Vision In Blue

It has been two and a half years since I moved to Bristol. It wasn't all smooth sailing, I lost some sanity somewhere near the beginning, but it's vaguely come back now. At first it was just a place I was living in, now it truly is a place I'm living in. (Same word I know, tricky, just think about it again... it took me a while and I wrote the damn thing!) Anywhere new is always a daunting challenge, there's so much that is different. After a while though, you realise that those differences are both good, and bad. It's never quite like the home you knew, but that isn't actually a bad thing. Bristol in my opinion is London-Lite. It's a bustling place with lots going on but without the hassle of London. Yes you still get the people in a rush, and the slow walking tourists, but everything is just a little bit more laid back than Londoners are used to. Part of me thinks that it's because you can't go anywhere in Bristol without hearing music, ...

Although the main bedroom is done with decorating-wise it doesn't really feel like it. I think that's only because I haven't finished putting the doors back on my unit... mainly because they're a pain in the proverbial. I've also got a pile of random junk from when I was sleeping in the guest room before my furniture arrived... I now know the perils of leaving stuff until the last minute as I basically picked stuff up and moved it all to my room. Before All the rooms upstairs were lined with paper, and unfortunately a lot had to be replaced in this room. When Bristol had a lot of flooding years back lots of the homes had bad roof damage which obviously led to some damage on the walls, luckily that was generally cosmetic. As you can see in the picture we had the paste table up and... I wont use the royal "we" here, Dad replaced the bad paper. He's no Granddad when it comes to decorating but it is all still vaguely on the walls... and now it...

So, I've been AWOL for a bit, my apologies, but I do have a good excuse. Last Saturday I moved to my very own home. Does this mean I have truly become a grown-up? I think I'll leave the growing up part for a little while at least. I still don't really feel excited about it... probably because I'm currently sitting on a sofa that's covered in a sheet surrounded by bags and boxes. There are many things about moving that I don't understand: How anyone manages to afford to buy a home, of any description, on their own. I have an average income but every month two thirds of that money goes on rent and bills and what's left is enough for food and transport. There was no wiggle room for saving, and if there was it would take an eternity to save up enough for a deposit. I'm truly lucky to have wonderful parents who a] didn't want to see me suffering in the pit of a flat I had to rent and b] had the forethought to actually have money saved. I am also l...

I was out chatting with a friend yesterday and we were contemplating our year in focus. 2014 kind of went past in a blur. I had to go through my social media to work out what had happened through most of the year. So here it is... my 2014. I went to see La Boheme at the Royal Albert Hall in March. We were up in the nose bleed seats but when we got there we got upgraded to fantastic ones down on the floor. I hadn't seen an opera before, I'm so glad we went. It was the most fantastic performance I'd seen in ages, we cried, and I'm not embarrassed. In June I whizzed off with a friend to Geneva. It was boiling, but beautiful. If I wasn't so old and decrepit then I probably would have enjoyed it more! We were trying to come up with a day trip somewhere and had been thinking Paris, but it was actually cheaper to go to Geneva. It was lovely strolling down the river, it was definitely something random to throw in to the year. Also in June there was a family trip...

I've been a bit absent... I do have a legitimate reason... I have just moved across the country to Bristol. It has been a trying time but everything is mainly resolved. How people move all the time I don't know, I felt rather smug after my first move went fantastically well and I think this time it might have been the world balancing it out. To sum up... arranged flat ages ago, woman pulled out at last minute, I turned into a gibbering wreck, get an alternative flat a week before I need to move, flat is tiny, flat is filthy. I will admit that that is just the bad bits summed up there. I haven't seen much of Bristol yet but from car and bus windows it looks nice. We've driven round a few areas and I've been taking note of places to go online and from books. Going through Clifton was lovely, a comic book store and some good looking restaurants, there's definitely a trip up there on the cards. I'll have to go and find some of the street art too. Of course t...

...but in this instance they're going to drive me to Bristol. All my life I've lived in the same area. It may not be a perfect but it's a good place to live. I have never had the desire to live anywhere else. But life changes, situations change and at some point you have to move on. I have never been this "bold" with my life, putting myself first isn't something I've ever done before... and at this moment I'm still not sure how I'm going to cope with it. I stepped out of my comfort zone when I moved out of home but since then it's been fairly confined. I'm happy where I've been with everything, but recently with things changing at work and issues running through my head it has given me the opportunity to widen my horizons. I'll be making Bristol my new home. I will be starting a new job that I have always wanted to do... and that's all really scary. But I'm trying to think of things to do when I get there... things t...