Things I found when cleaning out my desk at work

So it’s a Thursday afternoon, and we are getting ready to move to a clear desk system at work.  I hate clear desk systems.  And to make it harder, they are taking away desk drawers and moving to a hot desk model.  Yuck.  I spend so much time at my desk, that I like to have photos up and post its etc.  I have always been this way.  My first real desk at an insurance brokers, more years than I care to count ago, was covered in photos of my friends and family.

So, today, I set out to clear off my desk.  To clear out the drawers and to throw away a lot of stuff.  I found all manner of things.  I found fold up Frisbees, that are now being thrown around the office, I found ex staff passes, I found a lot of stuff that belongs to a team I have not worked in for 2 years.  It all went back to them to deal with.

And I found this – its Sam’s first letter to Santa.  Awwww – the translation is Dear Santa, Bee costume please, love Sam.  I remember that year vividly.  Sam was 4.  It was the first Christmas that I was spending away from my family.  My sister was still working and she scanned and sent me this gem.  It goes with the Christmas card that he sent me.  Or if you were Sam aged 4, Chrimmas.  I treasure both of these things.  There was also a copy of his Santa photo that year.  Awww.  Sam received a bee costume that year – my sister found one for him.  And the result was very cute.  

This time three years ago, I was a home for Christmas.  It was for my sisters wedding.  Since then, I have another nephew to bore people silly with.  His name is Archie and he is adorable.  It was a great Christmas – I spent it in the sunshine, we sat outside, ate way to much and I enjoyed seeing my family.  I headed up the coast for New Year, had a great wee impromptu concert with friends and generally had the time of my life.  Every now and then when I think about that Christmas, it makes me smile.  My friends keep telling me how happy I looked and how content I seemed.  Yep, London agrees with me.

Two years ago, I had my first and last pub Christmas.  It was brilliant, lots of London orphans gathered together and ate till we could eat no more, drank till we could drink no more and generally ran amok.  The next day we cested on couches and watched movies till way to late.  I loved that Christmas so much.  I miss the players of that Christmas - most of them are scattered around the globe now.  But we will facetime on Christmas day, hopefully - hint hint, you know who you are!

 

Last Christmas I was in Brussels – freezing, not quite snowing, and spent Christmas Eve in Brugges.  This year, I am heading to Norway with a group of friends, to try my hand at a hostel Christmas.  I am being very brave, I really am not a hostel fan.  I am hoping for good wifi so that I can facetime with my family, there is nothing better than speaking to excited nephews on Christmas Eve.  Well maybe actually being there for cuddles would be better, but this is a close second.  The number of times I have answered the question – Nicca are you coming home for Christmas this year?  To have to say no and be answered with upset whining.  The only thing that heals that cut is a chat to them on Christmas morning.  

I love Christmas – I love the tacky decorations, I love the iceskating, I love the buying and giving of gifts, I love the mulled wine, I love the family or friends time, I love overfed naps and I love watching Christmas movies like Love Actually.  This year, as with every other year, I reach this stage, the before I knock off for the year stage, where I just want to slap a number of people and am at my wits end, and then after a week or so off, I am back to my sunny happy self.  I used to find a week at the beach did wonders for my soul.  The last few years I have had to make do without the beach, but a few days off always makes me feel better.

Christmas can be hard when you are so far from home, I remember as a child my aunt calling from England, how much that must have cost her!  I am thankful for Facetime, which other than the cost of the internet is free.  Its essential to surround yourself with an urban family and celebrate as hard as you can, so that you don't feel the ache of the people who are not there.

So that is my Christmas, a few nights away, with snow and lots of booze – hopefully.  Where are you spending yours?  What are you up too?  Do you love Christmas as much as me?

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt or something...

It’s a Sunday afternoon, I am on the couch watching the X factor from last night, huddling next to the radiator, its freaking freezing at the moment.  It’s so cold that my fingers are not registering on my smart phone.  And I am braving Norway for Christmas!

Anyhoo, it’s been a while since I have blogged and there are some very good reasons for this, a whole heap of shit has been happening.  Least of all a wee assault.  Yep that is right, I was assaulted, attacked or grabbed, whichever way you want to say it, it happened.

I was involved in the annual electoral canvas for the second year in a row.  The first year went by with very little drama.  Its hard work, in the freezing cold, knocking on people’s doors to get them to register to vote.  Whilst I am not really political, I do believe that not that long ago, a generation gave their lives so that we could have democracy, and we owe it to them to exercise that right.  So, our job is to knock on the doors of the people who have not returned the forms that have been sent to them.  It was during the course of this exercise, that a not very nice man, tried to pull me into his flat, after a 5-10mins of stalling me, trying to get me to come in and being creepy in general.  

That is obviously the light version of events, edited for public consumption.  The reality is that it was a very frightening and very upsetting encounter.  It still upsets me that someone, who does not know me, who has no idea of who I am, where I come from or who loves me, wanted to do me harm.  However, I am very lucky.  I got away.  I was strong enough to do it and I have worked for the last 6 weeks especially to ensure that the rest of my life is not affected by those unfortunate few minutes.  As it happened during the course of my working, my workplace has been incredible and organised counselling for me.  Which has been invaluable in helping me to get over this.  And I have a large group of people who were horrified and upset that this happened to me, who have given me an endless supply of hugs and drinks to ensure that I am ok. 

In the week after this moment, I was encouraged to take leave, to try this, to try that, to do this, to do that.  I had a wee holiday to Lisbon booked, so I chose to try and keep things as normal as possible until I could get out of London.  Sadly, that worked for about 20 minutes.  I had nightmares and could not concentrate for long periods of time.  By the time that Wednesday rolled around, and it was time for us to head out to Gatwick, I was a bit all over the place.  But I was lucky enough to have my bestie who looked after me on those few days.  We headed to the lounge and had free drinks, dinner and grabbed some magazines for flight.  We spent the flight watching music videos, laughing and drinking some more.  When we arrived in Lisbon, we were happy to check into our posh hotel.  I felt awful for barely having slept, and I still did not sleep much that night either.  

The next day, we decided that massages were in order.  We spent the morning drinking herbal tea and relaxing.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  I just wanted to sleep and chill in the spa for the rest of the day, but I felt that it was time to see some of Lisbon.  We headed out to Sintra that afternoon.  We ate delish pastries, the local delicacy, and they were amazing.  We climbed up a huge hill, in the mist, we could not see the top of the hill and there was not a view when we got there, but it was beautifully atmospheric, it felt as though we were the only people in the world.  A few weeks later, a friend showed me her photos from the same spots, with the view and we laughed at my matching ones with the mist.  We decided to stay in Sintra for dinner and some more drinks before heading back to Lisbon, for an early night.  This time I managed to get some sleep, not unbroken but ok.  

The next day we slept in and headed up for Bario Alto, in search of lunch and wine.  We found both!  And a whole lot of fun along the way.  We had a great day that day.  We drunk way too much wine, and I wrote postcards home, that were, I am sure hilarious to read, if you could read what they said!  We ate amazing food and laughed some more.  It felt good to be myself again, to not worry about London any longer, to be laughing.  It was a fragile happiness though, the smallest thing reminded me of what was really going on and it only took a second to break.  I am again so thankful for my friends here, their patience and kindness to me on this holiday was just amazing.  Enough gushing.

So I guess that the point of this blog is to say, it is hard to write when there is so much going on in your mind, you either need to write about that or give up.  I chose to give up until I was ready to share my story with the world.  I have been lucky to have wonderful friends and family, work colleagues and also a wonderful counsellor who worked with me to get over this.  And to me there is no shame in saying that this helped no end.  I am very certain that should I have tried to get through this alone, I would still be having sleepless nights and unhappy holidays.  And I now chose to be thankful for these things, rather than focusing on a very scary time in my life.

A tale of two birthdays

Hey! So it’s been a while and I am being asked, where is the next blog?  A lot has been happening – surgeries, trips, detoxes, visitors, new jobs and new babies.  It’s been rather hectic since I last wrote.  There is a fair chunk of it that I really don’t want to discuss – I am well known for bottling up my feelings or another chunk that the maudlin diary is hearing a lot about, but here is what I can talk about today.

Last time we spoke I promised a happier blog, with holiday pics (I am now officially a year behind on my travel blogs!) and so here it is.  I had my birthday last week and as much as I hated it, it was nice to be spoilt by family and friends all around the world.  I am one lucky chick.  The celebrations this year were low key.  I had just arrived back from three weeks in Australia and NZ, and was jet lagged and there were a fair few tensions that did not put me in the celebrating mood.  But what was good was remembering last year.  My birthday in 2013 was in Santorini.  As much as I hate getting older, it’s hard to be upset in paradise and that is what Santorini was.

Our first view of Santorini bay

We arrived in Santorini via a short ferry from Naxos.  My pack was on its last legs and it managed to hold itself together to the end of the trip – so no fall out on this ferry…  I was feeling really unwell, I had made the mistake of drinking Amstel tops and the beer was not agreeing with me at all.  The heat was glorious and my skin was turning a lovely toasty shade of tan.

We arrived in Fira a small old town on Santorini, that overlooked Santorini bay and had a great dinner, but I was feeling very rough, so headed back to our lovely breezy accom for some downtime that night.  I read my book and slept, it was bliss.

Tahnee, Caz & I at the top of the volcano

The next day dawned bright and beautiful – we decided to head out to the volcano in the middle of the bay and see some of the sights.  We took a gondola down the hill to the boats – the view is just addictive, you cannot stop staring at it.  The volcano is still slightly active and reminded me of Rotorua – the sulphur smells and the vents as you walk up the hill.  The boat that we were on also stopped at a thermal swimming hole, which was stunning to look at, but we decided to sun ourselves on the deck instead. 

Caz on her donkey

When we got back from the volcano we decided that the best way up the hill was on donkey.  This was a crazy 15 minute ride.  And so much fun.  These donkeys were huge and had bells around their necks.  They were free range, in that we were put on their backs and off they went.  No one was leading them and I know nothing about riding a donkey.  My donkey was a bit cray cray and wanted to be the first up that hill, not worrying about crushing my legs against other donkeys or the walls.  It was hilarious and so much fun.  And there were well deserved cocktails at the top.

We watched another stunning sunset from a roof top bar, drinking cocktails and I again thought to myself, how lucky I was to be in such a stunning place, with such amazing people.  

Loving the quad bikes

The next day dawned bright and sunny, and it was my birthday.  It was a balmy 28 degrees when we got up and over breakfast I got to read all the lovely messages from my family and friends the world  It’s strange to say, but I am kinda used to not being with my family for my birthday now.  I was excited as today we were spending the day at the beach.  We hired quad bikes and headed out to Akotiri, a lovely black sand beach.  The beaches had loungers and cocktails, as well as wifi.  We headed straight out for a swim, to deal with the heat and then it was sunbathing and reading for an hour or so.  We then decided to head to the other side of the island and see what the beach there was like.  It was a day of wind in my hair and sun on my shoulders.  I loved being on the quad bike – it was fast and so much fun.  I laughed a lot on that bike!  The beach on the other side was ok but not brilliant, we had a delicious lunch of squid and more drinks, before making the long journey to Oia. 

over.

The sunset over Oia

Oia can only be described as the posh side of Santorini.  All of the buildings there are stunning.  They are all white washed and the streets are beautifully cobbled.  There are lots of wee art shops and stunning views.  We headed to the tip of the island to see the sunset.  It was stunning and crowded.  And to our amusement, there was a round of applause when the sunset.  Really.  It was getting very dark by the time that we headed back to Fira, it was a little hairy on the bikes, but we made it back in one piece and it was time to party.  

This was a brilliant birthday - with Alex & Caz (and Tahnee!)

We put on fresh clothes and headed out to a restaurant with a stunning view of the volcano at night.  The sea was shimmering in the moonlight and I could not have asked for a more perfect setting.  We were pretty much the only people in the restaurant and for desert they bought me out a gorgeous platter and sung happy birthday.  It was really sweet.  We headed out to the local backpackers for a few drinks and a bit of a boogie, before heading back down the hill for home.

The next day was our last day on Santorini and our last day of holiday.  We packed up and caught the bus out to the beach for the day.  It was windy this time and the sea was too rough to swim in.  We sunbathed and enjoyed the last rays of sunshine before heading back to Fira to see our last Greek sunset.  There is a lot of public art on the streets, so we decided to sit up on a park bench and watch as the sun went down.  I hate the end of holidays – so it was really melancholy to see it end this way.  And I knew that this would be the last holiday with my friends for quite some time as they were heading back home very shortly.

After a delish dinner with more drinks, we caught the 1am ferry all the way back to Athens.  We had a sleeper cabin that even had a shower.  It was great.  I was exhausted and went to sleep straight away, enjoying the ever so slight rocking of the boat.  We woke to the sunrise in Athens and headed to the airport.  It was all over.

I loved my birthday last year.  I loved our trip to Greece.  The people were lovely, the view is incredible and the ruins are amazing.  I was in heaven.  This year was different on so many levels.  I worked my birthday.  I was jetlagged and I was missing my family so much.  My Mum, sister and nephew took me out a few days before I left for my birthday, it was a lovely meal and a great day, but already I was feeling sad about having to leave.  When my eldest nephew came running in to tell me that he had chosen and been allowed to gift wrap my present, my heart nearly broke with missing him already.  I loved the charm that he had chosen for my bracelet and every time that my fingers find it I think of him.  Which makes me both sad and happy.  I don’t want to sound ungrateful at all, my friends here made a big deal and I was spoilt, but my heart was not in it this year.  It is said that jet lag is the feeling of the soul trying to catch up for the body.  I love that, it is truly how it felt for me this time.  I felt a bit shell like, and just a bit numb.  It has caught up with me now, and I have felt a bit better, but I still feel a bit fragile and all over the place.  I am hoping that as time goes on, I can get back into the rhythm of London.  It is always bittersweet leaving home.

So that is where I am at the moment.  I am happy but feeling torn between two places.  I am grateful – I have the best family and friends that anyone could ask for.  I am lucky, so very, very lucky.  Promise you some more exciting chapters in the adventures of Nic very soon. xx