fantastic team but we played our hearts out, had a cracking gaggle of supporters on the sideline (including Belle, clacking together her crutches) and I sported a rather fetching side ponytail. It was ace.

Thank you to Sue and to all the Stingerz for helping me create such wonderful memories!

Follow:

So here I am, about to move house again. This will be the fourth house I have lived in just in the lifetime of my blog and I’m heading for thirty in my lifetime as a whole. While I’m an old hand then when it comes to packing, this is quite probably the hardest move I have ever made and represents a significant crossroads in my life. I feel like the last two months have all happened outside of my control without me really meaning them to, and that things could so easily be so different.

(I do know that this isn’t actually how things happened, it just feels like it right now.)

crossroads

I’m moving for three key reasons, all stemming from the recent breakupView Post

Follow:

So, here I am.

I have been officially single for roughly 25 days now and it’s starting to feel like it might all be OK after all.

The brain is a funny thing isn’t it? A few weeks ago, lying on my sister’s spare bed, sobbing into a snotty sleeve, I genuinely couldn’t imagine a time when I would ever feel excited or happy or even vaguely content ever again, about anything, ever. I’m generally a very positive person, and so any sort of intense emotion tends to catch me off guard and I panic – I literally did not know what to do with the sadness.

Smile

Me looking positive to prove it

And by panic I do actually mean panic.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I woke up in a hotel in Manchester, (knowingly, not because of some weird anxiety induced adventure), and could barely catch my breath, let alone imagine how I would be able to give a keynote speech at a conference that morning.* I made myself get out of bed and into the shower, but couldn’t seem to stop the tightness in my chest or the tears escaping. It felt so all encompassing that it was almost impossible to be anything other than totally consumed in the moment, unable to imagine any time other than right then, in my head. Now I appreciate that a lot of people live with far more serious anxiety and depression every single day but for me, who really doesn’t, it was terrifying to feel so out of control of my own emotions.

Managing to get dressed, one item carefully at a time, but unable even to eat breakfast, (usually my best bit in a hotel so a clear sign that something was up), I started to panic about the future – if I couldn’t stop crying to eat some toast how would I ever be able to hold down a job? Would I have to just stay in bed forever? Who would look after Belle?

I was in a bit of a sorry state.

I carried on though, slowly, just thinking about one little thing at a time and lo and behold, no letters of resignation were required. For the last few days I have woken up and felt briefly fed up, but only because it is 6.40am and I would rather be asleep. I have stopped scrutinising my feelings every minute of the day, picking at every negative thought just in case it means something.

In some ways I feel guilty, like I should have felt much worse for much longer, but then who’s to say that I won’t feel bad again? Right now though, things feel OK. I’m not about to start shaving my legs or anything crazy – I shan’t be signing up to Match.com any time soon – but things feel OK.

It seems I really am a positive person – apparently I can’t help but bounce back.

*Apologies to anyone at Blog On if I seemed a little distracted or blotchy of face during the day. 

Follow:

It’s not really much fun reading about someone feeling sorry for themselves is it?

You have humoured me with those couple of break-up posts, where I wallow in self-pity in return for virtual hugs, but it’s not jolly. Nobody actually wants to hear about how sad someone else is, and it doesn’t exactly fit with the tongue-in-cheek, heavily self-deprecating, often-times blatantly promotional tone now does it?

Enough already.

Instead I shall sob quietly into my pillow alone and return to complaining about really unimportant things like car air fresheners, offering you competitions and occasionally trying to persuade you to buy something. Come on everyone, let’s embrace the spirit of modern day blogging!

In fact, how about if we switch it around, have a bit of a fresh start, and you tell me what you’d like to read about? Do you like it when I rant, or do you prefer heartfelt monologues? Are you after world events or something a little more frivolous? Want to see pictures of every room in my house or read recipes? Perhaps you love my made-up infographics?

Or maybe your vote is with a picture everyday of an animal in a different item of festive clothing?

Guinea pig wearing clothes

Let me know!

Photo credit – Katherine McAdoo

 

 

Follow:

I have come to realise during the events of the last few weeks that it’s very rare that I feel sad. Annoyed, bored, tired, angry, frustrated, anxious, all those things yes, but pure, chest-achingly hollow sadness, not so much.

Sadness is a funny emotion. Often we try to play it down, attaching it to the word ‘just’ – ‘I just feel a bit sad, it’s nothing really’ – and yet sadness is a very powerful thing. It confuses us because it makes you feel so empty, like your insides are missing and your body is trying to collapse down onto itself, leaving you unable to breathe. It takes you outside your body and shows you yourself, going about your daily life, seemingly devoid of emotion.

Sad squirrel

It’s sneaky too. You’re busy, surrounded by people, feeling pretty much OK, and then for no apparent reason, whoosh, there it is, filling you like a swirling gas and vacuum packing your chest cavity. The pressure builds and you realise your face is wet before you even knew you were going to cry – no dramatic sobs, just tears sort of spilling silently out of your eyes.

The fact that sadness is so often associated with a physical loss confounds the issue and adds to that feeling of having a void to fill. I filled mine alone one night over the weekend by watching Hannibal. I hate horror films or anything gruesome, but was hoping that scaring myself might help to fill the space, that fear might overpower sadness and take over my head.

It didn’t really work. I closed my eyes at the really horrible bits and fear never stood a chance.

Perhaps the only thing to do with the sadness is to just acknowledge it and let it be, stare it out calmly until it gives up and goes away.

I’m staring hard. It had better blink soon.

Follow:

When I started my blog in 2009 I was genuinely a slummy single mummy, evenings spent at home alone watching Sex and the City, avoiding the dishes wherever possible. Not long after though, I met someone.

That someone became Boyfriend.

“Are you going to change your blog name now?” he asked me at one point, a few months into our relationship.

“No,” I said. “That’s the brand. Sshh.”

I’ve never blogged much about Boyfriend, preferring to keep him secret and special, so much of my life revealed online, but he very quickly became a hugely important part of me and we have been living together for nearly three years.

Today Boyfriend moved out.

We decided that we wanted different things. Clichéd but true? I don’t even know any more. We talked about it so much that I can’t remember whether I was really ever unhappy or whether we’re simply the victims of society making us believe that the only relationship worth having is one in which both parties feel blissfully happy and satisfied at all times. Heaven forbid there be work involved.

What I do know is that I feel gutted – literally empty. I’m in that weird limbo between not wanting to talk about it but at the same time being able to think of nothing else and wanting to tell everyone I see. How can they not tell just from passing me in the street that my heart is broken? How can it be that the world carries on as normal? I mainly say nothing, sometimes doing a brave little smile or sighing loudly.

Unfortunately neither the smiles or the sighs translate well into blog posts or pithy social media updates, so I may be a little quiet for a while.* Sorry about that. I hope that normal service will be resumed soon, in all senses.

*Apart obviously from all the sponsored posts I have scheduled. I need to earn a living after all to pay for all the gin and ice cream I will need to temporarily fill the void.

Follow:

I had a long day yesterday. I delivered a Twitter workshop in Bristol in the morning and another in London in the evening. It was nearly 1am by the time I got back to the train station and found a taxi to take me home.

All I wanted at this point was to take a deep breath and relax, but of course you can’t physically do that in a taxi without throwing up your over-priced train sandwich into your own lap because of the stupid bloody ‘air fresheners’ that taxi drivers more than any other car owners insist on polluting their cabs with.

My taxi driver last night had broken away a little bit from the pack and gone with a white dove instead of a tree. In no way did instil any sense of peace or tranquillity in me. View Post

Follow:

As you know, last September I started running.

At first it was really tough. I was following a ‘couch to 5k’ app on my phone and it began with running for one minute, walking for a minute and a half, and repeating this eight times. After running for a whole minute I felt like I really might actually die, right there on the street.

I persevered though, to the point where I could run for 25 minutes without stopping. I say run, it was more of a bouncy walk, me just ricocheting off the pavement between steps, and in this 25 minutes we only managed to cover just under 3k. Not exactly a land speed record. I had stopped turning quite as beetroot red as in the early days though. You would think that by this point, after four months of practising, that I would have reached a point at which I got some tiny bit of pleasure out of it.

I did not. View Post

Follow:

I have talked before about my pet spelling and grammar hates, especially when it comes to text messages, but this is a very specific rant about the overuse of capitals. Having worked for some time as a copywriter and having spent a couple of years in the newsroom of my local paper, I have a weak spot for grammar errors and am programmed to be on the look out for errant capitals, and it seems there are plenty of them about.

There is just no excuse, especially when there are so many options around for checking spelling and grammar.

This van made me particularly angry recently; so much so that a large part of me wanted to call them and complain.*  It would be extremely difficult to squeeze more capital letters onto the back of one vehicle.  View Post

Follow:

I don’t often get really cross about things, but yesterday morning at 9.30am I was furious.

I was on my way out for a run* and before I left the house I put out our Christmas tree for collection, along with the recycling. I did it just in time as a couple of minutes later one of the men from the special Christmas tree truck came into our square. He was clearly on the prowl, looking out for trees.

Christmas trees

Our house is one of the most visible in the square. It’s called a square, but it’s more like a long cul-de-sac really. As you turn the corner into it our house is at the far end, so it and the tree can be seen very easily. I could see two or three other trees just from where I stood at the door to our house as well. View Post

Follow:

How do you feel about food waste?

I was in my local Co-op over Christmas, picking up a few emergency food bits. You know how it gets at Christmas – you feel like you have loads of food in the house, but when you actually look, it’s mainly crackers and cheese, and there are only so many meals you can have that for before your blood starts to feel a bit sticky. So, I was going to do some jacket potatoes, and had picked up a bag that was half price. Nice.

(I always look at the reduced things in supermarkets – partly just because I am tight but also because I hate food waste. I had some ancient couscous with fried yellow pepper and bendy celery for my lunch yesterday just because it all needed using up. That’s commitment.)

food waste

View Post

Follow: