Rub-A-Dub-Dub in my little Hot-Tub!

Hiya, 

So it would seem that with less than 100-days to go until myself and Mr. Warehouse Jet off on holiday to Sunny Tenerife I am thoroughly looking forward to the fact that I can lay on the beach drinking cocktails and eat out for every meal. Anyone who knows me will know that holidays are exactly what I want to do in my spare time and with any spare cash, and whilst I have switched jobs in the last year it would appear that money is still an issue when it comes to holidaying. 

Normally it would happen that Miss Tweedle-Dee, Miss Tweedle-Dumb and I organise a holiday during the summer months and Mr. Warehouse and I just have to make do in trying to get away at some other point throughout the year. But this year is different, for I am not really able to afford more than one holiday this year especially a big one. With my living expenses increasing after passing my test and getting a car, even with the change in career and more money coming in, I am envious and a tad jealous of my work colleagues that are able to Jet off to far away countries like the Caribbean and Mexico for annual holidays more than just once a year. But I suppose in retrospect if I was still living at home and had little outgoings then I also would be travelling the world. Who knows maybe I would be one of those pretentious posh kids from a middle class military background family that would swan off to Africa or somewhere out in Asia on some sort of gap Year from university in order to "find myself", 

Anyway, for some odd reason this year it seems like much more of a struggle to save the money for spending on Mr Warehouse and my first beach holiday abroad. if I'm honest with myself I slightly regret the fact that we did not book somewhere a little bit more upper class. For Mr Warehouse I am sure that it will be amazing even if we were living in a Mud Hut for a week since his last holiday abroad to a beach resort was his brother's stag do a few years ago. They have been married for over 4-years I think and have a little boy who this weekend, just turned three, I honestly don't know what I would do if I couldn't go on holiday every year - I think I would go insane! Mind you I always class a holiday as something outside of your normal environment. A breakaway to an English seaside resort - Holiday! Visiting family in Southern Ireland - Holiday! Going to see your best friend in Basingstoke for the weekend - OK certainly not a holiday but definitely a break away from the norm. 

Looking back on it now, I am slightly regretful at the fact that Miss Tweedle-Dee, Miss Tweedle-Dumb and I never booked anywhere to go away abroad just me and them. But it was their decision that this year we would scrap the summer holiday all in aid of a hot tub weekend, with champagne on ice and lots of giggles and laughter to be had all of it set in the beauty that is the old English country-side. Set in woodland slap-bang in between Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Lowestoft; Laxfield Lodges with a hot tub and Scenic outdoor views is certainly going to take the edge off not being able to be on a beach with the besties!

I shouldn't say too much as this time next week I will have a lot to say about what my weekend entailed and look forward to telling you all about one of the last and final time we will all be together. 

'Til next time, Love A.Lou xx

Material Girl

Hi everyone, 

So last week we heard some extracts from my Diary as a Teenager, something I like to think of as the beginnings of my writing career, if you can even call it that. I have decided that on the odd occasion I am going to share some more of my prepubescent ideas and philosophies with you all as I think that they are both hilarious and ridiculous. Let me know if you would like to hear more from Little 'Baby Moi'!

So this week I had a old friend from college write to me about some issues he was having with his group of lads and how whilst he knew in himself he was being silly and jealous of the situation he found himself in he still couldn't shake these feelings of insecurity and anxiety surrounding him and the circle of friends he was in. Honoured that he thought of coming to me I tried to comfort him in a way that would make sense of the situation and allow him to come to his own determinations on what to do. But this got me thinking about jealousy and insecurity with myself. 

Now its a rare thing (Some would say even more rare than rocking-horse shit) that I am one of those girls that is always whining about being too fat, too thin, too short, too tall. I am in most respects happy with my body but there are many hundreds upon thousands of things that people get jealous and anxious over. For example; I am at one with my body and love it for all the amazing things it helps me to do everyday even though I despise its wobbles every time I step into the changing rooms of the local High Street Stores. The fact I am far from the size I was in High School makes me doubt in myself sometimes, making me a timid, quiet mouse from my usual grand, Lioness self. With body anxiety and problems surrounding appearances and aesthetics comes the feelings of low self esteem and the desperate longing for something that is in many cases unobtainable immediately. A full bust, tiny waist and curvy silhouette is what every girl wants and whilst some have it, others don't and to get something even close to what is deemed perfect by most peoples eyes is either with a knife, drugs or with a whole heap of hard work, many of us choosing the first options over sweating like a pig at the gym. 

For some people however it is about the material things in life rather than a cracking body, shiny hair or flawless skin. Money talks but so do people and the more money, power or fame someone has the more other people envy them. I can also be very materialistic and whilst I think that this has improved a lot since I was younger I know it is still a mammoth part of who I am. I know that in many ways the lifestyle I want for my future will never be something I can realistically achieve alone. I will need a hard working partner in crime with a good job and and a salary to match. As for myself I want to be a high earner. I want to afford my children a holiday every year to somewhere exciting. I want them aged twelve or thirteen to be enrolled in one of the best private schools that the local areas has to provide and to come home to a wonderfully decorated and well-maintained home, complete with all mod-cons. I want a nice shiny car and Christmases to be filled with presents, family and laughter. But I know in some respects that mine and my husbands combined income would have to be in the region of £50,000.00 per year. 

I know in myself feel that, as with the last section and the one before that, I can be arrogant, selfish and egotistical one moment and the next being completely insecure in my body and how I look. Same being with finances, money and material items, I can be wanting of a long list of lustful items, not realising how lucky I am to have what I already possess. 

But it should never really matter about these thing should they? We all should be so very grateful for what we have, besides whilst there are some people above us on the food chain that have much, much more that you or I, there are also some people that have nothing at all. And as I close off this week I leave with you a thought that here in Bedfordshire, the lush and somewhat affluent areas of the Home Counties, as it rains intermittently, there are still people with no home to go to. No family or friends to confide in or seek advice. No food to settle their growling bellies. No money to buy new shoes. Nothing. We all should be thankful for what we have. You never know how close you are from slipping down that life ladder ... 

'Til next time, Love A.Lou xx