Personal

25 Facts About Me...

09:00

So, on Sunday I am turning 26 years old. I thought that I would be bothered about it, but I’m not. Getting older just doesn’t seem to bother me, it hasn’t for a long, long time. I actually quite like getting older because I like to reflect and see how I’ve changed and what I did over the year. I know some people don’t like to reflect, especially when they have lost someone throughout the year, but I think if you are constantly wanting to evolve as a person then this is an important practice to get into. Or maybe I’m just weird like that.

  1. I may no longer care about getting older, but when I was 9 turning 10 terrified me because entering double digits meant I was getting older and thus becoming an adult.

Personal

My Firsts: First Story Written

10:07

So, I have stolen the idea for this series from Sarah from the wonderful blog Sarah in Wonderland. Please check out her blog as it’s awesome and she is super lovely! I love the idea of sharing our firsts, so every so often I am going to recount one of my ‘firsts’, now I can’t guarantee that they’ll be interesting or funny, but they’ll be good or at least they will be in my own opinion.

I have no idea how this one is going to be taken. Absolutely no idea. I have no memory of writing this but it has been kept by my grandparents who appear to keep every piece I’ve written. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. From what I’ve been told I was about 8 when this was written. It was also written in five, yes FIVE, different coloured gel pens. You know, because one clearly isn’t enough. Three of them were glittery too which just amuses me as after almost 20 years the pages are still all sparkly. Please keep in mind that none of the text you are about to read has been changed. All the grammar mistakes, misspellings, and complete and utter nonsense you are about to read have been kept the same. I wouldn’t even know where to begin in editing this. When I read things like this, I can see why people always thought I was weird, I think this is super weird!

Health

Six things Chronically Ill people need to learn

09:00

I feel like this is going to be a bit of an inflammatory post, I really do, especially within the spoonie community, or whatever it is we are calling ourselves these days. Are we warriors, spoonies, or munchkins? I don’t know. What I do know is that there are things some chronically ill people need to learn. I find a lot of the community to be incredibly negative and it personally puts me off.

1. You are not your illness.
You were a person before you got ill and you are still a person. Whatever your illness is, it doesn’t define you. If you were Andrea with the multi-coloured hair before you got ill, as long as dying your hair doesn’t make you worse – I know with some illnesses you become really sensitive to things so don’t make yourself ill to prove a point – you can still be Andrea with the multi-coloured hair. I’m still the same person I was before the diagnosis. I just move a little slower and rattle a little more than I did.

Health

Diving With A Chronic Illness

10:42



In the summer, I learnt to dive. Which is something I never thought I would be able to do, mostly due to my chronic illnesses, but mostly because the water in the UK is freezing! Luckily, my dad invited me to join him on a trip to Thailand where both the weather and the water is much warmer when you compare it to a British summer. He was there to do his dive master course, and I thought I was there to try and get out of the rut of being chronically ill and chronically unemployed. However, he was insistent that I at least try the open water dive course to see if I liked it. As it turned out, I loved it. Then again, I was bound to love it as I've always enjoyed being in the water.


Personal

Why Failing Is Ok

09:00

This blog post was originally published on Madeleine Larmour Blog on 3rd January 2016. Whilst the blog still exists as an archive, I no longer chose to post there and thus have decided to move some of the content here to share with all of you.

Personal

Life In Pictures: Six Weeks In Thailand

09:00


This summer I was very fortune to be able to spend six whole weeks (and then a bit extra) in Thailand, more specifically Koh Tao with my dad. For 11 months of the year, he lives in Saudi Arabia where he works whilst I still reside in the UK. Six weeks is also the longest piece of time we have spent together in over 10 years.

Thailand for me had always been a far-flung pipe dream because I had it in my head that there was no way I'd be able to fly out that far. I'm not the best flyer. The idea of flying doesn't bother me, neither does take off or landing, it's the 'what ifs' that set me off. As being a writer and creating fiction is what I do, I come up with the most ridiculous 'what ifs' you've ever heard. I've also had to learn to internalise them as I used to verbalise them when I was younger but it used to peeve everyone around me, especially when I sat next to someone who was terrified of flying. Yet this year I managed my first long haul flight, my first non-budget airline travel and my first solo long haul flight. I got sick during the trip and left Thailand several days after dad, but that's another blog post. I had to fly back by myself and I've only ever flown once by myself - a 45-minute flight to and from Belfast - so 17 hours flying without the time I spent waiting for connections in Bangkok and Dubai was a bit of a shock to the system.
Overall, I enjoyed my trip to Thailand. I was able to learn to dive which I didn't think I would be able to do with my chronic illnesses. Yet here I am as an open water diver - I started my advance but then got too ill to continue.
Be warned, this post is picture heavy!

Personal

New Year, New Beginnings, Same Results?

09:00


So yet again, we have somehow stumbled into a New Year. Sure, we’re a little battered and bruised from 2016 but we’ve gotten through to the light at the end of the tunnel. That light is another new year and with it, it brings the renewed promise of change. Change that doesn’t usually stick, but it’s always nice to be reminded that we have the ability to change even if it’s unlikely to last.

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