Friendshipping; Positive and Negative Thinking

I haven't posted in a while, dear reader, and I'm afraid the reason is not a positive one. I'm pretty sick right now. However, in an effort to be positive, I thought I'd reflect on someone very positive in my life.

My best friend moved to London at the beginning of the summer, and it has improved my quality of life considerably.

Kool Kids

After living in the USA for a year (you can check out their adventures at https://pipanddavesgreatadventure.wordpress.com/ ) Pip and Dave returned to England, and Dave wangled a job in London.

To celebrate their first week at their new place in Canary Wharf, Pip and I decided to go on an epic Wharf-crawl!! This would combine two of my favourite things: sightseeing, and, of course, day drinking.

It started at All Bar One, with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, and ended with a round of Margharitas in Wahaca. Needless to say, me and my bestest celebrate in style!!

Wahaca-ing

A few days later, once we'd recovered from our first outing, we hit Westfield Stratford. Now, I have a SKINT LONDONING TIP for you now! Spending the day trawling one of London's many sprawling shopping centres costs exactly however much you want it to cost: Take a packed lunch. Take a smoothie from home. Take a teabag and ask for a paper cup of hot water from a coffee shop! I've forgotten cutlery enough times to know that if you ask with an empathetic smile, disenthused service workers will usually mirror it and help you out.

Having my best friend back in my town has so many benefits that I don't have enough fingers and toes to tick them off. Pip just gets me in ways that no one else does. We've been friends for such a huge portion of our lives that we just fell easily back into our old synchronicity. We take care of each other.

A Chewbacceautiful Hat!

One of our greatest hours of friendship was when we took a minibreak to Disneyland Paris in the Summer of 2014. So of course we spent ages in the Disney Store, reliving our adventures!

Me and Homegal in Disneyland! 2014

As her big grown-up job started this Monday, and her lovely other half works during the day, we spent three days out of the last week together! This is how it went:

DAY 1: Monday. As we recovered from our Wine and Cheese Night hangovers, we took a walk up to Barkingside and walked my neighbour's dog. (Borrowmydoggy.com is a wonderful thing!) Then we trawled the charity shops of Barkingside.

My Fave Doggo <3

DAY 2: Tuesday. On Tuesday we visited the London Docklands Museum in Pip's neck of the woods. I would definitely recommend this museum, as I was... kinda wowed!

We started on the top floor and made our way down. The stand out exhibitions, for me, were the Slavery exhibition, which was both sensitive and powerful, and the reconstructed Victorian Street. You really feel like you're immersed in history: the soundscape, the audios and videos and interactive parts allow you to put yourself in the shoes of many different Londoners.

Slaying it Victorian Stylee

We then walked towards the station, as I had to go off to work. Canary Wharf really surprises me with it's explorability (yes - that is officially a word... that I just made up.) It's got rooftop gardens, art and that unique towering architecture.

Messing Around in Canary Wharf

DAY 3: Friday. Sims day! Curled up on the sofa, we had a marathon of our very favourite video game. We made each other, obviously. True friendship, right there.

Daveduction by Aliens

I am insanely grateful for the week I have just spent. This week, however, seems to be taking a severe downturn, as I have just come down with tonsillitis. The last two days have seen the warm comfort of my bedroom turn into a feverish, dismal prison.

I've been intending to publish this post for a few days now, but I've pretty much been confined to my bed about 80% of the time (the other 20% being spent questing for food)

Usually, when I'm ill I can at least be productive writing-wise, but this infection feels like it's literally frying my brains. I can only apologise, and I only hope that in a few days this hopeless fog lifts and I can actually get some work done.

It's one thing to be sitting around, feeling weak, but it's quite another to feel so weak - weak in every way: physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, health-wise - that you can't even get up for longer than two minutes to do anything to make yourself feel better.

I can't exercise. I can't even go out for a walk. I can't invite people over, because I don't want to give them tonsillitis! The one thing I can do is trawl the internet, hearing about the horrific things that are happening right now.

The multiple impact hurricanes affecting my brothers and sisters out west, the loom of possible nuclear war and mutually assured destruction. Fricken Brexit. It's all getting a bit much.

It's at this point, when I can hear that old voice-in-the-head that's saying everything is hopeless, that I have to take a leaf out of my mother's book and "smallen" my world.

I have to think about myself. And tick off the many, many things that I have to be grateful for. Switching off from social media is important (even though I can only manage it for an hour. Max. Unless I'm asleep.) and so is taking the little things into account: I have a place to sleep and food to eat.

Things that are also good for smallening: good tv, a good duvet and a good pillow to bury your face in.

At the end of the day, I will soon be back to my normal butt-kicking self, so in the meantime, a little bit of self-pity is okay. I've long-since learned that kicking my own butt constantly doesn't really help anything. There is a place, in between positive and negative thinking, where I can just... exist.

So, in conclusion, dear reader, I apologise for the ineloquence and inanity of this post, I hope the next one will be better when I'm out of my fever-riddled nightmare-haze!

Yours,

Char

xxx