Life Lately #1

Am I blogging twice in a week? What is this??

* It's been quite a long time since I've blogged and a lot has happened. I've moved to a new town and am officially a grown-ass adult living by herself in her own little place! It's a teeny tiny studio flat and the blinds don't quite reach the bottom of the window and one of the hobs doesn't work but it's mine! I pay to live there all by myself and everything in it is mine and put there and organised by me, which really is quite a feeling! The best part of the flat is my bookshelves, (3.) they actually came with the flat and were part of the reason I took it. I've never had somewhere that could house all of my books in one place before. I'll always have fun memories of my uni rooms where all my books sat in stacks on my desk and on the carpet and lined up on the head of my bed, but having a proper, organised bookshelf? It's glorious.

* I've really loved having my own space to organise and the flat is now an adorable little pink paradise full of plants and Polaroids and fairy lights and all the general disgustingly girly shit I'm into. (4.) The only downside of living alone is that I'm no longer living with my best friends. It's been quite hard suddenly not having conversation and cuddles on tap and, though I really like my work friends, there's nobody in the area that I'm close enough with to automatically go to when I just need some human contact. But fortunately me and my friends have done plenty on the days we've been able to be together.

* Before we all moved out we had a big outing to Brighton and had the best day ever. (5) We didn't do much more than wander round, go on a few rides and eat junk food but when you're with your best friends and surrogate family you don't really need to do anything specific to have a great time.

* More recently I met up with Tom and my old Waterstones buddy Kieran and spent the day in Bristol. (1) We had lunch at Ironworks, a little independent bar and restaurant that has become a cult classic, does amazing food and drink AND has a little pet dog called Tinka that lives there! We also shamelessly Pokemon Go'd (Pokemon Went?) and accidentally wandered into a lure party and reaped the benefits (and scoped out really cute guys in cargo shorts... I disgust myself.)

* The other trip I took recently was to Ireland, where I met up with a lot of my relatives for a big family reunion. (6) My family comes from Roscommon, a really rural place  in ROI with very little in it other than farms, some family houses and the surrounding land and big-ass Churches. We only stayed for two days but it was great to catch up with family that I hadn't seen in years... even if that did involve them asking about the boyfriend I split up with over three years ago. Awks.

* The last update I need to give is about my writing! I'm currently working on a manuscript given the working title 'The Maiden and The Muses', I've been tinkering with it since the start of the year but have recently found myself really getting into the swing of writing it. (2) I think much of my inspiration came from the fact that large chunks of the book deal with the female protagonist giving zero fucks about boys and in the last month my love life has involved events that, to give just an idea, led to a group chat explaining the situation, in which 'Jesus what a dick' and similar sentiments were expressed by everyone involved, several times throughout. So at least boys being stupid has led to me being really spurred on with writing, and while I don't care too much about the events that sparked it anymore, the motivation to write has stuck around which is awesome. I have just broken the ten thousand word milestone, which is more than I've ever written of one single thing before. I'm really proud of myself for working so hard and getting this far. There's a long way to go and  lot of work to be done, but hitting this milestone makes it feel like the reality of being an author is that bit more believable.

So that's a quick update, that's where I've been and what I've been up to. I'm hoping to be blogging regularly again and rejoining this awesome little community.