Posts tagged ‘twitter’

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December 29, 2012

My 2012: the year in review

It’s been a while since I wrote a post. My blogging timetable has gone completely out of the window and I barely know what day of the week it is. I blame that period in between Christmas and New Year – perfectly named ‘The Lull’ by a Twitter friend of mine. I don’t enjoy The Lull, I find these days to be an utterly frustrating combination of post-Christmas comedown and impatiently waiting for the new year to begin. Anyway, enough of my whining. I hope that those of you who celebrated Christmas had a lovely time. I’ll probably be starting the new year with a carefully-scheduled post about plans and resolutions and all my usual self-challenging kind of behaviour, but for today, I thought I’d look back at 2012.

It’s been an interesting year, one that I was really looking forward to, and I can’t quite believe it’s over bar the New Year’s Eve rendition of Auld Lang’s Syne. I suspect that most British reviews of the year will talk about the London Olympics, although I think that Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour De France was my own favourite sporting event of the year, and I’m utterly thrilled that Leeds will host the Grand Depart of the Tour in 2014.

My review will be a bit more self-centred than everyone else’s because I’m going to have a look at my own personal highlights of the year.

Luckily, it’s easy for me to look back on these, because this blog is a good record of what I’ve done. It’s amazing to look back and think that I did all these things this year. The trip to Rome in the spring was a wonderful highlight. It’s an incredible city and I’m glad to have visited. It didn’t quite capture my heart the way that Paris has though, so I suspect that I’ll be back in Paris before I return to Rome, but the hotel we stayed in was a unique experience, and one I’ll always remember.

Other highlights included my kayaking trip, despite the near-death experience of falling into freezing water twice. Ok, that’s a touch over-dramatic, I know. Anyway, it’s not been enough to put me off wanting to have another go if I get the chance, even though I have a feeling that I’m never going to be great at watersports. I’m planning to go surfing in 2013, which feels even more ridiculous than kayaking as far as the potential for doing myself some damage is concerned. What the hell, you only live once, right?

Earlier in the year I wrote a post about why Twitter has changed my life, and that remains as true as ever. Over the past year, I’ve met some people through Twitter who have become incredibly important to me in a very short space of time. They know who they are. The ever-increasing number of people I count as friends from Twitter is a wonderful thing. Basically, if we’ve ever had some kind of beverage together, then you’re on my list! This has only happened in 2012, and yet in many cases, it feels like I’ve known people far longer, particularly the ones who are responsible for the dramatic increase in my coffee consumption because of our regular lunchtime meet-ups.

As far as this blog is concerned, the absolute highlight has to be my commendation from the Blog North Awards, which simultaneously reduced me to tears and boosted my confidence in what I write so very much. It was completely unexpected and I will always be grateful for being nominated.

Of course, some things didn’t go quite according to plan. I didn’t manage to do 35 new things in my 35th year, which ended in June. Partly because, as always, I forget that I don’t have endless amounts of spare time and bags of cash to do things with. Not sure I’ll ever really learn that lesson though. I do regret that I didn’t manage to do Cycletta again on my new Pashley, but I might have a go at riding it next year. The other thing I regret is that I’m very, very unlikely to complete my Goodreads Challenge to read 52 books in the year. I’m still about ten books away from completing it, with only days of the year left. Having decided to read children’s books in order to complete it, I’ve found myself reading Michael Chabon’s ‘The Mysteries of Pittsburgh’ instead. A good book, but not a particularly quick read. Still, I have learnt that quality is more important to me when it comes to my choice of reading than quantity, so it’s not been a complete failure of an exercise.

The things I did complete during my challenge were all good in their own ways – from pop-up tea-rooms to drumming lessons – and I loved doing my challenge. After that finished, I’ve managed to do most of the things I wanted to get done in the latter half of this year, which has mostly revolved around my allotment and setting up Sage and Thrift with the most important person I’ve met in a long time, the wonderful and remarkable Josephine Borg.

So, a good year. As I’d hoped. They do seem to get faster and faster though, which is a little terrifying. Once it gets to this point in December, I never really want to bother with New Year’s Eve. I want to tidy up the Christmas decorations and get cracking with the next year. I know, I shouldn’t wish my own life away  but there is lots to look forward to in 2013 and I’m impatient for it to arrive…

Posted in 35:35 Challenge, Barbara Loves..., Books, Cycling, Running and Exercise, Home, Margot Loves..., Sage & Thrift, Scanner, Travel | 2 Comments »

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December 3, 2012

Returning to Running.

A couple of weeks ago, during an appointment for something completely unrelated, my doctor checked my blood pressure and announced that unless I could manage to get it to come down, I’d have to start taking some medication for it. And that once I was taking that medication, it would be for the rest of my life.

My immediate response was to go home, burst into stressful tears and drink beer on the stairs. Excellent. And a touch over-dramatic, I know. Not the first time I’ve had that kind of response to something a doctor has told me. Once I’d pulled myself together, splendidly supported by a soundtrack suggested by Twitter (and in particular from the always-on-the-money @wandapops) I started to think about the last time I’d been told that I needed to reduce my blood pressure and how I’d managed it.

Since my first pregnancy ended at thirty weeks with severe pre-eclampsia, I’ve suffered with high blood pressure and the only thing that has really worked to reduce it is running. Since returning to full time work after the birth of my second child, I’ve struggled to fit it into my schedule. And, like many people, looking after myself has dropped further and further down the list until it barely registers at all. Now, though, I have to re-think how I approach exercise. Not as a luxury bit of time for myself – which is how I’ve increasingly come to think of it – but as something essential, something that underpins the rest of my life.

Alongside running, I’ve got to lose a bit of weight again, and try to eat healthily and drink less alcohol. All those behavioural things that, even if they don’t give you a longer life, certainly make it feel as though you’ve lived longer! I’m not going to turn into a fun-free Puritan though. Everything in moderation. But I know that I owe it to myself and the people that love me to make a decent job of looking after myself a bit better. I know that taking medication is not the end of the world, and I’m grateful that it exists, should I need it. However, I really want to return to better habits, so that I don’t need to just yet.  I feel too young to be taking beta-blockers!

So, a new schedule is needed. One in which running is built in as an essential element, not as an afterthought. I’ve struggled with running on and off for the past few years. I have poor feet and knees. But I’ve been out three times this week, and I’ve surprised myself by enjoying it enormously. I’ve learnt that what Jayne from Veggie Runners told me is very true  – namely that once you’ve been a runner, no matter how long the break, it’ll be easier to run again than it was the first time around. This is very encouraging, and has helped me to keep going when it’s been tough, cold and muddy. I’m also grateful to those people who have offered to run with me. I’m better in (slow!) company,  I think. My initial goal is to do a decent time at a Parkrun in January, and then see how I get on, perhaps with Outlaw Runners in Leeds. But this time, I’m less bothered about improving times, entering races or anything like that. This time the only numbers that count are 120/80, and my goal is to get closer to them…

See, I told you it was muddy…

Posted in Barbara Loves..., Cycling, Running and Exercise, Home | 5 Comments »

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November 12, 2012

Time without Twitter

On Friday, after a great but exhausting day at the National Media Museum, I managed to leave my beloved Iphone on the top deck of a bus.  I didn’t even realise to start off with, but after searching the myriad of bags and pockets I had with me, it gradually dawned on me that my phone was continuing the bus journey alone. So, I spent the weekend frantically cancelling things, blocking accounts, changing passwords and assuming that all was lost. Amazingly, it was handed in and I managed to have it back in my hand again by Monday. Massive thanks to whoever was responsible for that.

Because I’d cancelled everything, it took a whole week for everything to get sorted out. So I had an accidental week without Twitter and Instagram. Every so often, I’d get the chance to go online and spent a little bit of time on Twitter, but it wasn’t the same as having it to hand all the time. Conversations were missed, blog posts went unread, news went unseen – I didn’t even know that Bradley Wiggins had been knocked off his bike, and he’s one of my great heroes.  Even that made me realise just how much of my news I get through Twitter.

There were upsides to all of this. I did a bit more of all of my ongoing projects than perhaps I might have done – a bit more knitting, a bit more bathroom woodwork sanding (which is truly the most horrible of all DIY jobs) and a bit more working on the allotment. Most telling of all was that I read a whole novel from cover to cover in only a handful of days. That used to be a regular habit until Twitter started sucking up all my time. I had far fewer headaches, suggesting that perhaps I spend too long staring at my tiny phone screen. I sat on the bus and looked aimlessly out of the window, instead of being head down looking at my phone each time I made a journey, and that was actually very pleasant. It’s easy to lose those precious moments of just being, if you’re constantly checking updates on various social media platforms.

But I missed it. I missed the laugh-out-loud-on-the-bus-home moments. I missed knowing the news, and opinion about the news, as it happened. I missed my friends –  especially the ones like Dave Graham (@dakegra) who is responsible for this blog post idea and who has a great blog of his own, Espresso Coco, which you should go and visit. He’s one of a large number of people with whom I have only an online friendship, but I don’t think that makes the relationships any less valid. I missed finding great blog posts to read, photos to see, and having my little place in the lives of all the people I met via Twitter.

I know there is a balance to be struck. One in which I spend a little less time online, leaving time for books, projects, gazing out of windows and, erm…’real life’ – but one that still allows me to spend enough time online to enjoy the great things about it. Apparently, all I need to do to make sure that happens is lose my phone every now and again…

Posted in Barbara Loves..., Books, Craft, Gardening, Home | 5 Comments »

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June 27, 2012

Finding Time

I had a really busy week last week. So much so, that I missed two blog posts. It doesn’t take much for my ‘carefully planned’ schedule to go completely to pot. In some attempt to regain control of my time, I made a little table and populated it on hourly basis with what I was doing. I thought it would be a useful way of seeing where there was time I wasn’t making the most of.

Of course, there are huge chunks of time that are given over to work or parenting so they’re easily written off, as they are non-negotiable, obviously. But what I’ve discovered is that I claim to be busy, when actually what I’m doing is:

1) Playing Moshi Monsters. I set myself an account up so I could play with Eve, and now I’m playing it all the time. Even when she’s in bed. What’s wrong with me? I just need to complete my Moshling zoo and then I’ll be sane again. Honest. So much for not liking computer games…

2) Compiling the Net-A-Porter wishlist of my dreams, complete with evening dresses costing as much as a round-the-world cruise. For when I win the Lottery, obviously. And then get invited to the Met Ball. Which is a fairly improbable set of possibilities. It’s good to be prepared for all eventualities though, and it’s a bit like shopping without spending anything.

3) Searching for Antarctic voyages. Which, if you sail from Australia like Scott, are roughly 25 thousand pounds per head. It’s the travel equivalent of my Net-A-Porter wish-list.

4) Reading Grazia. Every Tuesday, I spent a couple of hours with this little addiction.

5) Spending time on Twitter. Ah, Twitter. I love Twitter, really I do. It changed my life. The eclectic group of people I follow means that I can be simultaneously immersed in conversations about politics, shoes, zombies and allotment gardening at any given moment. It’s utterly and completely amazing, but it steals time like nothing else.

There is obviously nothing wrong with any of these things. After all, time spent enjoying yourself isn’t time wasted, and after a day of working and parenting, it’s necessary for my brain to decompress a bit with something light and fun. The problem only comes when I think I’m too busy to work on any of the bigger things I want to do. If I fail to make some of them happen, because I’ve spent the whole year building a Moshling zoo and an imaginary wardrobe, how am I going to feel? Recording how I’m spending my time has been a bit of an eye opener. Although there is also the possibility that I need to get up earlier in the morning (like my writer friend who starts writing at 5.20am) if I reduce the amount of time I spend on these things, I might actually make progress on the things I really want to do!

So, I plan to spend no more than fifteen minutes on any of my ‘timewasters’ for every spare hour I’ve got, before putting them to one side and using that time more productively. We’ll see if it makes any difference in a month or so. For really good time-management-ninja help, I recommend you spend some time with the fabulous Marie Forleo. I’ve learnt a lot from her site.

How do you like to ‘waste’ time? And how do you stop yourself from letting those things take over? I’d love to know…

Posted in Home, Learning, Scanner | 10 Comments »

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June 6, 2012

A Final 35:35 Challenge Post

So, I didn’t get to 35 things. That’s ok. I feel as though I’ve learnt so much over this past year, that although I really wanted to make it, I don’t feel as though I’ve failed simply because of a number.

Highlights:

  • Completing Cycletta.
  • Completing the Yorkshire 3 Peaks and raising lots of lovely money for Bliss.
  • Drumming.
  • Learning to kayak.
  • Joining Twitter and all the wonderful things that have happened and people I have met as a direct consequence of that.
  • Strengthening older friendships, especially with Hillary, who taught me drumming and kayaking.

Lowlights:

  • The sheer bloody pain at the end of the Yorkshire 3 Peaks, which made me cry.
  • Falling out of a kayak twice.

Having said that these are lowlights, they are also some of the most memorable parts of the year, so I don’t regret them for a second. It turns out that I have a little masochistic streak that actually likes finding things a bit painful – it makes the success that much sweeter.

Other things I have learnt this year:

  • I am more capable than I think I am.
  • I don’t have to wait for someone else to join me when I try something new. I am brave enough to do things on my own.
  • I like physical challenges more than my laziness and ‘curves’ would suggest.
  • The scatter-gun nature of this challenge has been partly successful. It has made me better at saying ‘yes’ to things.
  • However, it has also made me realise that I now want a bit more structure to my projects.
  • As much as I enjoy being sociable, I also enjoy being alone sometimes to have time and space to think and read. This means balancing out my social activities so I don’t feel overwhelmed by them.

As we all know, the act of recording things changes them, but I’ve also realised that it is a really good way of getting a truer picture of what I manage to achieve. I sometimes have moments where I think that all I do is go to work or do the laundry. At those moments, I look at the list of things I’ve done over the year and it reminds me that I’ve managed some brilliant things, on top of being a good mum, employee, friend etc. So I will continue to record what I do, irrespective of this challenge.

So, what’s next?

PS: This means it’s my birthday today…

Posted in 35:35 Challenge, Home | 2 Comments »

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March 7, 2012

Taking Part: Why Twitter has changed my life.

As the mother of small children, it is very easy for me to find myself living in an ever-shrinking world. With a daily routine of school, play-group and work, punctured by the occasional holiday, life can get very small. The people I meet are parents at the school gates, or colleagues in the office. It is difficult making friends as a grown up.

As part of my 35:35 Challenge, I joined Twitter and it has changed the relationship I have with the city I live in. My world is expanding again.

Last Friday, I met fifteen people for drinks and dinner. Of that fifteen, only one was a friend in real life. One was the lovely Abi, who I’d met once before and the rest were strangers to me and in most cases to each other, apart from our relationship on Twitter. Strangers who managed to chat effortlessly for an entire evening, resulting in me finally tipping my cocktail-and-steak filled self into bed after midnight. Excellent.

Not only has Twitter resulted in cocktails, it has sent me to Bettakultcha,  Playful Leeds, and ‘Homage to Fromage‘ cheese club. I’ve been introduced to a whole new world in the city that I’ve lived in since 2003, and never even knew existed. One of creative spirits, independent retailers, small scale events covering every subject under the sun, and of people who endlessly inspire me. It’s a great thing for someone like me who is interested in everything. The main problem I have now is fitting it all into my life, and that is another story altogether. Next on the list of things I’d like to try are  are LeedsLetters and the knitting-and-cocktails group, Yarnia. It’s knitting and cocktails! I think we’ve discovered through my inability to crochet, that knitting and I are never going to be great friends but I think I’ll feel a lot more optimistic about the whole thing with a drink or two. At the very least I’ll feel more creative, even if I can’t even cast on.

When I tell people that Twitter has changed my life, there are two main responses. From the group of people who have never used Twitter, there is a raising of the eyebrows and a bit of poorly-disguised sniggering. From the other group, who are as addicted to it as I am, there is a knowing nod. To use Twitter the way I now use it, you need to follow local, real people, not celebrities. You need to talk and ask questions. You need to get involved and turn up to events. Social media is often blamed for preventing people from forming proper relationships and reducing ability to make true connections.

The people who say this clearly weren’t at our table on Friday night…

Posted in Craft, Food and Drink., Home | 11 Comments »

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February 22, 2012

Rhubarb, rhubarb.

I couldn’t resist a giant bunch of Wakefield forced rhubarb at the market. Such a cheery bright pink, it’s too beautiful to leave behind. Of course, then I had no idea what I was going to do with such a huge amount once I’d got it all home. A dessert of some kind is usually in order, and rhubarb crumble with custard is an obvious winner.

However, a call was issued to the Twitter hive mind  and my reply (from @gazpachodragon, someone who I only met for the first time on Monday and who I think is amazing) came back. Make rhubarb Bellinis! As the Bellini is traditionally made with prosecco, one of my favourite drinks, it felt a bit like fate.

The recipe originally comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who has championed the cause of rhubarb for a long while. In fact, I remember when he guest edited an early edition of of Olive magazine. Although the title remained the same, on each page of the magazine, where it usually said Olive, instead it said Rhubarb…

I’m digressing, as usual.

The rhubarb is simmered in orange juice with some unrefined caster sugar, until it’s soft but not hugely pulpy. In the original recipe, Hugh uses 1kg (trimmed and cut into 4cmi-ish lengths) of rhubarb with the juice of a large orange and 125g golden caster sugar. I think I used roughly that – although to be honest, I didn’t measure it thoroughly! Simmer it until it softens, then take off the liquid. Add one part of this to three parts of prosecco or champagne and you’re all done. If you want to make it pretty, you can add an egg whitened sugar rim to your cocktail glass.

Of course, now is peak champagne rhubarb season. Wakefield in West Yorkshire is the capital of the rhubarb growing industry and will hold the annual Rhubarb Festival of Food and Drink next weekend, Friday to Sunday. I’ve not managed a visit to the forcing sheds yet, but apparently, you can hear the rhubarb creaking as it grows in the dark…

Posted in Barbara Loves..., Cooking, Craft, Luxury | 4 Comments »

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February 6, 2012

Kindness

I got a parcel in the post today. A small parcel with a huge significance.

Inside it was this:

A bottle of glittery Deborah Lippman nail polish with a sachet of remover and a little card from Ruth at Minibreak Mummy. Ruth and I have never met. I know she has a great blog, is lovely and chatty on Twitter and that we share a very similar taste in books  from our friendship on Good Reads. I also know that her sister set up Beauty Box Swaps for people to exchange things that they’ve received in their beauty box (Glossy Box, for example) which is a great idea and one that I will probably be making use of myself soon!

After a weekend spent thinking about the future of my blog, the point of Twitter, and various other ‘how-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-fit-it-all-in-and-what’s-the-point-anyway?’ type thoughts, this little bottle of nail polish has renewed my faith that there are genuinely kind and lovely people out there, people who are my friends, even though we may never have met. People who perform such acts of kindness, just because they can. People that I would never have met (virtually or in real life) if it weren’t for this blog and the associated Twitter account. It’s helped me to realise that the future of my blog is just this. To be a record of my ‘Margot-and-Barbara’ life, and the people and events within in. So I can write when I have something to say, not just to fit into a self-created schedule. Anything else, wherever it ends up, can be the cherry on the top. Thank you so much, Ruth for the polish and for making me realise all this.

And the polish? I love it.

Posted in Beauty, Home, Luxury, Margot Loves... | 16 Comments »

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