the gloves are off, the wisdom teeth are out

or 

an exploration of running away.

I live really near the train station, so I have to walk past it on my way to and from shifts at work, or the uni library. Every single time I am so incredibly tempted to veer off towards the station, pick a train at random off that big board of potential destinations, and just...go.

Does anyone else feel this way about train stations? I always have done. Even when I was not, as I am at the moment, super stressed and very tempted to run away. Even at the height of happiness I can't walk past a train station without being tempted to jump on a train and run away.

I'm not necessarily talking about running off and never coming back. We have responsibilities and that's just not how life works. But I wouldn't mind just...bunking off for a bit. Playing truant from adulthood, taking a day to go somewhere I've never been and forgetting everything stressful. And there's still so much of the country I haven't seen!

When I was young I remember watching a travel programme with my dad, which I would google if I wasn't feeling so lethargic right now, where the presenter man gave himself some options and then rolled a dice. He went with whatever option won.

I feel like that today. My feet are tingling with the overwhelming urge to stand in front of the black and orange blinking board in the station, dice in hand. Number the next six trains 1-6, roll the dice and go where the world tells me.

I probably won't, though.

xoxo

photos from my travels in York, London, and a bonfire in Sheffield.

(p.s. I will try to be less dramatic in my next post! I've been reading too much Nancy Mitford and now I'm throwing myself down on sofa's and complaining that everything is oh so very difficult. Soz for the mellow dramatics. I'm very busy at the moment but will attempt some baking or something next week!)

in defence of my absence

Every blog I have ever started - and there have been a fair few attempts - has been abandoned at some point or other, either because I lost enthusiasm or I lost time. The latter has been trying to creep in here. But I refuse to give in! I will not let go of this one. I'm tying it to my wrist like a helium balloon to a child.

Believe it or not I've a whole page of a notebook scribbled over with ideas for blog posts. However the notebook is somewhere on my desk underneath a LOT OF OTHER THINGS, so I thought I'd blog anyway and just file this one under 'misc'.

This gorgeous eagle necklace was a find and a half from Collard Manson a couple weeks back. I went to the one at Meadowhall and then realised theres one in Sheffield too, wahheyy. A treasure trove of beauties, or as my mum would say 'clutter'. I care not, mother!

Talking of parents, I paid a visit to my parents house in ye olde hometown this past weekend. I've been living on my own in Sheff for exactly six weeks, and decided that was long enough to warrant a trip home! Theres something really lovely about travelling by train when its super dark outside even though it's only late afternoon. Home was filled with a hilarious trip to the local with a smattering of good friends, a roast dinner with my parents, plenty of frolicking with meine hund (pictured below) and a cheeeeeky hair dye session! (Sorry for the terrible iPhone photos, how lazy of me that I didn't even bother to photograph it properly) but LOOK NO ROOTS. Sweet. I have gone back to the dark side (gone full goth) in time for winter. Feel like myself again.

About seven weeks, a hell of a lot of deadlines and many shifts at work to go before the most wonderful time of the year. Bring it on.

xoxox

the MA diaries

part one

OK so I haven't actually started yet, technically, in that enrolment and induction is next week. That's when the nitty gritty starts. However what I have done is moved up to Sheffield, to the first place I've ever lived in totally alone (no housemates? no parents? then WHO WILL FORCE ME TO DO CHORES?) and got myself an actual paid part time job. I don't know how this all happened either, someone has obviously made a terrible mistake

But I was thinking today, as I went about my adult life doing adult things like an adult, about this time three years ago. I was a baby faced little wisp of a thing, who had never left home before, I'd been dropped off in a scary city down South that I didn't know, to find that my allocated flat was as yet completely empty. I was too timid to even go and explore so for the first week I ate only what I could buy from the corner shop I could literally see from my halls window. I was miserable, but worst of all I was doing nothing about it because I was too terrified/shy/paralysed with fear...young, basically. (Thankfully I ended up loving uni, having a whale of a time in Liquid/Popworld, with hilarious friends, and that's probably where I did all this mystical growing up!).

Nowadays, moving to a whole new city again excites me rather than scares me! Sure adults still get nervous about things. I feel old - but in a good way. Capable. Like I will deal with whatever needs dealing with. Come at me, life, I'm ready for you.

xoxo