bookshoplaura

In just a few days I will be heading off on my next adventure.  I will be off to re explore Lausanne, Switzerland. I say re-explore as I lived there for the best part of a year 17 years ago. I was the epitome of young, dumb and broke or a jeune fille au pair (my official job description). It was a stunning city but a lot of the beauty was wasted on me as I grappled to find myself and to cope in a city where I knew no one. So now I am finally heading back to see it with fresh eyes as someone who now relishes the thought of travelling solo. The thing I am most likely to be asked about my upcoming trip is who am I going with and when I answer alone (usually this is followed by a slightly awkward silence ) and then they ask am I meeting people over there (Nope) as though going by myself isn't something I am likely to do deliberately. The only awkward thing about paving my own way is trying to explain to people that its a choice and I am more than happy to be rediscovering myself...

I'm not really much of a festival person if I'm honest. I'm not great with big crowds and have low tolerance for very drunk people. I think the only big music festival I've been to is Electric Picnic around 12 years ago and I didn't even camp. When I first heard about Wellfest last year, I knew immediately it was the sort of thing I would enjoy but I fell into some weird procrastination void and didn't book tickets. Instead I watched all the build up on social media and then duly kicked myself for missing out. I think part of what was holding me back was I didn't know anyone else going and I was apprehensive about doing something like that solo. I've since come to realise that you could waste most of your life waiting for other people and miss out on all the good stuff inbetween. The minute the 2019 tickets went on sale I booked mine and then forgot all about it for a few months so it was like a present from me to me when they started to build the...

Hello, to anyone who has been a regular reader of my blog. I have not disappeared. I just haven't been able to come up with a blog topic that I haven't covered to death already so I just thought I'd write an update on where I have been at since I last wrote something. I did a month of nights and if I'm honest that was actual hell. I have written so many posts around sleep deprivation that even I could have strung a sentence together during that time, I doubt I would have anything interesting to add on the topic. However this time around I did take up yoga and re took up meditation while on nights and I'm still going so that's a bonus (on top of the not dying from exhaustion) and I also happened to read a book called why we sleep which honestly scared me. I've always gotten a bit freaked by how little sleep I manage on nights so having the science to back up how much harm its doing was not particularly reassuring. Ultimately I think it was a good thing be...

This is hardly the revelation of the century given that I've mentioned it many times before but I have anxiety. Sometimes its pretty bad but mostly its like the hum of the fridge, ever present in the background. Anxiety is a funny beast, I get a little bit anxious telling people I have it because I worry that they are judging me for it and there is nothing so futile as anxiety about anxiety itself. I get anxious about work, about things I have said or done or have yet to do or might have to do at some point in the future and things I might have messed up even in other jobs in the past. I over think the shit out of everything and sometimes it even creeps into my dreams which is lousy because you don't get paid extra for having work related dreams. I also have social anxiety which is super fun and probably part of the reason (bar my next level introversion) that I like my own company so much. I never say anything hilariously awkward to myself. My social anxiety is there to ...

I have been working in the care sector a few years now and every time I change jobs or even just client group ( I have already moved twice within the same organisation) I get really upset. I guess this is probably a sign I am in the right line of work but it sure doesn't make the goodbyes any easier. When I left Bluebird Care to go work in residential, I had been working long shifts with same young woman for over a year. As you do in my line of work, you form relationships and become attached and I remember getting into my car after my last day with her and bursting into tears and then proceeding to cry the entire drive home. In hindsight I probably should have pulled in as driving on the motorway while violently sobbing is not a particularly safe way to travel. Over time I became less sad about what I had left behind as I built relationships in my new place of work. When an opportunity came up for me to move into my first social care position, this meant leaving the residentia...

Fifteen years ago I spent a year working as an au pair in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was an incredibly beautiful part of the world but not all my memories from that time are happy ones. The family I worked for were difficult to live with and didn't pay me very much so I was too broke to do half the exploring I would have liked. I have one particularly memorable experience where I went sleighing in jeans and runners as I didn't have the money to even rent proper snow gear. I would not recommend it. Also au pairing does not provide you with very many opportunities to meet other people your age so parts of my time there were quite lonely. I ate a lot of fresh bread and swiss chocolate and tried raclette and fondue. I saw a lot of snow and pretty little towns and mountains. I went to my first outdoor baths(heated pool outdoors in an incredible setting), lavey les bains, and I learned a lot of french but mostly needed the help of kamikaze ( a potent cocktail drunk as shots) to have...

Like any woman or person for that matter, I have parts of myself I am not proud of. I have shadows in my past and I know this is part of what makes me human. As someone dating I know that the general idea is to sell yourself but Im a pretty rubbish bragger and there's a reason I wasn't cut out for sales. I've always been a little more comfortable putting myself down (mainly through the medium of sarcasm and self depreciation). I suppose I'm getting better in measuring my own self worth but I could still throw together a list real quick of things that might make me less appealing to a potential partner. Now I've been going through a fairly introspective stage, more so than normal which is really saying something. So every so often I have a particular thought and rather than skipping over it like the Laura of old, I pause and wonder what it actually means. I suppose I can probably blame counselling for that particular habit. Not that blame is the appropriate word ...