The Undramatic Dramatic Blog Post

What I'm about to say probably won't come as much of a surprise, given my lack of blogging over the past couple of months.

I'm taking a step away from blogging for a wee while.

The reasons are many and few.

1) Things got a little stressy here at the end of June with a health scare (not mine) and a job scare (mine) and I didn't want to blog

2) I went on holiday to Corfu

3) Work went mental

4) The Person and I moved up to my town and into a new flat

But basically I've just fallen out of love with it.

I've been quite vocal about the fact that I'm not hugely enjoying the "blogging world" at the moment and I'd rather not be part of it until I can work out what it is I really want to do with it. And seeing as I don't want to become another sponsored blog whore and I don't want to take photos of myself wearing the 4 pieces of clothing I own, I don't really know what to do.

So it's time to take a break.

It will almost certainly not be permanent, I think I like this game too much to give it up completely, but a re-think and an overhaul and a reboot is needed.

I'm still kind of hanging about and trying to comment on blogs (although I still mourn the demise of Google Reader daily. Feedly and Bloglovin' make me want to get stabby) and I'm definitely still on that there Twitter (@Shippers1983 if you want to have a natter) but for now, this little corner of the internet will be a bit silent.

Catch you on the flipside.

Friday night's round My Nest*

Some people have crazy Friday nights out - drinking and dancing and hopping their way around pubs and clubs.

Some people have crazy Friday nights in - drinking and dancing around the living room with mates.

But this person has another way of spending her Friday nights...

Catching up on The Archers...

...and learning how to French Braid my hair (how have I never learned how to do this until now?!)

Don't be jealous of my crazy lifestyle kids.

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*"The Nest?! The Nest?! What is this crazy woman talking about?" I hear you say - well The Nest is where I live - you can read about it here

Whilst I was away...

....I think, I think, my plant died.

At this point I have the opportunity to make a terribly cheesy comparison between this dead violet and the fact that I have somewhat neglected my blog of late.

But I'm not going to.

Or did I just do it?

Who knows. Apologies. I went away on my jolly holidays and forgot to leave a "Be Back Soon" sign on the door. Although I think we all know I was already checked out long before my break.

I would like to say I'll get back on it immediately....but....naaaaaaah.

See you when I see you.

Me vs The Tank

Yeah I know. Another learning to drive post. How terribly boring for the rest of you but this is definitely something that I need to document because I'm assured that there will be a day, one day, when driving apparently comes "naturally" to me and I will forget all about how it felt like I was in the cockpit of a flying saucer and couldn't remember how to push the pedals.

If you didn't read my first post about re-learning to drive then please go and read it to find out why I'm re-learning to drive and how alien it has been to me.

But the one thing that I forgot to mention in my last post is that the reason for the sudden rush with my lessons has been that there is a deadline zooming up to me.

My sister and family go away on holiday for 2 weeks towards the end of July. I offered to stay in the house and look after Rowan and Rosie (and Blinky obviously) so that they didn't have to spend a small fortune on kennel fees.

All good but for one small fact.

Although it's only a mile and a half walk into work which I'm more than capable of doing, I would need to go home at lunchtimes to let the dogs out/make sure they're doing ok and I wouldn't be able to do that if I was reliant on just my feet. I would need to drive my sister's car to and from work each day.

So lessons were a must because I had a deadline ahead of me. As you may have guessed from my last post, I'm pretty nervous about being in a car again after so many years. So imagine how much more scared I was knowing that I was working up to be driving this car...

...why yes, my sister drives a tank to work.

This weekend my sister finally plucked up the courage to take me out in it so I can get a feel for driving it before I have to do it on my own. It's very brave of her because she's pretty much a bit of a control freak and what could be more scary than giving literal control of your car to someone who basically can't drive? So she really deserves a round of applause.

We went to Tesco early on Sunday morning to have a little pootle round the car park when it was empty.

And you know what?

Tank driving is easy!

Want to know why?

The Tank is an Automatic.

Most of my current stress when driving revolves around stopping and starting the changing up and down from 1st into 2nd gear. As I said before, actual driving I can do. You get in an automatic and all of that is taken care of for you. No need to worry, you can just concentrate on not crashing into everything around you and just drive. It was amazing! It was freedom and it was a confidence boost. We both felt comfortable enough for me to leave the confines of the car park and go out on to the actual road and drive about, and then confident enough to get onto the dual carriageway - although, bless her, she'd only let me do 60mph.

It was brilliant and amazing and I loved it.

We'll talk about parking The Tank another time I think.

I spent an hour in The Tank and was feeling good and no longer nervous at the prospect of driving it.

I then had a 2 hour driving lesson and pretty soon after getting into the car realised that driving The Tank meant that I'd pushed all the information I had in my brain about doing the gears and stopping and starting out into thin air, resulting in me stalling the car three times when I haven't stalled it at all before.

*sigh*

The Nest

I'm pretty much like a goldfish you know. I just expand to fit my surroundings and I'm good at making whatever space I'm living in feel homely to me. I'm a good little nester. I'm not fussed about having a show-room style house where everything is immaculate and has been chosen to go together and "tie the room together" (which is the wankiest phrase I've ever heard).

But even a goldfish has its limits and although I've mentioned the fact that I've been living in my sister's box room for the past 6 months I felt like I needed to show you that I am not exaggerating and also for you to praise me and say what a good person I am for having lived in this space for so long and not seriously hurt somebody/resorted to sitting on my bed and banging my head against the wall.

So I thought I'd take some photos.

That was a laugh in itself. This room is so small that taking photos of it proved almost impossible because I couldn't actually get any of the room in a single photo. Take this photo below - I had to get this by standing way out in the hall at the top of the stairs...

See?!

A - My bed. Most of the springs in the mattress have now gone. See those four drawers? They have some clothes in. Bottom left has all my running stuff in it, top left has a couple of jumpers and t-shirts in, top right has bras and a jumper in and bottom right has pjs, 1 pair of jeans and some lounge pants in.

B - Some extra storage - in these tiny drawers I have shoved my pants, tights and socks.

C - Unfortunately this TV does not actually work, there's no aerial.

D - My teeny selection of books whilst all my other lovely books are languishing back in Preston thinking I don't love them any more.

So that's what it looks like from the outside, what about the inside?

Well this hopefully gives you an idea of how small it is. I had to stick two photos together but what you see is what you get. In the above photo you should have been able to see that the length of the room is the length of my bed.

So when I'm lying on the bed, this is what I can see...

A - My wardrobe. Basically has my work stuff in it and some shoes and then space for all my dirty laundry because, well, I've nowhere else to put it.

You may be able to have worked out from this picture of the wardrobe and the storage in the above photo that I do not have a lot of clothes here with me. Actually I can highly recommend being separated from the majority of your wardrobe for 6 months apart from the absolute essentials which for me is my work stuff and pjs. It means that when I went back to Preston the other weekend to start packing for the move I actually just put the majority of my clothes in bin bags and took it to charity.

B - Why is my wardrobe floating in the air? This is where the stairs come up. It's weird innit? It's probably where the boiler should be which would possibly make it look a bit less weird.

C - My towels. They live here. They can't live in the bathroom because I live with 2 teenage boys and they're gross and I really don't want them near my towels. Gross but true.

D - Running shoes. Nowhere else for them to live but do you like how I've stacked them to create more room? Sad isn't it?

E - Hurray for over the door hook things. I'd be buggered without them. Here hangs everything for which there is no room anywhere else - includes scarfs, belts, bags, cardigan and hoodies.

F - Postcard from Heather that I love. It says "Have a totes amazeballs day!" - I see it every day and it makes me smile.

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So there you have it. My little nest. Little being the operative word. This is mostly where I am when I am blogging/tweeting/reading/crocheting/on the phone.

I know I shouldn't complain, I'm lucky to have a sister that has put me up for this long for what we both thought would be a much shorter time frame. But, as homely as my little nest is, I am longing to have all my things around me. To have everything at my fingertips instead of going "Oh I know what I'll do...no...wait...that's in Preston, can't have that."

I am muchly looking forward to moving to my bigger nest.

Behind the wheel

One of this year's Not Really Resolutions was to get behind the wheel of a car again. I passed my test when I was 17 and have never driven again so lessons were a must. This was a not really resolution that I thought would be nice, but upon moving to my current home has become a must. I've been able to get away without driving for so long because I have been living in cities with public transport links. Now I live in what to me is the middle of nowhere and I cannot get anywhere without my sister giving me a lift.

So I plucked up the courage, got my license renewed, asked around and found a local instructor. As the day drew near, the fear began to grow. There's a reason you learn to drive when you're 17. You are fearless and excited to be a grown-up and you can sense freedom isn't far away. When you're learning to drive when you're 30 you are all too aware you're in a machine of death and that the streets and roads are paved with lunatics hellbent on getting in your way.

"Oh it's just like riding a bike" people would say. Really? Tell me this then - would you rather I hit you with a bike I hadn't pedalled on in 12 years or a car I haven't driven in for 12 years? Exactly. Metal death traps.

Funnily enough it is like riding a bike and after a quick re-familiarisation I was off, actually driving in an actual car on the actual road! I remembered how to change gear! I remembered to check my mirrors! I remembered everything, apart from the art of gentle braking.

You see, I just don't trust the car to actually stop. I start off ok, I gently press down and the car responds and begins to slow. It goes slower and slower and slower and then I am overcome with panic that this car, which is now travelling at 3mph is somehow going to career out of control and destroy everything, so I slam my foot down on the already overly sensitive brake, bringing the car to an almighty standstill. Did you know you can do an emergency stop when the car is going that slowly? Well you can.

I was euphoric after my first lesson though. I could do this! I was a whizz! I'd be on the motorway in no time! I vainly reckoned it would be about 5 lessons and I'd be road ready. This week I will have my first lesson and we will be practicing, in my instructor's own words, "stopping and starting." So yeah...probably more than five lessons.

This appears to be my major problem at the moment. I'm Mrs Cool when I'm driving, as in literally driving on the roads - the second I have to stop at a junction, or some traffic lights, or my arch nemesis, the roundabout, and all hell breaks loose in my head. I can't remember if I'm lifting my foot off the brake or the clutch first, what direction I'm supposed to be going in or what I'm supposed to be doing with that stick in my left hand.

I shouldn't be so harsh on myself, I am basically learning to drive and obviously that takes more than five lessons, but still...there's a long road to travel just yet.

On the farm

Remember this one time when I went away with all the bloggers in March to Norbury Manor? Of course you do I talk about it all the time.

You may remember in that post that one of the highlights was when we went in search of some alpacas that some of the group claimed to have seen during a walk about. We never found those alpacas but we were confronted by two farm dogs who were not best pleased at our loitering. In case you forgot the photo or can't be bothered to click through to that link then here they are...

Fast forward to a month or so later. One of my bosses wants to get together some of the key account people to have a strategy meeting of sorts and wants it off-site. Someone has mentioned a place -  a farm that's not a million miles away that has cottages and a big meeting room. Will I check it out?

So I go online and check it out and it all sounds good. We go ahead and book and the dates are put in people's diaries.

A few days before we go away I go back to the website for another look. Oh how exciting it's a working farm with real animals and everything and oh good lord they have alpacas, I love alpacas.

I get in the car with my sister on Monday morning and we gear up the sat nav, we put the postcode in and I'm vaguely reminded of something. I look at a map and some of the directions on the website and realise that it's quite close to Norbury Manor...

I read the directions some more. It talks about going over a bridge.

As in...a bridge that you might play pooh sticks on and not be able to work out who won?

Alpacas + Pooh Stick bridge + near Norbury Manor...

No. It couldn't be. What would be the chances?

We pull up and there, standing before me who do I see?

Kipper.

Who promptly does this,

And then this...

Closely followed by Charlie who growls as me and yet wants me to stroke him and seems to be quite confused about which he wants more.

And a cat! Called Suki who has the most soft and beauiful fur ever.

And another cat called Tango, who unfortunately eluded my camera.

And alpacas!

And donkeys!

And little chicks!

I am indeed on the other side of the fence to where I was standing about 2 months previously.

Cue immediately taking to Twitter to tell #TeamNorbury about where I was.

Unbelievable.

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This was a work thing so I've ummed and aahed about whether to post this and whether or not I should link to the place we stayed. I don't feel comfortable going into too many details about our stay but I equally want to recommend it to anyone who was looking for a holiday cottage let in the Derbyshire/Staffordshire area. If you do want the details about where we stayed drop me an e-mail or send me a Tweet (@Shippers83) and I'll let you know the details. It was fabulous.