27th July 2016 - Hello YouTube!

My first ever YouTube video - Zoella, eat your heart out!! Haha!

My 30 before 30 challenge

In the spirit of keeping myself focused and moving forward over the foreseeable future, I sat down last week to document the 30 tasks that I would really like to do before I turn 30 on 29^th November 2017 – ahhh it’s coming around too soon!

These tasks are things that I have been talking about doing for a long time but for whatever reason, I have never been able to complete them. I know that I will feel a real sense of achievement as I start to tick them off and I can’t wait to blog in the future about my experiences in doing so. Even writing about it now is getting me excited about what’s to come!

And so, without any further ado, I present to you my 30 before 30 list:

1. Christmas in New York

2. 52 books in 52 weeks challenge (ends 18^th July 2017)

3. Swim with sharks and/or dolphins

4. Walk a marathon

5. Afternoon tea at the Ritz

6. Lose 3 stone

7. Learn a new language – reach intermediate level

8. Grow some herbs and veg in garden

9. Learn a new song on the viola

10. Re-familiarise myself with the French language - pass an advanced test

11. Go surfing

12. Get top teeth straightened

13. Weekend in a cottage with Friends

14. Run 5K race

15. Raise £2500 for Prostate Cancer

16. Champagne at the top of the Shard

17. Visit Rome

18. Start a journal

19. Start a business

20. Make it through a spinning class

21. Give Blood

22. Learn to make a patchwork quilt

23. Go to the opera

24. Complete a wine tasting course

25. Go to a ballroom dancing class

26. Get something published

27. Cook a roast

28. Learn how to pot plants and maintain garden

29. Go on a blind date

30. Go Glamping with friends

Fingers crossed I’ll complete it all over the next 16months – I will definitely keep you updated with monthly updates and relevant blog posts. Eeek I cannot wait!

2016 - Not the year I was hoping for!

Thinking back to midnight on New Year’s Eve 2015, I feel naïve that I ever had hope for 2016. As I stood with my friends taking in the fireworks, I quietly promised myself that this year would be different – this year, I would finally address those resolutions that I had found so easy to “forget” in the past. This year, I’d actively change my life for the better.

And I meant it. For the first 6 weeks of 2016, everything was great. I’d been offered a new job that came with an incredible salary; I was working out; and I was enjoying spending time with my family and friends. Life was moving in the right direction and I was excited about what was to come. Oh, how little I knew back then.

It didn’t take long for my world to slowly start to unravel in the most painful of ways. A phone call from my mum alerted me to the fact that my Dad had been rushed to hospital and he wasn’t in a good way. I needed to get there.

My Dad was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in August 2014. We had all been living with the fact that there was no cure for him, just treatment that may prolong his life but in our heads, that treatment would keep him around for a lot longer yet. There was no way that a man that was still actively living his life was going to go anytime soon.

Sadly, we were wrong. That day in February marked the steady decline of my Dad as the disease started to overcome him. I would visit him in the hospital and we would sit and chat and amuse ourselves but he was never really the same after his admission. I never wanted to admit it but I knew that he had resigned himself to his impending departure.

As I started my new job in April, I had to find a balance between navigating the unfamiliar territory at work and soaking up the time that I had left with my Dad. It was tough. Dad had always encouraged me to put my all into my career and to be a strong, self-assured woman and so it was imperative that I did him proud. I would stay a little later in the office to impress my boss even though it killed me to think that I was losing precious time and I’d work from the hospital to stay on top of things. I’d do whatever it took to convince my Dad, my boss and even myself, that I wasn’t struggling.

But ofcourse I was…big time. My Dad meant everything to me and I couldn’t bear to see him suffering. I wanted to do everything that I could to make it better but unfortunately that wasn’t very much.

On May 28^th 2016, my Dad passed away. My heart was broken and my world was turned upside down. Over the course of the next 3 weeks, my Mum and I set about organising the funeral and sorting out all the paperwork. Autopilot kicked in and we both agreed that we felt like robots who were just going through the motions, desperate to skip the funeral altogether so that we didn’t have to feel the pain of saying goodbye.

Life really was a bubble during that time and after the funeral passed – which happened to be the most perfect celebration of my Dad’s life – I was ready to go back to work. I needed the distraction to help me get back to some degree of normality.

It wasn’t to be though. A few days after returning to work, I was pulled into the office by HR to be told that ‘it wasn’t working out’. What?! I’ve only been with the company for 2 months, nobody told me I was doing anything wrong….and I’ve just lost my Dad, are you serious? Unfortunately they were. Not only was I now fatherless but I was jobless too. Oh and I needed to return the car pronto!

That was a month ago today and as I sit typing this, I am still yet to find my silver lining. No job offers, no car and ofcourse, no Dad to help me through it! Time is standing still and I need to do something about it.

Which brings us to this blog! I know that I can’t keep wallowing in self-pity for the rest of my life; I need to turn things around. I can hear my Dad now telling me to “stop worrying lass and get off your arse and do something about it”. So here I am, doing something.

I’m going to commit to documenting my journey ahead. I’m going to write about the good times and the struggles and most importantly, I’m going to hold myself accountable for having the best end to the year that I possibly can.

I know it’s not going to be easy because nothing will ever take away the pain and loss that I have experienced this year but this is something that my Dad would have wanted. This is something that I can do for my Dad now and for him, I will do anything.

RIP Dad. Here’s to what’s to come!