being selfish

I've been debating whether I should write this post, in fear of someone reading it and interpreting it wrong...but realistically the people who should probably read it don't read my blog or have no idea that it exists and i'll probably find it therapuetic to put pen to paper...well fingers to keyboard.

It is just over a month until we leave for Australia. 

I need to read that a few times before I continue because it's still not quite sinking in..

And with this only having a month left comes 101 things to do, like change insurance policies, get copies of my university transcripts, get references from every relative job I've ever had (just in case), we need rental references, we need to sell stuff, sort stuff, pack stuff, tick off the last of our England bucket list, attend leaving parties.....the list goes on....all whilst working full time....

and that's all fine, I love being busy. What isn't fine is that we both have friends and family, who've known about the move for months and months, who aren't even making the effort to drop us a text to ask how it's going, to invite us out for a drink / night out / coffee etc. 

And you know what? I've made the concious decision to not to make the effort to do it myself. I've always been the person to chase around making plans....but actually that doesn't sit well with me now. I guess this whole process is proving who our true friends are, the ones who are asking everytime they see us how the move is going, how much we've got left to do, inviting us out places and actually just checking to see how the stress levels are doing..because FYI : moving to the other side of the world is frikkin' stressful.

I've called this post being selfish, but really I just think it's being grown up and it sucks...I've had friends for years who live within a 30 minute drive who aren't saying 'oh my god Han lets make the most of our last few weeks together' they're instead saying...well nothing at all. And I don't have the time to be chasing friends around making plans, yes it would only take me 30 seconds to drop someone a text...but the same the other way around. You've only got one friend moving abroad....I've got a whole heap who are staying behind.

I guess I always knew this would happen, and in a way I'm glad that it's happened before we've left because now I know who I can whatsapp in the middle of the night when we've landed in Perth and I have no friends, I'm homesick and just want to chat nonsense, and weirdly they aren't the friends I'd have expected.

Has anything similar happened to you? Do you think it's being selfish?

x

A day at the beach

One of the things we love most about where we live is the sea and we take every opportunity we can to be on or in it, especially when the sun's out, so I thought I'd invite you along with us for some fun....

You'll need to bring your beach bag with all the essentials, for me that's a good book, a pair of sunglasses, waterproof mascara and CC cream (evens out redness and has SPF, woohoo!), and very importantly for any beach babe tangle spray and a tangle teezer. 

I made sure to pack the waterproof camera too, for some fun water action shots. You can see it nicely here in the reflection of my raybans. It's not the best camera in the world 1)I'm not that blond 2)I'm also not that orange, but it is waterproof, drop proof, shock proof....hannah proof...

A pretty beach dress is a must also, teamed with a pair of flip flops.  I live in a coupe of pairs of havianas I picked up in brasil last year.

Ready? Let's get in the water then!

If it's not too cold you can have a little swim...

or  a little sit

or even a little lie down.

But really we're here to paddle board, so up we go...

Debenhams bikini top and bottoms

I brought Dan too...

Here he's rocking his new boardshorts and proving that bigger waves are much easier to balance on than the little choppy ones I had earlier. 

When the sun starts to go down it gets a little chillier, but that's okay because there's a well known way to warm up on the beach, come back to shore and wrap up in a big fluffy towel I've bought you a treat...

I hope you enjoyed your little trip to the beach with us. 

We'll be here every day until we go, so feel free to pop back whenever you like.

xo

Rock Reef, Bournemouth

Last week I headed down to Rock Reef on Bournemouth pier with a bunch of blogging ladies to check out Bournemouth's newest adventure activity attraction. We were met by the marketing manager Juan who explained that Rock Reef offers clip n climb, a high ropes course, a caving experience and they are just about to launch a zip wire stretching from the end of Bournemouth pier to the beach.

After a quick tour we were left with our instructor Will who gave as a safety briefing and tested us to makeup we'd been paying attention before letting us loose on the clip n climb, which features 25 different climbing walls throughout the building. We started off on a very normal looking rock climbing wall which gave us all a chance to test the harness system, which works a bit like a giant seatbelt, when we felt comfortable with that we were left to explore the rest on our own...

 

Our instructor will hung around to make sure we were all safe (or to laugh at us all screaming..i'm not sure which).

Louise on the high ropes course- which has to be one of the most terrifying things I've ever done.

Once we'd all been round the high line we got out of our harnesses and headed back downstairs to have a go at caving. Once again instructor Will gave us a safety briefing before we headed in. As it's an artifical cave there's emergency exits every few metres and there's CCTV built in so you can watch what's going on from outside.

Louise, Cheryl, me,  Rosie   and Sarah

We thought we'd all hate it, but it has to be my favourite activity of the day. You enter through a small tunnel and then fall into a giant ballpit, which we all sat in for a while chatting, giggling (or crying of laughter in my case) and debating building our own caving systems complete with ballpits at home..something I'm still considering. We were then given the option of going back out or exploring the tunnels, a challenge which Cheryl and I quickly accepted, quickly followed by Sarah!

I don't think I've ever had so much fun at a blogging event and thanks to Will for making the evening so much fun! I think it's safe to say we'd all highly reccomend Rock Reef, it's a perfect way to spend an afternoon and is suitable for little kids and big kids and would make a great birthday party, hen do or work team building day. We were all quite excited to hear that they're thinking of developing some fitness classes at one point in the future too, which sounds like awesome fun and we can't wait to go back when the Zip Wire is open.

You can find Rock Reef on Bournemouth Pier and online at http://www.rockreef.co.uk/

x