Hello & Goodbye

Hello, long time no see! How've you been? If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you'll probably know that I've been in Cape Town these past couple of weeks. I know, it's a hard life.

While I was gone, Blogger decided to eat Disqus: by which I mean, my comments form has completely disappeared, taking all the comments with it, and I have no clue how to get it back. Coming on the heels of a long-ish term disenchantment with blogging (a sort of 'why the hell are people interested in this crap? May as well not bother' feeling of ennui, rather than my previously experienced writer's block or disenchantment with the blogging world generally), it's given me an excuse to say goodbye to the blog for a while.

I assumed that changing jobs, going from the full-pelt insane stress of teaching to a calmer and more enjoyable workplace, would give me more time to write but instead it's made me less in need of blogging as an outlet. I no longer need a space online in which to de-stress. And because my new job entails managing the digital side of the business, I find that by the time I get home I'm more than ready for a break from social media, rather than desperate to spend hours on Twitter and Blogger.

I'm sure I'll be back. If I can get the comments situation sorted, it will be sooner rather than later. And I think I'll probably keep going with my monthly Reads and Buyer's Archive posts - because I know how annoyed I'll be to get to the end of the year with months missing - but other than that, I'm going to concentrate my energies on writing zines, reading the many books I acquired while away, and spending time with Thomas. So, for now, goodbye. Except for when you 'see' me on Twitter. And Instagram. Or email me, as one lovely reader did yesterday when she couldn't comment as usual.

2015: A Year In Review

Well, 2015 turned out to be a funny old year. I remember, back in January, deciding to have a year off from my Q&A a day journal on the grounds that 2015 was going to be exactly the same as 2014.

It didn't quite turn out that way.

From battling with some pretty serious anxiety (which sometimes made all our amazing travel opportunities hard to cope with), to changing my entire career, 2015 was anything but the same as 2014. I can't quite decide if it was a good year: in total, the good definitely outweighed the bad and I've had some amazing moments this year, but it was also tough and gruelling at times. Put it this way, I'm not sorry to see the back of it: roll on 2016!

January
I wrote about why we're planning a feminist wedding (sum total of planning actually achieved in 2015= zero), listed the music that's soundtracked my life, and discussed why talking about abortion is important (a subject I expanded on for The Olive Fox later in the year).

February
I posted a how-to for a 'Feminist As Fuck' slogan embroidery, finished our office makeover, and wrote about 10 things I'm good at, as well as going on some half term adventures.

March
Thomas and I visited Saltaire, I considered the problem of solidarity on International Womens Day, and I wrote about the shitty bits that often get glossed over when blogging.

April
We visited Glasgow for some time with Thomas's family, inspired by Sarah, I wrote about the five things I swore I'd never do, and I commenced my now-annual week of making.

May
We spent a weekend in Bristol and a week in the Netherlands, I reflected on a devastating election result by suggesting five ways to resist, gave some reasons why travelling alone rocks, struggled with some MH issues, and failed to blog every day.

June
I made the most of my weekends, celebrated my birthday with Photo an Hour, and hosted a guest post on gender identity by Siobhan.

July
I spent a super fun Saturday at Indietracks festival with Laura, completed the travel-themed, budget makeover of our spare room, and we jetted off to Canada via Iceland.

August
Thomas and I visited Montreal followed by Toronto, I wrote about what to expect when your partner has a vasectomy, and most importantly, we attended my family reunion in Canada, an experience I haven't yet found the words to write about.

September
My mum and I had a day out in Haworth, I wrote about feeling disillusioned with teaching, and our lives took a radical new direction when both Thomas and I got new jobs.

October
October was a very relationship-focused month: Thomas and I celebrated our third anniversary, went on a date in Nottingham, and spent a week in Norfolk. Plus, this was the month by little brother got married: so exciting!

November
By November I was working two jobs and averaging around 70 hours a week so not much blogging happened, although I did find time to share some outfit photo out-takes.

December
In December I shared some budget gift-wrapping ideas and wrote about some great festive reads, as well as rounding up my favourite music and books of 2015.

Life Lately

Life lately has been busy. I'm almost at the end of the longest school term of the year, during which I've also been working 15 hours a week in my new job at The Willoughby Book Club on top of my usual teaching, planning and marking. And, of course, it's a hectic time of year anyway. So yeah, busy...

I'm feeling pretty festive, especially as we bedecked the house and put our tree up this weekend. But as well as festive, I'm also feeling exhausted and worn out and not a little grumpy. Poor Thomas, who bears the brunt of my irritability and mood swings, has found me crying from tiredness on more than one occasion.

I keep telling myself it's not for much longer, but that in itself is terrifying. It feels completely bizarre that two weeks from now, I won't be a teacher anymore. Over a decade of my life has been spent at this school and leaving is going to be extremely emotional. I finally told my classes this morning and it was awful: they were devastated and although in one sense it's nice to feel needed, I also felt so guilty about abandoning them.

And then there's the money issue... I've been starting to panic about the financial implications of my decision and am spending a lot of time faffing with spreadsheets and redoing our budget, trying to figure out just how skint we're going to be come the new year. So yeah, I guess you could say I'm stressed at the moment!

But before this becomes one long whinge, let me tell you about the good stuff.

Thomas and I have been making a real effort to have a date at least once a week: from Christmas markets, to mulled cider in our favorite pub, to chilling out together with pizza and Home Alone, it's something that's been keeping me sane.

And one really exciting element of my new job is that I'm now managing the Social Media for Willoughby. Yep, I literally get paid to look at books and mess about on Instagram: how perfect?! I'm thoroughly enjoying the challenge of developing that side of the business and it makes for some nice variation in my day. I can't wait to be working there almost-full time, instead of fitting in the hours where I can.

And, as befits the darker nights and my utter inability to get up off my sofa, I've been spending a lot of time hunkered under blankets reading. I devoured the new Rainbow Rowell book last week (highly recommended, even for those - me included - who hated the Simon Snow sections of Fangirl) and have just started Yuki Chan In Bronte Country, which has one of the most beautiful cover designs I've ever seen.

So that's my life lately. What have you been up to recently?

When Outfit Photos Go Wrong II: Revenge Of The Camera

Outfit photography lesson 1: Beware the wind

Last year I wrote about how bad outfit photos had conquered my fear of cameras and I had cause to think about this again recently. My brother got married and, during the rehearsal on Friday evening, Thomas was roaming round with a camera snapping off shots.

Inevitably, I looked absolutely awful in every one: slouching shoulders, greasy hair, scrunched up face, boobs looking - as always - ridiculously disproportionate to the rest of my body. A couple of years ago I'd have had a breakdown after seeing them. I'd certainly have cried and demanded they were deleted, proceeding to spend the whole weekend in a deep funk, convinced I constantly looked that terrible. I'd most likely have refused to be photographed at the wedding.

But instead, I shrugged it off. So there were some bad photos of me? So what? I'd been driving for three hours, was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and the photographer was snapping candid shots. No wonder I looked a mess.

And at the wedding, I happily posed for photos: I had a handsome man on my arm and an outfit both classy and comfortable. Why would I refuse?

It's entirely thanks to photographing my outfits for this blog that my attitude has taken such a 180 (well, that and the aforementioned handsome man, it being hard to really hate your appearance when someone you love and admire tells you you look beautiful).

I've learnt that it's entirely possible to look completely unlike yourself in a photo: a shutter clicked at the wrong moment and I look utterly ridiculous; a moment later, radiant. The more photographs of me that are taken, the more forgiving I can be of the terrible ones.

So now seemed like a good time to release into the world the next batch of outfit photo outtakes, of which I have many. Particularly because, in the absence of a dry weekend in which to take photographs, I haven't managed to do an actual outfit post in months.

1. When I'm nervous, I move my hands a lot: as a result, every batch of outfit photos includes numerous ones of me with blurry limbs. This also features the dreaded double chin.

2. Thomas had probably just told me a terrible joke.

 1. Don't know what to do when you're posing? Me either, but I can tell you that awkwardly messing with your belt whilst talking constantly is never a good idea. 2. If I remember rightly, I was looking at a cat when this was taken: how that's made me look like a zombie, I don't know.

 And what do you do with your hands? Maybe pretending to slam-dunk a basketball wasn't the best idea. I know, I'll cup my boobs instead, that'll work.

And the ever-present eye problem. I always close my eyes in photos, but perhaps that's the better option if my only other one is to stare maniacally.

And The Prize For Guy Who's Put Up With Me For 3 Years Goes To....

... this handsome fellow (seen here making me laugh so I snort cider out my nose, like the classy broad I am)!

Three years ago yesterday, the 29th October 2012, I met Thomas for the first time.

We'd been chatting online and he seemed pretty nice, so we arranged to meet for a drink. I almost cancelled, struck by anxiety and first date nerves, but instead I got on the bus and headed into town.

I found a table at the back of the pub (I'd arrived early, of course), got myself a pint, and sat and read while I waited. A few minutes later a man - who was much taller than I'd expected, bearded, and wearing a truly horrible green coat - came over and introduced himself as Thomas. As he walked to the bar to get himself a drink, I clearly remember one word flashing through my mind: "Finally."

The last three years have, hands down, been the best of my life. We've travelled and had adventures; we've hung out together, cosy and quiet, at home. But wherever we are and whatever we're doing, I always have the most fun with him. He is kind, patient and calm. He supports me entirely, and I him. We've been through a long distance relationship, periods of ill health, and the completion of his PhD, and we've come through all of it as strong as we ever were, if not more so. I know I'm biased, but I also think he's just about the cutest thing to walk the earth (yes, Thomas, even cuter than Ellen Page).

There's a Father John Misty song that we both love which has a line that goes, "Darling, I love you as you are when we're alone/I'd never try to change you." Although the rest of that song's lyrics are entirely apt, the second part of that line always makes us smile. I have tried to change him: the green jacket, for example, was quick to go, followed by a musical education to try and steer him away from an entirely Springsteen and Meatloaf-based diet (the fact we both love Father John Misty indicates I've succeeded here). And yes, I'm also guilty of encouraging the checked shirts and the longer beard. But his essence remains; the softly-spoken guy I first met three years ago. And he's changed me too: I'm a better, stronger, more confident person thanks to his love. 

I didn't get this post written and published last night because, well, we were celebrating rather than sitting at laptops! We spent our anniversary eating delicious pizza and making each other laugh, before going to the pub where we first met for a pint. It was perfectly 'us': a low key night doing our favourite things (eating & drinking!). 

Three years together, and many more to come. Here's to the future, dude!

Big News!

I think it's obvious to anyone who reads this blog or follows me on social media that I've not been too happy in my job for a while now. As I explained last week, I love a lot about teaching, but at the moment there's far more I dislike.

So I'm super excited to share the news that I have a new job! Starting in October, I'll be the new Book Selections Manager for the Willoughby Book Club, a really wonderful local business that pioneered the 'books by post' subscription model. Yes, you read that right: my job will basically be choosing books. Doesn't that sound perfect?!

At least to begin with I'll be continuing my job at school, too, so I have to warn you that my already sporadic blogging schedule will no doubt become even more so. I'm feeling somewhat daunted by the thought of working two jobs at once, fitting my WBC hours around my time off from school (thank god for my Tuesday's off!). But I'm incredibly excited to be working for a small business I feel passionately about, and to experience life outside the classroom for the first time in over a decade.

And just in case that wasn't enough change and excitement in our house, Thomas has only gone and got himself employed as a Teaching Fellow! Considering the post-PhD job market for academics is pretty dire, to find a job that begins the day after he submits his thesis - and at the university here in Leicester too - is an absolute result.

Our new roles are both part-time, so once I reduce my hours at school (or leave entirely, as a hideous day today has made me very tempted to do) our finances are going to be really stretched. After the luxury of not really having to worry about money for the past few years it's this challenge that I'm most apprehensive about. I really believe, though, that this is for the best when it comes to my quality of life.

Change is scary, and I'm definitely daunted by what lies ahead of us. But, far more than that, I'm thrilled and excited that things have fallen into place so nicely. Thank you all so much for your kind comments here, and to everyone who's provided me with advice via Twitter or email, too. Here's to the future!

I Teach Therefore I Am?

I've been a teacher for ten years. A decade - half my adult life - spent working in the same school. And despite the challenges, despite the derision in the media, I love teaching and I'm proud of being a teacher.

When I first entered the profession I doubt anyone expected me to stick at it. I was renowned amongst friends and family for my mercurial nature, changing jobs, flats, and hair colours almost as often as I changed my clothes. It was therefore a surprise to everyone, myself included, that I didn't just stick to teaching: I excelled at it.

Whilst I roll my eyes at the concept of "a respectable member of society," teaching gave me the chance to become exactly that. After spending my early twenties going down some pretty bad paths, to find myself commanding the respect of a classroom full of teenagers, instead of in hospital or rehab, felt good. Teaching changed my life immeasurably for the better, giving me the resources to buy a house and travel, but also giving me the self-worth I'd been searching for, giving me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. In short, it made me grow up. 

So why, then, am I considering leaving the teaching profession?

I'm an excellent teacher, and in fact I've done the most effective work of my career in the past twelve months or so. But I'm not happy.

Why not? Well, there's the obvious answer - workload and stress - and that's a large part of it. You'll notice that I said in my opening paragraph that I love teaching and it's true: I love being in a classroom with a bunch of teenagers and leading them through the knotty problems of literature. However. I do not love the stuff that comes with being a teacher: the paperwork, the endless targets,  the constant pressure of Ofsted, the responsive marking (this is where the student writes a piece, I mark it, they reply to my marking, then I reply to their improvements. Brilliant idea, but imagine doing that every single week for every single student I teach). More than that, I detest being complicit in an education system that I believe actively damages young people.

Ultimately, though, it comes down to quality of life. I just don't have the energy anymore to give my all, day in day out, in the classroom. To psyche myself up to perform for five lessons, then complete all the planning and marking on top of that. At the moment I come home from work and all I'm capable of is sleep. I'm only 37, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be feeling this exhausted all the time.

But right now I'm terrified. If I'm not a teacher, I don't know who I am. And I don't think I want to be a teacher anymore.

What To Expect When Your Partner Has A Vasectomy

Thomas and I have known since we became a couple that we didn't want children. I'm not maternal in the least, finding children at best bewildering and at worst dull. And in a world which still significantly penalises women for taking time out to have a baby, it was a no-brainer for me to prioritise having my own life and career. For his part, Thomas has a great affinity for cats but less so for small humans and has been adamant his entire adult life that fatherhood isn't for him. We love our life together and wanted desperately to stay child-free, but being on the Pill wasn't working for me any longer - too many side effects - and we needed a more permanent and less hormone-based method of contraception.

Sterilisation was the obvious choice. However, we weren't totally confident that Thomas would be approved for the male sterilisation operation known as vasectomy. At just 28, and with no children, he wasn't an ideal candidate for the procedure. Meanwhile, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence to show that women - even women like me, at the (fertility-wise) advanced age of 37, with two abortions behind me - are very rarely trusted to make a decision on sterilisation if they are childless. This knowledge, plus the fact that vasectomy is a much less invasive procedure than female sterilisation, made it our first option.

At first, our chances didn't look good. When Thomas first raised the question of a vasectomy with his GP the doctor was very dismissive, telling him he was too young to be considered for the procedure. Nevertheless, she sent him away with a wealth of information about it, with an instruction to think about it carefully.

Six weeks later he was back at the GP's surgery seeing a second doctor. Our ace in the hole was the fact that not only do we emphatically not want children but that, as we both have severe and potentially inheritable mental health conditions in our families, we have no intention of mixing our disastrous genes. Deciding to conceive a child that was genetically ours would be like playing a game of roulette, with extremely poor odds. This argument seemed to do the trick, and the GP agreed to refer Thomas onto the next stage, a 'Vas Chat' (??!!?) at a local clinic.

This was mostly a practical discussion about the operation and what it involved. The doctor asked in more detail for reasons why we were choosing a vasectomy and Thomas was again discouraged because of his age and childlessness. Ultimately, though, the doctor agreed to go ahead (look at that! It's almost like men are given control over their own fertility and trusted to make medical decisions that affect only them!) and a date was set for four weeks time.

Thomas had what is known as a 'no-scalpel' vasectomy (look away now if you're squeamish), which involves the skin of the scrotum being pierced with a sharp instrument, through which a tiny pair of forceps are inserted so that the doctor can access the vas deferens (the tubes which carry sperm from the testicles to the penis). The vas deferens are then cut, cauterised shut, and pushed back into the scrotum. Because this method was used no stitches were required, so Thomas was left with only a tiny mark at the base of each testicle and minimal pain.

I've found the whole process fascinating, not least because part of me expected to have some 'road to Damascus' conversion to baby-hunger once I knew the option was being removed. I spent a great deal of mental energy probing and prodding at our decision, testing for weak spots, as a tongue may probe at a sore tooth. So I was relieved to find that there weren't any weak spots; that our choice to permanently commit to a child-free life was entirely the right one.

At the time of writing we're awaiting the results of Thomas's three month sample. A vasectomy isn't an instant guarantee of contraception and it can take up to three months for the ejaculate to be completely free of pesky baby-making sperm. But, with any luck, I'll soon be off the Pill and we'll be able to plan for our future, confident in the knowledge that it will remain completely child-free.

Lately

Lately, I've been...

Feeling pretty bad, in all honestly. My anxiety levels are sky-high at the moment, so I'm stressing out about everything from work to our trip to Canada to what to cook for dinner each night. I feel sad a lot, and demotivated, and totally uninclined to blog (hence my silence here). I'm really hoping that, now the summer holidays are here, I start to feel more like myself again.

Eating al fresco a lot of evenings, with a picnic lunch or two thrown in. We've really taken advantage of the nice weather to eat in our back garden or, on Saturdays, to take our bikes and a picnic to nearby parks for lunch. The shot on the top left is of a delicious vegan creamy spinach pasta that Thomas made a couple of weekends ago.

Making this awesome poster hanger. I love the old schoolroom look of wooden hangers but they're sooooooo expensive to buy. So instead, I used a tutorial on Wrapped Up In Rainbows (although instead of £££ balsa wood I used cheap wooden trim from B&Q) to make my own from which to hang this repro vintage map poster from Paperchase.

Wearing all my favourite summer outfits, of which I have tons compared to winter clothes (when I basically wear the same three things over and over again). When you live in England, that's totally the wrong way round to do it but hey. I'm particularly into the skirt/t-shirt combo at the moment, and was extremely chuffed to find that my vintage madras skirt coincidentally matches our picnic rug perfectly.

Getting awesome post courtesy of Rebs, who sent me an ace snail mail/crafty kit, and also from my #PostCircle buddies, Debbie and Gill, who both sent me some ace birthday goodies. I love getting post: if anyone wants to swap addresses for a snail mail exchange, let me know.

Buying a full length mirror, which means lots of outfit shots on Instagram at the moment. Also lots of books and ebooks, in preparation for a summer off work and lots of reading time. I'm looking forward to rereading How To Build A Girl and was also excited to download Mindy Kaling's book for not very many pennies.

Planning my summer! We go to Bristol tomorrow (yes, again - we're obsessed), and I also I have a little jaunt to London planned, together with a visit to Indietracks festival courtesy of Laura. And then we fly to Reykjavik at the end of July for a couple of days before travelling on to Canada - visiting Ottawa, a family reunion in rural Ontario, Montreal and Toronto in a whistle-stop ten day trip. Work has been so tough recently, so my six and a half weeks off are very much needed and well earned.

I Didn't Blog Every Day In May....

Original image source here

... but that's ok. I knew I wouldn't. In fact, I also knew I didn't want to: my stress levels have been high lately, and adding in the pressure to blog wasn't going to help. So why did I give it a go, when I knew I'd - and even planned to - fail?

I've always enjoyed previous Blog Every Day In... challenges and, after a period of feeling like I was just barely keeping the blog ticking over, I knew that having an external motivation to write would be helpful in giving me back some of my blogging mojo. I knew, too, that although there was no need to stick to the planned topics (and in fact, I think I only managed to do so on nine of the seventeen days I blogged), they'd be useful in terms of inspiration.

And so it turned out. Although this #BEDM I've felt less of a sense of community as previously - down to the fact I just didn't have the time to reach out to other bloggers via commenting and Twitter as in previous years - it has still been a positive experience.

Liz published a great piece today about what she's learnt from taking part in #BEDM and I'd back up her assertions wholeheartedly. For me, though, what's most important about taking part in blogging challenges such as this one is accepting that sometimes I won't complete them. I have a busy job and a life crammed full of interests and activities: I can't be the perfect blogger, putting out great content 7 days a week. And that's ok.

Not Good Enough

Lately, I have felt not good enough.

Not good enough at my job. Not a good enough friend. Not a good enough partner. Not a good enough daughter or sister or aunt. Not a good enough blogger.

Things have been shit, frankly. Not properly, things are genuinely bad in my life shit. But feeling completely exhausted and pissed off and grumpy shit. Feeling not good enough.

This year has been tough. My work has been demanding in ways I haven't experienced before. I have felt, so often, that I'm not doing a good enough job. Not in my teaching - weirdly, this year I have felt completely confident that I am really good at that - but in the other areas of responsibility I have in the school.

I'm a perfectionist. I like to be the best; like to have everything around me be lovely. I like to be in control. And work this year, and especially recently, has been decidedly unlovely and out of my control.

At the same time, I've been struggling with this blog. With all my energy going into work, I felt I was neglecting this space. Still posting a couple of times a week, sure, but they were all 'look at what I read/bought/did' posts, which are all well and good but I don't want my blog to be nothing but that. Amazing, challenging, horrifying things were happening in the world - #WeAreTheThey, riots in Baltimore, electioneering - and I wanted desperately to think and write about them but I just didn't have it in me to sit down and marshall my ideas. A tweet of 140 characters? I could manage that. A whole blog post? Nope.

Meanwhile, the question of what job T will have next year and where he'll be living continues to go unanswered. The uncertainty surrounding our lives, our finances, and our living arrangements is something both of us are struggling with. 

And while I stress and panic about all this and more, I've become increasingly bad at keeping up with the very basics of social interaction: replying to emails, keeping in touch with my family, writing letters. Gym-going has ceased (no doubt partly why I feel so rubbish) and I've been horrible company to T at home. 

As I write this, things do seem to be on the up. Whatever slump I found myself in, I'm slowly crawling out of it. So if you're one of the legions of people for whom I've not been a good enough friend, blogger, partner, colleague: I apologise, and sincerely hope that normal service will resume shortly.  

An Introduction

When life and work feel unmanageably busy and you're disillusioned with blogging, what's a girl to do? Why, sign up again to Blog Every Day In May: that's a sensible decision, right?! I already know there is no way, not a chance in hell, I'll manage to blog every single day, but I figured I'd give it a go and hopefully recover my blogging mojo in the process. I completed both #BEDM and #BEDN in 2013 and made so many great new blog friends that, even if I fail miserably, it seemed worth a try.

The topic today is 'Introduce Yourself' so, for both new readers and old, here a few things you may not know about me.

1. Although I'm now a teacher, my past jobs have included travel agent, barmaid, book seller, legal secretary, and club promoter.

2. My hair has been every colour from pink to blue but for the past few years I've settled on red. However, I'm a natural blonde under all the dye.

3. My absolute favourite place on earth is Portland, Oregon. With my bed running a very close second.

4. I read voraciously (I managed nineteen books in April). Check out my books tag to see some recent reviews.

5. I'm a body positive, queer, trans inclusionary, intersectional feminist.

6. My go-to film when I'm feeling sad is the high school cross-dressing soccer comedy She's The Man. It's not great cinema, granted, but it makes me very happy. I wish I could say my movie taste is more highbrow when I'm not miserable, but that would be a massive lie.

7. I have a weird aversion to tension: I can't watch anything vaguely scary or even something that's just dramatically tense. As a result, a lot of popular TV shows are out. Midsomer Murders is about as tense as I can handle. Strangely, tension in a book is fine.

8. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life? Easy: pizza.

9. My partner and I are childless by choice. I love working with kids, I just don't want any of our own. I wrote a bit about this here.

10. My mum is a lesbian; she came out when I was 15.

The 5 things I swore I'd never do

Janet at 19: in need of a supportive bra, but at least my lipstick game was on point

Sarah wrote an ace piece recently about the things she swore she'd never do... and then somehow ended up doing. So much of what she said chimed with my own experiences, so (with permission, of course) I thought I'd come up with my own list of the things I told myself I'd never let happen in my life.

1. Stand at the back of a gig
"God, what's the point of even going to a gig if you're just gonna stand at the back, clutching a pint?" went our oft-repeated teenage refrain. To us, the only place to be was in the heart of the mosh pit or clinging to the barrier, gazing adoringly at the indie stars as they crooned to us. Now? Unless a gig has the option of sitting down, I seriously think twice about even booking a ticket. At a recent Ryan Adams show I felt so smug, sitting up in my comfy seat on the balcony while down below, people jostled for position in the main arena. Sixteen-year-old me would be aghast.

2. Wear a coat
In 1994, when I was 16, I decided that it wasn't cool to wear a coat. Instead, I had a ratty grey wool men's cardigan, which I'd picked up in a charity shop and fancied to be rather like the one Kurt Cobain wore during Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance. That cardigan saw me through several freezing cold Yorkshire winters: I once walked the seven miles home from Bradford, in the middle of a snowstorm, wearing nothing but a dress, the cardigan and my trusty Docs. And while I did end up buying a coat some time in the late 90s, it took me an embarrassingly long time (like, until I was about 33) to realise that wet or cold weather is really so much more pleasant when you're properly dressed and shod in sensible shoes.

3. Sell out
As a teen and young adult, if I was determined about one thing it was this: I would never sell out. Which is to say, I'd never have to stop making art and writing. I'd certainly never get a 'proper' job or a mortgage. I'd never stop partying and protesting. I'd never stop dying my hair lurid colours, nor take out the myriad facial piercings I'd accumulated. I'd be a free spirit, tied down to nothing. It's embarrassing, now, to look back at what a cliche 'rebel' I really was. Over time, I was able to think more carefully about which bits of my rebellion were truly important: having pink hair and partying every weekend? Not that important (and also damn near impossible now I'm old and prefer to be in my pyjamas by 9pm on a Saturday night). Writing, activism, travelling? All pretty important. Having a well-paid and therefore 'proper' job to enable the aforementioned writing, activism and travelling? Fairly essential.

4. Become a teacher
The idea of teaching as a future career was first suggested to me by my sixth form English teacher, Mrs Pugh, after I'd dominated the discussion on Henry V Part 1 for the nth time. It was not a suggestion met with delight. I might not have known exactly what I did want to do but I knew what I didn't, and that was teaching. The conversation repeated itself in university careers interviews; in the pub with friends, when the subject of my inability to hold down a job came up; from my mum in despair, as I told her of the newest career change: "What about teaching?" "Not a chance."

I can't quite put my finger on the moment when my response changed from, "Not a chance," to, "Hmmm, maybe," but by the time I was 25 I'd enrolled on a PGCE, with the notion that I'd teach for a couple of years and then pack it all in to go travelling again. Well, ten years later and I'm still teaching. I discovered to my surprise (and, I suspect, the surprise of those who know me well) that I'm actually a pretty good teacher. Turns out Mrs Pugh was right all along.

5. Become one half of those couples
You know the kind: those couples off whom happiness just radiates as they grin at each other, holding hands and leaning on each other's shoulders. The couples who are really just going about their business but who, when you're single and feeling vulnerable and lonely, seem like a smack in the face. After ten years on my own I'd made all sorts of promises to myself that I'd never be so touchy-feely and so obviously loved-up in public. That I'd consider my single brethren when I had a partner. Yeah, that didn't go to plan...

The shitty bits

I sometimes think of blogging as life with the shitty bits removed. Anyone who falls under the banner of 'lifestyle blogger' does it, to some extent or other. Beautiful interiors shots, carefully styled outfit posts, tales of fun events and exciting trips.

So I'll post about our gorgeous new office space, but not photograph the worrying damp patch beneath the window.

I'll mention the delicious food I'm scoffing, but not the crippling IBS attacks that leave me prone on the bathroom floor.

I'll write about exciting travel plans, but omit the fact that I'm currently battling to be allowed into Canada this summer (some youthful indiscretions + insane immigration rules = I might not make it to the first family reunion in 23 years. And when your family all live on other continents, that's a big deal).

I'll describe a lovely weekend away, but leave out the bit about spending most of Sunday in a panic attack about work, with which I'm really struggling at the moment.

Now, there's a lot to be said for keeping a space clear of negative thought and actions, but I also know that what I really love about blogging - reading other people's as well as writing my own - is the recognition that life isn't perfect. I don't want to preside over a sleek, idealised lifestyle blog; I want a blog that represents me entirely, shitty bits and all.

And the problem is, I think that lately I've become less good at remembering that.

As my readership has grown, I've started worrying a bit too much about what everyone else thinks and not enough about what I actually want to get out of this. It's become my habit to spend hours on my days off trying to ape that particular style of blog photography - you know the kind, with the background beautifully white and items artfully strewn around the surface - and to stress when I don't achieve it, rather than to just write what I want and worry about the images later, if at all.

Now, I don't at all mean to imply that there's anything untruthful or inauthentic about a sleek lifestyle blog with lovely photography, far from it. Just that for me to curate something like that would be inauthentic. I'm a messy, clumsy, awkward person and I sort of think my bit of internet space should reflect that.

So here I am, then: at the moment, life is a bit too full of shitty bits and I'm stressed out. I know things will improve because they always do (not least because the Easter holidays are coming up, yay!), but right now... yeah, pretty shitty.

10 Things I'm Already Good At

Why is it so difficult to recognise the things we're good at? Ask me to name 10 things my friends or family excel at and I could do it in the blink of an eye; conversely, ask me to name 10 things I'm bad at and I could do that too. But try to come up with something I'm good at, with no caveats? Yep, that's pretty difficult.

That's why I loved Louisa's recent post, 10 Things I'm Already Good At (itself inspired by a prompt from Sarah to concentrate on the stuff you can already do rather than the niggling things you want to be better at). As well as liking the idea of focusing on the good rather than the bad, I also think there's something pretty subversive about someone - especially a woman, especially a British woman - standing up and saying, "Hey, look at the stuff I'm great at!" rather than our usual self-deprecating nonsense.

1. Reading
It will come as no surprise to anyone who's a regular visitor to this blog that I'm really, really good at reading. Good at reading quickly. Good at reading a range of books. Good at reading in any given situation, regardless of what's going on around me. Reading is the one thing I can - and do - do very, very well.

2. Finding my way around cities
I have an excellent sense of direction in towns and cities and can navigate my way around a place easily after only an hour or so. Even if I don't return to the same place for a decade, as soon as I'm back I can remember how to get from A to B. Sadly, this sense of direction does not extend to the countryside: put me on a mountain or in a field, and I'm lost.

3. Doing the scary stuff
Take one diagnosis of anxiety, add in a pinch of shyness and a dose of chronic scaredy-cat-ness, and you have the recipe for a person who sits at home and does very little with her life. Or at least, you would if I wasn't better at facing my fears and putting myself out there. A fear of heights hasn't stopped me climbing mountains and trying my hand at abseiling and caving (ugly crying all the while, but hey - I did it). Severe travel anxiety and crippling shyness didn't prevent me from backpacking alone around South Africa, and America, then South Africa again, nor from going on numerous solo city breaks in the UK and Europe. From driving, to meeting new people, there's a ton of stuff that I find scary, so I'm pretty damn proud of myself for getting out there and doing them anyway.

4. Planning things
Whether it be trips, events or just a weekend of pottering, I am super super good at planning. If you've ever seen the bit in The Darjeeling Limited when Owen Wilson's character gives his brothers their laminated itineraries and demands their passports for safe keeping: that's me. Luckily, The Boy is really chilled out when we travel and happy to leave the planning to me, because I'd find it extremely difficult to compromise (although prior to our weekend in York, he did say to me, "I haven't looked up anything, are you cool with having done all the planning?" It's like he doesn't know me at all).

5. Teaching
I really wasn't sure whether to include this. I have days when I'm knackered and stressed and have a pile of overdue marking and the kids end up making another poster, but what teacher doesn't? I'm only just - after ten years! - starting to have the confidence to recognise that it's the days when I'm an excellent teacher that matter. The days where I'm on top of my game and I can see the learning happening in front of me; days when kids are filled with enthusiasm because I'm filled with enthusiasm; days when pupils tell me how much they enjoyed activity x, or how much they feel they're improving. On those days I think, "Yeah, I'm ok at this."

6. Putting together flatpack furniture
Honestly, I don't see why there's all this all fuss about assembling Ikea furniture: it's easy! I think the way their instructions are presented must really match my learning style, because I genuinely enjoy putting flatpack stuff together.

7. Making connections with people
By which I mean that, considering I'm extremely shy (see #3), I'm surprisingly good at making new friends. Even before blogging and Twitter made it easy to connect with people, I was always the person who'd manage to make new friends wherever I worked, or to find like-minded penpals in the days when fanzines, mine included, still advertised in the back of the NME. Now keeping friends... that's something I occasionally struggle with, but that's another story.

8. Interior design
Which is a wanky way of saying that I'm good at putting a room together. From the original vision to actually getting my hands dirty with decorating, I've made every place I've lived into a cosy, practical and beautiful home. Someone paid me the ultimate compliment recently, saying that my newly-styled bedroom shelf looked like something out of a magazine.

9. Choosing gifts for people
There are one or two cases where this isn't true - friends for whom my usual skill just abandons me - but by and large, I'm an excellent gift-giver. My trick? Buying something as soon as I see it, even if that's a year in advance, then storing it so that when someone's birthday rolls around, I don't have to panic-buy. I also really like using Etsy and local independent stores to find truly unique gifts.

10. Making things
I'm not amazingly talented in one specific craft; my sewing is ok, but nothing compared with a lot of people, and I can't knit nor crochet. But I'm good at having ideas, at seeing something and working out how to make my own version of it, and I enjoy trying out new things, be it screenprinting, lino-cutting, embroidery or papercrafts.

I'd love to hear what you're already good at: what are your ten things?

Ask the experts (that's you, dear readers)

I've been pondering all sorts of questions lately, and then it came to me: why not ask my readers? I'm always grateful for the insightful and helpful comments that people leave here, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get your opinions on these niggly little issues. So, here goes. Answers sought for the following...

1. How can I stop my fingernails from breaking? 
I'm not on a quest for long talons, but nails that reach past the end of my fingertips would be nice. I've always had weak nails but this winter has been beyond the pale, as one after another, each nail snaps and breaks, leaving me with painfully exposed nail beds and ugly-looking hands. What can I do to strengthen my nails enough that I can at least pick up a piece of paper, or close a door, without them breaking?

2. Lyric tattoos: A good idea?
As I've stated many, many times before, I love WORDS. Words in books, words in art, words everywhere. So it seems obvious that I'd think about having words tattooed. However, the lyrics I scrawled on my school books now feel meaningless to me; what if the same thing happens with a tattoo I can't get rid of? (By the by, the line I'm considering is from Hole's Gutless: "Just you try to hold me down, come on try to shut me up.")

3. To Disqus or not to Disqus?
I love using Disqus on other people's blogs, most importantly because it alerts me to replies so I can continue the conversation my comment began. Blogger, being a bit rubbish, doesn't allow for anything as useful, so Disqus seems the obvious solution. However, I've heard one too many horror stories about how difficult it is to move from the Blogger commenting system to Disqus and, even worse, that my comments archive might be lost forever, which would break my heart.

4. Are we ready for a cat?
Thomas loves cats. Like, completely utterly adores them and follows them down the street and talks about them all the time. I, too, love cats (although perhaps not as much as he does) and have very much enjoyed living with them in the past. Yet we don't (yet) own a cat. Why not? Well, neither of us have ever been a cat owner, or indeed a pet owner at all, so the responsibility seems like a big step. I'm also allergic to cat hair, something which can be controlled with anti-histamines but nevertheless is a bit of a pain. We spend a lot of time looking at the local cat rescue centre website, picking out our possible puss, but taking the leap into actual ownership isn't something we've managed.

5. How do I beat the Sunday Sads?
Thomas plays football very Sunday morning until 1pm, something he really enjoys, but it restricts the things we can do on Sundays. This fact never used to bother me - I enjoyed having a morning to myself and then a relaxing afternoon at home - but recently I've been struggling with a malaise I can best describe as The Sunday Sads. I'm wasting half my weekend on moping around the house, ironically feeling most frustrated by my lack of activity. I'm hoping it's just the end-of-winter blues

Why we're getting fake-married: On planning a feminist wedding

As I said to The Boy the other night, "Oops." It wasn't that our plans for a wedding were secret, as such, but only our families and my best friend knew. And then I go and blurt it out to the whole internet, in an aside on a post about my 2015 goals. Oops indeed.

Round here, we refer to it variously as 'our fake wedding' or 'the love party' (which sounds somewhat, ahem, questionable in English but better in Dutch). There are a few reasons why we'll be doing the wedding without the legal bit. The Boy, when I met him, was adamant that he never wanted to get married. Turned off by the pomp and ridiculous expense of weddings, troubled by the fact that weddings are a perpetuation of patriarchal power structures, indifferent to declaring a commitment in front of God or the state, they were something he wanted no part of. From my perspective, I'd long been vocally opposed to the many elements of traditional weddings that are decidedly dodgy from a feminist perspective.

However, once we'd been together for a while we realised that it was actually important to us to have something to mark our love and commitment. Call it a yearning for a pretty dress and a big party or call it abandoning our principles, we'd started to suspect that this whole wedding lark might be something we wanted to be part of.

Bugger.

And so the question arose: how would we go about getting wed without subscribing to the archaic patriarchal traditions that we were both so opposed to?

First off, the idea that T would be the only one who gets to decide when the wedding planning began by getting down on one knee is frankly laughable, as anyone who knows us will realise. Instead we talked it over, for about a year in total, building up to the decision that yes, we wanted to have something: a fake wedding, a love party, a commitment ceremony, call it what you will. And slowly, over the past few months, we've been telling our family that, no, we're not engaged but, yes, we'll be having a wedding.

Going the fake route means that we can be completely in control; with no legalities to worry about, we can have it wherever and whenever we want. So there's no ring. There'll be no giving me away (hah!), no first dance. Speeches, yes, but from the women as well as the men, and not formal in any sense. There'll be lots of vegan cake, and good music to dance to. There'll be vows of commitment, with all of the people we love there to hear them. It will, in short, be all the best bits of a wedding with all of the crappy anti-feminist shit taken out.

Because let's face it, most wedding traditions are fucked up from a modern perspective. The part I find most troubling is the way in which they completely erase womens' agency. From the proposal right up to the wedding speeches, in a traditional wedding a woman's role is to look pretty and stay silent. She is treated as a possession, something to be passed from father to husband, and the name she's had since birth is whisked away in the blink of an eye. And you know what the mad thing is? These traditions are so ingrained within our culture that lots of kick ass, intelligent women (and indeed, kick ass, intelligent men) will often go along with them, without giving it a second thought.

Now, let me clearly state that I am in no way judging anyone else's choices about their own weddings: I completely understand why people want to go the traditional route on their wedding day. My criticism is of the traditions themselves. I'm excited to be able to design our own ceremony and party, one that can follow any structure we wish and be completely free of those pernicious traditions. As for the rest of the details, like date and place? Well, that's all to be decided. But one thing's for sure: as much as I'm looking forward to our kick ass, feminist fake-wedding, I'm looking forward to the rest of our life together far much more.

The soundtrack to my life

It feels like it's been years - in fact, it actually might be years - since I last wrote about music here. When I started the blog, my regular Music Monday posts were a big part of what I did, but since that finished the music content has sort of petered out. 

Music is and always has been a massive part of my life: my parents met when they performed together in a Gilbert & Sullivan opera in Johannesburg and between my dad's organ-playing and my mum's guitar and piano, there was always music at home. My siblings and I were all musically involved as children, whether it was learning instruments, singing in the church or school choirs, or putting on shows at home (I used to harangue my brothers to be my back-up dancers in performances of Jesus Christ Superstar).

When I hit my teens I gave up on church and discovered rock music: grunge, indie and Britpop were the soundtrack to my youth. I started a music fanzine and got the chance to meet my heroes, bands like Placebo and Gene, Ash and Longpigs; acts mostly long-forgotten except to 90s kids like myself. At university I started listening to the somewhat weird combination of heavy rock - Marilyn Manson, Deftones - and conscious hip-hop - Common, De La Soul, Mos Def. Then, in my mid-twenties, I was introduced by my brother to American folk and alt-rock, artists such as Grizzly Bear, Sufjan Stevens, Joanna Newsom, which is a large part of what I still listen to today.

All of which is to say, if I had to make a true soundtrack of my life it'd be a very confused playlist, running the gamut from my parents' Simon & Garfunkel records to my current favourite band, chillwave duo Tennis, via Take That, Hole, Blur, the Manic Street Preachers, Korn, Dr Dre, Bjork, Ben Folds Five and The Smiths. But when I saw the Soundtrack to My Life tag on Elettravelle, I knew I wanted to at least give it a go.

I'd also love to know the soundtracks to your lives - use these tag questions or hit me up in the comments.

Song you listen to when you're happy?
This changes constantly but at the moment I really like Mean The Most by Nehruvian Doom, which is just the loveliest and most romantic slice of chilled-out hip hop.

Song you listen to when you're sad?

It depends whether or not I want to wallow in my misery. If I'm content to lie around and weep, then Beck's Golden Age is one of the saddest songs I know. If I need something to cheer me up, then nothing is better than pure pop music. I still love 2012 Eurovision winner Loreen's Euphoria, and my 2014 obsession was Nobody To Love by Sigma.

What song will you have at your wedding?

I've long wanted Aretha Franklin's beautiful version of the soul classic You Send Me but I also have a soft spot for At My Most Beautiful by REM. Unfortunately, The Boy is most fond of quite terrible 80s hair rock ballads (think Bon Jovi, Poison, Alice Cooper) so god only knows* what we'll end up with.

* Also a lovely wedding song.

What song do you dance around the house to?

Party Hard by Andrew WK. I honestly don't think it's possible not to grin while headbanging away to it.

Song you play on your headphones when out and about?
Beach House's Bloom album makes a great soundtrack, especially in sunny weather. Same goes for any of Tennis's three albums. If I had to narrow it down to one song each, I'd go for Beach House's Troublemaker and Marathon by Tennis.

Song you listen to when you're angry?

Gutless by Hole is a great song for getting the rage out by singing along to. All together now, "Just you try to hold me down, come on try to shut me up."

Song you'd have at your funeral?

My brother and I used to play this game where we'd try and name the most vastly inappropriate song to play at a wedding or funeral. Shoot The Head, Kill The Ghoul by Jeffrey Lewis might be pretty funny.

Song that makes you lose your shit at a party?

Ah, so many! Boogie Wonderland by Earth Wind & Fire (that bit where he sings, "All the love in the world can't be wrong..."? Musical perfection) can always get me dancing, as can Test Icicles' indie disco classic Circle Square Triangle or Reptilia by The Strokes. And, more embarrassingly, Papa Roach's Last Resort.

The last song you listened to?

Playing on the iPod as I write is Of Moons, Birds & Monsters by MGMT. Completely random shuffle choice, but it's reminded me of how much I like MGMT.

Your karaoke song?

I've only ever done karaoke once and it's not a performance I'm proud of. Picture the scene: a bar full of my fellow trainee teachers - one too many white wines - a karaoke machine - the Devinyls song I Touch Myself. I'll allow you to fill in the details.

What song do you work out/exercise to?

Arctic Monkeys' Brianstorm is great for picking up speed on the cross-trainer.

Song with the most memories attached?

It's a great sadness to me that the beautiful Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley is forever tainted by memories of my awful ex-boyfriend.

Song that makes you cry?

Weird, because I'm an atheist, but Oh Holy Night gets me every time. Pretty much any version, but bonus points if sung by an angelic child or if it's Sufjan Stevens' arrangement.

Song you hate the most?

There are a few songs that, if I hear them on the radio, I'll turn straight over. Blurred Lines, obviously, Timber by Kesha and Pitbull, or anything by Chris Brown.

Your favourite song of all time?
This is completely impossible to answer. I could just about give you a favourite song for each year of my life, but we'd be here a long time. So I'm going to throw out the first few that come to mind and then internally curse myself for missing other stuff out. So...
Cosmia by Joanna Newsom
Olympian by Gene
Elephant Gun by Beirut
Rocket by the Smashing Pumpkins
Hot Fun In The Summertime by Sly & The Family Stone
About Face by Grizzly Bear
The Shining by Badly Drawn Boy
Sonnet 29 by Rufus Wainwright
Dry Lips by Lightspeed Champion
Grown Ocean by Fleet Foxes
Branches by Midlake
To The End by Blur