BIG THINGS are coming people
It’s back! After a brief hiatus last month because I really wanted to bang on about the reasons why I don’t feel like we should be asking women if they’re pregnant (read that here), which unsurprisingly has put a stop to the ‘But are you pregnant though?‘ comments that I was receiving on my social media platforms on a daily basis. HOORAY! It’s time to check in again and actually because I’ve vlogged such large proportion of the past month I feel like you probably know all the highlights already, but we’re going there anyway. Overall it’s been a good month where I’ve really found my work flow (especially in the second half thanks to a brief-pause in thrice-weekly trips to London!) and have visited two awesome places that I’ve never been to before. I hope you’ve had a cracking one too. Let’s deep dive into the best bits from the month of August…
More trips in the works. At the beginning of the month Mark and I sat down, worked out how many days of holiday he had left and when it was best to take them before the end of the year. Along with some days off around Christmas – SWEET! – we decided to book in two long weekend, European city breaks which we found some super cheap flights for online. So late-September we’re heading to Amsterdam, which we visited at the beginning of the year and absolutely loved. We’re going back to see friends who live there who we miss SO MUCH and partly for my Birthday (and because the flight takes 45 minutes from Gatwick and getting there takes less time than it does for us to visit Mark’s family in Birmingham, it’s nuts). Then early November we’re heading to Copenhagen, which is place that neither of us have been to before. I’m so excited for that one as I’ve heard good things about the sights, the shopping and the food. I’m currently devouring all the city guides online and will have one up too after we’ve been. Even though none of these trips are particularly long, it’s nice to get some quality time spent away in the diary.
IBIZA! If you couldn’t already tell from the barrage of Instagrams, Instagram Stories and the vlog that I rammed down your throat, the trip to Ibiza with NARS was the greatest press trip that I have ever been on. Hands down. Actually, this year I have been a lucky lady and have gone on some incredible trips with incredible brands and as someone who didn’t leave the U.K on an airplane until she was a teenager, I just never ever thought that travel, especially travel to such incredible places, would ever be on the cards for me. If you ever have the chance to go – do! – because it’s such a beaut of an island. Every morsel of food that I devoured was absolutely world class and the beaches had such clear water that you could see the fish at the bottom, even without snorkels. The clubbing was a laugh too and even though we only went out out one evening, it did me in for the entirety of the four day trip. I just can’t party like I used to, but I certainly can eat and could quite do with some beach cafe paella right now.
Book club. I’m throughly enjoying the addition of a book club in my life, which I was kindly invited to by my old Uni mate. Through the processes I’ve made a new friend and although we talk about the book for approximately 10 minutes, before we spend the next three hours talking about completely non-book related topics. It’s just a really nice evening that I look forward to once a month. We’ve hit some pretty hard books over the previous two months, which we all agreed weren’t our favourites, but for September we’re reading Zadie Smith ‘White Teeth’ which I began reading in Madrid and makes for some light relief after Lolita, let me tell you. If you’re not part of one but enjoy reading, take a look online for local groups as I feel like it would be a really good way to meet people, plus push you out of your comfort-zone a little (or a lot – I’m looking at you Mrs Dalloway).
Finding my feet. I’ve really found my groove this month after a shaky start when I thought that I would never see the end of the all the little (and large!) niggly to-do list tasks that I had on my place. The idea of two mini-holidays threw me off kilter a little, but when I sat down to look at my schedule and worked out that it was only actually five working days out, I realised that with some clever prioritising and re-jigging of my diary that I could get on top of everything. Most weekdays I’ve been waking up and hitting my laptop pre-6am, which isn’t something that I’d usually advocate as burnout ain’t cute, but as someone who just gets so much more done in the morning it’s worked well for me and surprise, surprise I’m actually ahead. AHEAD! I haven’t been ahead in years. It feels great to be back in an über productive place that I just haven’t been able to reach for what feels like yonks. 5am alarms FTW.
Madrid! On Tuesday we got back from a slightly longer than a long weekend break to Madrid and it was LUSH. 10/10 would recommend. We booked to go there with two of our friends, one of whom lived out there for a year and so knew all the spots to go and seeing as we were there for six whole days, we had more than enough time to see all the sights and do it in a way that meant that we didn’t have blisters on our feet after the first day. We ate. We drank. We visited museums. We walked approximately 39,393 steps in a day; all the usual city break cliches, but I highly, highly recommend a visit if you’ve never been before. We went to Barcelona two years ago and I’d say that this is the more relaxed, slightly less touristy option (but of course it helps when you have an ex-resident showing you round). They’ll be a city guide up next week once Mark’s got his photos developed and let’s just say that I have some pretty stellar Sangria recommendations up my sleeve…
Photos by Emma Croman
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