Hello 2021

Hello 2021. Hello February. Hello beautiful blog I've long neglected. How are you? Far from your glory days, we've no celebrities and authors sharing the things I've written here. Surely the only people reading now that I don't write my blog or promote it will no doubt be people I went to high school with who are curious about where I am in life.

I'll oblige. 
I'm living in Yorkshire with the love of my life and our five pets. Yes. FIVE. I was content with the first three of that five: a cat and two dogs from the same litter. Then my wife went to Pets at Home to shop for our pets and saw an appeal for a sad, lonely guinea pig they had there who had been very unwell. With all of his brothers and sisters sold on, he was alone and needed a loving home. OF COURSE my wife had to adopt the little guinea pig who needed to learn how to love. Duh. So Seymour the guinea pig joined our family. If you know anything about guinea pigs, you'll know that they have to ideally live in pairs as they can otherwise become very lonely. So we got him a brother named Thistle. My wife and I are blessed to have been working through the pandemic. I know things have been crazy and inconvenient but I can honestly say that I am so blessed for the time we have been able to share together during lockdown after lockdown. As an introvert I've relished the additional time at home. 

Our upcoming plans in our future involve moving house at some point, in over a year, and we are hoping to move to Scotland. We're not yet sure where in Scotland we'll move to but it's something we decided a few years ago and have been thinking about it ever since. We bought our lovely little house a few years ago and, though we love it, we're ready to move somewhere new in the next five years.

As the new year is still pretty fresh I thought I would share my New Year's Resolutions as I so often do on this blog.

What do I want to achieve in 2021? Well, with COVID being an ongoing issue, certain things are out of our control. Travel, for example. We've not been abroad since our honeymoon. The plan last year was to go abroad twice - we had talked about a week in Greece and then a mini break in Dublin. COVID uprooted all these plans. That said, I was wondering if a trip to Gibraltar would be possible. Though it is a small island off the coast of Spain, it is actually UK territory. I fancy some sea, sand and proximity to monkeys. Perhaps this is a loophole to go somewhere nice this year as, with Brexit and COVID travel restrictions, it is still technically the United Kingdom, right? We'll see.... 

This year, my resolutions are:

- Wear make up more. With lockdown, I've hardly been going out so I've not really been making the effort to look presentable because I simply don't have to do so. That said, I so often use make up to express myself and to feel good even if it's not for other people... and who doesn't like to feel good?

- Take a nice selfie once a month. It seems so simple but I struggle to sometimes see beauty in myself but when I'm older, I'll look back and think differently. Life is short and needs to be captured. I take photos of all manner of things in my life but I'd like to have lots of nice photos of me at different stages of my life and with my ever changing hair colours (right now it's dark green)

- Write. I'd fallen out of writing. Even in the first lockdown when I wasn't working I just sort of .... didn't write even though I had all the time to do it, nothing inspired me. That said, I've been writing a lot today. Perhaps the spark is slowly coming back. I shall endeavour to write more as I love being creative and just needed a reminder of how much I love writing 

- Read Lots. I did a lot of reading in 2020 due to the lockdown and simply want to continue that this year. Readers make good writers. Most recently, I finished reading Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay. It is.... very relevant to our current global situation. I am now reading a book about the emotional lives of animals. I like to alternate between reading fiction and non fiction since last year I endeavoured to read more non fiction. 

- Renovate. There are lots of little jobs around the house we want done and, again, COVID has made that hard. I've got a large roll of carpet I needed measured and fitted and we wanted to hire someone to do it but, with lockdown and restrictions, we haven't been able to and thus it has sat there for months and months. So I'm hoping by this time next year: the spare room is painted, the side and glass panels in the upstairs bathrooms have been replaced, the new carpet has been fitted upstairs, the kitchen cupboards have been painted. I'll leave it at just these as they seem achievable with everything going on. I think this is the year we also finally cave and pay a gardener to come once a month just to tidy up the greenery. Not now, though... the whole garden is covered in snow. But come spring, I'll be looking to hire someone to turn our Secret Garden into an oasis... 

Aaaand I think I'll leave it there for resolutions. There are other resolutions I'd love to put on my list but, with the current COVID situation, they're out of my control so I won't put any pressure on achieving them. What this past year has taught me is that I cannot control everything. Sometimes we have to let go and let life lead us. 

Anyways - who knows when I'll next write on this blog, eh?
Maybe next year for more resolutions... 

2020 Resolutions

Well hello there.
It's me.
I'm terrible at posting here these days and I only seem to really pop back to post and comment on my resolutions for the New Year.

Yup, that's why I'm here now. I feel like, if I publish my resolutions, they become publicly visible intentions and that holds me more accountable.

•  Find a new job
•  Make some minor home decorations/alterations
•  Get a tattoo
•  Finish a writing project
•  Read at least 30 books, mostly classics (more on this later)
• Take a minimum of two holidays abroad this year

As for the new job, I'm looking and trying to find one that I can really sink my teeth into this year. I'm planning some minor decorations and alterations for the house. It mostly revolves around getting new carpets and painting the walls/bannisters in the kitchen/upstairs landing. As for the tattoo, I'm booked in for my very first this coming Tuesday. My wife and I are actually booked in to get them done together. Reading 30 books may not seem like many however I'm aiming to try and read AT LEAST 30 books from a certain list. My cousin gave me a lovely 100 Book Bucket list scratch off poster. You scratch off any of the 100 Books on the poster you've read to reveal a minimalistic design representing that book. So far, I think I've only scratched off ten. So I've started reading Little Women (it wasn't actually on the poster, I just assumed it would be before opening the poster up) and I'd like to get a fair few books scratched off the poster this year. If I don't all of those unscratched, silver-foil squares will just be staring at me, mocking my lack of literary prowess. Holidays? Who knows. I currently have a few days booked off next week and toyed with the idea of a whirlwind 24 hour trip to Dublin or Brussels, somewhere cheap. That said, I doubt I'll be able to as there's other stuff to prioritise. Hoping to throw a few trips together.

I've also started doing the 1p challenge. In doing this challenge and putting away pennies, you can save over £650 in a year. On the first day of the year, you put away 1p. On Day 2 you put away 2p. January 31st you're putting away 31p. 100 days into the year you put in £1.00 and so on and so on and so on. Focusing on just putting away this small but increasing amount allows you to save up a lot without really thinking about it. Or, like me, you could be lazy and just calculate the monthly totals and put away that exact amount each month. I decided to take the thought out of it and make it a bit more straight forward. What will I do with that £650+? Not sure, but at least I'll have it. 

06/05/2019

Well howdy there 2019!
I know, I know.
I am terrible at keeping up with the whole blogging thing.
My wife just nagged me for not writing anything in a while so here I am. 

I am currently working on a new book, my first real foray into non fiction.
I have also tentatively started writing a book of poetry. 

I have outlined a few blog posts I would like to write for here as well as for The Huffington Post. 

I am hoping to work on these in the coming weeks. 

In general, married life is going well.
Ours is a mad household with the seven of us living in almost-harmony:
My wife and I
Our cat.
Our two dogs.
Our two geriatric hamsters. 

This year I've been trying to focus on recycling and reducing our environmental impact.
We have been working on our house, which we purchased in 2017.
We have recently been filling in the pond in our garden.

Life is good.

Things are quiet.
Overall this is, and will possibly continue to be, quite a quiet year for us.

That's in comparison to last year, which was a lot. 

Anyways...
I'm here.

I'm alive.

I'm writing when I can.

Thank you for reading. 

2018

Hello Readers!

Anyone still there? I know I've been terrible at writing here in recent years and yet this blog still gets regular views. Exciting news: after two years without a functioning laptop, I have just been given a second hand laptop and will be able to write and blog and work again freely. I am really excited to be able to work and write again and have sufficient tools to do so. I work a lot better with a laptop because I need to be able to move around and get comfortable. I am currently curled up on the sofa, with both of my puppies snuggled up asleep by my side. Heaven! So I am hoping to be writing here more and writing more in general. I have recently started working on a new book and am turning my attention to the New Year and all the things I'm hoping to achieve in that time.

Hello!

Hello Readers,

Since my wedding, I've not really posted much here. I wanted to say that I've been working on a full write up of my wedding day, with all the little details, so that I can capture all the memories. I'm looking to publish it once we get our wedding photos back because it takes a billion years to get your wedding photos nowadays. Once I've got photos that I can integrate into the blog post, I'll finish it up and post the full thing. So far I've only written up to the end of the ceremony and she's one looooong blog post. I have, however, just posted the playlist we used for our wedding breakfast and shortly I will post our evening wedding playlist.

In the meantime, how cute is this photo? Hannah and I, smooching away.
From left to right: Han's Best Man Jason, my Maid of Honour Bethany, me, Hannah, then bridesman Jamie and bridesmaid Julia. Those are some very important people.

Our Wedding Breakfast Playlist...

 So movies have always been important for Hannah and I throughout our lives and our relationship. When we started dating, we would go on cinema dates together and sneak in whisky to drink in the back row. I spent years working in a cinema, where I would cover late shifts and Hannah would greet me when I came home after midnight. We curl up and watch films together in our home with our various pets. We decided that we wanted to incorporate our love of film in our big day therefore I put together a wedding breakfast playlist predominantly utilising songs from movies (or covers of songs from movies on piano where the original song might be a bit cheesy or not fit the mood)

I thought this would be fun because it would also act as an ice breaker. People would stop and say "Oh, what is this song? It's from a movie... Oh Gosh, from where do I know this song?" and we thought it'd prompt people into conversation.

We walked into the dining hall to the opening theme from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical episode, Once More With Feeling. If anyone from my wedding party recognised this song, you are awesome. It was immediately followed by a strings and piano version of I Giorni which we had walked down the aisle to at the start of our ceremony. The playlist features songs from films and TV shows that Hannah and I have both watched and enjoyed together. In the playlist there are songs from films like Amelie, The Princess Bride, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Pearl Harbour, Gladiator, The Lion King, The Great Gatsby, Brokeback Mountain, Game of Thrones (although I almost put in music from The Red Wedding episode and promptly removed it - that would've felt like a bad omen!), Edward Scissorhands, Down With Love, About Time, Stranger Things, The Book of Life, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, Big Fish and The Phantom of the Opera to name a few...  

We even snuck in a few songs from The Sims just to see if anyone of our age range noticed!
The majority of the songs chosen were instrumental only and had to fit the vibe of the day (nothing too dramatic or intense!) and we spent ages putting this playlist together and I treasure it fondly. I have some great pictures of my bridesmaids jamming out to the music.

Please find our wedding breakfast playlist below:

She Keeps Me Warm

....Aaaand for my third scheduled post of the day, please find the song we'll be doing our first dance to some time around the time this post goes up. As soon as we heard this song, we knew it was the one for our first dance on our wedding day.

On the line "Do you like kissing girls?" my partner (wait, now my WIFE!) and I always shout "YES!!!!"