HOW IS IT OCTOBER ALREADY?
September has quite honestly flown by. Seriously blink and you miss it kind of stuff. It’s been a mishmash of travel, London days, dates with my desk getting my head down and observing how Noel Fielding on GBBO is my new silk shirt inspo, but overall I’d say that it’s been a pretty good month. I’ll chat more about self-care in my newsletter that goes out tomorrow morning (sign up here!), but I’ve really been embracing cutting some time for myself out of my day and I’m feeling all the chirpier for it. I’ve uploaded my monthly favourites which you’ll find if you scroll down to the bottom of this post and for the first time ever it includes a story time of a celebrity encounter which makes me grin uncontrollably just thinking about it. IT. WAS. AWESOME. Before that though, I’m dropping in with my five standout moments from the past four weeks…
New York with LP. Well New York was definitely a highlight if you couldn’t already tell from the giddy videos that Lily and I uploaded. Visiting New York is always such a treat and seeing as it’s somewhere that I’ve travelled to a handful of times now, it’s nice to (kinda) know my way around a bit and pretend to be a pseudo local for a couple of days. It’s always a good laugh to travel with the work wife too because we have our routines down and navigate our way around the airport like a well-oiled machine – MOBILE BOARDING PASSES AT THE READY! Seeing that I’ve somehow been in NYC three times this year, it felt odd to leave knowing that I might not be back for a while, but I’m sure a craving for that BONDST sushi will pull me back in soon enough.
Doing Reformer Pilates. A LOT. A few weeks of travelling and eating French toast for breakfast each morning (SO GOOD), had made me feel like my innards had turned into a soft dough (YUM), so I’m firmly back into the swing of having a solid workout routine. I’ve flipped it a little and spend less time in the gym, knocking it back to just two sessions a week with my PT, where I feel like he is determined to make me vomit within 10 minutes of our session starting, and amping up the Reformer Pilates classes because I bloody love them. The studio takes me 10 minutes to walk to, the instructors are SO NICE, there’s a lot of lying down, it’s challenging but in a way that doesn’t feel impossible and it’s snappy. 55 minutes later and I’m done; feeling sweaty, but stretched and I’m back home in a roundtrip that took me just over an hour. It works for me and it works for my schedule.
GIRLvsCANCER SHOOT. Earlier in the month I had the absolute joy of being part of Lauren’s GIRLvsCANCER shoot, along with 30+ fellow bloggers. Have a read of Lauren’s story over on her blog, but let me tell you she is a complete badass, easily the best hug-giver I have ever met and a force to be reckoned with who made everyone on the shoot laugh, cry and feel 110% comfortable. I have never met a lady like her and I am so excited for what she has planned next – MORE TIT-TEES. Check out the shop here, but to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness month, there will be more designs launching soon – bee stings, milk jug and fried egg designs – I love ’em all. Plus the sale of each t-shirt raises money for four amazing charities, including Look Good Feel Better and Coppafeel. I’ll be sure to shout-out when the new tees are available so we can all do our good deeds of the day and pick one up.
Having lots of baths. This might seem like an odd thing to note as monthly favourite-worthy, but after over two years of being grossed out by our bath which is severely lacking in the enamel department, I finally bit the bullet and got in the tub and you know what? It wasn’t as sandpaper-like as I thought it would be and being an old bath I can practically swim in the thing. It’s glorious. Mark does roll his eyes and comment on the cost per bathe because he is a frugal old bean, so I’m restricted to one a week, but I make the most of them and have stocked up on the best bath product of all time – the Therapie Himalayan Detox Salts – which are helping me to seriously chill out. It’s funny how forcing yourself to have 30 minutes of phone-free reading time in the evenings can make you feel like some kind of super zen spiritual guru.
Being a (hopefully) good friend. This month I feel like the lack of travelling (aside from NYC) has meant that I’ve been able to put time into my mates. We’ve gone out for dinners where we drunk a bit too much wine, danced in pubs where no one else was on the dancefloor, I’ve seen friends that are holidaying in the UK that I haven’t seen for yonks, gone to candlelit yoga with my sister, made new business acquittance buddies and brunched and lunched with old pals. I can sometimes be a bit pants at really pinning down time to spend with my nearest and dearest, so I’m super grateful to all of ’em for hanging on and being much better with their diaries than I am. Because that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Swinging your handbag around to B2K ‘Bump, Bump, Bump’ with your girlfriends in a pub where tumbleweed wouldn’t look out of place.
Photos by Lauren Shipley
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