We are overdue for a catch-up! The last while has been an up-and-down of feeling crappy. Nothing serious, just run-of-the-mill illnesses that have knocked me out of my routines (doesn’t take much) and then I’ve just had other things to catch up on.
Majorca ⛱️
We had a lovely 6-day holiday in Majorca mid-September. We stayed in a gorgeous hotel and had nothing to do but lie by the pool reading, with occasional breaks to float about in the water.
What we hadn’t considered when we booked this trip was that maybe the childfree weren’t the only ones waiting for the kids to go back to school so we could take our turn for a break. Turns out that all the parents with under-school-age kids do the same, and we were surprised to find our hotel was absolutely heaving with babies!
It was a comical amount of babies! High chairs as far as you could see in the restaurant; the pool full of them being bobbed around in their inflatable boats, in their cute little bucket hats. I watched from our balcony in the evening, and the activity below was exclusively adults either transporting a baby or some sort of item for the baby!
It was 90% babies, a few over-50s sun seekers, and I counted 4 other child-free couples in their thirties.
It was fine though; as I say, they were cute, and they’re pretty quiet at that age really. If they cried, it was for an easily serviceable reason. Plus, they all would disappear for naps after lunch, and the pool would be empty for a few hours! I much prefer that to the older kids who will run around screaming, shouting and having tantrums. Still, next time we go to a resort we must remember to check if it is Adults Only!
Vomit 🤮
The holiday was unfortunately bookended by a lot of vomit-induced stress.
First, a day before we were due to be leaving, the cat vomited 4 times in the afternoon and couldn’t seem to keep food down. The first trip to the out-of-hours emergency vet was inconclusive (£270), but the vet we saw in the morning was confident it wasn’t a blockage, and an anti-nausea jab sorted her out (£70). She ate food and did a nice normal poo, and off we went on holiday.
On the last day of holiday, I enjoyed my last Piña Colada and lounged in our rooftop jacuzzi (we splashed out since we haven’t been away in years!), but then by 5 pm started to feel off. By 7 pm I started vomiting! And didn’t seem to be able to stop. I’d been sick 6 times by midnight and couldn’t keep water down. We were due to leave at 6 am in the morning for a 10 am flight, so we had to call out an emergency doctor to the room. He wasn’t concerned about my vitals, and I felt fine between each round, so it was my turn for an anti-nausea jab (€250). That did sort me out; there was no more sickness, but neither of us got any sleep for the ordeal, and it was a horrible journey home, during which I was too scared to eat or do more than sip water!
It’s going to be really difficult to persuade my husband to go on holiday again after all this stress!
I assume it was food poisoning, whatever it had passed but it took a good few days for my body to recover.
I finally got over that and then went away for a weekend with my uni friends to celebrate 20 years of friendship (I don’t understand how this can be accurate!), had a fantastic time but came back with a horrible autumn cold which then took 10 days to shake off!
I’m only just now feeling like myself again; I might not be leaving the house again for a while to keep it that way!
Zinefest 🖨️
I did leave the house to go to a Zinefest in my city! I am still enamoured by zines, and was thrilled to find this was happening for free within easy reach!
It was absolutely brilliant! It was really busy, which was fantastic to see. It was a real range of ages too; I wasn’t sure if it would end up being more of a young, arty/student/alternative crowd, but there was a good mix. In fact, maybe a bit too busy, as it was hard to really look at everything. It was a wonderful atmosphere; I was very brave and actually spoke to strangers (I never initiate conversations with strangers)! I had a lovely chat with a zine-maker over some of his zines (and I bought 3!), and somehow we got onto talking about Philip K. Dick! I never get to talk about PKD IRL! I felt bad I actually help up his queue, but he seemed to be enjoying it as much as me.
I’m very proud of myself for this! I took along some copies of one of my little zines, as I wasn’t sure if there might be a general sharing area/table to just dump your own free ones on. There wasn’t, but still, getting that ready just in case was fun, and now I have a few mini zines I can keep in my bag and give out if the opportunity arises.
I will write a bit more about my new little adventure into zines at some point, and share what I’ve made.
Boots 👢
I bought some new boots (in a 20% promotion) and I feel awesome in them. It’s a style of boot I’ve been thinking about for years, perfect to wear with my flared jeans and midi skirts, a different vibe to the Doc Martens I’ve lived in for the last 6 years. In fact I wore new boots to zinefest with my flared jeans and I felt pretty cool and confident.
I want to wear my skirts and boots this winter, and make better use of the items I own that are languishing in the wardrobe, forgotten.
The new boots made me confront all the old pairs of boots I’ve not worn in years that have been under the bed since I moved here. I used to be a skinny jeans and boots girl, so I have quite a lot of knee high boots.
I like the look of tall boots with longer skirts so I was excited to dig them out, but I realised a lot of them need replacement rubber pads on the heel which is likely why I stopped wearing them post-pandemic, when I was no longer working around the corner from the repair shop! It’ll probably cost a small fortune to get them all done (5 pairs!) but it would be nice to wear them again!
What else?
- We went to see Ghosts: The Haunting of Button House and it was absolutely delightful!
- I watched all of Barry (on NowTV) and it was good but man, it gets depressing! Preferred the earlier seasons when it was more comedy forward.
- Watched season 2 of The Paper, I love it! Huge crush on Domhnall Gleeson now.
- Celebrity Traitors series 2 is on, I can’t believe people are only just now noticing James Acaster is hot 🤷🏻♀️ he was on my man calendar years ago!
- The garden has been entirely neglected this year between the drought and then weekends with terrible weather or illness. Now it’s practically November and I’ve missed so many jobs! 😞
- I ended up listening to the audiobook of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (this year’s big buzz book) and I have so many thoughts. That’ll be coming soon.
- We got new litter trays for the cats, metal ones! (The things I get excited about these days) I didn’t know there was such a thing and they are so much more hygienic and don’t get scratched. More expensive, but I think worth it.
- I’ve developed an inability to throw any fabric away, any old clothes (pajamas with worn elastic, knackered socks etc) because it might be useful for embroidery… I need to start actually doing something with these scraps!
- I’ve had a hard time focusing on reading recently, I’ve got through lots of audiobooks but print reading has almost ground to a halt. I think it’s a combination of illness zapping my and the sudden change in the season, and through that falling back into bad habits with screens at night.
- I had briefly gotten into a good daily journey habit but that also fell by the wayside! As did exercise… I’ve just been a mess and I need to get back on track!
- Also, now 10 issues behind with my London Review of Books subscription 🫣
- SNL UK series 2 has been just as good as series 1, this week’s Cynthia Erivo hosted episode had some incredible sketches! Nollywood Wicked was next level, on par with British Pork. I am missing George Fouracres though.
