A little bit of reflection

Two thousand and sixteen.

What a year! I'm with most people who 'just want to forget' this year. I don't know why someone didn't just press reset half way through the year when it was obvious that things were going to pot!

I love reading back on my blog like a diary, I did a year in review of 2015 and wanted to do the same for this god-awful year.

A little bit of time in Cape Town

{This one's a little bit late, and a bit odd now with the change in circumstances, but I had written it before life blew up, and love reading back on my blog for the memories, so what the hell, here's some highlights of our trip to Cape Town- Em x}

Our last stop in Africa after our Botswana Safari (Part one, two and three) was Cape Town. Being totally honest, I really wasn't looking forward to Cape Town that much. We added it on to the end of the safari so that Drew could do a great white shark dive and we only had less than a day to explore it.

A little apology for being MIA

Sorry for being majorly quiet over here for quite some time. If you follow me on Instagram then you've probably picked up on some of what's going on.

Thought I'd do a little update on what I've been up to and why I've been MIA. 

To be completely honest, I've been at rock bottom. 2016 has certainly been a year of devastation; Brexit, Breadxit, Alan Rickman, Bowie, Brangelina... and me. If you've been following the blog for a while you'll know about my wonderful other half, the many holidays and adventures that we had and our perfect little life set-up with the dogs. I probably pushed too far with living together, but after 4 years I really wanted to wake up next to him every day. Anyone that's truly in love will know that desire to wake up and sniff them, to roll over in the night and snuggle them and just do day to day general life with them. Anyway, my moon face turned in to a great big huge sad moon face back in June and my soul has remained in that state since. 

I'm not sure I will ever feel as relaxed with anyone again. That man is absolutely 100% my soul mate, he got me, and I got him. I will miss him every day of my life, but he has made his decision and I have to accept that. The hardest thing (apart from losing my soul mate) has been not being able to see Chewie. I've loved that dog since the day I met him (in the office at my old hotel, when he came bounding in with his tail destroying everything and put his tongue in my mouth). I even loved him when he was so excited to see me that he cocked his leg and peed on me. He was a great source of comfort when we suddenly lost Bailey, our family dog, and he has been the most fantastic big bro to Leia as she's grown up. When we first introduced them, Chewie was terrified and spent 5 days upstairs. He was most miffed that his new bed wasn't infact for him, but once he'd got over that and realised that he also received a treat every time the puppy did something good, he mellowed out a bit. It was Chewie that led Leia outside for her first toilet in the big wide world (my most favourite photo of them).

Recently I've tried to pick myself up and begin the process of moving on. 8 or 9 dates later and I'm still feeling just as bad as I have always. The thing is, I'm not sure you can ever find something that you've already found. I might be cynical, or negative, but I truly believe in true love. Disney love. Movie love. Whatever you want to call it, I believe in the love that I had. And not just the love that I had for him, his family too. I really felt like part of the family and I really miss them. I've never struggled with a break up as much as I have this, maybe because this was the first boyfriend that I truly felt at home with, I don't know. What I do know is that I've hit the lowest point of my life and picking myself up is not proving easy at all. I dream about my heart stopping so that the pain stops. And then I feel selfish for allowing myself to feel so low when there are so many people in the world who are struggling with much bigger things than a break up. But the truth is, when your whole world comes crashing down, for whatever reason, it HURTS.

I've tried various things to get a spring back in my step, so far dating isn't working for me. I went to Disneyland Paris on my own in September (and am going back in just under three weeks) and I've got to say that's been one of the saddest things I've ever done! I've always been up for a solo trip, but when you're in a really bad place, a solo trip is not a good idea. I'm hoping that when I go this time the spirit of Disney at Christmas will pick me up and put that smile back on my face.

Anyway, sorry for the long and boring post. There's so much that I could say about what's happened, but I wont, because whatever he's done, I don't want to hurt him. I guess that's the difference between love and true love.

Hoping to be back very soon with some much more upbeat and happy posts. And some food.

Garden plans...

I moved primarily because I wanted a garden. The two bedroom flat was plenty big enough for me, but I was desperate to get a dog and craved having some outdoor space. I used to spend my summer evenings on my picnic blanket in the park at the top of the road and whilst it was lovely, it just made me realise even more that I needed my own slice of earth.

When I first viewed the house I wasn't overwhelmed with the garden. I'd fallen in love with another house that had a huge garden that had so much potential, and compared to that, this one was long, thin, overgrown and hilly.

Here's the picture that the estate agent took...

A little dinner delight

If you hadn't guessed already, I LOVE food. I especially love food inspired or influenced from holidays or travels and meals like this one definitely give me the fuzzy feels inside.

We've been to Madeira (a Portuguese island) {see holiday post here} a few times and one of my favourite things about holidaying there is the meat. They have these fantastic Esperadas which is a traditional local dish and definitely one of my favourites. So, I thought I'd try to create something similar at home.

A dreamy weekend in Cornwall

A few weekends back we went to Cornwall as part of my birthday celebrations.

The Safari Series - Part Three

Stop number three of our Botswana Safari was the oh so beautiful Chitabe Lediba camp.

If you've not already, read part one and part two to catch up with our journey so far.

After two nights at Seba it was time to move on to our last camp, with very heavy hearts we said goodbye to Tsono and gave him a huge wave from the plane. I was pleased (well, as pleased as I could be) to see that the plane was slightly bigger this time, I actually felt quite relaxed! We flew through quite a lot of smoke from some raging bush fires which made me feel really sad, Botswana is such a beautiful place and from above you can really appreciate it.

The Safari Series - Part Two

The Safari Series: Part Two: Seba Camp

When we left Duma Tau (Part One, here) I was so upset. The place is like paradise and we had honestly never been looked after in such a fantastic way before. I was really worried that the next two camps would be a total let down compared to Duma Tau and that we’d end up just wishing that we were back there… how wrong could I be!