Hello, Stranger!

Yes, I am quite aware it's been a while thank you very much! So I went to Bolivia, tried to write a blog about that, but failed miserably. I'm relying on the blogs that other people wrote, as well as all my pictures, to remind me of how amazing it was. And yes, it was absolutely one of the best things I have ever done with my life. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Naturally, it was hard being away from the people I love, but I was so busy with the project, learning Spanish, getting to know new people and having fun with the kids that I wasn't too sad. Ah well, that's all done now and it set me up really rather nicely for the future I think.

Now I'm getting married (there's a blog about that, but again haven't updated in a while) and moving back to Brighton. I intend to get a job I love, do some more courses if I can find the money, and generally be the happiest I've ever been with the love of my life. I'm currently just working in the same place I was working before I left, and making/designing/buying things for the wedding, and planning the whole shindig. It's great fun, and not so stressful now that I've asked for help. But anyway, this is very weddingy and not at all what this blog is about. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what this blogis about... but anyway.

So I want to write about music today. I have my own soundcloud now, which has a couple of covers on it. When I have more time, I'd quite like to write something. I always have these half-baked ideas going around in my head; my old phone was full of recordings of snippets of song ideas I'd written in the car (I pulled over to record them, don't worry), little melodies and ideas for song-stories. In fact I wrote some cool little lyrics on the bus from Sucre to Cochabamba, but I have no idea what I did with them... hmm. I'm hoping Liam will help me with recording and making them sound more professional- he's used things like audacity before, and I just don't have the patience with them. It'd be so nice to have him sing with me, too, but I don't think that's going to happen. He has a lovely voice- so smooth, with a really good tone, and he sings perfectly in tune too- but I don't think he thinks so. Maybe one day!

Pretty pictures!

This one's going to be picture heavy, because my entire brain is taken up with trying to learn Spanish. Yes, I'm going to Bolivia, going volunteering, I will write more when I am mentally capable... for now, have some photos what I took. Innit.

And there we go. All of them from my trip to Norway apart from the last one; he's the pleasant pheasant that came to our house for food over winter. Hurrah!

here has to be home

I have to make the best of where I am, because I know I'm going to be here a while. And it's nice; my room is lovely and cosy, I have some wonderful friends here and I get to spend the last year I'm ever going to be able to not worrying about being a grown up. I spent so long being how other people wanted me to be, and now the only person who I worry about how he sees me is 200 miles away and I only see him once a month.

I can just chill out, mess around and waste my time with whatever takes my fancy. I'm starting to see the plus sides of being here very clearly. And, of course, I get to go back to Brighton and party and chat with friends fairly regularly. Probably more regularly now than I did when I lived there, if I'm honest...

I've been having some odd dreams again; I don't want to go into detail. But they stay with me for days; ghosts of dead memories haunting me when my mind strays into shadowy areas. The upshot of this is that I'm very sensitive to everything, in good and bad ways. For example, a secret on Postsecret today made me well up; it was so unrelated to anything in my life at the moment, but it touched something inside me that hurt and made me feel so proud at the same time. It was the one pictured left.


I've started painting some of Liam's Talisman figurines. I'm actually quite proud of them! Except for the Minstrel; he's just hard to do! But I'll touch it up when I've got some more skill. It's not really that bad, it's just he has these little white lines down his legs and you kind of have to do them freehand... it's difficult. I'll get there, did a good job with the Wizard and the Prophetess! I'll be sad when I have to give them back to him, maybe I'll have to get some of my own to paint. Or would that be crossing the line too far into nerdiness? Hmm.

Anyway, off to play some Fable II and rest before the week commences.

time travel

I feel like the longer I'm here the more I revert back to being the 18 year old I was when I left. If only I was a skinny as her I wouldn't mind so much.
Joking aside, I feel very vulnerable and full of worry. Over the past year, and even the past couple of months I've been here, I haven't been worried about my boyfriend wanting to see other girls. But now I am, and it feels like it did when I was a teenager; that sick feeling, and constant nagging in my brain that it's only a matter of time. And I know it's a self-fulfilling prophecy if I start banding about the "it's going to happen, it's going to happen" shenanigans (if I've learnt anything in my time I've learnt that), so I'm trying my hardest not to sound scared and stupid. Sadly as time wears on I become less and less confident in my ability to just button it.

When I was in Brighton, after Uni when I started working, I found myself becoming bold and bright just like I always knew I was. Now I'm back home and I feel lethargic, dull and shy. My voice is lost; I used to laugh and joke as much as anyone (sometimes more than most), and now I sit there and it's all I can do to raise a smile.

Maybe it's the people, maybe it's the topics of conversation; I think it's probably just me though.

Psychologically I've put my life on hold waiting to go somewhere else; maybe it's stopping me from interacting with the world. I'm trapped in this bubble of time and while I'm here I'm still a child. When I go places and see people I'm myself again, but how long will I be able to keep it up before the child in me completely takes over and I lose all the ground I gained?

That's enough self-indulgent introspection for one day I think. Now, hands up who thinks I'm a little crazy...

this one's for you, sky cat

So I'm back in Wales, and it's quite nice. I obviously miss some things about Brighton very much, mostly Liam and people like Laura, my friends from Family (who I hadn't seen in a while before I left), Cassie (who to be fair wasn't in Brighton anyway). And other things too, like the North Lanes and being able to get things at midnight.

Don't get me wrong, there are definite pluses to being in Wales, such as the peace and quiet and the lack of pavement rage. Also the beautiful countryside and smell of honeysuckle works wonders for a fuddled mind.

I'm just torn at the moment. My heart's definitely in two places. I love being here and seeing friends though; it was awesome getting to be here for my brother's 21st and hanging out with him. Seeing Bryn was lovely too, and my regular trips to Builth to see Bod are fantastic.

He's been teaching me guitary things, such as barre chords and power chords. I won't lie and say I'm any good at them, but Bod is very encouraging and I'm sure I'll pick it up soon. I just need to practice... It's quite satisfying to be able to play things I recognise though. And we're writing a little song, too, which is going to be absolutely amazing. Mostly down to Bod's musical genius, but I gave him the starting chord which we have dubbed "Little G". I know I'll post it on here once it's finished!

I've been concentrating on taking back music I love lately. You know sometimes there are songs you absolutely love but you can't listen to them because they just remind you of something that you don't need to think about any more? For whatever reason. Well, anyway, I've been forcing myself to listen and focus on the song and generate some new meaningless-meaning for them. It's working; they're all just songs now.

This is the first time in my life I've had enough emotional control, and I'm fairly sure it's down to Liam. I was talking to my Mum about how much has changed in the past two years; the rollercoaster I've been on and how out of control I was in a lot of situations. But I've really grown up in the past six months, especially, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without the understanding and love I felt from Liam. We've been together a year now, and I still couldn't be happier.

Oooh, mushy. I'll stop that now. But yeah, I'm happy and in a really good place. Apart from work, but 'm trying not to bitch and moan about it anymore. I've got goals, and I need it to fulfil them. We've all got to make sacrifices; the job I have now is  my sacrifice for volunteering and travelling. I just need to focus on that. Or so people keep telling me...

kittens

Life is moving forwards quite rapidly at the moment. I am leaving Brighton for a while; the duration is uncertain, but I will be moving back to Wales for as long as it takes me to save money and go travelling. Obviously, Liam's still in Brighton so I'll be coming back to visit, but not that often.

I have a job in the tiny town I grew up in, which is good because it means that I can save money. There are no travel costs because I will walk to work, and there is a gym in the building which means that I won't have to shell out for the gym every month either.

Once I'm there and a bit more settled, I'm going to start thinking about my travel plans. I have a cousin in Canada, and may ask her if I would be able to stay with her for a bit. The problem is we're very different ages, and I'm not sure she'll welcome some random cousin coming to stay with her. However, you never know.

There are other options as well, one being going to volunteer, which is something I've wanted to do for ages. I wrote about it in an earlier post, actually. That's still very much on the cards, but involves saving up a few grand. Not going to be too hard, though.

I'd like to get some money put away to be comfortable when I get back from travelling, too. Maybe a couple of months city-rent & food while I look for a job.

It's quite scary. I'm very happy here with Liam; I love our flat, and I love living with him. I know that living apart is going to be a really fantastic thing for us. We were going to live apart from June anyway, to give some more depth to our relationship, but there's going to be so much distance when I'm in Wales. I know we can do it, but I also know that it's going to be very hard.

All I want to do sometimes is just forget about going to Wales, forget about going travelling, and just move into a new flat with Liam and get a kitten. That was our plan once, too. And it sounds absolutely wonderful, it's just not for now. That's a plan for later; a plan for settling down.

It'll be good to get creative again. There seems to be so much more time and space for such things when I'm back home in Wales. There's something inspirational about the atmosphere there. And my Mum will be around to help me with my sewing...

Happy Valentines & Photolog

First and foremost, I think it's time to mention the love of my life. I've posted a few times and always managed to leave him out. Poor boy. Well, seeing as how it's Valentines day, I think now is the appropriate time for a mention. I'm not sure how to describe him really... He's handsome and funny; lovely and supportive; smart, sensible, ridiculous and wry; he's the perpetual sunshine that brightens my daytimes and he's the cosiness that warms me all through the night.

Turned into a bit of a poem, there. How corny. Anyway, he really is bloody fantastic and I don't know what to make of a world that doesn't have him in it. For Liam:

I also found, along with these photos of Liam's feet, a few more photos that I forgot I had. They aren't the main purpose of my post, but I'd like to put them up and I think they also fit in the theme of "people/things I love". So here you go!

My lovely best friend/sister-type, at one of our sadly-infrequent catch-ups. The fact that I don't get to see this lady more is one of the reasons I hate living in Brighton. I miss her company a lot, and hope that one day I'll live close enough so that I can see her loads and loads.
I took this photo in Garfunkel's in London, where we had an absolutely massive dinner. I think I had spare ribs, and she had some kind of... food. I don't remember what, I only remember that my ribs were yummy! We spent ages deciding where to go, as my coeliac disease kind of limits the places available to me. Eventually we decided on this place, because it was right around the corner from Topshop (which is where we were at the time), and it turned out to be a pretty good decision. I'd go there again, but I wouldn't sit near the door so all the cold air could blow up my back.

This is the pumpkin I carved the halloween just gone, when we had the kids round for a slumber party. It was really good fun (more putting it together than the actual party, which was fun too, if not a little crazy towards the end. Eight year olds, eh. Don't know how to hold their lemonade). I was most proud of my pumpkin carving skills, and can't wait for next year when I'm going to go all out on millions of insane pumpkin designs.

This is a picture of a cat... I thought it was cute. It's Rhi's friend's cat, and it was incredibly hyperactive for the ten minutes I was at Rhiannon's house. It kept hiding behind the books on the bookcase, and then coming back down again for some attention, then going to hide again. It kept trying to swat the camera with it's paw when I was trying to take a photo of it too!
This was the same evening as Garfunkel's, and also the first time I ever went to Brixton and was offered drugs at a cash machine.

I took this photo of the scary snowman on Brighton beach way back in 2009, when everyone was excited about the snow. Now everyone just grumbles at the prospect of it, because we all know it means half a day of lovely snowiness, and then a week of slush and ice. There are a few optimistic folk who still get excited when it snows, my love being one of them. Bless him. But no, really, unless it's going to snow until it's two feet deep and stay for a month, I really don't want to know.

Last one, and another one of the beautiful Rhiannon. I think this is my favourite of the whole bunch!

And with that, I am going to go and play some guitar, or maybe some Dragon Age. Not decided yet...

Dads are awesome.

Here are two of my favourite pictures in the whole world. They're pictures of my Dad, from a day he came to visit me in Brighton and we got ice cream. They always reminds me how silly and fun he is, and how he never fails to make me laugh.

Going through all my old photos has inspired me to start getting out there and making the most of the world again. You don't always have to have something out of the ordinary to take a photo of... even the normal, day-to-day things that you really cherish make wonderful shots. Probably moreso than odd and curious things. It's the humble joy that you find everywhere, no matter what's going on that is so much more meaningful to document.
Oooh, deep.

Achievements so far...

Today I had my induction at the gym- it's just around the corner from work, so it's really handy, and the people there are very friendly. I enjoyed it, and I'll be going again tomorrow. Hopefully I will be super-fit in no time. I used the cross trainer, the stepping machine, the treadmill and an exercise bike. Quite a good workout; the stepping machine was by far the hardest of them all!

A few days ago I made some cupcakes for a cake sale at work, the proceeds of which were to go to help with the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I was going to make about 30, but instead only made 16 because I spent ages and ages on the icing. They weren't perfect; I know that with practice and some better ideas (more planning) I could do some really interesting things, but they were good enough.

I've seen some incredible cupcake designs on the internet, the most notable of which were these Super Mario Bros ones. They had all sorts of Super Mario related shenanigans, and I really wanted to try and make them myself. I didn't quite have all the icing colours I needed, and I certainly don't have the skill yet, but when I have the time to master such an art I will most definitely post pictures of my results.

My favourite of the cupcakes I managed to make was the flower one (middle of the picture above). It was really easy to make and I thought it looked like the prettiest. I think I'd like to make a whole batch of those! The star shaped centre really brought it together, I think. The purple icing is also pretty cool, I made it by mixing red and blue together (very proud of my brainwave there). I really love making cupcakes, and should do it more often. It's quite time consuming though, and with all my other commitments at the moment it just gets put on the backburner... ah well!

I'm so tired after the gym, I'm going to have to go to bed...

I'm excited about life

I emailed lots and lots of volunteering companies yesterday, and although I am yet to receive a reply from any of them I am looking forward to a telephone interview next Tuesday (it was automatically booked when I applied). I really don't mind where I go, I just want to meet new people and get involved in the world. I grew up in a small village, and Brighton has felt just as small to me for a few years now...

I have found a way around my money problems now too! I was worried about being tied in to my loan with HSBC, but if they won't allow me a repayment holiday then I will take a loan with Natwest who will. That will hopefully pay for my travel expenses and everything, as well as obviously paying off the HSBC loan. Then I only have to worry about it when I get back...

I feel like I spend a lot of time on my own at the moment. It's not a bad thing, and it's actually quite nice, it's just strange. I'm so used to having someone around that makes noise and fills the space, and it's strange how much more you notice it when it's gone...

See, if I had a television I'm sure I'd be zoned out in front of it watching nonsense. Instead, I'm thinking and writing and communicating, which is probably much healthier.
I noticed once that when I stopped blogging my wits were slower and I didn't think as critically as before. I used to be able to write such beautiful poetry (although I didn't think so at the time), and take incredible photographs. I don't know what changed about my life that meant I forgot how to do it, or even that it was something I really enjoyed.

My hope is that by reconnecting with some part of my brain, I'll slowly reawaken that side of me and start doing these things again! Maybe going to the gym will give me the energy to go with it, too. I've decided I'm going to join one around the corner this coming Monday, and try and go three days a week after work. Should be worth it just to save the napping in the evenings!

I'm so hungry, but I have no idea what I'm going to have for dinner...