Desperately Seeking – Details, episodes & analysis

For the longest time, I avoided this practice. The closest I came was ‘gratitude journalling’ because acknowledging your highlights on dark days is helpful in pulling you out of of a funk. Reminding yourself of what you have is always a good thing.. but writing a ‘dear diary, here’s how I’m feeling’ was off putting to me for two reasons. 1. it felt very self indulgent (I mean really, what’s wrong with that anyway?) but also 2. anything you write is likely vulnerable and not something you’d want someone else to read. A risky practice.

In today’s chat, I’m talking about how I’ve accidentally been journalling to work though my problems for years and how you may benefit from the method I’ve been using too.

Today’s episode ticks off my ‘see a brand new show’ item and discusses the frisson of emotion some of us feel strongly when experiencing a liver performance.

When I wrote my birthday bucket list I cheated a little. There were some things I already had planned that I added, knowing they’d be easy wins.. but others, though possible, I felt I might need a push to complete. This was one.

In 2021 we visited New York at Christmas for the first time, we went to see the tree and it was truly magic. Absolutely lived up to the decades of movie-magic but you couldn’t get very close because there were (what felt like) hundreds of people in one tiny area. Note, this was peak covid time.. we had to test to get on the flight and be temperature checked to enter restaurants while people were body to body at Rockerfeller Plaza.

On our final night, everyone else was asleep while I was sitting by the window, taking in the city when Home Alone 2 came on the TV. MAGIC. I couldn’t believe I was watching the movie, in the city and just a couple of blocks away from that famous tree. Something sparked in me and I wondered, ‘is it always lit? could I go out right now and see it?’. Turns out, the lights are turned on at 5am each morning, so I decided I was going to go out and see the tree lighting alone on our last day.

It really was close by so I only needed to leave 10 minutes before to make sure I was there for the hour. When I arrived, there were maybe 5 or 6 other people with the same idea and as I walked towards the front.. LIGHTS. I’m over-using it but truly there’s no other word. MAGIC. To see that tree with so few people go from darkness to it’s famous multi-coloured glow was a bucket list moment I didn’t know to write down. If you’re ever in the city at that time of year, I can’t recommend it enough.

Once I’d had my fill, I decided to make the most of my early morning and find somewhere to watch the sunrise. I stopped by Starbucks and headed towards the park, where I found another group of like-minded people scattered across a large rock. I set up my camera to capture the scene and enjoyed the collective experience in my favourite place, while my family still slept.

As a middle-aged woman, it’s easy to lose yourself to the day-to-day routine of your commitments but allowing yourself to do something just for you can remind you of who you are, outside of everything else. I’ve seen so many posts recently saying, ‘your mother’s just a girl experiencing life for the first time too’ and while that message isn’t always well received, it’s true. Sometimes we put ourselves in boxes because life is easier to manage that way. I’m in a phase of parenting, marriage, working on this project, building this career. If we only have to worry about what’s in the box, we don’t have to think too far ahead or look beyond ourselves. I understand that more than most, I am easily overwhelmed and the box is comfortable but every now and then, take yourself out and do something different.

Last month we visited New York again and I told my husband I planned to go out and see the sunrise. He wasn’t happy, it didn’t feel safe. Maybe I should have considered him more, maybe it wasn’t fair to choose myself in that moment over his comfort but I did. I took a subway 70 blocks north and watched the sunrise over the reservoir, by the running track. It was exhilarating and walking back through the city, as it was waking up, as people were starting their days, I felt a sense of achievement. I’m not sure why, maybe because it would have been easy to stay in bed and say, ‘next time’ but I needed to show up for myself and say, ‘remember you’re a person living for the first time too’. The moments of madness are always my favourite and while this particular adventure may not be for you, there’s something that would light your fire in that same way, you just have to let yourself out of the box for long enough to find it.

It’s been a minute since I updated the 40by40 but I’m back and with a bit of a rant, apologies. I also decided to record these episodes as videos because I realised I’m more comfortable in front of a camera than a faceless mic.. so if you’d rather watch, that will be an option for these posts moving forward.

I have no idea whether this transcript is any good but I’m playing with the feature. Also, I had in my AirPods while I was recording I think they ended up being my mic which isn’t great - but hey, it’s all a learning curve

Hello friends welcome back. No intro music this week because I'm actually on my lunch break we didn't want that that wasn't the intra music I was looking for uh I'm actually on my lunch break from work and I thought it' probably a good time to give this voice memo thing on my new phone a whirl. So if you didn't know, if you've got an Apple, I feel like it's only the newer ones, but if you've got an apple iPhone that has the Apple intelligence on it, um now transcribes is the word I'm looking for. I'm just going to say translates. It now transcribes voice memos for you, whether it be ones that people have sent to you or the ones that you are sending to someone else. I thought I wonder if this works the same way if you are recording a voicem memo I use voice memo all the time from loads of stuff sometimes just reminding myself of things sometimes for things like recording the podcast on the go lots of stuff and now I'll get a full transcription at the end of this that I can post and uh use as the optional text version of this audio episode. I'm sure this is a thing that you can do elsewhere but I'm I'm just kind of playing with a new feature anyway hello welcome back. It is uh my four seat x 40 audio kind of almost weekly episode. There will be at least 40 episodes um and in this show in the series I am basically documenting myself trying to get through my list of 40 things that I decided I want to do before I turned 40. in February 2026, uh, which is time is going so quickly. I stole something the other day. I can't remember where it might have been on a podcast actually. I heard something the other day and someone said the reason that we get into gardening in middle age is that time goes so much quicker. So for an 18 year old, you plant something in the garden, the idea of not seeing that come to fruition for another six months is just mind boggling. Like why would I plant something now six months is in eternity? When you all pushing forty, you know six months is like a a blip. I get to this weird feeling and I know I'm not alone in this. I can't be. It's actually this weird feeling like I've been really looking forward to something at the moment it's my holiday. We're going on holiday about. He's about three weeks time, which is crazy but I've been really looking forward to it and then it gets to be a few weeks away and I start to get sad and I can't really explain it. We haven't even had the holiday yet. It's I should still be in the anticipation stage. I should still be really looking forward to it, but I'm almost like presub that it's over. Do you know what I mean? I don't know why and I it's crazy. I also remember the last time we went to Florida. I felt like two weeks was too long. We've never been in our two weeks right before and I felt like two weeks was was too many weeks so this time we've we've got 10 days. I don't know if I'll feel differently but I don't know I feel like I'm pretty sad. I feel like I've got the holiday blues before the holiday, which is crazy but I do think that part of that is the whole thing of time is going so quickly also the whole thing of time going so quickly going back to what I was actually saying is um I'll be 14 before I know it and so there was 40 things on my list need to start moving need to start getting done. I am very happy to announce that this week I did do one of the things on my list one of the things on my list was give blood so I did talk about this and Iugged this week but I was at my son's football match or it wasn't his football match. It was his football training where I just sit and I sit in my car and attempt to read my book because one of the things on my list is read a physical book this year. I have gone on to buy several more physical books. I haven't even finished the first one yet. I'm reading lightark. I couldn't tell you who wrote it. I don't have it in front of me currently driving, but the book is called lightark. I'm really enjoying it but I think I may be made a mistake in choosing fun to see. I should have gone. I definitely wanted to move away from Brom Gums. I used to exclusively exclusively like I really burned myself out on it read drumcoms and it's just become so predictable for me now that I can't even enjoy them so I kind of dicted my toe into fantasy in audiobook and I just couldn't really get into the idea of these books because the ones that are like real proper fantasy, the one that I listened to last year that I really did enjoy was called uh bewitches by come on, just like myself into work. The bellwitches by Lindsay Celt, who usually traditionally a rom-com all effect. She's also from the same time as being we've met and she's lovely. Anyway, the traditionally, she is a rom-com author and I was like this this is probably a good segue into a new genre and I would say that it was. I really enjoyed that. I did the voice out saying I didn't find it difficult to to get into that at all. However, I've tried to listen to things like a courtornoses and it's all just a little bit too I don't know. I don't know. I decided that the reason I couldn't get into it was the voice acting and it's all right that's enough car. I decided that the reason I was struggling with it was a fantasy book like that I had to hear it in my own voice and so that's why when I decided to read a physical book I went straight in with fantasy and I think that was a wrong turn. It's been a bit of a grind. I'm enjoying it, but I'm finding it hard to it's not a speed read for me and it's it's YA as well, which I won't say it's shameful because it's not what I did think it would be easier going when it has been. um anyway, so I'm listening I'm listening. I'm uh reading that and I've been taking my hour I have each week where I'm sitting outside my son's football training to read that book. uh I had already made an appointment to give blood because it was on my list. I'd registered and I made an appointment for like, I think it was for a few weeks time. And then I rocked up at this place. It's like a it's like a kind of working men's club with a field behind it. And the blood fan was there. So I thought well why would I not do this? So here we are. I have given blood. I've also already made an appointment to do it again in July. Apparently you can go every 16 weeks if you're a woman, every 12 weeks if you're a man, um I'm I'm not like a real hardcore pain person. I don't have like a really high tolerance for pain. uh and I have really bad veins. Apologies I should have given you a trigger warning people that don't like veins. My daughter and my son, my daughter more so a terrible. My mom is the worst. My mom has to make like a special appointment and she has to like lie down, go behind a thing. It's horrific. And then if I've ever taken my daughter for any kind of blood test, she once fainted four times four separate times as we were leaving, she fainted again, and they never even managed to do the blood draw. Some people have a really, really hard time with that and I totally get that, but with that in mind, because you've got the people who actually can't give blood for some reason, then you've got the people who can't give blood because they've got this real serious fear of it. I mean it doesn't even have to be like serious phobia level. It's just the idea of it. They can't even imagine. And there are so many people that I know in my immediate family that are like that. But I think those of us who do not have that fear should be doing it. So I just want to tell you it was not painful. I rocked up, not prepared at all. I haven't eaten or drunk anywhere near as much as I should have next time when I've got my appointment, I will be a lot more hydrated and I will have had a full meal just before hunt because I was a little bit nervous of that when I'm when I'm literally laying in the bed, someone behind me fainted while they were leaving and I was like no, that that particular day we had planned after football training I was taking Milo to see the Minecraft moving. I thought, I got to get in the car. Pretty sharpish after this and drive us to the cinema and I was getting a little bit nervous after the fact I might be woozy. Thankfully I wasn't at all. They do give you like a drink and a snack and stuff before you leave, but I was actually completely fine, even though I was not hydrated that day um but if you want to do this, I would say get yourself registered, look at places near you that you can go. It took a total of eight minutes half of it is like pre-screening but once you've been screened, that will be a much quicker process in the future. So like that a lot of that stuff that we did was like it's because it was the first time I'd given blood since being a registered donor. In the past, I've only ever done it like I hot when there's been a van somewhere like there used to be a van that came to work and I used to always give, but you know, that's just not a thing anymore. And so what actually triggered this, although it was already on my list at the beginning of the year, it actually triggered me to do this was my friend's dad died recently and he was able to be um an was an O an organ donor and after that she learned a lot about organ donation and how it's actually almost impossible. Like you pretty much have to be on live support to donate your organs so many people aren't able to donate their organs because their body isn't in a fit state to do that at the time that they die. um And so she was looking at like how needed this was and how rare it was and we got into the conversation about blood and I started looking up stuff to do with blood donations. At this point I hadn't registered and made my appointment and they are so in need that I'm just kind of putting it out there. It's very, very difficult to share something like this because it's not a it literally a lay on a bad in like a a hall while my son did football training. The entire time that I was there was he was just out there. It was just completely dead time. It's completely wasted time. If I'd prepared more out of taking my book with me, it was not painful at all. They did have to get one of the heavy hitters. They did have to get, you know, one of the women that had been there for a really long time to come and find my vein. She told me my left is better. It was a whole thing. But the first person that saw me was like, I'm not going to be able to do this. So bear that your mind. I don't have good veins and I did not find this painful. It was like ever so slightly uncomfortable when they put a needle in from there, not I didn't feel the thing. And eight minutes was how long I was actually giving blood. It's no time. It's no time at all. I was also really, really impressed by how many people were in that room. But yeah, it's really hard to to share a story of something that you did the in theory is altruistic without it coming across as that you signaling like, oh, I did this amazing thing. Check me out. But we need more people to talk about it and to make it known how easy it is and how needed it is so that more people will go and do it. If nobody like if you're like me and you're like oh yeah, I've always thought about, but I just never got around to it. And then all of a sudden three of your friends do it and say, oh, come with us like this is so easy then you'll go and do it. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal at all, but it's something that could save someone's life so just putting it out there that was my thing that was my tick on my list so I feel better about ticking it off my list than I do about actually giving blood. This is not like a check me out how great I am so much as we need to talk more about it because if you are able to give, I am of the opinion that you should because so many people for whatever reason are not able um yeah, and apparently I was talking about the other day and someone told me that you find out where the blood went, which is that's fun. That's fun. And you get a little iron test while you're there. It's all good stuff. um so yeah, I got that done. What else did I do this week? I was so maxed out. I I know I spoke about this last week feeling like I was stretching myself too thin, but this week, particularly, I felt so rough. Oh my God, I' Tuesday. Tuesday is usually the day that we take myoain on Tuesday. They had a football game that ended up being rescheduled. Now, this team, this team only plays for a brand new team, most of them have played football before. This is their first season. We're coming to the end of the season on the players, their parents, everyone turns up with all of their matches and we all know they aren't going to win. They are not a winning team. They are just learning how to be a team together and so no one is devastated when they lose each week. We're just kind of like all just there. um so we went on a random Tuesday afternoon slash evening. The kids had been at school all day. We'd all been at work all day and it was a bit of a like, oh, this is going to be terrible. Like why why would we do this? Every other game we have seen as swear the weather has been really terrible like just poor Sunday mornings, even in May it is it's not May yet it's April, even in April, it is absolutely freezing and just miserable. Nobody wants to be. nobody wants to be there on a Sunday morning watching your kids just get absolutely decimated at football in the freezing cold but we do it and we all thought this was all going to be a terrible thing. We're going to an away game which was like an hour away at the end of a Tuesday these kids I don't know where it came from, but they beat the other team. This is I think their first win of the season. Definitely the first win that I've been it and I don't think I've missed it much. That first win. It was absolutely incredible. I was saying to my husband on the way home because we're not football fans at all. We don't watch football outside of this even he doesn't. I am starting to understand like I feel at this point so invested in this team, obviously my child plays for this team, but I feel so invested in the team in spite of the fact that they are constantly losing. But when they finally won, it was an incredible feeling. Now, that day I had felt rough all day and it's now Friday. No, it's not it's Thursday. I'm so confused because it's the bunk holiday so my my my week is truncated and I think that's part of the reason that I felt so stretched this week because I'm losing a day, although I'm gaining a day, I'm losing a day both in my actual day job and in my other staff. For all intents and purposes, yeah, you get Friday off, but when everyone's home, I don't get stuff done and we end up making plans and going out and I basically losing a day excuse me, but where were we even going with this? Oh, I felt terrible. I think, honestly, it's because I had my coil removed a couple of weeks ago and I've been like waiting for like the the bomb. I've been waiting for the like, ah, the first period. And I've been so many years since I've had a period. I've been on some method of contraception that reduces or completely removed my period from my life for 20 years off and on. And um oh my husbands just messaged me something about paint. Okay. must remember talk to him about paint after this. um what was I even saying what was I even saying this is the problem I'm literally just talking to you in my car outside work absolutely no guidelines and so getting back on track is going to be hard. Oh yeah so I've been waiting to to get off those periods and be like oh, it's going to be terrible. I haven't had to deal with this for so long. What am I going to do? And I think that the nausea and the headaches that I've had for the past three days are that I think it's part of the cycle. I asked on Instagram, like tell me what your weirdest symptoms are so that I can be prepared because I feel like morning sickness level nausea. I just feel terrible. I've been like going to bed early, which is unheard of for me. I literally just went out to Ara lunchtime because I didn't know why I wanted to eat. I ended up with a crap, like a massive share bag of pun cockil crisps um some hobnobs, just regular hobnobs, not chocolate ones, just regular hobnobs are the best, and mybrofen. Oh, and an ended drink. I just wasn't like I don't even know what I want to eat. And this is what I ended up with. I'll probably live to regret this. I'd like to eat something proper, but you know, I'm at work. I can't cook for myself. Anyway, all that is to say. I feel like garbage. So if anyone has any suggestions as to like things that I need to be aware of for these are things. So I don't think I'm ill and I just know listen, this is just part of my life now. Then please let me know. But while we were at football, like I thought it was going to throw up when I got there, a little car ride and I'm not good. Going to a seaside tomorrow to see Lee's dad and I'm not looking forward to it to all the because any kind of windy road driving and I could throw up. I'm so easily travelsick. I do have some I've got some quell. I've got some Averen. I've got a few different travelsick with pills. I' that I'm going to take with me but still. But while we were watching them play football, it all dissipated. It was such a fantastic distraction. I felt amazing. I was shouting. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. I got videos of the kids hugging the coaches and stuff. Oh, it was just like everyone needed this so much their morale has been so low. It's it was just an incredible, incredible feeling and then the minute I got back in the car, I felt sick again. But isn't that funny? Like sometimes you do need to distract yourself, uh, but it was a very welcome distraction and a very welcome win. It was amazing. It was amazing. Truly and starting to understand sports. I was starting to understand the appeal of sports in general. Another thing that I did this week, which was I suppose it's kind of relevant to turning 40 because so many people think you should grow out of this as you get older. I pre-ordered the Nintendo switched to. I didn't think I was going to do this. I thought I was not bothered. I I got the steam deck for Christmas, which is basically a handheld gaming PC. and it's incredible. It is if someone said to me I'm thinking about getting a console, what should I get? I would say that. Like if you're only going to get one thing because so many games, I know it's going to be like exclusive to certain platforms, but for the most part apart from Nintendo, so many games are available on steam and they're always cheaper or onher or whatever rather than on other devices, on other console. They're always going to be cheaper on steam. You can duck it. You can play it on the TV. You can also play at onld which is amazing. um and it plays games you would never imagine. You can play the Sims on it handheld hand held. There's a game called Inzo that I'm playing at the moment, which is kind of like the Sims. It's it's missing something. It's missing like it's it's kind of the Sims, but like with incredible graphics on paper, but it's missing the the real heart of it all. um the like fullness of the lives of the of the zoos. But that came you can play on hand held and I just can't believe I've lived to see it honestly. I can't. But I was listening to some stuff the other day um and initially I felt good about my decision to not buy the switch to. I was like, I got the steam deck. What can the switch to possibly bring me and then this person started talking about Zelda and then they started talking about like the potential of new animal crossings and different cozy games and they just thought no I have to get it. I have to get ited because I'm going to regret it otherwise. There's a whole thing with tariffs in America of whether or not it's going to be available and what the price will be. But since that's not affecting us, um right now anyway, I thought I'm going to get it pre-ordered and so I did and it might be something that I choose to discuss more in future episodes or maybe like write something about it because it's such a huge part of my hobby life is gaming always has been I've loved to escape into a video game and it's also something that I lean on when I'm trying to save money um which is not always great because video games cost money but if I'm on my fail if I'm on social media and I'm scrolling it's very very likely that I'm going to see something that makes me want to spend money. It just is. I'm probably going to see something that like triggers, ooh, I love that top that she's wearing or I love that whatever. And then I'm quickly going down the rabbit hole of how much is that. And although I'm not doing the spending at the moment, I'm being really good about saving and being careful, which by the way, I did do I did post a couple of videos this week. One of them was a decotter. I have been in an OG realm of YouTube recently. I've been posting twice weekly on my Miss Budget Beauty Channel. I've been posting every single day. Oh my gaming channel. Well, I've just I've been feeling a real like love for it again, which is really fun. Um, but yeah, back to veans. I find that I can kind of sit in front of the TV at night we're watching whatever we're watching and I'm playing a game. I'm not it that I'm just in that world. I'm just living in that world of that game and I'm not at all considering what I want to be buying or I'm not I'm not thinking about anything that's outside in the real world. I'm just thinking about the tasks and the goals within that game. And so it's really good to keep me off social media, but it's also great as a bit of escapism. And I don't think there is an age where you need to stop doing that. I don't think that there is any age where that's inappropriate or you should feel like you're too old to do this anymore. I don't I feel like that about all hobbies really. I mean, adult coloring books came back in such a huge way. I have friends that will use adult coloring books, but would still kind of, you know, not in a mean way, but kind of turn up their nose at video games as a child's plaything and I don't know. I just I just never felt that way. I've never felt like a there's going to come a time where I feel like I'm too old to do this. I really can't recommend it enough as a hobby, especially in in today's world where escapeism feels more needed than ever. But yeah, I have literally there's I just absolutely no guidance this week. So apologies. I'm here there everywhere. That is who I am as a person so I suppose I shouldn't apologize. This is just who I am. I'm going to go back to work now and eat my skips and my hobnobs. um and hope that I feel a little bit better because I feel like arbit right now and this is if this is truly something that it's going to, I'm going to feel like this every single month. I'm not, I'm not into it honestly. I would consider putting the coil back in no, not really, but I was talking to some people yesterday who said that their symptoms were about enough for them to go back on birth control. So maybe something to look forward to. Let me know let me know what else I have to look forward to. Check out giving blood. check out registering and where you can go and perhaps with that if if you are even a little bit interested and I will speak to you next week. Maybe with another thing off my list who knows?

Apologies to this few regular readers for my absence last week but I recognised I needed to take some time to refill my cup so I hope you’ll forgive me.

Just a quick BONUS 40 By 40 audio episode this week. I’ve started Couch 2 5K but for different reasons than you might expect, I’ve been out and walking more because of it, in my NEW running shoes, no less.. and getting excited about taking my Dad to Disney World and making plans to make more plans.

ENJOY - and happy hump day.. I had this ready on Monday but the days are getting away from me during half term.

This morning I went for my waay overdue smear and I’m ashamed that I’m ashamed to tell you why.

I had, what I have been describing as, a pretty traumatic experience at my last gynaecological appointment in 2020. I’ve been using the Mirena Coil as contraception for most of my adult life and have talked it up to anyone who would listen as not only a fantastic thought-free contraceptive but also, NO PERIODS, hello? Yes, it’s uncomfortable to put in and have changed but it’s worth it for the FIVE years of protection.

The last time I went to have a new one put in, I decided to vlog my experience. The idea was to encourage more women to go get their smear AND introduce them to the wonderful world of coils. It did not go quite as planned.

I don’t make a habit of crying on the internet so fair warning but if you want to see the raw reaction to what went down, it’s available for your viewing pleasure.

I still maintain that for the majority, a smear is uncomfortable and invasive at worst but it’s essential healthcare that should not be put off. Again, I know there are some women for whom this is not the case so do not feel I’m dismissing you, in fact I’m about to get real hypocritical.

When I went to have my smear done and my coil removed - I’m nothing if not efficient - they could not find the coil. They even pulled out the internal ultrasound but it was not to be found. This had never happened to me before but the nurse said it was common and the strings had likely been displaced at my last smear. I just needed to pop to the hospital so they could ‘go in and get it’.

That didn’t sound like a lot of fun but she said, ‘just take a couple of ibuprofen 20 minutes before your appointment and you should be fine.’

Weeks later, I found myself on a park and ride bus to the hospital, having googled this procedure to death and feeling understandably nervous. I was arriving in plenty time to take the ibuprofen and wait to be called.. but they called me in early. I laugh now, thinking how concerned I was that the pills wouldn’t have time to take effect. How naive to believe they would have even touched the pain I was about to experience.

I am not a weak person and beyond that I am such a people pleaser that I can put a brave face on just about anything. So when I tell you I was audibly wailing while they manually dilated my cervix enough to insert forceps to blindly grasp around my uterus, looking for the lost object. By the time they were done, I expected to be presented with a third child.

I’ve thought a lot about that day in the time since. There were two women in that room with me and neither thought I should have been given so much as a topical anaesthetic. I wish I could go back and advocate for the woman I was but it’s certainly changed the woman I am today. I’m not sure if I did it because it was already so much pain that I wanted to get something out of it or if I wasn’t entirely in my right mind that day but I had another coil put in while I was there.

Weeks later, my smear result came back positive for HPV - which my daughter thought was the same as HIV and so an unknown number of people have been given entirely inaccurate information about my health but that’s a story for another time. When you test positive for HPV, you need to come back for annual smears. It isn’t in and of itself a cause for concern and most people will carry it at some time in their lives but it is the primary cause of cervical cancer so they need to keep an eye on it.

My mum screened cervical smears for 20 years so I grew up with the importance of this drilled in to me. You catch it early and you have your best chance of treating it. This brings me back to my shame. Remember when that nurse told me the reason the coil had gone missing was likely my smear? And remember how just popping to the hospital to go in and find it was actually HORRIFIC? Yeah, so didn’t go for those annual smears.

I actually planned to have my husband have a vasectomy and my coil removed pretty rapidly but that hospital appointment was 4 days before we went in to national lockdown and I don’t know about you but I was a little distracted.

So 5 years later, that’s done, the coil is no longer needed and I rock up at the doctors office, terrified that they will tell me it’s missing again but prepared and ready to get that very overdue smear ticked off the infinite to do list. The nurse I saw was so lovely. She said what had happened to me was barbaric and I could have cried then and there. What happened to me caused me to neglect my own health and carry shame about it for 5 years. Hopefully it will all be fine and no harm done but that nurse telling me what happened should not have happened allowed me to forgive myself for letting fear override what I knew I should be doing.

I felt like a bad example to my daughter, I didn’t want to tell my Mum, I was scared. But I was scared because I - and so many women - was put in a position where I was expected to just accept a huge amount of pain.

What I learned, and what I want you to take from this is that we can say no. Before I went in there today I was honestly not sure how confident I was in advocating for myself. I worried that if I were to be in the same situation again, I might just let them do it. I have a really hard time saying what I need and standing up to any kind of authority but I know now with absolute certainty that I was going to go to that hospital insisting on a complete spinal block.

I know a man who is so afraid of the dentist that they put him to sleep for minor work to be done. I’m not saying he’s wrong, I’m saying men ask for what they need and they get it.

If you can’t do it for yourself, take someone with you who will. Don’t allow fear to put off essential check ups like I did. Thankfully, she found the strings, whipped out the coil (ouch) and I’m sitting here with minor cramps and major relief. I don’t know how I feel about recommending the coil anymore. It’s still a fantastic option, apparently they can last for EIGHT years now and when they’re good, they’re really really good. But as with so many medical things, when something goes wrong, it’s scary.

If I were 10 years younger and didn’t have to have annual smears, I’d probably still have another. Isn’t that insane? The worst pain I’ve ever experienced was to retreive this but I’d do it again? Is this what is is to be a woman? We’re so used to pain that we’d willingly put ourselves though it? I don’t know and I don’t have the energy to do those mental gymnastics today but it’s over for me. I’ll have my first regular periods just in time to start perimenopause so that will be interesting and something I’m sure we’ll talk more about here - excited?

ALSO, one last thing. If you are terrified of having a smear, I mean you are just never going to go, get an at-home HPV test. The NHS no longer look at every single smear. If you don’t test positive for HPV, they don’t look at the cells under a microscope anymore. I’m not saying don’t go for your smear but if you are in that group who find it intolerable, get yourself an at home kit and have that be the minimum standard. At least then, if something comes up, you can go to the doctor and say ‘put me out! do what you need to do’ but you aren’t ignoring your reproductive health entirely.

Whew! That was emotionally draining but something huge off my birthday bucket list and one step closer to starting my 40s in the best shape of my life inside and out.

I run a small business with a colleague. This Summer will mark 2 years since we launched and I’d like to say we’re going from strength to strength but January hit us harder than expected. Partially supply related and partially a bit of burn out from the Christmas season but this week we bounced back in a way that really made me think.

How much of the Q4 slump is a self fulfilling prophecy? We took our foot off the gas because we remember the post Christmas nose dive of last year. So did we think we could allow ourselves a break or were we protecting ourselves from that feeling of failure when orders decline? Further still, might we have kept things ticking over had we maintained pressure?

Tomorrow we’re attending a market, which we booked as a bit of a jump start to the Spring season. We needed a warm up after 6 low effort weeks and when I tell you we turned things around in a matter of hours. We got together to prep for the event and it was like switching a light back on. I was back on track, refreshing the website, creating promotions, sending emails. I made 4 new scents, did the photography and prepped the listings on the site for everything we plan to launch in March – all things I would usually put off until the 11th hour.

In 3 days we’ve had a sales week comparable with peak candle season .. in February.

As someone who’s been semi-self employed for almost 15 years, success often feels completely out of my control. People say to keep at it and you’ll be rewarded but I have been on many paths that have felt like a real grind and haven’t led to that promised gold. Now I’m wondering, is it less about work and more about mindset? I’ve been straddling the world of sceptics and manifestation for a while but I do prescribe to the idea that your attitude affects your outcome. Not quite ‘believe it, achieve it’ but ‘whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.’

So how can we change our attitude?

I once participated in laughter therapy at an event. It was as crazy as it sounds and not something I would have chosen to attend but it was a group of bloggers who didn’t know each other and it was billed as a bonding exercise. Who was I to argue? I went in feeling stupid, having to laugh out loud and fake a giggle to the partner beside me but by the end, I truly felt better. We were all genuinely smiling and more relaxed. I felt my shoulders soften and physiologically, I can’t tell you there was any difference in the feeling in my body than had the laughter been authentic. I don’t think your body knows the difference between fake joy and reality. Laughing increases the brain’s production of endorphins so you still feel the effects associated with that – pain relief, reducing stress– and effectively manipulate your brain in to legitimately improving your mood.

Have you heard the theory behind the super hero pose? I first read about this (listened, let’s be real) in Shonda Rhimes book, ‘Year of Yes’. She also wrote it in to Greys Anatomy so maybe you saw it demonstrated by Amelia Shepard? The idea is that you stand for 1 minute in the morning and it will have a positive impact our your behaviour all day. You can read about the study here, I’m not going to pretend you came to me for science and statistics but there’s some of both to back this up, if you’re interested. They also tested the inverse, with people sitting and slouching and compared the subsequent behaviours of both groups. It’s a fascinating idea that again supports something that has always felt a bit ‘woo woo’ for most of us. I have certainly experienced my chosen attitude affecting my day - for better and for worse - so maybe we do have more control than it seems.

One of my 40 things to do before 40 is to go and see a motivational speaker. This week, my friend Emma and I booked a place on the Mel Robbins UK tour. We’re waaay in the back, standing room only but I figured it’s less about the visual and more about the word. It cannot be a bad thing to stand body to body with other (presumably mostly) women feeling the same kind of ‘lost’ as I am and looking for direction. I think of this kind of thing in the same way I assume others think of Church. We’re seekers of a different flavour but seekers all the same. I want to believe that I have some control over my life, those of faith choose to believe someone else does. Either way, we want to know someone has the wheel and we can actively participate on keeping the vehicle on track.

So although I didn’t technically tick off any of my to-do’s this week, this feels aligned with at least one and it’s really shifted my attitude for Spring.

WEEKLY UPDATE

So what else happened this week?

Honestly, beyond the market prep and business stuff, not a lot! I did post a couple of vlogs, which I’ll link at the bottom of this post but I didn’t get a lot else done. I wanted to start reading the book I just bought but I didn’t so much as crack the spine. The small business universe can really envelope you sometimes and this was one of them.

Today, I’ve reset for a brand new season and I’m excited for sunnier skies and less frigid temperatures. If you didn’t catch my Spring Mood Board last week, you should go and check it out.

It’s a great way to set a tone for a new period and reignite some passion about your daily life rather than always be wishing and hoping for the future.

Until next week, I hope the weather holds out and we all feel a little brighter.

CATCH UP ON THE VIDEOS I POSTED THIS WEEK:

I mentioned in a previous post that vision boards were OUT for me, that ‘mood boards’ were the only way forward for positive visual guidance. I also realised that the vision boards I’d made were almost all more mood in tone anyway so.. this isn’t really a huge change but the introduction of a seasonal switch up has been a recent thing I’ve really enjoyed.

This is an easy tick off my 40by40 list because I was doing it anyway but I added it so I’d have to share it with you.

Think of this like styling for your life. If you’re looking for wardrobe inspo, you might save a folder of outfits you like. If you’re decorating, you might be screen grabbing from insta home accounts on the reg. This is collecting images that inspire you or represent how you want to feel. Doing this at the start of each season is a great way to set the tone for the next quarter and refresh your excitement for your day to day.

This doesn’t have to mean shopping or spending any money at all. It’s not about changing yourself or your home. It’s more about choosing areas to focus on, maybe creating a colour palette.. it’s more a creative to do list, if you will. For me, it’s just more stimulating than words on a page and I’m more likely to be motivated by it.

So what’s on the board for Spring?

Pops of Pink

It doesn’t have to be pink but I’d like to make the effort to inject more colour in to my day to day. Whether it be makeup or clothing, dopamine dressing is on the rise for a reason and after the coldest winter in memory, I will try anything to boost my mood.

Bright Workspaces

Again, the winter has been DARK for me and I’m ready for some LIGHT. I’ve been reorganising my office and I plan to shuffle the candle studio so that I have a brighter work space to spend my time in. I am craving light mornings and warm afternoons in a way I never have.

Garden Prep

Every Spring I get ahead of myself and clear out the garden too early. I start cleaning up and planting and then it inevitably snows or rains for the next 28 days. This year, I will plan a little less haphazardly and make sure I get outside when I can. I want to plant some more flowers from seed this year and commit to keeping the garden tidy as an almost (forced?) outdoor therapy. If left to my own devices I could go weeks without ever setting a foot outside, even though I know I need to see sunlight to have a chance at a lighter mood. All of my work and hobbies are indoor so I need to find a reason to leave the house.

Business

We’ve had a little more time ‘off’ than intended but candles are a seasonal business and I think we were both a little burned out (no pun intended) after the Christmas rush. Between that and a lack of supplies, we had a couple of very low effort months but we have an in person market on Saturday so we’re going to use that time to reset and make plans for the year. I want to get our social media/marketing plan in place and be less adhoc in 2025.

Style Content

This kind of fits in with the first but it’s more specific and quite different to what I’ve traditionally posted. I want to put more time in to sharing outfits and realistic styling on someone pushing 40, who lives a regular life in the North of England. Someone with an actual day job rather than a big city influencer is who I’m looking to follow but they’re few and far between so I want to be that for other people looking for that.

They’re kind of mini goals to refresh my enthusiasm for keeping on track but more than anything, it’s a visual representation of a VIBE. It’s a feeling.

So what else has been going on this week?

Well.. we had the Great Flood of 2025, which I wrote about here and features in this vlog

That was fairly terrible and we still don’t have lights downstairs but the wifi is back and the sockets are working so.. could have been much worse and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the circuits will dry out eventually. It’s only been a week.

I’ve been experimenting with how many meals I can make from one chicken (both as a cost saving exercise and trying to cook more) so expect something about that soon because it’s becoming somewhat of a fixation.

I wrote something about my relationship with makeup and my face for Wednesday but I put it in video form - I was just in the mood - and the response has been really surprising. It’s more and more common for people to forgo makeup in their daily lives now and I truly thank lockdown for that. I think it’s helped me accept myself and my face at a time when I may have been more critical of my ageing appearance.

I’ve been trying to avoid social media this week because every time I open instagram I’m pulled into comment sections I wish I hadn’t seen and reminded that there are people who truly do not care for anyones rights but their own. It’s an ongoing terrible place to be right now and yet it’s how I earn a portion of my regular income.

I was talking to my kids about family channels recently. I didn’t post them much as kids and made most of the vlogs when they were young private a long time ago because I recognised that it wasn’t a great idea to put them online at that kind of volume. They still featured here and there but my vlogs are almost 100% just me because I don’t want to give viewers trolls (let’s be real) unnecessary access to my friends and family.

With this in mind, I talked to my kids, given they’re older now, about family vloggers and asked what they thought. Neither of them had an issue with the general premise. Even when I pointed out the grey area with money and consent.. maybe because it’s so normalised to be online now? but I think I felt the same way 15 years ago. I couldn’t zoom out.. maybe that’s age.

My point being, most adults would agree that family vloggers are not to be supported these days. We don’t want to feed in to a culture that could be exploiting children and so we protest it by avoiding that content - because if we engage with it, we’re no better than they are.

So when social media feels as toxic as it has lately, as bitter and dark (and I recognise this is my timeline, probably not yours) how much of that has to lay with us for sustaining it. Especially those making money through it. I mentioned last week that I’d reset my feed and it’s helped some but not as much I’d have liked. I definitely feel a full instagram detox coming for me. Maybe I should have added that to my list so I had to do it!

As promised, the list is complete but I’m starting to feel a tiny bit overwhelmed by this challenge. I tried to throw in some easy wins but it’s still a lot for someone who keeps themselves as busy as I do. Maybe that’s part of the point? I need to make time to complete this list.

I’ve already started booking things in the diary to tick some things off and reaching out to friends to see what they might be interested in doing with me. None of these things are essential or must be completed before the deadline but the idea is to really push myself to live a little so when I do turn 40, I can look back at the last year as a reminder that I’m not winding down. I’ve definitely felt a physical shift in the past few years and I can see how it happens. You cease up the less you do and I’m starting to feel older. If I’m lucky I have as many years ahead of me as behind and I want to be fit and well (physically and mentally) enough to enjoy them.

* Have What She’s Having - Visit Katz Deli*

* Learn Film Photography

* Have a Colour Analysis

* Write a Book - WORKING ON THAT HERE

* Spend a Day in London

* Get My Smear (and remove my coil) - POST

* Take a Pottery Class*

* Learn to Crochet

* Do a Handstand for 10 seconds

* Read a Physical Book - POST

* Create a Planner to sell - POST

* Go to a Pilates Class

* Make Something I Can Wear

* Watch a New York Sunset - POST

* Watch Fireworks at Disney - POST

* Buy a Piece of Original Art*

* Give up Alcohol - POST

* Learn to Play a Song on Piano

* Write a letter to my 50 year old self

* Play The Lottery*

* See a Motivational Speaker - POST

* Give Blood - POST

* Throw a Dinner Party*

* Swim in the Sea

* Attend a Silent Disco

* See a Brand New Show - POST

* Go on a Solo Date

* Run a Workshop

* Plant a Flower Garden

* Take a Historical Tour

* Put Washer Fluid in My Car - POST

* Plant Snowdrops*

* Create a Mood Board - POST

* Visit a National Trust Park

* DIY Facial*

* Make a Time Capsule

* Go on a Bike Ride*

* Reconnect with an Old Friend

* Go to a Football Game*

* Meditate

As I said before, these aren’t all things I’ve never done - I talked about the smear in yesterdays bonus post - but they’re things I’d like to do and if it suits, I’ll document them as I go. Next week we’re starting .. possibly easing myself in, I”ll see how I feel.

On with the weekly roundup

How is it already the middle of the month? I think the awareness that time is whizzing by me lately is both adding to my fear of the forty things but also encouraging me to make more plans. Life is literally passing my by and I’m spending it counting down to time when I hope I’ll have more time. What a waste.

With that said, I feel like I did nothing this week. I got a better handle on the kind of content I want to work on this year so that was a positive but once again feel like I started many jobs and finished none. This week the kids (I still always say kids even though Ella left school a while ago) are off school and that’s a total pot luck as to whether I will have more or less time to myself. I’ll try to use it to organise the house a bit and reset. I always feel bad holing up in my office to write of film when Milo is home all day but if I’m pottering about, he can find me and we can do something if he wants.

In case you missed the weekly vlog, I went to the hairdressers, did a little vinted show and tell with some insanely sized shorts (6 inches larger than advertised) and chatted a bit about the potential of opening a shop. Something I’ll talk more about as it becomes a reality.

Towards the end of last year lots of people were requesting longer videos so I settled on a weekly vlog of 45mins or more but the views are no more than when I posted several shorter videos so I’m tempted to go back to the old schedule from March. Maybe Weekly Vlog part 1 / part 2.. we’ll see.

I watched a Ted Talk called, ‘the death of the follower’ and it really got in my head. I’ve written something more in-depth about it for Friday but it has made me think about youtube as a viewer and a creator and how the motivation has changed because the ranking and algorithms have created an environment where in order to thrive, you have to cater to new viewers rather than the old ones. That’s never been my bag so I’ve never been very successful and I suspect changing my format to more long-form was a bit of me bowing to the pressure of what people want vs what I want to create. Like I said, more about that on Friday.

I also filmed a couple of ‘favourites’ videos. One was a casual ‘here are some unfun items I never talk about but use all the time’ that I dubbed my ‘unsexy faves’. I felt like that might be a nice juxtaposition to all of the lovey dovey valentines videos on Friday.

..and the second was a look back at my beauty faves from way back in 2015. The idea was to see what I may still have/use and compare my favourites then to what I use now. Some have stood the test of time but my use of powder a decade later is very very different.

You couldn’t have paid me to use an oil underneath my foundation in 2015 but now? I can’t live without it. Not many people have that kind of time capsule of themselves so, narcissistic as the medium may appear, there are some self development benefits too. I’m half tempted to send some old videos to my therapist sometimes. ‘Rather than explain who I am ,it would be quicker if you just watched this video of me watching myself in another video’.

In other news, I had my nails taken off. Not as brutal as it sounds but almost. I’ve had builder gel or acrylic on for a few years at this point but while trying to cut back on needless spending recently, it did occur to me that this was an expense I could cut.. for a while at least. I’ve pre-booked my holiday nail appointment but thought I could save a little money in the interim and it also coincides with a lot of manual work I need to do for the business. Having glossy, long nails is not conducive with erecting a 6ft tent and carting all of our stock around for a market stall.

I tell you something else I did this weekend that I didn’t know was a thing. I edited my instagram feed. It’s a work in progress so I’ll let you know next week how it’s going but I didn’t know you could add keywords for things you’d like to have taken out of the suggested posts, you can reduce the amount of political and sensitive content you see AND you can both reset and PAUSE suggested posts entirely.

Recently I’ve felt less and less inspired by instagram. I’m constantly pulled in to fights about social issues that I just cannot scroll past and it’s not a healthy spot for me. I want to see more of the people I follow and less of the rage bait the platform serves me because I cannot help but engage with it. I know it’s my own fault but you get stuck in a cycle. Or not, perhaps. This may have been my way out. I unfollow people regularly to try to keep people I want to see coming up in my feed but pausing suggested posts has been MARVELLOUS! Game changer.

So for you free subscribers, I’ll be back next Monday with another roundup and an update on my 40by40 list and for anyone supporting my content via sub stack, I’ll see you on Wednesday on Friday too!