Bullying: My story

With Anti bullying week coming to a close I’ve had plenty of time this week to reflect on my own childhood experiences. I would say there have been two periods in my life where I have been bullied and one where without realising it, I was the bully.

My first day of school!

Skip the small talk.

I feel like I've been going through a massive period of change over the past few years. It seems as though over the past 5 years there has been nothing but change and all I've wanted to do was make it stop but recently I've realised that the only reason I was feeling so out of control of my life is because I saw change as a bad thing. I wasn't setting goals to improve myself, I was setting goals just to get me to the next bit of life. Find a house for second year, finish that assignment, pass second year, finish placement, write a dissertation, graduate... then what?

A very special dog.

As you all know (or should know) I'm obsessed with pretty much any dog. So when I heard it was national guide dog week I thought I'd introduce you all to one very special dog indeed.

I'd like you all to meet Pixie, she loves playing fetch, she adores her frisbee and she's a beast when it comes playing tug! Like most dogs she loves a fuss and long walks at the weekend but Pixie is a very special dog, every day she puts on a harness and guides her owner to work, to the shops, where ever she needs to go.

Her owner is Marie, a very lovely lady who works as the Hotel Controller at the same hotel where I work. Once Pixie has guided Marie to work, she chills out in the office until home time. The best bit about having Pixie in the hotel is that if I'm having a bit of a bad day I just have to nip to the office and Pixie cheers me right up, and a lunch break is 100 times better when you've got a dog to play with! Marie and her husband also care for Wendy, a guide dog who guided Marie for many years and is now enjoying her retirement.

It wasn't until I met Marie and Pixie and that I started to really train my own dog that I began to notice little things that might make Marie and Pixie's day harder. Like when I leave stuff on the floor in the office and poor Marie nearly falls over it! (Sorry Marie) . Or when I'm walking down the street dodging dustbins because it's bin day, or one that really gets me, when people park fully on the pavement, now it annoys me when I have to drag Oscar onto the road, Into oncoming traffic to get round a car but fair enough, I can see oncoming cars but from Pixie's perspective, she can't see what's coming, there's a bloody car in the way. 97% of blind or partially sighted people have has issues with items blocking the pavements, each time a blind person has to step into the road to manoeuvre an object (car or bin) the lives of themselves and their dogs are at risk. This is such a big issue that the guide dogs have started a campaign to get the governments to hand out more severe penalties to people parking on or blocking the pavement, read more about it here . 

It costs over £50,000 to support a guide dog from birth to retirement, I'm not going to ask you all to donate don't worry (but if you do want to, click here) I'm just going to ask you all to think about Pixie every now and think about how you can make the day of a guide dog or a blind person go a little bit smoother.

Love,

Laura.

Thank you to Marie for letting me write about her and supplying the photos for this post, and to Sam, who also supplied a photo. 

Life lately

I haven't posted for ages! I haven't even had a slightest desire to do so for what feels like forever, I have ideas but as soon as I sit down to write I just turn off. Generally I like to keep this little corner of the Internet more positive and lately I've just been feeling a little down and stuck. Things are looking up now though and life is finally starting to move again so I'm feeling more positive and my desire to blog is back!

Back in July I spent some time reading a book called Hired Fired Fled by Charlie Raymond, it's the story of his life documenting his many jobs and his quest for a work life balance and it got me thinking and reflecting about my own job and my own situation, I soon realised that I'm just got cut out to be a hotel receptionist, maybe it's the hours or the customers I've still not quite figured that out yet but I know it's the not industry for me! So I've been applying for jobs for the last month or so and I have to say it's the most kick you when you're down experience I've ever had! But yesterday it all proved worthwhile, I handed my notice in at work and in a months time Richard, Oscar and Myself will be moving back to North Wales! 

So what else have we been up to recently? 

I baked for the dog, he loved it, Richard would have preferred cake. 

Richard and I had afternoon tea in a lovely vintage place in Newcastle 

We chased the Gruffalo around Delamere forest 

Oscar has his first trim and looked very smart!

We went to see the Harry Potter play! It was so so good! I'm still amazed by how it was done, even if you were left a little disappointed by the script, please go and see the play! 

Our head receptionist and my very good friend Sam left the hotel. Obviously this meant that we had to have a girls night out! 

Hopefully now life is moving a little more I'll be more inspired to blog! 

Love,

Laura. 

Lets talk food banks.

So I was wandering around my local ASDA the other day then I noticed a collection basket for the Alsager Food Bank. Now I live in a generally middle class town, it is by no means a 'struggling' area. If my middle class town needs a food bank I hate to think of how bad the situation is over all. Just imagine being in the position where you had to rely on a food bank to survive. You might think it will never happen to you but all it takes is one unexpected redundancy, the loss of a loved one or even an unexpected expense like a broken washing machine. I genuinely think that in this day and age, it's a terrible fact that people do need services like this to survive.

Imagine not being able to afford a picnic in the park, it's a reality for too many people.

I graduated!

The title kind of gives this one away. So no prizes for guessing what I got up to when I returned to Bangor!

I had an amazing day celebrating with some amazing people. I finished work at 3pm, jumped on a train, read books, got to Bangor, stayed with Jane and Chris, woke up, met Richard, got gowns and photos done. Met my family, ate lunch, sat in a hall, waited, waited more, walked across the stage, shook two men's hands, collected an envelope, sat down, waited more, reunited with the family, drank free cava, ate free cake, chatted with lectures, said bye to family, went home, went out for tea, pub, home, bed. 

Turning self neglect into self care

This week I've been pretty ill with sickness bug, so much I fact I was pretty much bed ridden for two days. I'm feeling much better now but I did have to take a day off work. It was when I was calling in sick I found myself getting quite upset about the fact I was letting my team down. The fact I couldn't physically get out of bed, and probably would have infected half the team was irrelevant, I just thought I was letting everyone down. It wasn't until that evening when I was soaking in the bath that I realised I've been too harsh on myself recently. 

Yes, I'm very sorry to my team that they were a staff member short on Tuesday afternoon and I'm very sorry for all of those people that received their Christmas confirmations a day late despite the fact they weren't expecting them. I'm very sorry to all of the people that had a que at reception to check out of their room as there was only one staff member on duty however I'm sure that 30 second delay wasn't the worst part of your day. 

Most importantly I'm sorry to myself. I'm sorry that I've beaten myself up over all of those things and more, I'm sorry I didn't listen to my body when it began to feel tired last week and I'm sorry that I was mad at myself for being ill. 

The fact is I needed a break. I've found I've given up too many things I enjoy to please other people. This blog is a prime example of this! But also soaking in the bath, reading a book, planning and generally looking after myself. So I vowed to start looking after myself, from what I've been eating, exercise and lack of me time. I need to make some changes if I'm going to be keeping myself healthy.  I'm going to make better use of my planner to encourage myself to block off some time to look after myself. After all I'm no use to anyone if I'm not at my best. 

I guess the moral of this illness has been that I need to put myself first and not feel guilty about it!

Keep it Scrimpy,

Laura. 

DogFest 2016

This weekend Richard and I packed Oscar and all his stuff into the car, picked up Jo and her new puppy Bella and headed off for a weekend at Dogfest.

We had heard from the day before there had been some issues with traffic so we set off nice and early and arrived about half an hour before opening, with Bella only being a little car sick (bless her). We weren't queuing long before the gates opened. There were dogs everywhere! Stupid statement I know but seriously, dogs of every shape, size and breed.

We had a good walk round, spoke to some lovely people and spent a little too much money! 

One of the first stands we went to was the RNLI stand. Oscar wasn't a fan of the dried fish they were offering but we stayed for a chat anyway! They were there asking people to #respectthewater and educating people on what to do if their dog was in trouble in the water. Primarily, please dont go In after your dog. Generally dogs are much better swimmers than us, if they are in a river then head down stream and call them over, if they're at sea, call 999 and ask for the RNLI to come out. They will launch a boat and rescue your dog for you. It was a serious message to get across and they did it really well, they also had a very cute dog made from wellies. 

Oscar then showed us up at the hay bale race by ignoring the bales completely and running in the other direction! Cue two mortified owners! We then decided it was probably best we didn't enter him into anything else, he did really well all day but with so many other dogs he was a little distracted! Which is a shame really, I'd have quite liked to entered him into dog diving, it looked pretty fun, although I'm sure he would have wussed out and not dived off the end! 

We watched several demonstrations, from flyball to agility and even dancing dogs! It was all very entertaining and I wish Oscar was half and well behaved and some of those dogs! (We are working on it!) 

Another highlight was visiting the Mancheter and Cheshire dogs home stand which is where we got Oscar from! So it was good to give them all an update on his progress and say hello, we even helped their cause by purchasing what felt like everything on their stand! But it's a good cause so it's fine! We invested in a good rubber bone for Oscar to chew at and hopefully not distroy and a lot of chewy treats from their pick and mix. We also got ourselves a new lead, some pigs ears and a seatbelt clip for his harness among lots of other things! He was a very spoilt dog!

After such an exciting day it's safe to say both dogs and owners were very tired! Just to make sure they would really sleep we visited Tatton Park on the way home and saw some deer! 

Keep it Scrimpy,

Laura. 

Life lately.

I think this has been the longest time I've gone without blogging. I'd apologise but I've just not felt like it and I really don't see the point in forcing myself to blog and just producing crap for you guys. I'd rather take a good break, get my life sorted and start again. So that's what I've done. I'll start by telling you what's been going on lately. Then I'll fill you in on the starting again bit!

So we got back from Czech way back in February! We had a few weeks relaxing and adjusting to life back in the UK, then it was time to start job hunting! Richard was quite lucky and someone contacted him and offered him a job (lucky thing!). I started looking around locally and applied for a few different jobs, I'm still a little sad I didn't get a job in Waterstones. I ended up having an interview at a local hotel to join the receptionist team and got the job. I spent about a month training and now I'm a proper receptionist! I love the team, everyone is really helpful and generally quite kind when I cock things up which is nice! 

The other big change in our lives has been four legged and fluffy! Yes, we adopted a dog. For those of you who have been following this blog for a while you may know that Lucky passed away in January 2015. 

It's been a long time coming but as soon as I had a stable place to live and a full time job I knew it would only be a matter of time before we got another dog. We spent a good few weeks trawling round rescue centres looking for the right dog. 

Finally we found Oscar and it was just meant to be, as soon as I saw him I just knew. We saw him on the Monday and we picked him up on the Wednesday. I was so glad nobody adopted him on the Tuesday! Thank you to the staff at Cheshire dogs home who were so helpful and guided us through the process. Please if you are looking for a dog to join your family, consider a rescue dog. 

As you can see, life has changed a lot over the past few months and if I'm honest I feel I've outgrown the typical student lifestyle. Living and working in Czech I felt quite disconnected from student life and since coming home I've begun to work full time, and again I'm feeling like I'm moving on from student life so as a result I think it's about time I moved this blog forwards. I want to keep my old content, I hope some of it might be useful to someone, so over the next few weeks I'll be rebranding the blog, there will be a new name, new logos, new banners and email addresses. I hope you'll all stick with me in this new adventure!

Keep it Scrimpy,

Laura. 

5 Reasons I worked abroad and didn't study

The general trend with years abroad seems to be to study, at least at Bangor anyway, and with the amount of help and support available I can see why people prefer to study. At Bangor you simply scroll through the list of pre approved study abroad partners, select which one you fancy, apply and off you go. Finding a work placement however is slightly more tricky, there is no pre-approved list, we didn't get any pointers it was simply, find yourself a work placement by the end of May. So why did I bother?

I was so lucky to work with these monsters.