A Lovely October and a Big Comedown

Well hello there! It’s been a little while hasn’t it? Every so often I seem to take a few weeks off and disappear off the face of the (blogging) planet, and although it feels weird – especially when it isn’t planned – I think it does me a lot of good and I come back really wanting to write again.

My favourite posts are the ones where I’ve just decided to sit and write, but they only happen off the cuff, and well, that’s what this one is. I’m feeling pretty down after a whirlwind month and so I want to write. I think I only really realised recently that blogging, or writing, is my therapy, and whilst I can’t, or don’t want to share everything on here it still helps to get some of it out and spend the time just focusing on writing something vaguely coherent.

Anyway, October has been a really busy month and a really good one. I’ve had so much fun, far too much wine, not enough sleep, eaten out a lot and done very, very little work. It’s been a pretty good month!

Craig was over from New Zealand for a few weeks again, on his own this time, plus it’s been half term. So we have been doing loads of stuff and I’ve been away a couple of times, and it’s been lovely.

It started off with a trip to London with Kirsty to pick Craig up from the airport; where we ate and drank lots, wandered around London and gave Craig a surprise ride on the ArcelorMittal Orbit slide for his birthday – the world’s highest and longest tunnel slide! I’d done it once before so wasn’t too nervous, but they got pretty nervous when it came to it. Craig screamed and swore the entire way down and made all of the people waiting at the top laugh a lot! The slide is bloody good fun but it is pretty scary and exhilarating – I pretty much laugh and swear my way down. The slide is the silver tunnel bit to the left in the picture below.

I spent a day during half term at a Happy Egg Farm in Peterborough finding out all about their hens and how they keep them happy (you can read about that soon), which was really interesting and I met some lovely food bloggers too.

I also went to Chessington for a couple of days with Craig and Ava (the bonus of being a blogger is that you get to do fun things when everyone else is working, without asking your boss for time off! Well I did ask my boss but she was pretty okay with me going away for a couple of days to have fun. She even said I deserve a break. Nice lady.). We stayed in Kingston-Upon-Thames for a couple of nights and had a great time – Craig is bloody brilliant with Ava and she adores him, so it was nice for them to get to spend some quality time together and get to know each other even better. Although he does spoil her a lot and they spend most of their time taking the piss out of me and thinking it’s hilarious, so it’s swings and roundabouts.

It was the first time we had been to Chessington World of Adventures and we had a great time. It was Halloween week so there was some extra fun stuff on and it was open later which was even better. There’s so much to do with slightly younger kids there and Ava really enjoyed it. I’ll be writing about it all soon.

Also during October we celebrated a couple of birthday’s and had a couple of nights out which was lovely. I hadn’t been for a proper night out since at least last year and although we didn’t stay out really late or get too hammered, we did end the night with a kebab, so we did it properly. That part of the night is a bit of a blur but I do remember telling the guys in the kebab shop that I used to go there about 15 years ago and hadn’t been back since! I’m sure they were very interested in that (Antalya’s for anyone in Nottingham reading this!).

I also went to a fair with the kiddos, had a brilliant wine tasting at Veeno Nottingham, and went to my first football match in over ten years! There were a lot of pretty chilly but sunny trips to the park as well.

It was a bit of a whirlwind month and I am never normally that busy, but it was brilliant and so much fun and I didn’t really want it to end. Unfortunately real life had to sneak back in eventually, so now I have to get back to school runs, working hard, drinking waaay less wine and eating less food that is bad for me, and start exercising again. I have put on a few pounds over the month, and whilst it didn’t really bother me at the time, it really is now. So today the exercise starts again if I can force myself to get up offa my chair, and I have eaten some fruit for the first time in a few weeks. So I’m doing well I reckon.

I’m feeling bloody down though. I think it’s like the comedown you get after Christmas, where all the festivities and food are over, the snow is mushy and grey, and you’ve finished your six Chocolate Oranges. I feel like crap and I’m crying a bit too often. The last week has been a pretty emotional and tough one anyway, with big ups and downs (I’m an aunty again! I’m so happy my new nephew is here safely and I can’t wait to meet him really soon! Ava is so excited too.) and I’m just in that place that I can’t get out of easily. I just have to wait for it to pass. I know things will get better again and I know everything’s okay really but I am stuck in this hole of depression that has taken over everything, and I just have to wait for my mind to jump back out of.

I’m okay. Hopefully I will be feeling spritely again soon. It’s just this bit is a bit shit meanwhile, but hey ho, onwards we go. And I’m grateful for a bloody good October.