A New Introduction

Hiya guys I hope you're all good?

I wanted to let you know that I've started a new blog to document my journey in learning about witchcraft and Wicca.

I'll only link it this once as there's nothing worse than having someone's religion or beliefs shoved down your throat! If someone could mention that to the preacher guy in town every Saturday ranting and raving that we're all going to hell .... I mean the queues in Primark can be pretty horrendous but not quite on a par with fire and brimstone .....

So if anyone is interested you can find my witchy alter-ego at The Muddling Witch

Oh and in case anyone was wondering

1.  I don't worship Satan (I've always disliked Manchester Utd)
2.  I'm not fooling around with ouija boards (People have no idea how dangerous they are)
3.  I'm not going to be throwing about hexes and curses here there and everywhere (the Wiccan belief is that everything we send out comes back threefold)
4.  No I won't be dancing naked in a field (Nobody deserves that!)

Hopefully that clears it up 👯

Love Jen
XxxX

The Thick And Thin Of It

Happy very late New Year everyone. This greeting sets the tone for today’s waffle very well as it deals with weight loss which is often a resolution for people.

So to address the (literal) elephant in the roomy es I have lost 29.1 kilos/4.5ish stone. The problem with losing the weight, aside from nothing fitting anymore is the attention it garners. I know that people are commenting with only the nicest intentions but “Don’t you look good” when I clearly don’t or “You’re all skinny” when nothing could be further from the truth seeing as I’m still a size 16 and 5ft5 inches!

The most difficult comment to deal with is when people say “I bet you feel better for it” when the answer is really no! But I can’t say “No I still feel horrible all the time” and instead look at the floor and mutter something in the affirmative. Despite the medical community insisting that exercise and dieting will make you feel better I have to break it to you all that it really bloody doesn’t. I still wake up every day wishing that I hadn’t, I still have a huge amount of anxiety and my brain is still like a raw nerve with the littlest thing sending me into a downward spiral.

I also hate that being thinner is associated with being ‘well’. One of the happiest periods in my life when I was between working at Veritek/CMS and the Medical Records Library I was a size 18/20! Whilst I did slim down to a size 12 over the year due to constantly being on the move by the end of that I was ill and unhappy again due to external factors so no I wasn’t automatically well due to being slimmer.

It also makes me wonder when people tell me how well I look how awful must have I looked before?? Why do people not comment that someone looks really well/happy when they’re bigger? I know society equates skinny with good and fat with bad but surely people can be fat and happy as well as skinny and sad? It reminded me of an exercise we did at school many, many years ago when we were asked to choose between various lifestyle options; one being would we prefer to be fat, healthy and happy or skinny, unhappy and unhealthy. Nearly the whole class went for the skinny option, we’d been conditioned even at the age of 11/12 to worship skinny.

I know I sound ungrateful for the compliments but I’ve always felt uncomfortable receiving praise, thinking people are just giving it without meaning it and being praised for my weight loss is even more difficult. Whilst I do take satisfaction in knowing that my insides are probably a lot happier with me cutting out a lot of the crap I was eating (although I always prioritise weekend cake) and having stuck at being ‘good’ (another of society’s thin-centric ones there!), enjoying my walking- I walk to and from work when it’s not raining and am on my feet most of the day at work in my new Ward Clerk job( which I love by the way) regularly hitting 18,000 steps, luckily I should be able to keep this up when I do two day’s housekeeping a week too (not sure what it says that I’d rather clean toilets than work for my old boss!) and the money I'm saving on not buying chocolate and crisps every day has built up my 'fat fund' meaning that last year I was able to afford my 30STM gigs and a trip to the Air Tattoo! 

So please, please as awful as it sounds don’t comment on my weight. Comment on my mascara, lippie, jewellery, excellent taste in music anything except my wobbly bits!

Love Jen

XxxX

2018 in pictures

Happy New Year everyone and I hope 2019 has been good to you all so far.

My last blog was my review of 2018's music offerings so I thought that a fun way to tell you about 2018 would be through my other favourite medium; photos! I hope you enjoy 😁

The only polite and proper place to start would of course be photos of Esme! With the beautiful summer (that stopped conveniently in time for Airbourne, but more of that later) it meant I was able to spend most evenings in the run with her (much to Esme's delight).

Really Mum?

We also had lots of fun in the snow that came in March, she rediscovered her love of playing in the white stuff (even if she didn't have Stelly to kick it at!) with the benefit of being able to scamper back onto her heat pad and toast her butt!

I see you taking photos, that must mean you're about to feed me!

Is there anything cuter than bunny prints in the snow?

She made good use of the snow .....

Taking matters into her own paws

At the end of March I was lucky enough to be able to go to two 30 Seconds To Mars concerts in a week in London and Birmingham. It was the first time I'd been to Birmingham and I thought it was a really lovely city, particularly the museum. You can read my waffling and see the photos from the shows in my blog 'My Mission To Mars'.

O2 Arena London

Barclaycard Arena Birmingham

In my other main geeking past time I was lucky enough to go to the Air Tattoo again and even have them read and 'like' my review of it on Twitter.

Ready to geek (anorak just out of shot)

Me and a Tornado - some things never change ...

617 Sqdn Past, Present & Future (L-R Tornado, Lancaster & Lightning)

Unfortunately when it came to Eastbourne's turn to host our annual Airbourne air display later that summer the weather decided to give up on it's glorious weather and soak us in downpours and low cloud. Sunday was completely written off by low cloud, Friday and Saturday thankfully went ahead and some idiot decided to brave the heavy rain on Thursday on the off chance of seeing a Typhoon ......

That would be me then ....

...... Saw my Typhoon though.

The most important aviation event of 2018 was, however the RAF's 100th birthday celebrations that included a mass flypast over London.  I'm really glad I took the decision to go up to see it as it was awe inspiring and filled me with pride, I can also boast that I was there when the RAF flew 22 Typhoons down The Mall in the shape of 100. The noise of the crowd cheering in delight nearly drowned out their engines, no mean feat!

The RAF's new F35B Lightning II's made their debut over London days after touching down on UK soil.

Yay for Tornados

Such an amazing spectacle

The weather did however put on a good show for the day Bente came down to visit. Mum and I gave her a whistle-stop tour of Eastbourne taking in our oldest pub The Lamb Inn, Beachy Head, cuddles with Esme, a castle and finally a beer garden - all the British essentials!

I managed to get a few snaps in 2018 that I'm pretty pleased with -

Lightning between clouds back in May during the craziest storm I've ever seen.

What can I say? I love snow!

A really lucky 'phone snap' early one morning on a coach trip

I upgraded my phone just after Christmas to a Huwawei P20 and the camera is outstanding. This is Orion's Belt the other night.

Another excuse (if I ever needed one) for me to snap away throughout the year was Helen, Mum and I getting National Trust Membership meaning that we can explore as many pretty houses and gardens as we like! 

Pulling some kind of strange pose in my unicorn skirt  in the garden at Bateman's (now far too big since you ask) I could probably smell scones.

Found them!

We've had trips to Nymans.

Mum, Rach and me.

Rach, Helen and me

There was a trip to Bodium Castle on my birthday -

My favourite destination so far is Wakehurst Place (not just for it's gift shop I'll have you know!). We went in the spring and were stalked by ducks and pheasants. 

I discovered the wonder of giant mushrooms

And again in the Autumn (with slightly further away pheasants) 

Sheila, Me, Mum and Rach

Helen and Rach

I absolutely adore this photo that Rach took of Helen and me.

Speaking of lovely photos I was spoilt for choice when Helen and I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon during some gorgeous Autumn weather. I loved it so much that we've booked to go again in April *crosses fingers for good weather*. 

 A walk along the river.

 

Making friends with Arwen the owl!

Helen's gentleman loves Bill and Ben

A slightly unflattering photo of me conveying my appreciation of 'unicorn gin'.

Whilst Helen and I were in Stratford Dad very kindly got cracking on clearing my room ready to be decorated. I documented the process in a few blogs. I now have a Halloween hideaway with room to put all my knick-knacks on display properly. 

There's been some fantastic gin-fuelled nights out -

Old Daves with my work ladies and gents

Wetherspoons for my birthday

Tulley's Farm Fright Night

And of course Cinqo De Mayo!

  My deliberately awful outfit!

 Aldi have answered all my summer prayers with their Gin ice lollies

  Lydia, Jamie, Tone, Barry, Hilary & Luke

  Lydia, Jamie, Tone, Barry, Hilary and Me

Finally I feel that I should be commended that towards the end of the year I made the effort to get into the Christmas spirit with only a few mutters of "humbug" a day. I put a tree up in my room and didn't swear too much at the fairy lights and am now the proud owner of a Christmas jumper (the fact that it's a 30STM one is purely co-incidental). 

Snapchat was of great assistance

Post-Thai Christmas Dinner (hey it worked!) with Rach, Helen and Amanda

Gastro Office Secret Santa!

Christmas lunch at the Berwick Inn (L-R) Jamie, Lydia, Hilary, Me, Tone, Luke and Barry)

Some sensible Christmas Day photos -

Luckily that didn't last long!

2018 was so much fun and I want to thank all of you who've contributed to so many special moments for me. Here's to 2019 and more disapproving rabbits, music, plane geeking, trips, gin sessions and fun!

Love Jen

XxxX