Not-stagram 31/08 -06/09
A: We were supposed to go to Aberdeen last week for a holiday, but ended up staying at home and attempting a sort of staycation. We’re both pretty exhausted right now and I am very aware that my new Nursing course starts in a few weeks. It’ll be the first time I’ve attempted to work full time for a good few years; it’s not something I find easy and in the future I will only ever work part time but I have no choice if I want to get my nursing degree. So this week was about trying to put into place some routine, resting and the occasional splurge on some good food.
L: Yeah turns out wanting to cry all the time is a classic sign of burn out (something I may have mentioned feeling in the last few posts). We’re always pushing ourselves to “make the most” of our time off, so it was weird to cut ourselves some slack for that.
A: We also started a no spend september as an attempt to curb some of our lockdown spending habits. We had a particularly expensive August so we decided we needed to take the plunge and do the saving we’ve been planning to do.
L: Yeah, it’s only been 7 days of ‘no spend’ and we’re not doing it in a particularly strict way - no non-essential items basically, but still a budget for eating out/takeaways because we’re realistic.
A: The highlight of the week was a ride into Edinburgh and afternoon tea at Beetroot Sauvage! It’s the first time we’ve ridden the route from Fife to Edinburgh (and not vice versa) so I was interested to see how the hills felt. Luckily Lili didn’t want to ride the ebike, so I happily took it on! It seemed about the same in terms of hills and the only difficult bit was getting very lost around Haymarket.
L: It’s been a while since we’ve been exhausted, hungry and lost in a city so that was a nice reminder of cycling tour lol.
A: The tea was delicious and would recommend if you want a nice fancy vegan afternoon tea in Edinburgh. I had forgotten what it was like to be cycle tour hungry/tired (we cycled in without stopping for water/rest/food because we are idiots) so eating a big meal was so so so good.
A: Also, my dream came true. We got a message about a month ago from Sudocrem who wanted to send us some goodies as part of their Cycle More campaign. Anyone who knows me knows I love a bit of sudocrem, so how could I say no? We got a little box of merch, including these super cute cyclist’s little sudocrem tubs, plus an amazing print for our wall. I have no idea why they sent it, but I can only assume it’s because they saw my sudocrem print? (You can buy it here for £1 if you too love sudocrem…)
A: We had so many plans for our little holiday but ended up spending most of the time rearranging the house, cleaning, playing video games, watching movies and drinking some really wonderful cocktails from the drinks drop (a letterbox cocktail delivery). We also got an exciting delivery of wetsuits! (No idea how we managed to overspend in August….) We’ve been dreaming of wild swimming since Abersoch, but it’s getting colder and we are both scared of jellyfish, so we thought we’d give wetsuit hire a try. Tri Wetsuit Hire do plus size wetsuit hire for 4 weeks or a season. It seemed a good way to try out some bigger wetsuits without committing, especially as plus size suits are often not actually plus size. You enter your measurements and your preferred swimming style online and they send you the best wetsuit for you. The ones they sent actually fit really well (stayed tuned for photos of them in action) and the good thing about the hire service is if my body changes (which it always does) I haven’t spent a shit tonne on something that is now too small or too large. Also, if you like them a lot, you can purchase them at the end of your trial.
L: Yeah, I have some pretty bad memories of getting in and out of wetsuits as a kid at the beach - they’re not sensorially fun - so I was a little nervous but actually they’ve come a long way in 15 years and the neoprene is super soft and not too hard to get on and off…
A: Finally, here’s some more cat spam…
