diary of a quarter life crisis

Retuuuuurn of the blog, once again! Return of the Blog, my GAWD…!

(But enough of your seamless blending of 90s pop culture reference Mark Morrison, I hear you shout) Let’s get on with it!

It’s back!

And by back I mean I have legit still been paying for this dotcom since 2015 (fail!) So thought it was about time to “give the people what they want” #forthefans #selfless #imnicelikethat

2018 travels begin in just daaaays (where did that time go?! I’ve got so much shit to do!)

BUT in exciting news, have got a whole lot more glamorous as I now have a super hot partner in crime with me the whole way!

You’ll learn more about lovely Liz as the trip goes on…but for now, know this: she’s a mega babe, we go way back almost 20 years and she’s so fit people on the beach will probably assume she’s my personal trainer so we’ve got lot a to look forward to there… #whoateallthecarbs #butseriouslyimgutted

Second round of life crisis is the Asia Edition. And we are proudly going full on “gap yah wanker” with the route this time:

Hong Kong

Singapore

Vietnam

Cambodia

Thailand

“The Islands” – Koh Lanta and Krabi

Vetoed Koh Samui, Phangan and Tao on account of being “too old for that shit” and also cos we didn’t wanna get eaten by a crocodile, Pauline and Aunty Susan would have a fit!!! #truecrocodilestorylads #cantmakethisshitup

So the adventure very nearly begins. Just the small question of packing, (lols you know by that I mean I’ve already done 3 trial packs and it’s just waiting in the corner to come to the airport!) finalising last bits and finding a bureux de change who have heard of “Vietnam” (shout out to the staff at M&S Moorgate for that one!!!!)

So all that remains to say for now is thanks for indulging the ramblings once more, do check in on our adventures from time to time and if you could be sweethearts and just ignore the fact that the title no longer makes any sense unless I now live to be 120….that would be great!

2 days and counting xx

Earlier this week I put up a ‘teaser trailer’ to this blog post on Instagram #socialmediamarketingguru #soprofessional . It was an ‘inspirational’ picture of the world’s best notebook who’s cover simply said: ‘I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing with my life’. It was one of my most liked posts since I joined Instagram last year.

So, why did people like it so much? Because I’m an insightful voice of a generation with her finger on the pulse I hear you cry? (yes, partly) but ALSO cos it’s bloody well true of sodding LOADS of us.

So why do we insist on pretending? Of all my nearest and dearest, I can count on ONE hand the amount of people who truly, deep down really have their shit together, and most of those people are over 50.

So we do we all pretend that one teeny square of instagram happiness is a true reflection of our whole lives? “My life is so perfect because my boyfriend is a dreamboat” (apart from those 6 times he cheated on me) “my life is so perfect because I’m on the beach in dubai” (…that my parents are paying for) “My life is so perfect because I got the job” (…after 45 applications, 44 rejections and 10 of the cringest interviews of my life) Why do we always airbrush the reality? When we all know that sometimes, life can be a little bit crap.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see each other happy and proud of things you’ve achieved or even just content with your lot, but we’ve gotta stop pretending that’s the be all and end all. We’ve got to stop presenting ourselves as edited, photoshoped versions of reality and start bloody well keeping it real.

The crux of what I’m tryna say is… we’ve all gotta start being a bit kinder to each other, lads!

You bought a house, great! It’s a huge achievement, well done…but you’re not better than anyone else for having one, you’re not more capable and more able or more hardworking than those who still scrape by with the rent every month. And get real, who died and left you that deposit? How big is that looming mortgage? From which elderly relative did you scrounge that ‘vintage table’ because you couldn’t afford a new one?

You’re having a baby! We’re delighted. But we don’t JUST need to see soft focused airbrushed strolls of you hand in hand with the taglines #happyfamilies #when2become3. Casually forgetting the wake up calls at 10, 12, 2, 4 and 5am, the time you had YouTube ‘which way round do nappies go’ and the terror when the midwife handed you a real life human and you thought ‘SHIT, I had 9 months to grow a person and I have no idea what I do now’?

These are the little victories, these are the stories we should be more willing to share. I look at my social media and am proud of the posts that showed life falls apart….that time where I just drank a bottle of wine with a straw when I was SO unemployed, or the time that when I properly stacked it sober and cut my knee outside Armani on 5th Avenue, New York, or that I’m writing this post in my ‘house outfit’ (old take that t-shirt with a big gravy stain on it that I’m pretty sure isn’t even from this week!!!) You’ve all got a bloody house outfit that you look like crap in and it lives on the ‘messy chair’ and don’t bloody pretend you don’t!

I’m not talking about moping attention seeking vibes, I’m talking about just getting a bit real. Just sometimes, maybe once, be brave enough to share the shitty times and find the comedy in it, be a darling and make everyone else realise that life can be poo. Cos in the immortal words of Troy off of High School Musical “we’re all in this together”…and the sooner we start proving to each other we all go through the crap times, the happier we’ll all be!

 

 

 

 

 

This month marks 1 glorious year since I touched down on Aussie tarmac and my ‘quarter life crisis travels began’. And given that I am still paying for this dotcom (seemed like a good idea at the time) and I’ve pretty much spent this entire last weekend wallowing in nostalgia, I thought I’d churn out a special anniversary edition as I know it’s really what you’ve been waiting for #thankstothefans #givethepeoplewhattheywant

So 2016 was kind to me (apart from that bit where George Michael died and I was unemployed for 4 months…those bits were proper shit!) and I now more than ever I look back so fondly on what really was an epic adventure.

I jumped out of a plane in Melbourne,  climbed the great wall of China, listened to the blues in Memphis and (here comes the cringe) made some real friends for life. I never underestimate how lucky I am. Even when I’m crammed under someone’s armpit on the commute, but where has life taken me 1 year on?

Pre -travels was triggered by several factors including: Work in an office, being single, still living in the same place and still filling the days counting down to annual leave and drinking a lot of gin to fill the boring ones.

One year on? I now work in an office, i’m single, i’m living back in the same place and still filling the days counting down to annual leave and drinking too much gin…..oh wait?

So despite my epic quest to ‘find myself’ it turns out I wasn’t in a dive bar in New Orleans, on It’s a small world in Hong Kong, amongst the waves of Bondai…(but it’s good to check anyway right?!) In fact I can’t help thinking as I stare out the gloomy, rainy window of my generic London office block that I haven’t really gone that far at all.

I think it’s mainly because actually believing that ‘Life is a journey’ makes you a massive wanker. Sure it’s a ‘journey’ in the sense that you start in one place, travel to work and end up in a physical ‘nother, but what really changes? Not sure that a massive, properly fun holiday changed my entire perspective on life. It mainly made me think, wow, pissing off for a year is well expensive and turns out you do have to work for a living. And probably for a really long time. But hey ho, I am nothing if not a professional cynic so one year on, I expected my ‘place in life’ to be much the same anyway.

Caveat of COURSE being I had a LOT of fun and do know I was very lucky to go at all (so hush your ‘entitled millenial’ heckles!!!!)

I did do a thing where I joined a gym…which anyone who knows me will wheeze at. Blog post on that to follow…

Personal transition into full blown Bridget Jones trundles on. I am now back in the world of dating apps, and just as unimpressed by the outcomes (Bumble is the latest and an idea I really should have made a lot of money from as it is just my entire approach to dating anyway!) Maybe one day someone will invent a thing called ‘friend of a friend’ where people go ‘nostalgic and old skool’ and don’t use technology but instead introduce you to a decent not mental mate and you live happily ever after?

It’s also getting to an awkward stage where most people I see on my daily commute / at work / at Starbucks look like really good prospects and this is normally closely followed by what I call the ‘make bad decisions’ phase, so i’m trying to keep that at bay best I can.

In recent wondrous news the beloved Foo Fighters did agree to headline Glasto this year (oh how nice of you / about bloody time) and I will be attending in full force so pretty sure Dave Grohl will come to his senses and sack off Jordan Blum in favour of my sparkling wit and charm. Surely, right?….failing that there’s always that bloke in IT with the eye patch!!!…Pray for me!

As another unemployediversary sneaks round the corner (8 months of larking about…what a bloody slacker) I can’t help but get “well deep and meaningful innit” about the one glaringly obvious thing everyone neglects to mention about travelling – the bit where you have to come home.

Home, ‘where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came’…except they’re not. You’re a constant smug faced reminder of the fun frolics and damn right ball you’ve had whilst you’ve been away and people get so bored of it…so quick.

The novelty of ‘normal life’ wears off…and fast! The day to day of desperately searching for a way to return to the rat race grinding you down like the contents of a pestle and mortar (on every single episode of Jamie Oliver….its a pavlova Jamie…what are we pestling for?!!). But I’d be a perfect “administration liaison manager at (insert name of times top 100 company here)” you tell yourself as you trawl through application after application. You become a pro at reciting your GCSE grades, the addresses of companies you worked for 5 years ago; the “name a time when you were challenged” examples going round in your head as you try to sleep! Now. Now is a time when I have been challenged at work in that it is challenging to not have a job.

The few supportive friends who are willing to listen to the bemoans of unemployed life tell you “chin up mate, it’s a bad time to look for work at the mo cos it’s a day that ends in a ‘y’, something will come up…any day now” and they’re right! Of course they’re  right, but some days you wish they weren’t, because that might be the final push to pursue something left field, something more fulfilling and something you can be a tiny bit proud to drag yourself out of bed for.

The hours you spend longingly looking over scrapbook photos from travels (that book took shitting ages to make!) almost depressing reminders like that bit on Bullseye where they drag out the speedboat “here’s what you could’ve won…(if you weren’t so shit at Darts, Tony from Northampton)”!  A constant reminder that the world is a bloody big place and surely there’s got to be more: bigger and better options than telling the yourself you’ve always wanted to work in accounts?! *cue that song Belle sings in the opening credits of Beauty and the Beast…..full brass band…wind machine” etc etc.

The blogs been lacking, because after a point the days merged into one, is it Tuesday is it Saturday? Is it morning is it afternoon? (lol obviously not morning…why get up before lunch when you’re unemployed!). It got shit because I ran out of fun stuff to write about (need we be reminded of that shocking one I did about how I like sports… #wheresmypulitzer) so I’ve decided from today, I’m just gunna find stuff in the having nothing to write about, the having no exciting plans…christ knows there’s enough comedy in my recent visits to the Job Centre to write a whole bloody sitcom so no point moping, this will just have to do!

A wise philosopher of our generation once said “You just have to accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue.” – David Brent, The Office.

This week I realised that he’s right. There are good days, there are bad days. Some days you’ll get shit on and some days you’ll be on top of the world. So, what really is there to lose? Hold your breath, jump in and swim for your bloody life until you succeed (or a super hot lifeguard who is a part time human rights lawyer and spends 6 months a year in the Maldives rescues you and you can live happily ever after that way…..)

So here I am going for it, if Zoella bloomin Benjamin or whatever her name is can do it, then why can’t I?…and if I fall flat on my face, well, at least ‘You’ve been framed’ will give me £250!! Wish me luck (and follow me on this, and like my Facebook page and whatever else I’m going to make you support in the next few days. Thanks then. Bye) xx

The sheer desperation of attempting to quell the aging process means that all great life crises often come with discovery of new hobbies. As the bank balance dries up and you eek out the very last of it, drinking shit wine in a Wetherspoons as an excuse for a “night out” staring into a glass which tastes of paint stripper, surrounded by old blokes with high blood pressure and wondering where it all went wrong, that’s where I found mine! 

It is at this lowest ebb that I decided…I like sports. Anyone who knows me, (take a breath, stem the laughter, stop being a dickhead) might find this to be a revelation since the most sporting prowess I have ever shown is running for cabs pissed on Clapham High St.

I partially blame my beloved dad who has been responsible for a routine of what I’m calling “rugby conditioning” since the age of about 1, sitting us in front of game after game in a desperate attempt to quell the disappointment that neither of his two daughters would likely turn into scrum halves for England.

Whilst my love for egg chasing perhaps not surprising, aided oh so greatly by the childish nostalgia of dad yelling at the tv, word perfect Nigel Owens impressions and my own perving over Robshaw / Ford / Brown…..even Haskell after a long day let’s be honest(!!!) I’ve surprised even myself with my new sports brain!!!

The summer has been corking (shocking England Euro performance asside obviously) and now amidst Rugby player thigh conisseuir I can list amateur Tennis umpire and “Gary Lineker with boobs” to the CV! Sure I might not know all the technical terms (Forehand, backhand, where’s your hand….) or know all the players (the one with the hair, the one who looks like Shrek, the one with the moth on his face…) but I can genuinely hold my hands up and say how much I’ve sincerely enjoyed Wimbledon, the odd Iceland and Wales match and all three beyond epic 2016 series games against the Wallabies.

With the Olympics just around the corner (vom..where have the last 4 years of my life gone?!?!) I  thought I should share I am looking forward.to becoming an annoying arm chair expert in several other sports (specific suggestions welcome)…and looking to recruit others to make me look like I have a legitimate gang of people to help me look like i know what im talking about down the local! so if you’d like to join me you will now be able to find me “daaaaan the pub” doing this alongside drinking beers and chanting phrases like “shoes off if you love Willis”! Lads lads lads….bants, bants, bants!!

Xx

 

All good quarter life crises wouldn’t be complete with the great British institution of festivaling! So in a bid to pretend I’m still 19 and can party until 3am for 5 days, I will be leaving the comfort and luxury of my lovely home to embrace life under a small piece of plastic tarpaulin at the festival to end all festivals…Glastonbury!!!

As anyone who has used social media or looked outside their window in the last few days will have realised, it’s going to be an absolute bloody wash out. Mud bath doesn’t even seem to be covering it. Today I have read articles warning me against how to not catch hypothermia and watched a video that looked as if glasto has introduced an outdoor pool where the campsites used to be. With over a foot of water currently sitting in our pitch spot, all the time I spent worrying about the most sensible choice of glitter facepaint seems pretty futile!

Boho festival fashion is also slowly falling at the waistside as I raise legitimate points to fellow festival goers in our whatsapp group about the potential merits of just wearing waders for 5 days!!!

All topped off by earlier’s personal highlight Googling “what to do if you get trench foot”!?!

Idriss Elba has pulled out and so I have missed yet another opportunity to snare him as my future husband (literally the only thing holding me back…) I now own an industrial vat of wetwipes in place of showering and thanks to my delightful sister, need to master using a She-wee before Thursday (always the best gifts from you Claire!).

But in spite of ALL the literal horrors…I am reminding the stubborn woman in me of all the sweat, tears and hours at 8am on a sunday it took back in 2015 to get us those tickets and how I’ll be bloody damned if we let a little rain and mud ruin it!

Yes, I will have to endure some of the worst trials known to man: traversing 2 miles of muddy terrain with 20kgs of luggage, pitching a tent on a pond when I’ve never pitched a tent in my life and worst of all the prospect of 4 days of having wet legs (the worst feeling of all time).

BUT I have great friends as company, there are some bloody awesome bands to experience and if all else fails I’m taking 2 litres of gin and a wine box!!!

 

Pray for me…do some rain dances and I’ll be sure to find some humorous stories amidst the carnage to tell upon return. If I don’t get stuck in the mud!

Xx

Week two of unemployment has proved to be  an interesting one. Turns out if you have spent the last 3 months doing exciting things like scaling mountains, visiting new cities and jumping out of planes, regular life gets really monotonous really fast! Who would’ve thought it eh!!

After the Tinder washout (that was never a good plan, bored or not!) I have decided to turn my hand to something much more long term, something far more important in terms of my future….making a MASSIVE photo book of all of my holiday pics!!!! yaaaaay! #betterthanwork! After being creator of 5 scrapbooks in my lifetime I swore I would never again revisit it…whilst beautiful in theory the pain staking cutting and sticking have genuinely been some of the lowest points of my entire life. I had nightmares about drowning in PVA for about 6 months after the last one. But this is what the desperate unemployed search for distraction will turn you to!! So far I have got as far as Australia…and no, it is no coincidence that this is also where I started! Someone save me from this coloured card and sequined prison!!!!!!!

The horrors of scrapbooking aside, it has been great procrastination from the worse fate of my bank balance. Oh man is that a shocker!! Turns out you do actually need to get a job eventually. So that care free traveller catchphrase was bullshit!! More important than the self satisfaction of gainful employment, my social plans starting to suffer! I am now faced with heartbreaking decisions like G&Ts with the girls or transport to a potential job interview…and we all know what a sad sad day it is when you know you can’t choose gin. Wonder how long I can get away with excuses for missing social events like “i’m so sorry, I’ve got to take my cat to the vets, she’s really sick” before people realise she died 5 years ago!?! Man I need a job!

Current career plans are mainly being a person that enters hundred of competitions until someone advertises my dream job – Personal Assistant to Take That. Pretty sure it’s going to crop up any day now, but for the time being that’s something to keep me busy. Given my bizarre 100% record for winning every Facebook competition I’ve ever entered, it was unsurprising to find that I was the chosen recipient of an evening of free cocktails at a new bar in Kentish Town. It also helps significantly that my favourite person to drink them with is also a pun-master extraordinaire. Not just a pretty face but also a genius, she came up with this phenomenal entry for the competition to create a topical sign to appear outside the bar for the week!

We headed down there for what actually turned out to be a shambolic evening on Tuesday. The pub which goes by the witty name of ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ opposite the O2 forum is housed in a former public toilet. Unfortunately…that was quite evident once you got down the stairs. Definite air of stale cleaning products about the place, not what I immediately look for in a classy drinking establishment. After being kept waiting outside for 15 minutes whilst the disillusioned bar manager “tidied up”(?!?!?) we chose a couple of drinks off the extensive and very strange menu. Verdict was – they were rancid! Persevered to justify the fact that Kentish Town was actually bloody miles away from where we would usually hang out, made our excuses “I’m sorry we have to go, because this place is awful”…and left! Evening saved by yummy dinner and great company as always!

The only other social activities I have managed to squish in amidst freebies and the dreaded job hunt have been peppered with my latest life crisis issue which seems to have followed me home from holiday…only being approached on nights out by married men! Whilst this was a point of hilarity for my Trek family as it seemed to happen on a daily basis in America (?!?!) I seem to still have freak magnets in my pockets here at home. 3 so far….this week!!!! One bloke actually asked me for a drink and said “not local though eh….you know…the wife…” and pointed to his wedding ring!…..what vibe am I giving off here? seriously? So gross!! Who is going to go for that in their right mind…literally ever?! So I’m not really sure how I get that to go away? Helpful answers (and eligible SINGLE friends) on a postcard please!

So thanks to poverty and the certain promise of adulterers, instead of Wednesday nights out I am now a hermit and do things like dance around the kitchen to jazz in my high heels with a glass of Chardonnay and bake cakes…because that’s the same as being out having fun with friends right? Yep thought so!!

Right, my peach melba cake is nearly ready and after that I’m off to master LinkedIn. Step 1…try and find a picture that says more “hardworking, smart and savvy colleague” whilst trying to disguise the fact I apparently have a face that says “homewrecker”!! Wish me luck!! Xx

Wednesday marked a low point in the holiday blues…had already binge watched all 15 episodes of Greys Anatomy I had hoarded on the +box whilst I’ve been away, my bank balance is still the wrong side of “going out out” and jet lag is proving to be a cruel and persistent mistress. This coupled with a glassy eyed trawl through my holiday snaps sent me down the dark and dismal one way street to Tinderland

After some hearty *cough* patronising “encouragment” (/ badgering) from various contributors to my life about needing to “get out there and meet a man now I’m home”(…erm,why?), I had largely decided to shun the dating world in favour of being eaten alive by a hoard of cats. Surely a simpler response to “Not met a nice man yet then”, “Oh STILL single are you”, “don’t need a +1 for the wedding I take it” is just looking someone dead in the eye and saying “But cats will always love me” and holding their gaze until they are too uncomfortable to ask follow up questions!

But we all know that the shallow allure of Tinder is just too much on the unemployed days where your calorie count app has basically told you you’ll be diabetic by tomorrow if you eat as much chocolate as you have today, you’ve not changed out of pjs and it’s 4pm and all you have to show for the days achievements are an array of snapchats!

And so like a moth to a catalogue of men based flame, I opened the app! Within 30 seconds, perfectly apparent as to why I hadn’t been on there since last summer. 80% of the people in my local area look like a bloke in the background of TOWIE (not even the foreground…) The rest believe the key to a woman’s heart lies in shirtless Tinder selfies. Yes, I’m aware I am the first person ever to use the words “heart” and “Tinder” in the same sentence.

First candidate’s opening gambit was this:

Hi Kerry, knock knock….

my response: “my name is Emma, wrong house” garnered no reply!

Second bloke advertised himself as a published author and fell down by pasting the link to his amazon page under his picture. The enammeringly titled: “how to be a modern day viking” had received some phenomenal reviews, I’ve included just a handful of my favourites below…

 

The best seemed relatively nice, North Londoner, charming, debonair and polite. Chatted for a bit over a couple of day before he told me how he’d been spending a lot of time thinking about what our children might look like (including a paragraph on details like how they’d have green eyes in summer, brown in the winter apparently!!)

He then sent me 10 seperate messages over the course of 2hrs despite me not sending a single reply. One of the charming latter of which just said “oi…..” followed by “laters then, nice to meet you I suppose” (we haven’t met!) as I hadn’t immediately responded. I decided the most mature and grown up response was this meme of Ron Burgundy….

….no reply!?! Can’t possibly think why?!

“Real life” little better. After being asked by a delightful gentleman to “Wey get em out” on my walk to the station, I have concluded romance is dead.

In short, first venture back into the world of dating post hols, not a resounding success I’m not going to lie…but on a positive note it did affirm all my previous thoughts about Tinder as an online recreation of the worst bar you’ve ever been to!…except one where it’s ok to physically bat people away, so at least one plus!

Single independent life continues and after that, turns out if that’s what I could’ve won, I couldn’t be more fine with it after all!

3 months, 6 countries, 14 US states, 1 million 115,526 steps (pedometer never lies!) and an eye watering amount of cash later, I am home! 

And man have I seen some and done some amazing things: 

Watched the sunset over the Grand Canyon, sung along to shows on Broadway, trekked to the peak of the Great wall of China, been walking in Memphis, Jumped out of a plane in Melbourne, spent magical days as Disney, met the pandas in Chengdu, stood in Elvis’ shoes at Sun Studios, watched fireworks at the Sydney Opera House….to name but a very special few!!

I’ve eaten some insanely good food, Singaporean chilli crab, Beignets in New Orleans and Pastrami on Rye at Katz Deli…I still dream of you all!

But most of all:

I have met some amazing people along the way and it wouldn’t have been half the fun without you. Bring on the self indulgent thank yous I hear you say? oh sure why not…

My first and one and only Miss Warburton  (“you know…like the bread”) Friends at first sight. You know how amazing you are. I miss you every day.

Griffiths – what a treat to spend a week in the sunshine with you, London isn’t the same without you and we miss and love you more than you know! Lets just stop this Sydney malarkey and come home now please. thanks! haha

Ridley, you lovely surprise you! thanks for keeping me calm all the way, and for making us the perfect beach walk team!

Toddy & Mike – you boys were a dream! Especially Mike…Toddy I still haven’t forgiven you for not warning me how handsome!  Couldn’t have asked for a better week living the Penthouse life!

Mr & Mrs Thomas thanks for hosting me a Chez Newlywed for an awesome week in Melbourne. So great to catch up. Special love for you Rach- thanks for making sure I didn’t die on that skydive mate!

Debs (& Shane!) So so great to be reunited after so long, so glad you’re so happy in Melbs and life is treating you so well!

Steve for showing me the very best sights of Melbourne and for being great company to drink ALL the wine! St Kilda certainly beats Staines! I’ll return the favour when you’re back in few months…

You all made Oz the perfect way to start my travels. Thanks for taking such good care of me and spoiling me with all the lovely things there are on offer. Shame you’re all a casual 10,000 miles away!

Chef, the trip would not have been the same without a perfect wedge of 10 days back in March, not only would I have been Billy no mates i’d have missed my favourite far too much to make it to the end of the trip! You’re the perfect travel companion, thanks for all the ‘chefs on tour’ love and laughs!

Same goes for bonus chef, Harriet, it was the perfect way to spend a day in Singapore, plus I wouldn’t have survived the trip without Dr Moore’s medical advice of “a coke with every meal”… burn those germs with the sugary poison!

Annick, the best roomie I could’ve hoped for you absolute gem. Along with Sophie and Frances for all keeping me laughing, stopping me crying some days when the horrors of China were just to much and for being on team let’s not vom on stuff. You ladies are amazing.

Mr Kerr for saving my trip and spoiling me rotten in Shanghai, you salvaged it all and sent me on my way with fond memories of China. It was great to see you after so long!

To my Trek family, you’re heroes the lot of you! If only for putting up with my hiccups, my constant falling over, my shocking singalongs in the van and the way I say “George”!

Shona, Leanne, Clare, Meg, Millie, Luke, Tom, Lisa, Alex, Jess, Kristy & Greg…..You were a dream and I couldn’t have found better people to spend the final month with! Driving anywhere isn’t the same without you right now!

Extra special nudge to my darling Leanne, the blue haired beauty, my partner in obscure 90’s comedy crime, you are the “one” lovely lady and Disney was the icing on an already pretty marvellous cake!

Lastly Mama and Papa T for having the faith that I would not die or be sold into human trafficking and supporting me in yet another “I think i’m just going to quit my job and start again” fiasco! And for continuing to religiously read the blog despite the disproportionate amount of times I use the word “wanker”.

Well, what a phenomenal journey (it was an actual journey so I can say that, not in the proverbial sense that those wankers off the X Factor always do…there I go again!!) But turns out, not much happens when you’re away after all! So if I’ve learnt anything from the last three glorious months, it’s say yes to things you want to do, stop worrying everything will be fine and don’t miss the opportunity to travel whilst you are able…because crap work will still be there when you get home anyway!!

…or not as the case may be for Quitty Mcquitterson over here! Think I’ve earnt the a few days putting my weary feet up before I think about that though eh. Here’s to you holiday blues, may you and lovely lady jet lag be kind!!!

Xx

Last and final stop on the tour and my three months of adventure was the City of Angles, Los Angeles.

Previous visitors had all warned me the place was a complete shit hole and I’m sorry to say they are not wrong. Glitz and glamour it ain’t….Hollywood sheen not so much and American dreams only seem to come true here if they were dirty and downtrodden to start with!!

Thanks to bizarre Trek America logic where one person had booked an early flight so all 13 of us had to go back to the hotel early instead of just letting her make her own way to the airport…we had a grand total of 1hr 20 minutes to explore downtown Hollywood.

The delights of the Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Stars homes tours and the Hollywood Bowl remain a mystery. So I basically just rinsed Hollywood Blvd and the Walk of Fame hence the unadventurous array of snaps

Exciting to see all the stars lining the streets and play the find your favourite game

Most painful fact about such a whistle stop visit was that Ryan Gosling was premiering his new film at Man’s Chinese Theatre and was pretty much the best shot I’dve had at making him realise he’s made a terrible mistake marrying Eva Mendes. They tore me away kicking and screaming. He was arriving in an hour #heartbroken

We managed a sneaky stop at Hollywood Park for an epic view of the iconic sign before we left though. We all had a final family snap before heading on to the last hotel for our bon voyage. Wished my 3 week family the very best for onward adventures and all did the thing where we pretend we’d visit each other / all book on another trip for the same time next year.  They’ve been proper gems to have as company and I really got seriously lucky with that lovely lot this time…and no vomiters to be seen! yay!!

Lucky for me I still had 3 days of fun with lovely Leanne, as we were headed to our West Coast highlight, Disneyland California. Those who know me will know there is no better way for me to end 3 months of travel than some time on roller coasters and hanging out with everyone’s favourite mouse

It also marked the last and final of 5 worldwide wide Disney parks I have visited. I commemorated it with lunch at Earl of Sandwich and a new set of super sparkly Minnie ears in absence of marching band to greet me as I came through the turnstiles! (yes I know Shanghai has decided it’s delayed opening will be in 6 weeks…no I don’t want to talk about it…bastards!!!)

What a bloomin’ marvelous couple of Disney fueled days we had. Great to find a friend with a like minded approach to completely smashing the park in most efficient possible way…

We got on everything, twice pretty much and reveled in pretending to be 5 years old all over again

Icing on the cake was the epic nighttime water show, World of Colour, which told the story of Walt Disney’s original vision for the park and the history of how it all started with a mouse. Narrated by Neil Patrick Harris, Mickey and Walt himself and peppered with hideously cheesy Disney classics. I’m sorry to say I lost it at the end, balled my eyes out with happiness as I realised what a phenomenal 3 months had come before me and just how lucky I’d been to have had such a great adventure #travelwanker #cringe #dontevencare!

But first, just the small matter of a 10hr flight across the world before I can put my feet up…London, I’m on my way!!! Xx