Category Archives: General

Did a thing, and got married!

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Wedding

For better or for worse we went and got married in Cornwall last weekend. The venue, and hosts, were lovely!

Check out Frieda And The Moon — you can stay there as well if you fancy a glamped up break away from civilisation and hustle and bustle.

Free roaming chickens and birdsong, and sheep bleeting, will be the only thing that wakes you there.

We had hot tubs (normally not a fan but good for my leg) and chimneas burning into the evening.

We spent a further week in Cornwall – albeit not very relaxing – but visitited some of the local towns: Looe, Mevagissey (good model railway exhibition and lovely harbour), and the Eden project. Great to see tropical plants all growing in one place!

We stayed in Weston-Super-Mare on the way down and Covid had hit it hard. Unfortunately many of the sea front venues have closed but you can still get donkey rides on the beach if you’re so inclined.

The drive back took 7hrs and I would rather like to nuke the whole A30 if possible. Recommendation: definitely stop somewhere on the way back to break that journey!

Ironically only had 1 pint of Tribute during the whole week as I was driving that much so have to go back and find somewhere to stay in a more built up aread 🙂

Do you believe in Fate?

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So do you? I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I’m not religious in any way but do feel that there is a purpose for everything and sometimes things are meant to happen in a certain way.

When I first moved to Northampton I knew no one, apart from the people I worked with, and unlike a lot of people, I didn’t really socialise with my work colleagues.

I got on the popular dating app Plenty Of Fish, and found the girl (now fiancee) I’m due to marry later in the year. (Coincientally, I have a history of dating apps. See What’s wrong with online dating? and Goodbye POF, hello Match.com)

As a part of meeting my girlfriend Annabelle, I now have several new friends that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. If I hadn’t hit up the dating apps that may never have happened. It is likely I would have found someone but would have taken much longer. I’m generally a fairly shy person and at the time certainly not very outgoing.

I’d always wanted to get a cat but it wasn’t until meeting Annabelle that she went out and got one… and so on and so forth.

I’d probably still be sitting with a living room full of car parts and an undecorated house too if I hadn’t gotten into a relationship so for those reasons I can only be thankful.

The same goes for the journey with my Mazda. The number of new friends and events I’ve been to and involved with since 2013 is tremendous. All because of one purchase on eBay following a night out at the pub. Hurruh for Dutch courage and trigger happy bidding fingers!

End of Year wrap-up

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Me Dec 2020

 

Hm, where to start? This year has been a bit crap hasn’t it?  I’ve just tried to light my fire bin in the garden and everything is too sodden. Even the wood I chopped up and put in there is wet and sodden which sums up the year as a whole.

No one knew what would happen at the beginning of the year. I spent last Christmas and New Year with a cancer diagnosis looming over me, and whilst I was going through the operation in Feburary to have a tumour removed from my leg, the news of Covid coming was everywhere. I was lucky that the op went ahead and the chemo which followed was not delayed… as it has been for so many and for those people I really am sorry.

I won’t mull over this too much as I know people do it have it worse off. And I’ve written a bit about that in my last post – Life is relative – but I wouldn’t wish chemotherapy on anyone. It’s one of those things that starts off OK and then as the treatment continues and your immune system is shot, that everything else goes off the rails. I contracted Covid from hospital and spent 3 weeks getting over it. I was blue lit to Northampton general and spent a week there with 38.5degree fevers twice a day underneath a freezing cold air conditioning duct. It was horrendous. Three weeks with a fever that high twice a day wasn’t pleasant. Luckily the disease didn’t go to my lungs as that could have been a different story. I thank my fitness for that but it could have been 50/50.

I’m done with chemo now, and I’m focussing 100% on physio and getting my leg strong again. I’m on track to put on weight again with a target of 79kg… got another 4 to go and I’m working on building upper body strength again as well. I have a page where you can track progress here: Instagram

I want to say a big thank you to my fiancee Annabelle who’s been an absolute star and a rock this year, having to put up with me being in hospital for 3 weeks at a time or more at times and doing much more housework than previously whilst I recovered. I honestly wouldhn’t have been able to do this without her. A big thank you also to my family and friends, for the video calls and calls in hospital to keep the days occupied.

I also want to say a shoutout to the company I work for for being so tolerant and for allowing me to keep my position. I’m phasing back to full time in Jan 2021.

I’ve been able to keep up with freelance work also, which is useful and will be continuing with that next year.

I appreciate life a lot more now, that’s something new. Every day I wake up now is a good day. I saw some not so nice things having been an inpatient in an oncology / heamotology ward for over 6 months. My emotions are wrecked though. The smallest thing can have me balling my eyes out and just looking at photos of last year can do that but I’m stronger and I’m going to be stronger…

 

And that’s a wrap. Thanks for reading and all the best for 2021 if you read this far!