It’s been two weeks now since we got the new puppy and honestly time has warped into this sort of new baby speed, where individual days seem to take weeks to pass but you’re not sure what day it is or when you last ate. What I do know is that it’s three weeks now since we went away for the weekend in a motorhome from Goboony and it’s about time I told you about it.

Our motorhome weekend was designed to be a last hoorah before the puppy arrived, a final slurp at the cup of freedom, before we realised exactly what we’d done to our lives i.e. changed them completely forever.

It was brilliant, as we expected it to be, because we love motorhome holidays – they make me want to sell the house and train the cats to sleep in bunk beds and take to the road. We’ve done two motorhome holidays before, both longer trips and both with loans from Bailey. For the first one we went around the UK ticking off all the counties I’ve never visited before and the second was a tour of Ireland. (Some parts more interesting than others.)

This was only a short break – three nights – but it still felt like an adventure. I was nervous beforehand as the motorhome we’d chosen was seven metres long, but I also knew that once I got behind the wheel I’d feel like a badass bitch and want to become a truck driver. Honestly, driving anything sizable makes me feel so powerful. I especially love it when you get surprised looks from men. ‘A woman? Driving something larger than a Fiat Punto? Whatever is the world coming to?’

Goboony motorhome hire

What is Goboony?

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Sometimes I think about how my life would look as a pie chart.

I’m pretty sure everyone does this, just like I imagine most people enjoy Venn diagrams as much as I do. Everyone loves a Venn diagram right? Right.

The pie chart fantasy is a visual representation of a long held fascination with the idea that when I die I’ll be presented with some sort of searchable database, where I can access information about anything and everything I have done in my life. I don’t believe in God, but if I did, God would basically be a gigantic spreadsheet.

‘God,’ I’d ask, ‘exactly how many times in my life did I walk into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and get distracted and leave again, never having made a drink?’

‘27,429 times,’ God would say, in a robot voice.

‘God,’ I’d ask, ‘exactly how many people did I sleep with in that dubious 18 months around the time I turned 20?’

God would whirr and click for a while, smoke might come out. You get the idea.

I imagine a not insignificant slice of the pie would be taken up with time spent thinking ‘I really should do some work I suppose’ and sighing a bit, and continuing to watch Golden Girls. I swear that some days I spend more time ALMOST working than I do actually DOING the work. It’s probably the part of being self-employed that I find the hardest, the letting go of the guilt around work when you’re not doing it. I started a part-time job, still on a self-employed basis, back in November and in that whole time I’ve only had four days completely off. I was even doing Instagram stories on Christmas Day.

There is something about being self-employed that makes it hard to switch off. The pandemic has made it worse because I’ve been working at home a lot more and the boundaries have become blurred. Even after 13 years of freelancing, I still struggle to completely let myself off the hook – I’m always thinking of other things I COULD be doing, or SHOULD be doing. It’s a seemingly never ending loop of procrastination – perhaps my brain thinks that a general sense of obligation counts for something, even if I’m not actually getting stuff done?

The thing of course that’s so frustrating is that thinking about it never actually equates to DOING it – I don’t spend 14 hours a day tied to my desk or anything, I just waste a lot of time feeling like I should be. I wonder though if without the constant internal nagging, I’d ever get anything done at all?

Can you actually get things done without discipline?

In Oliver Burkeman’s latest newsletter he talks about this and references an article, written around the time I first became freelance, that is about getting stuff done by not being mean to yourself.

In it the author talks about my exact problem, that idea of spending a huge part of your life setting yourself goals, writing schedules, tormenting yourself into getting stuff done and being miserable. Half way through and I was on board. ‘This women gets it,’ I thought, ‘any minute now she’s going to reveal the secret to my eternal happiness.’

(This is another thing I tend to do – imagine that one thing is going to change everything for the better, if only I could find out what the one thing was.)

Her secret it turned out, was kind of bullshit if I’m honest. It was pleasure – doing stuff just because you want to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for pleasure, I just don’t think it’s necessarily a valid approach to work. View Post

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In collaboration with Car Guide

How confident do you feel when it comes to buying a new car? Are you the sort of person who spends hours researching and comparing running costs, doing a thorough car check and looking into the MOT history of each potential purchase? Or maybe you just buy the first one you see in a blind panic and hope for the best?

I’ve spent most of my life in the second category.

I’ve essentially just applied my principle of second crappest and kept my fingers crossed. Sometimes I’ve not even done that, like the time I bought a 20 year old metro on eBay, unseen, for £87. Or there was that time with the satsuma, which it’s best we don’t dwell on.

Basically when it comes to buying new cars, I’m scared. I know nothing about cars or what I’m meant to be looking for in a new car, and so I bury my head in the sand. ‘Do you not even get a free HPI check?’ you may ask. No, no I do not. Honestly, I’d not even heard of an HPI check until I wrote this post. I can just about manage an MOT check for dates, (mainly because I forget for my own car’s and have got good at checking), but I have no idea how to check car history, what questions I’m meant to ask a seller, what repairs to expect at different points in a car’s life – nothing.

I WANT to feel more confident buying a new car though. I do so many other things completely on my own, I feel like I’m letting myself down when it comes to cars. I feel like I’m letting WOMANKIND down. It’s just a car, I need to pull myself together and get some SKILLS, especially if I’m going to realise my midlife crisis dream of buying and renovating my own campervan. (I may not have mentioned this yet. Let’s save this as a story for another day.)

If your feel the same way as me about buying a new car then BUCKLE UP – I’m about to take you on a rollercoaster of a ride around the world of car checks.

Why should I use a car checker?

An excellent first question! Why is it important to get a car check? Doing a car check is a really simple way to boost your car confidence and should be a first step when you’re thinking about buying a new car. A free car check can quickly highlight serious issues like whether or not the car has had a plate or colour change, been exported, might be an ex-taxi – all the classic red flag stuff that you want to avoid when buying a new car.

Doing a quick car check online can help rule out the real bloopers. (Wouldn’t it be good if you could do an online check for potential new partners? Pop in a few basic details and find out if they’re secretly married, have a history of being an absolute loon, that sort of thing. I might write that down as a business idea.)

Can’t I just Google a cheap HPI check?

Well I can’t stop you, obviously, I’m not your mother, (unless this is you reading Bee, in which case I am, but still can’t stop you.) Keep in mind though that not all car checks are created equally. So how do you find the best car checker?

Obviously I can’t claim to have tested every single car check service, but I HAVE had a lovely long chat with the founders of Car Guide and found out all about what makes their car checker different from a lot of the others. I was impressed, not least because Mima, one of the founders of Car Guide, has three cats just like me, AND I got to meet one of them – Tabitha – on our Zoom chat. I find it very hard not to trust someone with three cats. View Post

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Firstly, can we take a moment to throw up a bit in our mouths at the expression ‘freedom day’? It’s tacky and gross, but more to the point it’s wrong.

Freedom day is all very well is you are fit and healthy and happy to be out and about amidst a virus, (which I am and I appreciate that), but the virus hasn’t gone away. If you are vulnerable, physically or emotionally, the idea of suddenly now not even having the protection of face masks in busy places must be terrifying. Not exactly freeing for sure.

But this post isn’t a call to arms of any kind, because this is a personal blog and so it’s All About Me, dur.

I’ve not been having a great week.

Okay, that’s not true, Monday was good – we had a few hours left of our motorhome break, (see my Goboony stories highlight on Instagram), and then after we’d dropped the van off Belle and I did a casual Egyptian themed escape room on the way home in 45 minutes – one of our best times in a while. I’m not saying we’re competitive, but there was a lot of high fiving and post room debriefing around how amazing we both are.

And then we got home and everything sort of collapsed in on itself. The thought of having to go back to ‘work’, and I admit I use this term as a freelancer in the loosest possible sense, felt appalling. Not only did I just NOT WANT TO, but I was sure that no one would ever want to give me any work ever again. I checked my blog traffic, I felt sad, my thighs felt vast, the house looked a mess – fair to say I was overwhelmed.

I was hot though, and tired, and I know that coming home from holidays can be tricky. A good night’s sleep I thought, then I’ll feel better.

I didn’t feel better.

I actually woke up on Tuesday with a slight but noticeable sense of dread – something that hasn’t happened in months. I eased myself into the day with coffee and a book in the garden, finally pulling myself together to start work at 10am. At 10.05am I shut my laptop and went upstairs to see Belle. On the way up the stairs I started crying and by the time I sat on her bed I was in full on toddler mode.

‘I don’t WANT to work,’ I sobbed. ‘It’s not fair. Why aren’t I rich? I just want to drive around in a van and have coffees and go on steam trains. I just want to be retired. I don’t want to have to DO things, I want someone ELSE to do them.’

I couldn’t have been much more dramatic about it if I’d actually stamped my feet, or perhaps peed my pants in protest.

After about ten minutes of me crying and Belle sympathetically patting me on the arm and asking if I was pre-menstrual, (maybe, who even knows anymore?), I realised that it didn’t matter how much I cried, the work would still be there in the end, so I set myself a 20 minute timer and got on with it.

It was hard though.

My mind wandered and if I let it go too far from the screen I would feel overwhelmed and make small, pathetic whimpering noises.

I’m boring myself now with this story.

The upshot is that I thought about it a bit and I began to wonder if it wasn’t entirely a coincidence that my anxiety had coincided with ‘freedom day’, so I did what all good influencers do and I posted on Instagram about it.

‘There is something about moving on that makes me sad,’ I said. ‘Amidst the horror and the fear there were moments that I grew to love – the empty roads, the nods in the park to other solitary walkers, the thrill of a takeaway coffee on another weekend walk because there’s nothing else to do but actually you don’t mind because you’ve grown to love the space and the solitude and the slowness.’

I really am sad to let that go.

What I think feels so sad and scary about it is that we will never be able to willingly recreate it. While we can learn lessons from it, try to give our own lives a slower pace, to hold on to the good parts about lockdown, we will only really be able to do it on a very small scale, and probably only by retreating into our own lives and homes, and that’s not the same.

It’s not the same as walking to the beach and it being deserted and being able to see a vast, quiet landscape in all directions. That’s the bit that scares me and makes me sad – that we have all rushed back in to fill the spaces and no matter how much we want individually to slow our lives, we can’t control everything around us.

(I know that this is the crux of it because when I wrote this bit I felt my breath catch and I cried a little bit. I find writing useful like that, as a way to help me figure out what’s bothering me. Bit awkward that I’m in Costa waiting for my car to be serviced next door, but I don’t think anyone noticed because, ironically, it’s too busy and loud.)

What I’m saying is, freedom day hasn’t left me feeling free. During lockdown I felt freedom from decision overwhelm, from the pressure to socialise, to shop, to fill the space, and now I feel crowded, physically and emotionally.

While we may have gained some practical freedoms, it feels like so many others have been taken away.

Freedom day

Photo by Nicholas Sampson on Unsplash

 

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Advertisement feature in association with Lakeland Furniture

I recently set up an alert for houses near me on Rightmove.

I’m not one of those people who normally has Rightmove as a hobby, but I got a bit overexcited a couple of months ago when a house identical to mine came on the market in the next street for £85,000 more than I paid for mine four year ago. That might not seem much in the grand house buying scheme of things, but given that I only paid £180,000 for mine, it feels significant.

So, then I started having house move fantasies, obviously, not really stopping to consider the cost of actually moving, or the fact that if house prices have increased I’d also need to spend more… BLAH BLAH BLAH! Not listening! I just wanted to look at the pictures okay? Let me be.

What I quickly discovered was that there are two types of house sellers out there. The first type don’t seem inclined even to make their beds, and have random piles of crap scattered everywhere, leaving you not entirely sure what a room is even meant to be. I swear I looked at one last week where in one room they just had what appeared to be a giant metal safe and a box full of chains.

And then you have the second type, who have breakfast bars. 

A breakfast bar has always felt to me like the height of sophistication, and the second type know how to work them. The breakfast bars in type two photos are adorned with overflowing bowls of plump fruits, luring me into the fantasy that if only I bought this house, I would become the sort of woman who enjoyed apples, who would actively choose to snack on an apple in fact, even over a Jaffa cake.

Type two breakfast bars have bar stools that will make you feel like you’re in swanky cocktail bar. All you have to do is perch yourself on a type two bar stool and the husband/butler of dreams will appear, ready to slide a hand crafted cocktail down the breakfast bar towards you while he whips you up some sort of wholesome dinner involving steamed sea bass.

‘All you need is this breakfast bar,’ the type two Rightmove pictures whisper at me, ‘and your life will be complete.’

You’re feeling it right?

To further immerse myself in the breakfast/cocktail bar fantasy I went old school and made myself a Pinterest board. Remember when everyone made Pinterest boards? I haven’t used Pinterest for ages but oh my goodness it was such fun. Cutting and sticking without getting glue all over your clothes.

This is my breakfast cocktail bar board. You can see the vibe I’m going for can’t you? I will never be able to afford it, but a woman can dream.

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In case you don’t follow me on Instagram, we are getting a puppy at the end of the month. It will be Belle’s puppy, so I’m under strict instructions about the use of things like the term ‘pupdate’ in Instagram captions, much to my regret.

Before the puppy arrives and takes over our lives in the best, fluffiest possible way, we’ve been making the most of our freedom by having days out and weekends away and going to IKEA. One such outing recently was an overnight stay in Windsor.

I think I may have been to Windsor once before, but I’ve never been to Windsor Castle, and to be honest if you go to Windsor and don’t go to the castle, have you even been? It would be like going to Cheddar and not eating some cheese. (I think I’ve done this too to be honest.) During our 24 hours in Windsor then I was definitely going to visit the castle, just to prove I existed. I think that’s how it works.

Windsor Castle

Our accommodation in Windsor

We were put up for the night in Windsor, very generously, by the aptly named Accommodation Windsor.

Accommodation Windsor has a wide range of self catering accommodation throughout the town – 45 properties in fact – ranging from small. serviced apartments through to a 5-bedroom guest house right in the town centre. They’re nearly all walking distance into Windsor, and their vibe is clean, modern home away from home. View Post

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untold stories slummy single mummy

Today’s Untold Stories is contributed anonymously by a mum of one who I met randomly online a few months ago. We got to talking and before I knew it, she was sharing her story. ‘I don’t love my husband,’ she told me, ‘but I don’t know how to leave him.’ (People tell me things, I don’t know what it is.) She asked if she could write a post for my Untold Stories section to help her clarify her own thoughts and to hopefully get feedback and support from other people about what she should do. I know what I think, but I’d love to hear your comments.

…

I feel guilty even writing this. In so many ways I know I have a perfect life – great friends, a lovely, affection son, a big house, a husband who is perfectly nice…

But that’s the trouble. He’s perfectly nice, but that’s all. He doesn’t hit me, but that’s hardly a reason to stay married to someone is it? When it’s just me and the thoughts in my head though, it feels like it should be. Sometimes I’ve wished he’d do something awful – come home drunk and confess to an affair with his secretary, or tell me he’s slept with a prostitute or something, anything that would make me feel justified in ending our marriage.

I know I could just leave, but as easy as that feels to say to the characters on the TV who are clearly stuck in an unhappy marriage, when it comes to saying it to myself? Somehow the words don’t come as easily. I look at my husband with my son, in the garden at weekends, playing football, laughing, and it feels like such an awful cliché that sometimes I wonder if I’m the TV show, looking out.

My son is nine now. When I try to think back to when I first met my husband, to when I was pregnant, when we were new parents, it feels hazy. I want to remember how it felt to be in love with him, imagining that if I could hold that feeling even just for a moment, that I could recapture it, but I can’t. I’ve thought about it so much, replayed the past so many times, looking for clues, that I can’t even remember now if I ever loved him?

I think I did. Would I have married him otherwise? I’m not sure.

He’s a kind man. He’s sweet and generous and loves his family. Why can’t I return that love? How could I take everything away from him when he’s done nothing wrong?

That’s the crux of it for me, that idea of right and wrong. He’s done nothing wrong and therefore I have no valid reason to leave. My unhappiness isn’t a reason enough, but I’m not sure why. Perhaps because the status quo is passive? I’m already unhappy, suck it up, leaving would make TWO people unhappy – father and son – and it doesn’t take an expert to do that maths. What gives me the right to think that my ONE is worth more than their TWO?

At the moment, while I don’t love my husband anymore, I don’t hate him either. We rub along, I’m good at pretending, maybe he knows, maybe he doesn’t. I worry though that over time this tolerance is going to erode. I don’t want to hate him. I don’t want to start resenting the way he spreads butter on bread.

But I don’t know how to leave. I don’t know how to feel okay with making my own happiness more important than by husband and son’s.

…

Read more Untold Stories here. If you’d like to contribute your own, please get in touch.

I don't love my husband anymore

Photo by Katie Drazdauskaite on Unsplash

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Advertisement feature in association with Portify – the app that could help improve your credit score

We flew to Ireland a couple of weeks ago to see my sister and to celebrate my mum’s 70th birthday and before we went we all had to do PCR tests. Completing the tests and waiting on the results made me incredibly anxious. I couldn’t figure out why, but then I realised it made me feel exactly the same way I used to feel having credit checks done.

I read the test instructions carefully over and over, filled out all the forms, and sent them off. I nervously awaited the results, knowing it was completely outside of my control and yet at the same time worrying irrationally, as though the results would somehow be a reflection on my very worth as a human being.

If you’ve ever been in debt or had a bad credit rating then you can probably relate. I’ve talked a bit before about getting into debt as a single parent in my teens and early twenties. Doing your degree as a single mum at a university 50 miles away from where you live is never going to be exactly cost effective, and I lived with the consequences of that for quite a long time. Every time I moved house and had to complete credit checks through an agency I would feel that potent mix of dread and shame. I felt judged for my poor credit score, even though I knew the test were probably being done automatically by a computer. I felt the computer judging me.

Facing up to those debts and feeling like I’ve reached a financially secure place in my life is something I’m really proud of. I was pregnant aged 16 and have been a single mum on and off for 25 years. I’ve had very little financial support from ex-partners and honestly, raising a family alone isn’t cheap – the cost of single parenting is high. I’ve also been self-employed as a writer for 12 years, and didn’t necessarily give that a huge amount of thought before I jumped in and bought a second hand desk on eBay*, so finally being able to do things like buy a house feels amazing.

It’s a small house, sure, but it’s mine. I made it happen, no one else. I also finally feel like I have the freedom to start thinking about what I might like to save for in the future. I would absolutely LOVE to have a campervan for instance, and drive around having adventures and ideally solving mysteries.

Why is your credit score important?

Does it really matter if you have a bad credit score? Yes is the short answer. Your credit score not only impacts your ability to borrow money, (including basic things like getting mobile phone contracts), but it also effects how much it costs you to borrow money. If your credit score is poor then lenders will consider you a riskier proposition that someone with a good credit score and so will allow for that by charging you higher rates of interest.

This means that you could end up paying a lot more than someone else for borrowing the same amount of money. This is particularly noticeable for large, long term borrowing like a mortgage. Being charged just a percentage point or two more interest can add up to tens of thousands of pounds over the term of your mortgage. Try the Portify calculator now to see how much money you could save by improving your credit rating from ‘fair’ to ‘excellent’.

How can I improve my credit score?

It takes time to improve your credit score, but the good news is that there are a lot of things you can do to help it along the way. Simple things like making sure you’re on the electoral register, finding out your current score and checking your file for mistakes or erroneous links to other people can all have an impact.

If you long to improve your credit score and lose that shame around debt then I’ve picked out four key ways to improve your credit rating, including one that you might not even know about.

1. Face up to your financial problems

This sounds so easy but being in debt and having a bad credit rating is scary. I understand, I really do. You want to pretend it’s not there, ignore the letters, maybe even try to make yourself feel better about the shame by spending more money. You’re human, it’s normal to want to run away from something scary.

It’s not going to work though. Sorry. Debt isn’t going to go away. Your credit score isn’t going to miraculously improve if you ignore it. Moving house is only delaying the inevitable – debt catches up to you and it’s far better to turn and face it head on than to constantly feel like you’re running. Wouldn’t it feel good to not feel like you’re hiding?

What I learned from being in debt is that most companies are happy enough as long as you are honest. Stuff happens, money gets out of control, it’s okay, you just have to own that and deal with it. Take stock of your finances and write down exactly what you have going in and out. Get in touch with the people you are struggling to pay and lay it out for them. Make them a realistic offer – not a huge amount that you think will please them but that isn’t sustainable – something you can stick to.

Take charge. Be the boss of your credit score.

2. Do not miss payments

Well dur. This might seem obvious, but it’s absolutely key. Missed payments are one of the most significant things that effect your credit score and so making sure you pay all of your bills on time, from your broadband to your mortgage, is vital.

Making all of your payments on time is one of the most important ways to prove to credit agencies that you’re trustworthy and reliable, and it ties into the first point too – taking control, monitoring your expenditure and generally just not burying your head in the sand can help to make sure you don’t miss payment dates.

3. Consider a service like Portify

This is the sort of help that wasn’t around when I was in debt, but it’s something that you might want to consider if you’re serious about building up your credit score. The Portify app works in several ways to help you manage your credit rating, through free and paid for packages, and you can sign up in just three minutes.

Improve credit score Portify review

At the free level, Portify empowers you to feel more in control of your money by tracking your income and expenses, and will alert you to bills that could impact your credit score. Through Open Banking, the app identifies your subscriptions and recurring payments and then sends you smart reminders to help you make payments on time. The app also has a handy expense predictor that will learn your financial behaviour and predict if any upcoming bills may push you into your overdraft.

Portify also offers a Lite and a Plus membership, based on flat monthly fees of just £5 or £9 and with no hard credit checks. These memberships could improve your credit score with the big credit agencies – Experian at the Lite level, plus TransUnion (Credit Karma) and Equifax (ClearScore) at the Plus level – and users typically start to see improvements after around three to four months. Building a good credit score takes time and consistency and you need a while to build up a positive payment history.

Portify is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and the app currently has an ‘excellent’ rating on Trustpilot, based on 752 reviews. Users should maintain good financial behaviour when using the app to get the best results. Results may vary, visit Portify.co for more information!

Improve credit score Portify

4. Keep your credit utilisation rate low

Credit utilisation rate basically means how much of your available credit you’re using, and is another significant factor in how credit scores are calculated – a low credit utilisation rate is better than a higher one.

For example, if you have a credit limit of £1,000 on a credit card but a balance of £100, your credit utilisation rate is only 10%. You can improve your credit score therefore by avoiding maxing out on credit cards and paying balances off in full every month if possible. By doing this you’re effectively showing credit agencies that just because you have access to credit, you’re not rushing out and spending, you’re using that credit line responsibly.

Improving your credit score is a long game and it does take patience and determination, but it’s absolutely possible. Taking back control of your finances is such an empowering experience too, and getting to a place of financial freedom and security is wonderful.

So what are you waiting for? Take your head out of the sand, start taking positive steps to improve your credit score and you’ll be solving mysteries in your campervan in no time.

vintage vw camper

*Everyone knows that all you need to become a writer is a desk right? Like I said, not a great deal of thought…

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I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago, I can’t remember what it was or who was talking, but there was a bit in it that really stuck with me. They were talking about boundaries, and how we go about creating them for ourselves, and the guest posed a question:

What time do you really want to go to bed?

She explained that bedtimes are a great starting point for thinking about boundaries, because we rarely go to bed at the time we want to. I thought about it a lot and it feels so true to me.

Consider the question for a minute. If you lived alone, felt no judgement when you were out in the evenings, just listened to your body and prioritised yourself – if you were basically a cat – what time would you go to bed? How different is that from when you actually go to bed?

What time do you want to go to bed View Post

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Joey is two years old tomorrow.

Can you believe it? Two whole years since I became a Granny. Children warp time don’t they? On the one hand you have no idea where the time has gone, but also you can’t remember life without them. Individual days as a new parent feel about a week long, and then suddenly they’re off to school.

Cozy Mum and Me wrap review

Joey enjoying his first ever round of crazy golf

I remember when Joey was small, teaching him to press the buttons in his favourite book, the one that made the animal noises, his chubby finger doing its best to press the right bit. Then learning about his cement mixer toy, and how to put the balls in the top and open the door at the back to have them pop out again. In my mind that’s Joey, opening the little cement truck door over and over, concentrating hard.

And now he’s one day away from being two.

Although he’s a little more dexterous than he once was he still has the chubby fingers, pressing buttons, learning how things work. View Post

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Advertisement feature in association with Rellery

What have been the small changes that you’ve noticed about yourself during the pandemic? I’m not talking the obvious stuff, like missing your friends and family, (or not), or accidentally starting an interior design degree and just doing one module, but the little things – the stuff that’s surprised you.

I surprised myself with how much I’ve enjoyed spending time alone, like REALLY enjoyed it. I’ve explored so many new places, been on so many walks, and I never get bored. It’s wonderful being able to go at your own pace and stop for ice creams as many times as you want. (If you like cute outings then go and check out my Instagram highlights, where I save my favourites.) As a teenager I always loved it when the whole family went out for the day and I was allowed to stay at home by myself, reorganising my bedroom and listening to recordings of the top 40. I’ve always known I didn’t mind spending time alone, but being a parent for the last 25 years hasn’t lent itself to solitude. Now though I’ve remembered how much I love it.

I’ve been surprised too by the things I’ve held on to and the things I’ve let go of. I haven’t plucked my eyebrows in over a year for example – it turns out I just don’t care about that – but I have continued to wear perfume. I wear the same perfume as my Gran – Chanel No 5 – and the smell of it every morning always reminds me of her. It feels significant, a reminder of my roots maybe.

On the flipside, I’ve hardly worn any jewellery and the dress side of my wardrobe has barely been opened. On the one hand I’ve enjoyed thinking less about what I wear, but I have missed the excuse to get a little bit more dressed up. It was why I was really quite excited when Rellery got in touch to see if I wanted to try a few pieces from their collection.

Rellery has a wide range of earrings, rings, necklaces, bracelets and anklets to choose from, and there are collections across different pieces if you like your jewellery to co-ordinate. The quality of their jewellery is fantastic – they only use precious metals, (sterling silver, 18K gold over sterling silver, and 14K solid gold), plus their chains are designed with tighter links to withstand up to 6lb of force. They also offer personalisation on a lot of their pieces, so you can make them extra special.

I used the excuse of a trip to the seaside to visit some friends last weekend to show off a couple of my new pieces.

First up I chose one of their 18K gold over sterling silver anklets. I haven’t owned an anklet in years but I am so happy with it – there is just something about an anklet isn’t there that makes you feel kind of young and free, like you should be strolling barefoot along an empty beach or dancing at a festival?

Rellery anklets View Post

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In collaboration with Hotels.com, but all views are my own.

Cornwall hotels

What are your holiday plans for 2021? With international travel still complicated and expensive, chances are you’re staying in the UK this year. We certainly won’t be doing anything exotic. No American road trips or cruising the Caribbean for us. We have already had a fabulous few days in Pembrokeshire in May, and we have some time mid-July set aside for a weekend in a hired motorhome, but aside from that we will be keeping things pretty relaxed. Partly this is also because we’re planning on getting a dog this year – puppy training and settling in is going to be taking precedent in 2021.

One thing I would really like to do though, before our lives are taken over by pets, is to take a trip down to Cornwall to see my Dad and family there. We were lucky enough to see each other in January last year, before everything went pear shaped, but that’s still nearly a year and a half ago now – an awfully long time to not see people.

We live in Somerset, so we can just about get to Cornwall in a (very long) day, but we much prefer to make a mini break out of it and find a hotel in Cornwall for a night or two. Let’s be honest, we’ll make a mini break out of literally anything given half the chance. I bloody love a mini break.

Catching up with family is the perfect excuse for a bit of time away though, whether that’s a hotel, camping or airbeds on the floor. They say a change is as good as a rest after all don’t they? (Although I’m not convinced an airbed ever counts as a rest.)

It’s lovely just have a change of scene, to see the sea, to eat in new places – simple pleasures like fish and chips on the beach can be so joyous when we really appreciate them. We’ve all been stuck in our own homes for so long now, any opportunity to regain that sense of freedom, to gain a different perspective, has to be a good thing.

If you have family that you haven’t seen for a while then I really hope you get to see them this summer. Fingers crossed for some summer sunshine too.

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