The power of animals

Leave a comment

lots

It’s amazing how animals can change your life as well as your mood. Today is my dog Lottie’s 7th birthday (which is 49 in dog years…I think), she’s one of my best and most loyal friends. Lottie is the first dog my family has had, she’s been there for me no matter what and knows when I just need a cuddle. I think saying goodbye to the dog was the hardest when I moved.

I love telling the story of how we got her, let me start by saying I didn’t even want a dog (my cat had gone missing a while earlier and I was still adamant he’d come back). So we go to the dog rescue and because of my sisters age they decide were allowed to see the puppies. I think there was 6 of them in total, 4 boys and 2 girls, one of them being my girl. I went towards them and this little hyper one pushes it’s way to the front and starting licking my hand…that was Lottie.

While I’m in London I don’t have any pets, unless you count Ali, so when I’m sad I’m left to my own devices unless I’m outside and next doors cats say hello. That is until I started riding. Before my lesson today I felt really low, stressed after last nights recording session and on the verge of a panic attack. Amy cheered me up but once I got on the horse I was left to stay still and wait for my instructor, I started stroking Jemima, the horse I’d had on my first ever ride. I calmed down, went for my lesson and came out feeling like everything had just gone away, it’s the magic of animals.

There’s a reason a lot of people recommend pets or work with animals for depressed people, animals never judge. They just look to you for love, care and somehow they know when you’re not feeling right.

So Happy Birthday to my beautiful Lottie Lou and thank you to Jim-Jim for being the wonderful horse she is.

My Big Mouth: ‘Boy or Girl?’

Leave a comment

While out with my sister today I was really surprised by a gender division issue when shopping for the most ridiculous things. When trying to buy a birthday badge we were asked oh is it for a male or female, after saying female we were given a pink badge instead of being told colours (never mind the fact this girl is a tomboy). Then again later in the day going for a bite to eat I ordered my sister a kids meal and was asked is the meal for a boy or a girl, again I answered girl and was given an incredibly feminine toy instead of a much cooler car/plane toy which actually did things.

I’m not going on a feminist rant here but it seems really trivial to give girls pink and boys blue. As a kid I may have had a barbie bedroom but I wanted action men too and while the boys played Army in the woods, I was the leader of that army. Even now, it’s only in the last year I’ve been considered ‘one of the girls’ instead of ‘one of the lads’.

I’ve known this divide exists for a long time but twice in one day? Oh and my little cousin saying he wanted a ‘boys colour’ not a ‘girls colour’, I thought that in 2014 we could let kids be what they wanted to be. I’m not saying get rid of all pink and blue and pretend all toys are gender neutral, they’re not. Most, not all, of the time boys will go for Nerf guns over a doll but then girls also became interested and now there are pink ones. With flowers on. I’m sorry what? Another example I saw via Facebook was of a 5 year old boys Frozen themed party, he loved it but other parents thought it was wrong for him to have the theme, deeming it girly. Since when? There isn’t a little kid I know that hasn’t watch Frozen and there are guys in it, Olaf the Snowman is supposedly male…well for a snowman. So why the hell are these kids being told what to like?

I’m hoping that by the time I have kids, way into the future (sorry Mum) people will respect my wishes to let them play with whatever they want. I don’t want to have a girl and smother her in pink or a boy who is only given blue, maybe I won’t tell people at all so I wont get things that are ‘suitable’ for either. I respect parents who let their kids play with what they want and what makes them happy because isn’t that all kids want, to be happy?

One of the best days of my life.

2 Comments

IMG_0894

You know those days that are totally kick arse and at the end of it you kind of still can’t believe it. Yeah that happened today. I’d mentioned before how I had been asked to speak at the Diversity conference and to be fair I was so nervous. Last night and this morning I was so worried, what if no one turned up? What if loads of people did but they disagreed with my points? Do I really know what I’m talking about?

Turns out I shouldn’t have worried. After speaking to our Chancellor, Bonnie Greer MBE, I felt at ease. I’d watched one of her speeches before and she was absolutely incredible, I was able to watch her again before my own speech and I was just so inspired by it all.

As for my speech? It was well recieved, I got the most questions of the morning and the best thing was that I was really helping people. I had so many people come up to me after, asking my advice and if I would be involved in certain things. It was overwhelming but everything I wanted to be. I’m hoping to write a blog based on the ideas that I spoke about today.

I was also ableto be a part of a Mental Health workshop and we could really discuss how it impacted our lives, how we could help the university etc. Overall a really positive day in terms of Mental Health and I will also hopefully be participating with a member of staff on a research project on students with MH issues. How exciting!

IMG_0899

My wonderful tutor Sara giving her support. 

After catching up with my friend Joe, who was so supportive today and I can’t thank him enough. My next part of the day was to head to the Kingston Writing School and a talk that I had helped organise. If you haven’t read any of R.S Pateman’s novels go now! The Second Life of Amy Archer is out now and The Prophecy of Bees will be out later this month.

Rob gave a brilliant talk, honest, funny and humble. I was also pleased to find someone else who writes like me! Scattered and all over the place, not careful planning if I can help it. Hopefully I’ll be attending a book launch for The Prophecy of Bees soon which should be a lot of fun!

IMG_0904

Rob Pateman (R.S Pateman) and I 

Other than that general smiles, good company and some exciting news about my academic future (possibly) overall a great day and still proving you can LIVE  with depression 🙂



Happy 21st Birthday Ali

Leave a comment

IMG_0861

Today one of the most important people in my life turned 21! I may have gone a little over kill on the presents but he’s had a damn good day and I finally don’t have to try not to blurt out what I bought him! Of course he had his Reading Festival ticket back in August but he also had Noel Fielding Tickets, T-Shirts, Giant Cookie (he’s not keen on cake), 21st Mug, Ferrari, custom made card and a photo of us for his desk…I did go overkill didn’t I? Oops. He also got a new guitar from his family, which is a very Ali milestone present.

For the people I love I write these long blog posts about why they’re so special to me, but with Ali I don’t feel the need. He’s my equally crazy, lovable, long haired, insanely intelligent other half. He’s my best friend. So in true Ali fashion I won’t write some long and loving letter on my blog, I’ll say it simply.

I love you.

Happy Birthday lovely, I hope you had an amazing day 🙂

A girl deserves a treat once in a while

Leave a comment

I’m writing to you all from my new Macbook Pro, yes me! After a lot of saving, working so many hours I became a regular in the office and debating for months I finally went to the Apple Store today and picked up this baby! I’ve had a tough week emotionally and I’ve reached Enrichment week so a treat was in order…although I didn’t intend for it to be this pricey! Still with student discount, my scholarship money coming in I could justify it. I’m so happy.

So right now I’m sat in the studio (again) recording for more songs after some good news yesterday. If you want to keep an eye on us then check out our website www.nopeopleclub.com. That’s all I have for today, tomorrow will be Ali’s 21st and I’ll be spoiling him rotten.

Something chocolaty this way comes…

Leave a comment

IMG_0857

Ok so the plan tonight was to put my robe on, head out to a party and be more than a little bit hungover tomorrow. Seeing as I’m writing this you can all work out that it didn’t happen. I do love Halloween, even more when I’m in the US *cough* Mum and Dad *cough*, Tonight though I knew the drill, cheap drinks, expensive entry, awful chat up lines and long queues. Until this morning I was totally up for doing all that and having fun, then I thought about it and I honestly couldn’t be bothered after being up early for work today and having a load of stuff to do tomorrow.

I do slightly wish I was out tonight but at the same time I know it wouldn’t have done me any favours. I’ve had an exhausting week and my moods are just starting to become stable again after almost a week of dropping in the first place. Luckily the boys don’t seem to mind, Ali likes the company and the girls all have their own plans.

I do have loads to look forward to, other than the pile of chocolate and sweats I bought with the money I was going to use for tonight. It’s Ali’s 21st in 2 days!!!!! Then Joe’s and then I can finally start a real Christmas countdown. Taking it one step at a time, but so does having an excuse to buy bags of chocolate 😉

Happy Halloween folks! However you’re celebrating!

Argh!

Leave a comment

I’m sure the feeling of wanting to hide away and tell everyone to piss off is not lost on you guys. Everyone has those days, or in my case evenings when your tired, irritated and just want some space, some room to breathe from everyone. Sometimes mine goes a little deeper than that.

Next week is reading week, that’s right I’m six weeks in to my course and I’m definitely feeling it, although not necessarily from just studying. Societies, friendships, band stuff, working, volunteering for things, basically right now I’m exhausted. I’m ready for reading week and although I’m working half of it, the other half I want to just chill out, relax and not think about too much. I know I’m doing well, but sometimes when I’m doing well I burn out, get tired and then quickly start to get very unhappy.

The past few days have been a little bit like that, I know things are going well and then I don’t want to stop. Sometimes I just kind of forget my illness and try and get everything done because I’m excited and happy, I forget that as a part of this I need to rest too. It sounds silly but  rest is HUGE part of recovering from depression because it is exhausting. Low days make me so tired, I get pulled down and I just can’t do anything because it’s like a weight on me that I’m struggling to lift, sometimes for days.

If I’m honest I’m not at my strongest right now because I need a rest BUT I have found that when I go horse riding I feel a lot better, I get on the horse and that is all I focus on, no phone, no internet, no thoughts, just me and the horse. Today I rode Princess, a lovely older horse. I picked it up quite quickly and had a good ride and good feedback, I could feel my muscles getting stronger and actually my self worth. I’d never done this before and now I could do it and I loved it.

So when I go from feeling that good to just feeling generally useless I get frustrated and angry, sometimes to the point where I want to lash out at my illness because it’s just not where I want to be. I want to be happy and stay on one level but sometimes I just can’t.

I have a stack of blogs to upload for you all and I’ll get on that as soon as I can.

Sorry guys, it’s really just one of those nights apparently.

Last Night.

Leave a comment

IMG_0566.JPG (2)

Last year I didn’t really go out, I think I went out three times on a Wednesday, now I have strong group of friends on my course and they also double up as a bad influence. I casually mentioned I wouldn’t mind going out after I got home last night and Eleanor got straight on it. Within an hour I was changed, make up on and sat on a bus to one of the Student’s Union bars. I’d already had a Jack Daniels , 3 doubles, 2 Jagerbombs and some brilliant dancing to the Spice Girls and Eleanor and I were ready to hit Pryzm.

I danced so much, met loads of new people and a few I already knew as well as having an amazing time with Eleanor. I also made it to my 9am lecture this morning with a raging hangover, ended up having Mcdonalds for breakfast but made it though the day despite also aching from Horse Riding. I count that as a win.

Giddy Up! My first time horse riding!

1 Comment

IMG_0718

I’ve never mentioned wanting to go horse riding prior to second year, to be honest I never thought it would be something I could do. So at freshers I signed up with Amy and later Dani. I didn’t hear much after submitting my paper work but suddenly rides became available and they were being snapped up really quickly! I thought about it for all of five minutes and booked my first ride, not nervous it was two weeks away, right?

Flash forward to today when my anxiety raised its ugly head, I went from being nervous to absolutely bloody terrified. How on earth was I going to do this? Horses were absolutely huge, what if I fell off? What if I made a complete idiot of myself or made no friends. I got so nervous and anxious I was nearly in tears but it was the social aspect more than anything else, then the horse. Ali made me calm down, If you don’t like it you don’t have to go back. I got the bus and hoped more than anything I wouldn’t fall off.

IMG_0708

Can you tell how terrified I really was?

The staff were all lovely but seeing the horses and I started to panic a little, how was I going to get on one! So I watched someone else ride for a little bit and Amy being the lovely thing she is waited to watch me. Now Amy, unlike my friend Amy from last year is so, so tall. Apparently her ride earlier in the day was in a huge horse, I thought mine was but apparently she was tiny. My horse, Jemima, was lovely, very beautiful and incredibly well behaved. According to my instructor Kate she’s a horse that calms down nervous people.

Getting on I mouthed ‘fuck’ to Amy (I’d nearly bolted myself earlier being so nervous), it took quite a long time to sort out my stirrups because I have such little legs, but at least I wasn’t put on a tiny pony which was another worry I had. I was really awkward and nervous at first but my instructor knew what to do and calmed me down, I relaxed and Jemima had me at ease. By the end of the lesson I could make her walk, trot, slow down and stop, plus I managed to get the rhythm fairly quickly too (being a musician is good for horse riding apparently).

Will I be going again? Definitely. I feel like it’s going to be hard work but I enjoy it, it’s something new and I’m loving that I’m part of a big group. The people I’ve met from society are all absolutely lovely, I have a social next week and we might all be getting jumpers! I’m part of a group that is actually a sport!

Today was followed by meeting Joe and now I’ve been invited on a night out even though I’m aching from horse riding…hmmmm do I or don’t I?

IMG_0713IMG_0714

IMG_0716

Finding new loves

Leave a comment

IMG_0674

It’s exciting when you find a new love on your degree. I’ve avoided Victorian Literature for a long time because of the way it had been taught to me, now I’m in university and I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Victorian poetry, only a few pieces but still. This is one of the greatest things about studying for a degree, I’m going down all these different paths and right now for academics I’m looking at prostitution in one module and Young Adult literature in another while on the side I’m looking at mental health in literature. I’m full of passion and excitement, which to me is what university is about.

I haven’t spoken about wanting to do an MA much on this blog but every day I get more of this overwhelming feeling that it’s not something I just want to do it’s something that I need to do, maybe I wont progress on to PhD (that bit depends on funding) but need to take that next step. There’s something about research that lets me just immurse myself in it, the only other thing I’ve felt like that about is music, the first love I ever had.

This might seem a bit sappy but today just put it into focus for me, every one of my lectures keeps telling me to be more confident, I know how to do this and I’m good at it and believe it or not I’m starting to listen. I submitted some pieces for first checks today and I’m not panicking for once, I know that they are good enough right now and I can build through the year.

Loving my degree, loving life!