In a lemon-honey-ginger haze: thoughts on being home

You know what’s fun? Travelling home for the holidays to find your family have come down with a seriously nasty chest infection. You know what’s even more fun? … When you feel like you’re starting to catch it.

So, I made the 200 mile journey back up North a couple of days ago – a hellish series of train journeys that landed me in Worcester, then Birmingham (neither of which is where I live) until finally my mother picked me up from Moor St and we drove home. I’d been working all day, dragged my heavy suitcase to the train station and then spent the rest of the evening navigating delayed and cancelled trains until I ended my journey (and promptly fell asleep) at 2am. Needless to say, I was tearful, exhausted, and mentally drafting a letter to Great Western Rail by the time my day came to a close. Not the best start to a trip back home.

It was, however, beyond perfect to have all of my little sisters in the same room for once. Particularly Lauren, my oldest little sibling, because we rarely get to see each other – what with me living in Bath, and her in Newcastle. I only got to soak up her attention for a few hours as she was catching her bus back, but it made our time together more precious and we managed not to bite each other’s heads off (!!). There were some emotional farewells at the end of the night when Lauren’s boyfriend drove her back up to Manchester to catch her bus: we will all miss her dearly, but I’m going to plan a trip up to Newcastle ASAP. Distance won’t keep us apart for long, kiddo.

Catching up with everyone and seeing my mum, her partner, and my very many sisters again has been lovely. I still have a few more days here (and lots of other catch-ups scheduled with various pals – and my Nana!) so I’m excited to have a little more time to chill. It’s been nice to wake up in the mornings without knowing that I’ve got work to do in some form or another; I’m so used to early mornings by now that my body still naturally wakes me up around seven. Heartbreaking when you want a lie in.

My mum and her partner are both dying with this horrendous chest infection; my mum has now properly lost her voice and coughs about every three seconds. After feeling the beginning tickles of a cough last night, I texted Callen for the recipe to his emergency fix-it lemon drink:

B: how do I make your magic lemon ginger water stuff? dying x

C: *responds in less than a minute with huge essay on how to make magic lemon ginger water*

I have never been more thankful for our friendship. I got lemons, ginger, honey and boiling water and washed / peeled / chopped everything in keeping with Callen’s meticulous instructions. I distributed mugs of magic lemon water to every contaminated person in the household, myself included, and I can honestly say that I think this might be a breakthrough. I love this magic water! I think I’m going overboard on the honey, Callen, if I’m honest, but it tastes great and I’m probably going to drink this every day for the rest of my life.

I’m all cosy-ed up for the night, ready to do a little bit of writing before bed. Tomorrow is my little cousins birthday, so it’ll be lovely to head out and celebrate with the family (all wrapped up warm, of course!). I hope you’ve all had a lovely Christmas if you celebrate it and are looking forward to a fresh new year!

A Different Kind of Christmas

Lifestyle

If I’d been asked to work in retail over Christmas last year, I would have point-blank refused. Christmas is the one time of year that it seems totally necessary to travel the 195 miles it takes to get me back home and be with my family. However, I am so in love with my job at a local bookstore that I agreed to work Christmas Eve and Boxing Day without a second thought.

But that second thought always, eventually, comes.

“I can’t go home for Christmas Day. I’m going to be alone, pulling a Cameron-Diaz-in-The-Holiday kind of stunt, drinking mulled wine from the bottle and dancing around to The Killers.”

Fortunately, that was not entirely the case.

I’m very lucky to live with my best friend (also conveniently named Beth), and she was also roped into working over the festive season. Discovering that both of us would be sharing Christmas together was a wonderful moment, and immediately the preparations began. We did our Big Food Shop a few days ago, buying vegetables and pigs-in-blankets like we were soon due an apocalypse and might never eat again. After we’d set ourselves back at least sixty quid, we’d stocked up the cupboards (though we still managed to build up our anxiety thinking about everything we might’ve forgotten…)

I was woken up on Christmas morning by a phone call from my mum, her partner, and my four glorious sisters back home (who had somehow managed to open all of their presents before 7.30am), which was just like being there with them. Beth woke up shortly afterwards, and we had our morning brews to a soundtrack of Wham! and the rain on our conservatory roof. We paced our presents throughout the morning, first opening our presents from each other, then Beth’s parents, then mine.

We skype’d Beth’s mum and grandparents, called other family members and friends, then opened the little shoe-boxes of presents my family had sent down for both of us while video-chatting them. Between us, we cleared a bottle of mulled wine by midday – and I don’t know why we ever thought we’d run out of chocolate on Christmas Day; we have at least enough to share with the rest of our street (not that we will).

We’ve binge-watched First Dates, our current guilty pleasure, and watched The Muppet’s Christmas Carol while we ate our absolute feast of a meal – all thanks to chef Beth. Too tired to do anything else (aside from squeeze in some Christmas pudding), we then proceeded to nap for an hour or so and are now eagerly awaiting the Eastender’s Christmas special.

I’ve had a lovely day with one of my favourite people, and although I’ll be working tomorrow and the following day, I get to go back up North on the 27th for a week to see my family and have Christmas Round Two.

They say you should always be with family at Christmas time – and I’m very lucky to have family down here in Bath in the form of Beth.

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Christmas and (if you’re not working in retail like some of us) get to enjoy the rest of the festive period! Eat, drink (exclusively mulled wine if possible) and be merry.

Fireworks & family

Lifestyle

Happy bonfire night everyone! I don’t usually do little updates but I couldn’t think of much to write a blog post on today, and I just wanted to make sure I was, you know, actually writing…

On Wednesday evening, one of my many younger sisters came down to see me. We had a lovely couple of days together; I took her around Bath (she is eleven and loves Lush and Bubble Tea…), to the cinema (to see the new My Little Pony film which I thoroughly enjoyed) and to Avon Valley country and wildlife park (where we fed goats and reindeer and spent a long time on the zip wire). One of the things about having so many younger siblings (and having them live so far away!) is that I rarely get to spend time with one of them by themselves. Often, if I do see my sisters, we’re all together, or a couple of them are with me – which is obviously wonderful, still – but it was great to spend time with one of them alone. We had some lovely quality time together.

On Friday night, Charlotte (11) and I went to go see a big firework display up at the Racecourse. It was a beautiful display, and there were lots of (hugely overpriced) stalls and fairground rides for us to waste our money on. The event finished around nine pm, and then my mum (who had been driving from Manchester since about four…) came to Bath with another of my sisters, Jessica (7) and stayed the night.

Saturday was spent shopping with my mum and two youngest sisters – we went to Wells which, as well as being the set for one of my favourite films Hot Fuzz, has a quaint little farmer’s market on a Saturday morning. We browsed the market and my mother and I nicked all the free samples of mulled wine while the kids stole all of the cheese samples. I’m sure the people of Wells really appreciated our custom. We then went to the Clarks’ Outlet Village in Street – somewhere I would highly recommend if you want decent brands at discounted prices! Radley had a 70% off sale (we were tempted, but have sense), and the kids indulged on sale lip-glosses and eye-masks in Claire’s Accessories.

My family left last night (always an emotional time – but I’ll see them again at Christmas!), and I got in some tidying and cleaning before bed. So productive. I have a manuscript submission due on Friday, which is hugely nerve-wracking, but my fellow writer friend Callen is heading over today to help me smash out my last bit of editing. Keep your fingers crossed! And enjoy the last dregs of your weekend – and Bonfire Night tonight! I’m sure I’ll hear the fireworks as I’m slaving over plot holes…

(P.S. Our wonderful friend Sophie headed off on her trek across the Oman Desert yesterday – all in aid of boob-loving charity CoppaFeel. Sophie studies the MA in Writing for Young People alongside me and Callen, and has been a close friend of ours for years – we are both immensely proud of her!! If you could spare a few quid towards her cause, it isn’t too late to donate! Please head along to her fundraising page and leave a little bit of cash if you can.)