Life Lately

Lately, it's the simple things that are making me happy: a crackling fire, bread fresh from the oven slathered in butter, a massive cup of tea on a chilly afternoon. We've had the wood-burning stove lit for the first few times this autumn and Thomas has also got really into baking (I think it's the GBBO that's inspired him) so we have the most amazing fresh bread each weekend.

I feel like it's been a long time since I blogged properly. I spent most of the two weeks before half term feeling rotten with a cold and throat infection - yes, another one. You'd think after 10 years teaching I'd be immune to child germs, but no. And then we were away for five days last week. Five blissful, internet-free days in Norfolk, spent walking, eating, drinking, sleeping and reading. Once I've sorted through the photographs I'll blog properly about our holiday.

We came home from Norfolk a bit early because I started my new job on Thursday, eek! I felt weirdly calm about it all (which, considering my anxiety levels have been sky-high recently, is really amazing). I just sort of trusted that it would work out great, and it did. I absolutely love the job. I mean, I spend my whole day looking at, reading and talking about books. What's not to like?! From this week things will get crazy busy, though. I'm still teaching four days a week until Christmas, plus fitting in my fifteen hours a week at Willoughby. 

What else have I been up to? Well, at the start of the month my lil' brother got married, which was pretty amazing! Steph and Richard both looked radiant, just so happy and in love, and it really was the perfect day.

Meanwhile, this weekend has mostly been about three things: sleeping off a monster hangover from a night in the pub on Friday, listening to Joanna Newsom's new album on repeat (so good!), and visiting Becky and her gerbils. She took me to the most incredible 40s-themed cafe, The Larder, where we feasted on bubble & squeak and Eggs Benedict: perfect hangover fodder (the gerbils stayed at home).

And the next few weeks have lots in store: the start of my manic 60+ hours a week work schedule; a trip to Sheffield to see Father John Misty; a Joanna Newsom gig; a weekend in London to visit my best mate; some time with my mum... what a great start to the new half term.

Finally, in case you didn't see my post yesterday, the thrifty gift swap is back. Details of how to sign up are here.

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?

Scenes from half term

I'd spent the weeks leading up to the holiday battling with work stress, some low-level illness and general exhaustion, so I am very glad to have had some time to relax and regroup. Whenever I know I'll be spending a lot of time at home, like this week, I hit the discount flowers buckets in Aldi or Tesco and fill the house with blooms. Irises, tulips, daffodils: this week, every room had a jar or vase stuffed with flowers, and it's worked a treat to combat the end-of-winter blues.

On Sunday we drove to Cromford, in Derbyshire, for a day out. A walk along the canal, a stroll around the town and finally a visit to the beautiful Scarthin Books to hear an author talk. It was a lovely way to spend a misty and cold day, with vegan cake in the cafe at the bookshop and a really interesting talk by author and anarchist academic Matthew Wilson. I don't often mention Thomas's work here, so for those who don't know, he's a PhD student researching how social media and online networks provide opportunities for radical protest groups to organise themselves in a non-hierarchical way. Anyway, Thomas knows Matt through work and even I, as someone who is quite disconnected from organised forms of activism now, found his talk and the discussion it provoked fascinating. 

This week was also a week of parcels: I sent two clothes swap parcels, a craft swap package, a couple of gifts for my Pay It Forward people and quite a few ASOS returns. But I also received exciting post in return, in the shape of these amazing hand-crocheted collars from Elise! How cute is the little vintage button on the pink one? I can't wait to wear them. Later in the week, I received my #DICraft Swap parcel from Gemma, which was weird because she was me gift-giver for Char's Christmas blogger swap, too. Luckily, she always chooses gifts wisely so I was happy to see she'd sent to me again.

Finally, we ended the week with a couple of days away at Walton Hall in Warwickshire, after I found a super-cheap online deal. The hotel was extremely swish, so much so that I was worried we were lowering the tone somewhat. A 3am fire alarm wasn't the ideal addition to our mini-break, but luckily we were able to go back to bed pretty quickly. I'd really recommend The Hotel Collection chain: they often have amazing deals and their hotels, while not all quite as fancy as Walton Hall, are reliably nice and friendly (and no, this isn't sponsored, I just like recognising good service when I see it).

Now I'm heading into the weekend with a stack of sewing to do, a Ryan Adams gig to look forward to tomorrow, a book to bury my head in, and a determination not to think about work until Sunday night.

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

Giving thanks

As family and friends in the US prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, every year at the end of November I like to spend some time considering that for which I too am thankful.

This week, I've mostly been thankful that Oftsed came into school on Tuesday and Wednesday, meaning that for the third time running I've only been present for half of the inspection (2014 - day off; 2011 - school trip; 2008 - sports day).

I'm thankful to have the most kind, considerate, silly, cute, intelligent, feminist, funny, foolish guy crazy in love with me (and of course, I'm crazy in love with him too).

I'm always thankful to my pupils, who make me laugh and work so hard for me. If you could have seen my Year 9 class this morning when we got observed... they were so desperately trying to be perfect and show the inspectors how good I was, bless them.

I'm thankful for my blog. This year it has become everything I set out to achieve: a space to discuss everything from the frivolities of fashion, to my own fears and dreams, to books I love and feminist thought. I'm also endlessly thankful that through blogging I have met so many amazing people: 2014 was my year of blogger meet-ups and I'm proud to now count them as friends.

I'm thankful that this year has been one of joys for our family - an engagement for my brother, a new half-brother for my niece, visits from Canadian family - after the losses of 2013.

I'm thankful to have a lovely home with an affordable mortgage. As I sit writing this, curled up on my huge sofa with a fire roaring in the log-burning stove, I can hardly believe my luck.

I'm thankful that I'm taking measures to become debt-free, the first step in achieving my dream of going back to university to study for an MA.

I'm thankful that after a frankly terrible start to 2014, my health has improved steadily, with both my chronic pain and my IBS easing over the past few months. I'm sure it's made me a more pleasant person to be around, now I'm not constantly taking painkillers and complaining.

I'm thankful, most of all, to finally be in a place where I feel comfortable and confident with myself.

Good stuff: Links & likes

The deadline for sign-up to my Thrifty Christmas Gift Swap is fast approaching - email me by next Sunday to take part.

I was initially skeptical about this article on fictional characters who should have had abortions but actually I can't disagree with any of them. Lane Kim did deserve more than she got on Gilmore Girls. And a hearty "Hells yeah," to the inclusion of every Thomas Hardy heroine, ever.

And while we're on the subject, I agree with everything in this powerfully argued piece.

Here's Sarah being characteristically brilliant in her post: Ten blogging rules you can break

Nova alerted me to this, about misophonia (or, hatred of the sound of people eating). I have this pretty badly so it was an interesting read.

Lindy West being brilliant in The Guardian : "being fat and happy and in love in public is still a radical act".

Also on the topic of larger bodies, I enjoyed this piece about how hourglass figures have become an 'acceptable' form of fat. This actually goes a long way to explaining to me why I have no problems with being body confident despite being a size 16: I'm lucky enough to have a pretty classic hourglass figure.

And on the flip side of body policing, Keira Knightley recently said some pretty cool stuff about Photoshop, small boobs and body ideals.  

What's in the bag?

1. Satchel from H&M.  My bag is the very definition of non-designer, but I love it for it's ability to hold my camera, all of this junk, plus assorted tampons and tissues (not pictured).
2. Sunglasses from New Look.
3. Oyster card holder (permanently in my bag despite not living in London, otherwise I forget it every time I visit) from Cath Kidson.
4. iPhone 4S.
5. Palmer's Cocoa Butter hand cream.
6. Burt's Bees Pomegranate lip balm (I have - no joke - about ten Burt's Bees lip balm tubes stashed in bags, in coat pockets, in make-up bags, in my car... I love them).
7. Assorted medications for IBS and jaw pain.
8. Rather tangled Sennheiser earbuds.
9. Mechanical pencil 'borrowed' from work.
10. Small notebook in which to make lists of books I want.
11. Mini hairbrush, with which to tame my fringe.
12. Purse from Cath Kidson.

What's in your bag? Go on, tell me; I'm incorrigibly nosy!

Things that have made me happy lately

I've been in a bit of a blog slump lately.  My draft folder is full of half-written posts and ideas, but I can't seem to get anywhere with them and, although I'm proud of some of what I've written lately (I loved finally finishing the Music & Misery post, after months of writing a bit at a time), there's a lot that I'm not so keen on.  So, in an effort to break the slump, here are some things that have made me happy...

1. This cheery postcard.

2. A lovely lunch and tour of Nottingham with Laura of Make Do & Mend.

3. A fun sushi date with The Boy (who was most taken with his first experience of vegan sushi).

4. The programme for Hay Festival 2014 being released - only six weeks to go and I can't wait!

5. Another lovely lunch and shopping trip with B & E of Make, Do & Spend, on which I bought the most perfect summer sandals (which is basically the holy grail of my shopping trips - I'm obsessed with my shoes all being entirely plain and one exact shade of brown).

6. Bumping into old friends.

7. The end of term - hooray for two weeks off!

8. Finally cracking on with book five of the A Song Of Ice & Fire.  At over 900 pages long, it's quite a commitment, but The Girl and I have established a Twitter #GoTBookclub to read along together.

9. Preparing for a trip to Glasgow this week (and a meet-up with Sarah and Elise.  I am becoming quite social in my old age).

10.  Tattoo excitement - only 10 more days to wait!  Although I had a horrible anxiety dream last night about the design, so...

Why I don't mind being called a hipster

Image sourced here

Time was, to have something be described as "cool" - a bar, a clothes shop, a city, a restaurant - in a guidebook or a newspaper, would have meant that it was definitely not for me.  Cool, in the later 90s and early 00s, usually meant an expanse of white space and house music playing and vodka cocktails in tall glasses.  It meant beautiful people dressed in designer clothes and perfect hair and all of the things that I, gawky and tattooed and clutching a book and a broken down satchel, was not.

And then, suddenly, cool - in the mainstream sense of the word - started to mean just what I had been for years*.

It was dressing in vintage clothes and shopping in charity shops.

It was carrying a canvas tote bag filled with organic vegatables.

It was being into photography and reading and films and art.

It was body art and beards, and bands with beards.

It was knitting and sewing and riding a bike.

And all of these things meant you were a 'hipster', except no-one wanted to be called that because it implied that you were trying too hard, that you were jumping on a bandwagon, that you were only dressing a certain way because it was fashionable.  There was a sense that all hipsters are the same, and how terribly tedious and uncool, how very un-alternative and fashion victimy it was to dress and act alike. 

However, within all subcultures there is a huge degree of uniformity.  As a teenage indie kid, my friends and I used to sneer at the townie kids at our school and call them "sheep", apparently oblivious to the irony of saying that while dressed in identical skinny fit band t-shirts, corduroy skirts and Adidas Gazelles.  When I worked in a rock club in Leicester, every single patron would no doubt have made much of the fact that they were 'different', they didn't subscribe to the mainstream, they were unique.  But in their little groups - skate punks, hair rockers, goths - they were just as homogeneous-looking as the lads in smart shoes and shirts going to the townie club next door.  Of course hipsters all look the same to an outsider: so does any subgroup (there was actually a great article about this phenomenon, called out-group homogeneity bias, on io9 recently).

And there has always, too, been an insistence within these subcultures that the members of said groups were into x before it was cool, whether x was a band (I once heard a skate punk at Alcatraz - the nightclub, not the prison - say the words "I was into Blink 182 before they were cool" with a totally straight face), or a brand of trainers.  Hipster is just another label, like indie kid or grunger or shoe-gazer before it, and like every label the people to whom it's applied tend to squirm and protest and say that, really they've liked this stuff for years so they can't be a hipster or an indie kid or whatever, because what they are is purer and more real than this fleeting fashion.

Unlike the other examples, though, hipster fashion has been appropriated by the mainstream in a way that is unprecedented.  Yes, back in 1992 Marc Jacobs took grunge onto the catwalk and into stores, but it still wasn't the prevalant fashion of the era in terms of what made money.  But just one glance at the summer's festival roster, or at the racks of clothes in Topman filled with flannel shirts, or the packed vintage markets around the country every weekend, will tell you that the hipster lifestyle sells.

And you know what?  I'm ok with that.  If the mainstreaming of alternative culture, now packaged under the hipster label, means that there's more vegan options on food menus, and more bars where I can listen to Grizzly Bear instead of house music, and more handsome men in beards and checked shirts, and more cute girls with tattoos and vintage dresses, then I for one am all for it.

It means that I can pick up a travel guide and know where to find places I'm likely to be interested in - London's Brick Lane, Manchester's Northern Quarter, Portland's... well, the whole of Portland.  All described as "hipster", all full of the kind of street art, independent cafe bars, record stores, vintage clothes shops and artsy hang-outs that I enjoy. 

So fine, call me a hipster.  I'll still be here, eating my organic vegan food and reading a battered paperback in the corner of the funky little bar that sells handcrafted beers, long after it stops being cool, and that's fine too.  Because for me, it's not about being cool, it's about doing the things I love.  I'm just lucky to be in fashion right now.

* And yes, I am well aware that this statement is the most uber hipster thing to say, like, ever.

A guide to understanding the introverted

This cartoon was all over my Facebook and Twitter feeds just before Christmas, but deservedly so.  I would have always described myself as an introvert, but I didn't truly understand what that meant until I read this. 

Although there is a difference between being introverted and being shy, unfortunately I am both.  But whereas I've learnt, to a certain extent, to beat my shyness (and according to others, come across as quite confident), my introversion is not so easily defeated.  There is a Midlake lyric, from Van Occupanther, which sums me up perfectly:

"I'd like to go home / And stay out of sight for a long time"

I've always known that I find socialising hard not just because of the shyness but because I find it exhausting to be around people.  After spending time in public, I've always felt the need to go home and shut the door and be completely alone for hours on end.  I've always replenished my energy by spending time on my own, and am perfectly capable of spending entire weekends in the bliss of solitude.  But I didn't really know why that was until I saw the cartoon, when everything fell into place for me.

It also made me better able to understand one of my brothers, who is much more of an introvert than me.  I am quite good at putting a mask on and fooling people into thinking I am more extroverted than I am, whereas he brooks no such pretence and, during family gatherings, will often withdraw to another room to read or sit quietly.  It's funny that although I have that exact same urge, I found it hard to understand in him until this cartoon spelt it out for me.

I used to worry, before meeting The Boy, how on earth I would cope with a significant other who, presumably, would expect me to actually spend time with them, and maybe even share a house with them.  It is the greatest joy of our relationship that I find spending time with him as restorative as spending time alone; that, in fact, it feels exactly like being by myself.

Reflecting on how being introverted affects me, I have realised that I need to make sure I plan time alone into my weeks.  Before, I would be tempted to say "yes" to any invitation I got and end up feeling exhausted and unwell by the end of a weekend.  Now I know that I need to prioritise time on my own, even if that means I have to decline making plans with friends. 

I sometimes wonder what it must feel like to be more extroverted and whether it would make my life any easier: I suspect not, as I am sure it just comes with different complications.  

Are you an introvert or an extrovert, and would you like to change?


Think you might want to work part-time? Here are 5 things to consider

 

Print by Stray Squirrels via etsy

Two years ago I was in the midst of a career crisis.  Teaching was taking over my life and I wasn't at all happy about it.  I liked parts of my job, but it felt like all I did was work and then come home so exhausted and stressed, that I had no energy for having fun.  Luckily, this crisis ocurred at the same time as my school needing to make some savings, and we were asked if any of us would consider going part-time.  After some careful thought - and after reading Tom Hodgkinson's brilliant book How To Be Free, which persuasively puts forward the notion that perhaps spending our lives on a work-spend-work treadmill is not conducive to a happy existence - I reduced my hours to nine days a fortnight, and it  has truly changed my life.

Having a day off has made me a better teacher - I'm more patient with my classes, more focused on work during my days at school, more willing to go the extra mile, all because I know I'll be getting some time to myself. Some weeks on my day off I just catch up on sleep and relax; some weeks I go walking or meet up with family; some weeks I get the irritating household jobs - like cleaning, washing, and shopping - done so that I can have a more relaxing weekend; some weeks I get my craft on and sew all day. Regardless of how I spend it, my day off always goes too quickly.  In fact, I've just put in my request to reduce my hours still further next year, going down to four days a week.

Increasingly, I'm hearing about other people in their 20s and 30s who are also making the choice to go part-time.  Often, they're people like me: not taking time out to spend with children, but rather taking the time to spend on themselves.  So, if you are considering reducing your hours and improving your work/life balance, here are a few things to think about:

1. Can you afford to work part-time?
This will no doubt be the first question you ask yourself.  Work out your monthly incomings and outgoings (Jess at Knitting On Trains did a fab post about how to manage your finances this week) and then look at whether you can afford to lose a chunk of that money.  However, bear in mind that a reduction in your hours, while entailing an equivalent reduction in your gross salary, won't mean the same reduction in your net salary (the money you get to take home).  Because your gross salary decreases, the amount of tax, NI, pension and student loan contributions - if you pay them - will also decrease.  This generally means that, although your pay cut may initially look drastic, what actually lands in your bank account isn't reduced by as much as you'd think.  Roughly speaking, I lose £300 gross but just over £100 net.  Frankly, I would happily give up that sum in exchange for the time, energy and pleasure I gain.

2. Can you afford not to?
This is the question you should be asking yourself.  I can't quite express how very precious my time off is to me: certainly more precious than money.  As I said above, having just one day a fortnight has enhanced my life in so many ways, both professionally and personally.  The thought of working five days a week, every week, for years and year until retirement (and when will that be for our generation, anyway?) just does not appeal to me.  As much as money is important - I need to pay my mortgage and bills just like everyone else - realising that there are more important things than slaving to earn a wage has been revelatory for me in terms of quality of life.

3. What are your options?
Do you have to have a day off a week or can you - like me - arrange for one a fortnight?  Some workplaces may give you the option of working longer hours on fewer days; a friend of mine once went down to three days a week but kept an almost-full time wage by working ten hours a day rather than eight.  Find out how flexible your employer is able and willing to be; you might be pleasantly surprised.

4. Are you ready for the opinions of others?
Be prepared for the fact that your colleagues will certainly comment on, and very possibly judge you for, your time off.  Never mind that when you work part time you may have to do your full time job in fewer hours.  Never mind that you're not being paid on your days off.  The people you work with will often assume that part time = slacker.  This is especially true if, like me, you don't have children.  Some people don't understand why I'd need or want time off if I don't have kids to look after at home; apparently prioritising my own health and happiness isn't enough of a justification. 

You can either let this attitude get to you or you can recognise for what it usually is: jealousy.  You're having a lie-in, or enjoying a sunny day in the park, while they slave away in the office.  It's natural for them to feel envious.  As long as you, and your superiors, know that you're pulling your weight, sod what the office gossip has to say.

5. "But what about my career prospects?"
This is a very real concern for lots of people because, rightly or wrongly, working part-time is often viewed as an option for people who don't take their careers seriously.  And ultimately, only you can know the ethos of your workplace and judge how reducing your hours might impact on your prospects of promotion.  Luckily, my school has a long history of people working part-time for all sorts of reasons, so I haven't found myself negatively impacted at all.  However, I'm aware that if and when I move to another school, my choice to work part-time might very well be questioned.  All the more reason to move to the Netherlands then; did you know that, for almost all public sector workers and lots of private sector ones too, a four day week (on a full time wage) is the norm?!  Start packing your bags now...

Some thoughts about not wanting children

I am 35 years old and childless, and I've just started my period.

Accepted social discourse would have me weeping and bereft; yet another woman who has left having children too late. There isn't an understanding that someone in my situation might feel relief - euphoria would actually be closer to the mark - at dodging the bullet of pregnancy for another month*.

Because whilst my peers busily organise their lives around child-bearing and child-rearing, I am going out of my way to avoid it. And this can lead to a nagging feeling of guilt. How dare I celebrate every period, while close friends battle to conceive?  When I know that, for some, starting a period is not a cause for relief but for grief?  By not wanting children, I'm definitely the odd one out amongst my friends.

I didn't always feel this way. Despite never being terribly keen on babies or children, I always assumed that one day I'd have kids. It's what you do, isn't it, if you're a woman with a working womb? But the time for having children was always far ahead of me. When I got pregnant at 21, I didn't hesitate about having an abortion. My life was chaotic and I was in no fit state to parent a child. "I can have children when I'm 30ish," I thought to myself. As that milestone approached, 34 suddenly seemed a more sensible age at which to breed, and as that birthday came nearer, back those goalposts went again. And now I'm 35 - the same age at which my mum had her last baby - I am becoming increasingly convinced that the ever-moving goalposts are a sign that perhaps I just don't want children at all.

In my twenties, and even my early thirties, having a baby was entirely hypothetical and could therefore be, rather like Schrodinger's cat, both a possibility and an impossibilty. It wasn't something I needed to examine too closely, I could just let the idea stay in its box. But when you hit 35 and having children becomes a question of now or never, you have to really consider... is this what I want? And my answer, I think, is no.

This is the bit where I should say, "I love babies, I adore spending time with children. I just don't want any of my own." But it's a lie. Babies both bore and scare me. I'm quite taken by their squidgy cheeks for all of, ooh, 2 minutes, but then I'm totally over them. And children... well, I love my nieces and nephew dearly but my gosh, an hour with them and I'm wanting to gouge my eye out with a spoon just to enliven proceedings. I prefer to enjoy them from a distance. Preferably one of some miles. There is nothing - literally, nothing - in the world that I enjoy more than returning to my silent, empty, blissfully childfree house after an afternoon with kids. 

"It'll be different when you have your own," people say. But the question remains, what if it isn't? It seems like rather a large risk to take. The notion that women (never men, have you noticed?) who choose to remain childfree are somehow 'selfish' is perplexing to me; I can't think of anything more selfish than for me to have a baby just to find out if it is different when it's your own.

I have the utmost respect for my friends and family members who have chosen to become parents, and I think they do an amazing job.  I'm also grateful to them for giving me an opportunity to buy cute baby clothes from Cath Kidston and hunt down cool children's books to share with their offspring.  But breeding is just not for me.

The fact is, I love my life exactly how it is. I enjoy my job (ironically, I love teaching children. I just like leaving them at work); I like to go out at the weekend and drink a bit too much and giggle with my friends; I love spending time with The Boy, whether it's quiet nights on the sofa or packing our bags and jetting off to a new city for the weekend; I love to read for hours on end, to experiment in the kitchen, to sit and write quietly. All of these things are so precious to me and when I think of having children, all I can think of is how it would stop me from doing all of them. Is that selfish, to prioritise my own well-being and happiness over that of a child who doesn't exist? I really don't think it is. If I did have a baby and I spent hours to myself, then that would be selfish. But I can't see how choosing not to have children in the first place is a selfish act.  How does choosing to be a good teacher, daughter, aunt, girlfriend, sister and friend rather than a most likely poor parent make me selfish? 

* I should perhaps explain that I do use contraception, I'm just extremely neurotic about its efficiacy and am ever-convinced that I will be in the 1% for whom it doesn't work.

Lately...

READING the new issue of Oh Comely, which appeared on my doormat last week.  One of my favourite indulgences is to settle down with a magazine and a cup of tea, and Oh Comely is always a good read.

ADMIRING my beautiful new bicycle.  I was given money to buy one for my birthday last year, so it's pretty bad that only last Wednesday (exactly a week before this year's birthday) did I finally get round to having it built (it had been sitting in its box since November).  With its classic cruiser shape, leather saddle and handlebars, and wicker basket, it is a total hipster-blogger cliche of a bike; and I love it!

WRITING letters and postcards to friends, but very little for the blog.  The Boy was visiting earlier this week, then a couple of days after he left, my brother, Richard, arrived for a visit.  Once I'm back from Year 8 camp, I promise I'll start writing more again.

BUYING tickets to see Wolf Hall at the RSC next year.  I am SO excited about seeing one of my favourite novels adapted for the stage (although I'm incredibly pissed off with the RSC's terrible accessibility for deaf customers... more on that later).

LISTENING to lots of 6Music as I potter in my kitchen.  In fact, I'm listening to Huey Morgan's show as I type and he really is rocking it this afternoon.  On what other radio station can you go from listening to Pearl Jam to classic Motown girl groups in the space of two minutes?

WALKING up to Old John, a strange folly in Bradgate Park at the top of one of the only hills in Leicestershire.  Richard, a Yorkshire man, even approved it as "a real hill".

DRINKING cider with my brother in an early birthday celebration.

EATING a  picnic in the park with The Boy; a yummy birthday meal with the girls; jammy doughnuts with Richard.

All in all, a good couple of weeks and a lovely weekend!

Lately...

READING an actual paper copy of The Guardian, for the first time in a few weeks.  Oh how I miss it when I'm out of the country!  And I bought Moranthology today and spent the afternoon reading it and honking with laughter (which garnered me some strange looks in the pub, I can tell you).

BUYING some amazing 'mum' sandals.  "Wherefore are they mum sandals?" I hear you ask.  Well, not only do they look exactly like something my mum would have worn circa 1979, but they are from Marks & Spencers' 'comfort fit' range.  Yes, I am so rock & roll.  Also a mint condition copy of Claire Tomalin's biography of Dickens for the bargain price of £1.50. 

WEARING skinny jeans, a lot.  And not many dresses.  I know, it's weird.  I'm totally in love with New Look's supersoft skinnies, and in this 'too warm for tights/too cold for bare legs' weather, they're a perfect medium.  I also dressed up as Janet from the Secret Seven (my creativity truly knows no bounds) for book character day at school and no-one realised I was in costume.  I guess 1940s schoolgirl chic is my thing, when I'm not wearing skinny jeans and a Breton top anyway.

ENJOYING the sunshine at last!  I even got the legs out today, so it must be summer.

POTTERING in the garden, which I have pretty much given over to the wildflowers* this summer.  * Euphemism for weeds.

WATCHING Made In Chelsea.  Oh my gosh, I am obsessed.  Especially with Binky: how good is she?!  The rest I would happily punch (well, maybe not Cheska and Ollie), but therein lies the entertainment value.

MAKING ... erm... nothing.  Again.  I missed both craft clubs this month and haven't had the time or the inclincation to get crafty at home.  I really need to get my make back on.

Day 9: What my social media updates say about me

 

28% #BEDM
The Blog Every Day In May hashtag has dominated my Twitter feed for the last week.  Although I'm finding it a challenge to write something every day, the bigger challenge is keeping up with reading everyone else's brilliant posts: it's so time-consuming that I'm barely reading anything else other than blogs.

20% I'm in love, and I'm going to tell the world!
Last time I did a 'What my social media updates say about me' post, I was chiefly concerned with dating stress.  Worrying about what to wear, about when to "put the crazy out there", about why he hadn't kissed me yet.  Well, who would have predicted from those neurotic tweets that, six months later, I'd be madly in love with that same boy? 

But unfortunately for my friends on social media, from the day we first said "I love you" (which I unwisely and drunkenly commemorated by tweeting from the pub), I have become that person: the one who clogs your Facebook feed with praise for her perfect boyfriend, who constantly Instagrams pictures of their amazing dates.  I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to everyone who has wanted to vomit on reading my lovestruck updates.  I do make myself sick too, if that's any help, but I'm really just so damned happy that it's hard to keep it inside.

18% Travel plans
What with the whole long distance relationship thing, at the moment I'm always either getting ready for a trip, booking flights and trains, or just arrived back home.  I'm lucky to be in a position - both financially and in terms of free time - to be able to pack my bags and go away at the drop of a hat, but it must make for tedious reading when every other status and tweet is, "Booked my Eurostar tickets," or "On my way to the airport, I can't wait!"

14% Boo, I have no money
See above!

10% Mmm, food
For some reason, I'm obsessed with homemade guacamole at the moment and have tweeted about it far more than is normal. 

10% Books
Books I love, books I want to recommend to people, updates to my Goodreads app that then appear on my Facebook feed: literature is always a common theme of my social media use.  Recently I've been discussing Wonder with Sarah on Twitter, enjoying Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal on Goodreads, and recommending great holiday reads in blog comments.

Day 2: Spring is here!

Photo via weheartit

This spring, I am looking forward to...

... spending this weekend with my lovely boy at his home in Nijmegen (in the Netherlands);
... the weather finally warming up - please?  Soon would be nice?
... finishing the make-over of my living room - photos coming soon;
... a visit from my dad;
... and a visit to my mum;
... seeing my friends Hannah and Darren, who are visiting Leicester from Norfolk soon;
... tackling the stack of books which is building up on my bedside table: next up, a choice between Christopher Brookmyre, Marian Keyes and Jeanette Winterson.  I'm nothing if not catholic in my tastes;
... my trip to Berlin with The Boy at half term;
... counting down to my birthday in June.

Blog every day in May...?

I signed up for Rosalilium's 'Blog Every Day In May' challenge with some trepidation.  I do feel that I need to regain my blogging mojo - my drafts folder is full of half-written posts that I can't seem to knock into shape - but I'm not convinced that blogging every day is the answer. 

Towards the end of 2012 I suddenly got a lot busier (two words - The Boy) and, as a result, started blogging a lot less.  But weirdly, I think the quality of my posts really improved once I began writing once or twice a week rather than feeling the pressure to post more often, and I have gained more new readers and followers in the past four months than I had in the previous two years of blogging.

I'm also not at all sure that I will be able to meet the challenge.  I'm away a lot in May (that 'B' word again!), plus it's a crazy month at work - with Year 6 SATs exams, lots of extra-curricular stuff to plan, and getting my Year 9 classes through their transition to GCSE - and fitting writing around that is going to be tough.

So, if I'm not convinced I'll manage it, why am I giving it a go?  Well, it sounds like a fun thing to take part in, and many of the topics that Elizabeth has come up with for the challenge have got me thinking.  I've already decided that if it gets to the point where I'm not enjoying it anymore, I'll give up.  But in the meantime, prepare for your Facebook, Twitter, and Bloglovin feeds to be jammed with posts from me!

Lately...

 

DREAMING about the wonderful weekend I had in Paris, and hoping that the time passes quickly between now and my next trip... going to the Netherlands for May Day weekend.

WISHING that work stresses would disappear... not likely, I know; stress is kind of par for the course when you're a teacher (and bloody Gove is not making things any easier with his relentless barrage of criticism and dumb ideas).  But still, I would sometimes like to have a job I could just walk away from at 5pm.

FEELING incredibly tired (see above!), which means I'm not going to the gym as much, which I think then makes me feel even worse.  It's a vicious circle but I am so worn out at the moment, all I want to do is sleep, read and eat.

BUYING really silly amounts of clothes, which I then proceed to send back when they turn out to fit weirdly/be badly made.  Damn you internet shopping!  I'm excitedly waiting to receive this lovely floral top in the post tomorrow, but am betting that it too turns out to be a disappointment.

WEARING layers, but still always being too hot (if I wear my coat) or too cold (when I leave it at home).  I find dressing for spring and autumn incredibly difficult: I'm much happier in either properly cold or properly hot weather.

EATING homemade guacamole (using this recipe, amended slightly as there's really no need for 3 avocados and 4 chillies, trust me).  Shop-bought guacamole tends not to be vegan, so The Boy and I have got into the habit of whipping up a batch whenever we make Mexican food.  And now I'm so obsessed with its chilli-y, lime-y deliciousness that I make it about once a week.

READING a lot; and not just trashy crime fiction, which makes a change!  I finally feel like I'm getting my reading mojo back after months of not doing much reading at all.  Although I still haven't started on this month's book for my reading group, and the meeting is on Tuesday... oops. 

WATCHING Happy Endings, as E4 are showing season 2 every night.  Other than that, though, not very much.  I'm finding my ability to concentrate on anything longer than 30 minutes is severely compromised at the moment.

MAKING not very much at all, because I'm completely lacking motivation, but I want to get started on my long 'to-do' list.  I'm wondering if another Week of Making is in order, to get myself back into creative mode.

PLANNING all sorts of wedding-related things (not my own, calm down!).  I am being bridesmaid for my best friend, Cara, in August, and am starting to get excited about it.  Of course, we also have the hen do (in Brussels) to think about, and my fellow bridesmaid and I are starting to plan some fun surprises for the bride.  And as if that's not enough, The Boy's friend and bandmate is getting married in July, so we are full of plans for the trip to Macedonia for his nuptials.

Nice to meet you

I've been lucky enough to collect a lot of new readers and followers recently: hello everyone!  So I thought it might be a good idea to introduce myself to those who are new to the blog (with apologies for those who have been reading for a long time, or who know me IRL).

1. Do you have a middle name?
Elizabeth, which I have always liked a hell of a lot more than my actual given name.  All previous attempts to become 'Beth' or 'Lizzie' have ended in failure, sadly.

2. What is your job?
I'm an English teacher in a middle school, which is a bit of a cushy age: no GCSE pressure or coursework marking at the upper end; no having to toilet train kids or teach them to read at the younger end... just lots of nice kids (and a few rotters) in their fascinating and fun early teenage years.  I complain about my job a lot (and especially on days when I end up working 12+ hours), but I know I'm very lucky.

3. What is your dream job?
If money was no object, I'd be a permanent student; Manchester University's MA in Gender & Sexuality would be first on my list.

4. What do you look like?
I'm allergic to photographs of myself so you'll have to content yourselves with this description: big boobs, indie fringe, dyed red hair and permanently awkward expression.

5. How tall are you?
Well, I say that I'm 5'4". But I'm actually 5'3". Perhaps even a tad shorter. I have total body dysmorphia when it comes to height: in my mind, I'm a completely average height and some days I even feel tall. But... I'm really quite tiny; a fact I'm having to come to terms with as The Boy is well over six foot.

6. Who is your all-time favourite musician/band?
As I said in my recent music Q&A, Smashing Pumpkins are the band that have endured the past twenty years of music fandom.

7. What is your favourite song at the moment?
My guilty pop pleasure at the moment is Stay by Rihanna and I'm still massively into last year's Eurovision winner, Euphoria by Loreen.  Actual decent songs that I'm not ashamed to have on my iPod are Retrograde by James Blake, Next Stop by Bleached, and my biggest obsession at the moment: Other People by Beach House.

8. Do you participate in sports?
Until reading is designated an Olympic sport, no.  I go to the gym regularly and I walk a lot (at least five or six miles around town most weekends, as well as 'proper' hikes), but organised sports are not for me.

9. Favourite book?
Eek, that is impossible to answer!  Two recentish book Q&A's - one here and one on What Hannah Read - might go some way to listing favourites, but I could never narrow it down to one.  That'd be like choosing a favourite child.  But... if I was forced to narrow it down, it'd be Jane Austen's Persuasion for best classic novel, Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter Of Maladies for favourite short story collection, and Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller as my top novel in recent years, just edging out Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall.

10. Favourite movie?
I did a movie Q&A on Louise's blog, which mentions all my favourites.  I think Dazed & Confused or The Station Agent take the number one spot though.

11. Favourite colour?
Blue - from baby blue to teal to navy, I love every shade.

12. Favourite perfume?
L'Occitane Ambre is amazing, but it doesn't last long on me (no perfume does, in fact. I think I have very pourous skin).

13. Favourite holiday?
Definitely my train journey across America in July/August 2011, which I blogged about at the time.

14. Favourite place?
Portland, Oregon. Everyone who knows me is no doubt sick of me harping on about it, but I fell so in love with this amazing, alternative, funky city in the Pacific Northwest. It breaks my heart a little every day I wake up anywhere but there. Otherwise, Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire for its independent shops and beautiful views (and proximity to my family).

15. What countries have you visited?
Erm *scratches head*... The Netherlands, Canada, USA, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Iceland, South Africa... I think that's it.  This year has been - and continues to be - a crazy ride of European trips.  By the end of the summer I will have been to The Netherlands five times, plus Germany, Macedonia, France and Belgium.

16. How do you think other people view you?
Difficult question!  I think people tend to think I'm clever - cleverer than I actually am, in fact, possibly in part because despite living in the North and then the Midlands for the past 28 years, I have a rather cut-glass accent.  I possibly come across as aloof and cold, when actually it's just crippling shyness combined with really low self-esteem.  And I know that those closest to me find my inability to talk about my feelings difficult to deal with; I can seem as if I am quite emotionally closed off.  On a more positive note, I think people also see me as adventurous and independent, well-read and creative.

17. What is your biggest regret?
I try to live without regrets as much as possible, because it seems like wasted energy. I'd rather concentrate on making better decisions in future than kicking myself for ones made in the past. That being said, though, I do kick myself for the years I wasted in my early twenties, pining away for an emotionally unavailable, idiot boy.

18. Which person gone from your life do you miss the most?
The people I've been friends with who have passed from my life for various reasons.  I've had a couple of 'friendship breakups' and, although it's definitely for the best that they ended, I miss those people often.
 
19. What is the most valuable piece of advice you have ever been given?
My mum told me to buy a house, which was a great piece of advice (the financial help she - and my dad - gave me in getting a deposit together didn't go amiss either!). 

20. What five things can you not leave the house without?
- Lip balm of some description - my current fave is Burt's Bees Pomegranate;
- My iPhone;
- A book (or, increasingly and to my great shame, my Kindle);
- A mini hairbrush to keep my recalcitrant fringe in place;
- A pair of earphones, to shut out the outside world and better allow me to retreat into my misanthropic shell.