Let's kick off with a bit of Disney travel news. For the first time since 2019 I can now say we have a Disney holiday booked but this time it will be a first for us as we have booked a cruise! Not only will this be our first Disney cruise but it will be our first cruise ever!
After a lot of debating and being swayed by friends who have this year experienced both Disney and non-Disney cruises we have taken the plunge and booked ourselves a place on the Disney Dream sailing out of Southampton, UK next September. Our 7 night cruise will see us venturing north as we take in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo and Sandnes in Norway. This does mean lots of research ahead for me not only about the ports we will be visiting but also all about cruising Disney style.
Since the end of October we have continued with our early morning walks getting out most mornings although we have now resorted to wellies when we venture out over the fields.
Our cold showers each morning are now embedded in our routine and I have now joined Simon with the Wim Hof breathing method. I have surprised myself by being able to let myself 'indulge' in this 10 minute practice and this in turn has resulted in me giving meditation a try. I have always been reluctant to try meditation as the thought of 'giving in' to something really didn't sit very well with me at all...the act of 'giving up control' felt very alien to me. But after getting used to the calm of the breathing I have now started with some simple 10 minute meditations and have surprised myself with how easy they have been and how I have actually been able to 'let go' and simply 'be' in the moment.
At the end of October we were able to join a Star Wars troop with our Joker Squad buddies at Leicester Comic Con. This was the first time trooping with Joker Squad in over three years! And although we were small in number we were still able to entertain and make people smile.
Then in November we hooked up with our East Midlands Garrison crew at a local pub's Sci-Fi quiz night which helped raise money for the charity PASIC.
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| Not sure how good Stormtroopers are at pulling a pint!! |
We had hoped to attend PASIC's Christmas Party earlier this month but as we both had a very slight cold we decided to stay away as all the children attending would be immunocompromised and we didn't want to risk passing anything on.
At the beginning of November Simon had a week off from work and we took advantage of the time productively. We dragged Ethan out shopping with us for a day, luring him with the promise of food and coffee and while he came home empty handed Simon did pick up a couple of shirts.
Next I had a day booked with Saint Heywood at Acadia Tattoo for my latest round of Disney ink. This time it was combining my love of the attraction 'It's A Small World' with the art style of Jerrod Maruyama...
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| Work in progress |
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| Line work done and colour just started |
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| Finished result |
It was then time to take a trip 'up north' for a few days. We started by having a couple of nights in York staying in an old fashioned style of hotel which kind of evoked 'Fawlty Towers' type vibes! But York was as lovely as ever; we walked for miles, drank lots of coffee, had some lovely meals out (great to find a Byron Burger restaurant and a fab tapas too!), more walking, chance to play with my new camera, shopping and more coffee! A short trip which resulted in new shoes for Simon and new jigsaws for me courtesy of the York Outlet mall.
After York we moved a little further north to visit Stockton-on-Tees for a couple more nights. The reason for visiting here was to revisit an area that is very familiar to both Simon and I. For me this is the part of the country where I was born and so consequently I still have lots of family members who live in the surrounding area and who I hadn't seen in a fair few years. For Simon he had spent around 5 years working in Stockton, and living there during the week as it was too big a distance from home to commute. We both have lots of great memories of the area, and of the people, and so it was great to get the chance to re-visit after a lot of years away.
We were able to see quite a lot of my relatives over the course of a couple of days and we have vowed to return when the weather is kinder (it was rather wet!) and the days are longer so that we can explore further.
Throughout the last couple of months I have been trying to clear stuff from my dads house and as a result have become quite skilled at using Ebay! Consequently there has been lots of cataloguing of items, photos taken, items listed, sales made, items packed and trips to the local post office. And every time we get a delivery it means that boxes and packing materials have to be saved; thank goodness we have a shed for storage!
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| Ready for a trip to the post office |
And with it being the run up to Christmas I decided that a review of my Christmas decorations was in order, particularly my outdoor lights. I knew I had a couple of sets that were not working 100% so I decided to invest in some new sets; this resulted in three sets of string lights and a light-up tree!
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| Obligatory testing of lights! |
This did then mean a few days tidying the garden (in the rain) to get everywhere ready as well as planning out how to get everything plugged in. Having had some new outdoor sockets installed over the summer I had the power but needed to make sure that we had sufficient weatherproof boxes for all the cables, plugs and extension leads. Plans were drawn so that when it came to putting them all up it should be a relatively straight forward process.
And we have reached mid-November so let's leave it there as I make a start on a new post.
See you soon.
xx
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