“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.“

Douglas Coupland, shampoo planet

Recently I’ve been thinking about the idea of loneliness, and getting used to a quiet, calmer, peaceful, pace. Whilst still being in my 20s and wanting to go and party and have fun!!

When I was a child and teenager, I didn’t have lots of friends and many weekend plans. At the weekend I would enjoy tidying my room, practicing my violin and reading my many books!

I’d spend a couple of hours out with my family on a forest dog walk, enjoying the calm sounds of creatures in the trees, before stopping in a coffee shop. On reflection, I seemed more mindful, taking in my surroundings.

At University, I moved to Liverpool and got used to fast-paced city life! I’d go out to parties and socials many times a week (as many students do!!)

I started working at Starbucks on campus which was busy and bustling. And when I graduated, I got used to an even faster pace in London.

My lifestyle became full of noise and other people. I think I enjoyed that distraction from my overthinking, I wasn’t left with my thoughts. I was more impulsive. But then I was never around silence. Even in the moments I had to myself, I’d play loud music and phone people.

Last year, I was lucky to have the opportunity to learn more about mindfulness and meditation. The course (ran by the amazing Amy Polly) made me think more about living in the moment, focusing on the one activity I’m doing.

I started to realise that I needed to learn to sit in those moments of quiet, and enjoy my own company again. I’m not sure when I lost that, but it’s something I’m starting to learn again.

Because when I couldn’t stand to be by myself, I sometimes would resort to unhealthy activities and people to fill that void.

I have felt lonely to start with. But I’m starting to feel content and happy with those moments of calm. It is making me value those fun, busy moments too!

Hope everyone enjoyed the snow, that experienced it!!

Annie x

Standing, facin’, all mirrors are erasin’

Losin’ beauty, at least at times it knew me

Standin’, facin’, all mirrors are erasin’

Losin’ beauty, at least at times it knew me

All Mirrors: Angel Olsen

Over the last couple of years, each time I’ve seen my dentist I have spoken to her about my gum issues.

This is gonna get gross. [squeamish people look away!!]

I get stressed because I remember some mouthwash/ toothpaste advert where the actor brushed her teeth, there was blood, and then her tooth fell out. And ever since then I’ve pretty much had a panic attack at any speck of blood when I brush my teeth.

And each time, over the past few years, when I see my dentist (religiously once a year) she has asked if I am stressed. She asks about my job, what’s going on in my life. Because any gum issues aren’t to do with my teeth; apparently they’re healthy. Gum issues and blood when I brush my teeth is purely stress related. (So I need to stop worrying about losing my teeth!)

Physical signs of stress are not new to me. They’re what I’ve lived with for years. My eczema has been treated with steroid creams for as long as I remember. At one point, mid-university, I had to be referred to a dermatologist because my skin was so bad. I would scratch in my sleep. Watching ‘Black Swan’ was predictably traumatising and triggering for me. (Here’s the trailer in case you haven’t heard of the film!) It’s very dark and I would be careful if you could also be triggered by anxiety or other mental health depictions.

I used to scratch my skin without noticing. Flare-ups would cause me to scratch in my sleep with no way of controlling it, other than to take antihistamines in a desperate attempt to stop the irritation.

It’s so clear to me, after having to deal with mental health illness, that my eczema is linked to triggers, lack of sleep and bouts of mental illness. Stress, PTSD symptoms and then physical symptoms come linked, often.

There has even been very recent studies linking autoimmune diseases and mental health illnesses, such as psychosis.

My mental health issues follow a genetic line of similar illnesses. It is clear that trauma breeds trauma, but now there are signs that predispositions for mental illnesses can be genetic. My psychiatrist told me that I’m more prone to stress than the average person, and I am learning to live with it.

“Like fever and pain, anxiety and low mood are useful normal responses to some situations.” 

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings- Randolph M. Nesse

Sometimes I feel sick when I’m anxious. I’m more likely to become ill with a cold. My immune system is weak.

My experience has demonstrated to me the link between mental and physical health. And often, the things that help me deal with my mind are physical activities such as yoga, cycling and open water swimming. I try and pair different aspects of the 5 ways to mental health.

So let’s look out for physical signs of stress. Because they can be signals to mental health. Let’s link the both and not dismiss the physical symptoms of stress.

Annie x

(Not technically a mental health professional yet, but I’m planning to become one!)

As I’m into my 5th hospitality job, it is clear that we see the best and the worst of people.

I’ve seen weddings, funerals, drunks, stressed chefs, famous ex footballers in a box at Anfield stadium, pans as big as me and trip advisor reviews to make you question humanity!

I realised that I am absolutely, very nosy and very interested in people. Their behaviour, actions and motivations. I like chatting to people, after spending many child and teenager years as a socially anxious human.

Sometimes it’s fun to be a waitress, even if you do have a degree. I love to be on my feet talking to people and that often makes me the most happy. I’m capable of reading an academic book and referencing theories, but I’ve learnt that I prefer to learn from PEOPLE. No matter how different their opinion is, and which newspaper they read…

Sarah Dessen’s ‘The Truth about Forever’ has a hilarious depiction of an outside catering company which is chaotic but warm and where people help each other out

Overcoming social anxiety definitely has opened up the world for me. And I’m glad that I’m now a people person, able to do a bit of latte art.

Hospitality is communication and teamwork and learning all the secrets. It’s the best!

In a few weeks time, the plan is to walk up Snowden. So I bought some walking boots which I’ll be doing a lotta walking in. So there’s some slight relevance to this blog’s title ^ and also justification for the random walking boots pics.

My senior position within the Shelby Company means I don’t often have to ask permission from anyone to do anything.

Polly Gray- PEAKY BLINDERS

As the summer began, ITV2’s Love Island once again dominated the TV. It was a pleasant surprise to watch the journey that Amber took, from being widely misunderstood as being rude to being congratulated on her straight-up attitude and becoming 2019 Love Island’s winner (with Greg!)

Love Island is by no means the only show featuring straight-talking women. Less than a year ago, Becky Sharp (one of my favourite literature characters- from Vanity Fair) was competing with Julia Montague in BBC’s Bodyguard for the Sunday evening audience.

Since then, we’ve also been graced with Sex Education, Russian Doll, another series of Stranger Things and OITNB on Netflix. On screen we’ve had more Peaky Blinders, Clique, Line of Duty, Derry Girls and new Gentleman Jack.

I once turned to someone at a party and said ‘did I miss the memo on the sh*t shirt theme?’ purely because all the guys were wearing patterned shirts (classic filter-dysfunction> i was joking)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been KILLING IT writing Fleabag and Killing Eve. Spotting the assertive/ strong/ realistically-written woman has become a much easier game than the ‘Where’s Wally’ comparison you could have made years ago.

These boots are made for walkin’

And that’s just what they’ll do

One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you…

NANCY SINATRA

We’ve gone from telling women to go on ‘Assertiveness Training’ courses to succeed at work, to magazines, such as the latest Cosmopolitan, telling us to ‘be a badass’. The Bumble app, where women strike up the conversation, has over 50 million users, suggesting the popularity of ‘assertive women’ in the dating scene.

This recurring emphasis on the importance of ‘ladylike’ speech manifests not only class prejudice but also a more specifically sexist logic that puts women in a curious double-bind.

Verbal Hygiene DEBORAH CAMERON

However, adverts still come up on my LinkedIn suggesting female-specific courses on how to communicate in the workplace. Search ‘assertiveness courses’ or ‘how to communicate @ work’ and you may see a slight trend towards the ‘fairer sex’….

I’ve gone from studying the attitudes towards male and female language in business in one of my uni modules, to working out the approach I’d try and aim for in a workplace. In a world where there seems to be a huge amount of opinions on the way women speak, it’s hard to navigate a way of communicating without any judgement forced upon you.

The public’s summer fling with Amber’s SASS seems quite a positive step. And Maura is right, being open and honest about your sexuality doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a ‘slag’.

So this weekend, I got on the LNER aZOOMa back to London from P’town, breaking in my hiking boots on steps up from the tube, ready to attempt not to let people walk all over me. Feeling ‘good as hell’; I’m sure Lizzo would be proud, even though I do need to sort out my nails.

P.S. I don’t need to be wearing boots, or Miranda Priestly’s Jimmy Choos, to walk all over you if you’re getting in my way x

‘Details of your incompetence do not interest me’– Miranda Priestly

The young men are finding, the industry employing their young men and fathers, there’s a future, a secure future, in Welshpool today

People will always need coal- Public Service Broadcasting

Hi. My name is Angharad and (deep breath) I am incapable of pronouncing my name properly. -Hi Ancarrot, welcome to accentless anonymous.-

Once I was introduced to someone by a friend as ‘the nicest person, and the funniest drunk’. This same friend probably attributes the hilarity, that apparently ensues from me being drunk, to her having a strong valley accent, which caused me to follow her asking for her to say my name properly for me (please say Angharad agaaiiin).

My story begins when my dad somehow convinced an English ‘Southerner’ to marry him in Welshpool and get a primary school teaching job in a welsh village, having to complete a weekS-long intensive course in the Welsh language (she should have known better, considering she went to Bangor uni and therefore had a doubly long graduation which was said in both Welsh and English)

Real life Gavin and Stacey huh.

Their apparent love of the Welsh I assume is the reason they chose a traditional Welsh name for their eldest child, but doesn’t necessarily explain why they proceeded to shorten it to Annie 60% of the time, (Pannie, Panhead, Panini and Petit-pain shares the other 40%).

I sometimes wonder if they had decided on that name regardless of the gender, more than once I’ve had people think it’s a male name, and if that had been the case I would RESPECT that.

It’s interesting to not know for certain if someone will know my gender based off the name written on the CV (although I’ve more recently put Annie in brackets to help out whoever will inevitably stumble on the pronunciation).

As an aside, I am almost certain that 8-year-old me signed off my letters with Angharad.R.G purely because I was proud I had finally learnt how to spell it.

It is Meg the Rock, the old man’s neighbour, her skin plastered with mud, her layers of tattered green jerseys merging with the ferns and lichens of the slope, talking to the wild creatures of the Welsh hills as if she were one of them-as indeed she is.

(On the Black Hill– Bruce Chatwin).

Before I was @ the age of three we had followed the ‘fickle finger of fate’ across the border to Wem (Shropshire), and by the time I had turned five we had made the big move to the unknown Fens (Peterborough) where they have ‘Toona on Toosdays’ and there is a distinct lack of hills or any incline whatsoever- I noticed this significantly when my driving teacher directed me the furthest we’d ever been purely to find a hill to teach me hill-starts (‘geographically- it’s flat and boring’).

One language lecturer constantly asked my opinion on the tutorial discussion, from the perspective of someone who could speak the Welsh language. Sadly, I had to repeatedly state that although I have a Welsh name, I admit that I can’t actually speak Welsh.

EXCEPT, once a fellow Alto singer in St Guthlac’s choir, a strong singer from North Wales, turned to me when the choir had rehearsed Bread of Heaven (Cwm Rhondda) and told me that ‘one of these days we’ll have to teach them it in Welsh’. I was her little annie alto apprentice and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I would be unable to teach the choir a language I knew little of.

Not to be too much of a nerd, and bore anyone, it has become increasingly obvious in academic studies that Welsh DID have some influence on old English– kudos to language academics (the BBC probably put it more concisely than I would). Not so long ago, I was listening to Adwaith- a song that is actually one of the most streamed songs in Welsh [Fel i Fod] in my mum n dad’s kitchen doing the washing up (it goes so much more quickly with music on right?) Dad walked through and said ‘oh you know what sheets y gwely means don’t you?’ No dad, unfortunately I didn’t until you told me it means bed sheets despite now remembering that every so often when you go up to bed you say ‘amser gwely’ (bedtime!) Well that MAY have POSSIBLY been a lesson in how I grew up dismissing the Welsh language and often assuming that my dad was making up nonsense.

Another tangent, but, from my observations and small insight into the Welsh dynamic, **BOLD STATEMENT ALERT** speaking or not speaking Welsh sometimes comes across as being reflective of a class issue in some parts of Wales (especially the area I was born in that had a complex history of being Welsh, English, Welsh [repeat a few times over thousands of years]). Similar to Tudor society changing from Catholic to Protestant to Catholic (and ironically Tudor is a family name), it seems that admitting that you do or don’t speak Welsh can suggest an allegiance or restrict your ability to social climb.

A Jehovah ’s Witness in Llandrinio once questioned why I would study English rather than Welsh since I have a traditional Welsh name…

Margaret Thatcher (who I assume Adwaith are insulting in Osian) put down the Welsh people but I flippin’ love them- who else would burn the letter off street signs because English employees in the council clearly didn’t understand the use of the Welsh language regarding gender and acknowledgement of Saints.

I CAN’T WAIT to spot Rodney’s pillar, wake up to sheepie’s baa-ing and listen to more tales of my dad playing strip poker @ a friend’s stag do, being ditched by his friends whilst naked and grabbing a Butcher’s Board [apparently a 6 foot model of a butcher] to cover himself on the walk through the winding streets from Welshpool to Llansantffried/ Llansanffried/ Llansantfied (oh I DON’t KNOW) [okay apparently he didn’t actually walk thaat far- that’s 8 miles I’ve been reliably informed]. If you want to know my experience of travelling on the tube with Bob/ Rob> a self-confessed country bumpkin (a.k.a. my dad) then please let me know, I’m sure my biggest fan would be DELIGHTED.

Annie (ancarrot, petit-pain)

P.S. If you can say Angharad, or would like to try, feel free to call me that. If you’re unsure, call me whatever you want as I have a million nicknames as it is, what’s one more?