Christmas has been a funny time of year for me for the last few years. I’ve learnt to accept now that the festive season is very bitter sweet in many ways. I love the lights, the music and the excitement. I truly do. But the fact will always remain that Christmas is a huge trigger for me. My son was born amidst the seasonal jollities and the horror of it all will forever be punctuated by Christmas songs, wrapping paper and cheesy cracker jokes. That’s just the way it is, and I have mechanisms in place to deal with it all. One of these ‘survival strategies’ has been to go away for the Christmas break. Just our little family, with all the presents and the trimmings. It’s become a hugely cathartic Christmas tradition and a real opportunity for us all to escape real life for a while. This year we were lucky enough to have a magical Christmas break with Forest Holidays and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Ok, so it’s early but believe me we start to think around this time of year about where we’re going to spend the festive season- and lots of places book up early, so if you’re planning to escape in the same way get booking now! Here are just three reasons why a Christmas break with Forest Holidays might be just what you need this year… (more…)
Not Drowning, But Waving
Years ago, as a child, I read the amazing poem Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith and the words have stayed with me since. It’s so powerful, and has the ability (as all great written works do) to stop you in your tracks and contemplate the world, the people in it and your own position as a tiny fleck of something. To know that nobody can hear you and yet you still keep making a sound. You still cling to that desperate need to be heard, to be saved. To signal so desperately for help help HELP but to be misunderstood instead. To have people smile, nod, wave back to you. Nobody has the time. Nobody wants to get involved. Nobody wants to save you. To prefer to believe excuses instead of accepting that you stood by and did nothing. Nothing. Wow. It’s little wonder this poem haunted me for so many years, and probably always will.
And it’s been pertinent for me, because for a long time after my son was born I was that man in the water. I was the one trying desperately, in the only ways I knew how, to attract attention and to make people understand. I was the one who was still moaning, long after they’d turned their backs and walked away. I was the one waving madly in their faces like a loon, while they simply waved back with a smile. I’m sure we’ve all been that man before.
I’m not saying I’m ‘cured’ or that I am 100% a new person, but I do feel I’ve changed my perspective. That’s the only way I know how to put it! I haven’t moved on because I’m not sure I ever can, nor that I ever really want to now. But I HAVE changed my perspective, in that now I am not downing, but waving. (more…)
Three Easy Ways to Strengthen Your Back After Injury
Last month I completed an intensive care period at the chiropractor and graduated from three sessions a week to just two. I hope that in the coming months I’ll be able to drop down to once a week, and eventually to once a month. For now though, I’m keeping up my appointments because I know only too well how different life could be for me right now. To be told, at the age of 39, that without chiropractic care I could be just five years away from a hip replacement was scary enough. To see my x-rays lit up before me was worse. The degree to which my spine was curving as I stood there in September was genuinely distressing. All those years of neck pain, disturbed sleep, numb arms, shoulder aches… it all made sense all in that one moment. And I cannot stress this enough. If you have a bad back please please please get it seen to NOW. And, if you don’t have a bad back (because I didn’t- I never did and still don’t suffer from back pain) please get it checked out anyway. You can never be too careful and we all need help with our posture seeing as our generation spends more time than ever sitting.
Since seeing my chiropractor I’ve learnt a lot about my own body and I’ve worked with him and my PT to really improve my strength and to rehabilitate my back. I’m so impressed with the progress I’ve made so I thought I’d share three easy ways to strengthen your back after injury or stress. (more…)
New York 2018: Three Wardrobe Essentials
Eek. It’s been a little while since I last updated you lovely readers on just how exciting 2018 has proven to be so far! Of course the most exciting news of all is that we’re off to NEW YORK! Those who know me in real life know only too well just how much this trip means to me. I’ve wanted to visit since I was a small child. I always wanted to live in America, and New York was the pinnacle for me. I was (and still am) totally in love with the movie postcard city scenes. I want to ride in a yellow cab. I want to ice skate at Central Park. I want to watch the sun set over Brooklyn Bridge and to look out from the Statue of Liberty’s crown… and next month I WILL! The original plan had been to go for my 30th birthday, and believe me back then when we only had one child it would have been so much easier! As it turns out, this trip is a 40th birthday present and the child count had quadrupled but there you go! And so on to the planning. Of course, I’ve been obsessing over where to go and what to do for some months now, but the finder details of our trip are yet to be organised. The question on my mind right now? What ON EARTH do I pack? Please, if you’ve been to New York in early March let me know in the comments if I’m way off track in this post. I give you, New York 2018: Three Wardrobe Essentials that I need in my life right now… (more…)