ENDO AWARENESS MONTH

I’ve broken the sabbatical from any kind of personal writing to discuss the chronic condition, endometriosis. It’s endo (as you’ll know it, if you suffer from it) awareness month and there is a distinct lack of information and awareness online, considering this.

Endometriosis, in my own words, is kind of like the cells of your womb want to have a party and so grow, everywhere inside your  body, mainly in places where you don’t want them to. This causes pain, chronic fatigue, general disillusionment with life and sometimes, for me, an intense struggle to walk up stairs/ move my body/ try and do normal things without crying. I mean, don’t even get me to try and party, I am in bed by 10pm, and that’s a late one. Chronic fatigue is a social life killer.

The actual medical explanation is so;

“In endometriosis, you have cells that would normally line your womb (endometrial tissue) elsewhere in your body. This tissue will also thicken and break down with your menstrual cycle, but it has no way of leaving your body. This can lead to pain, swelling and scarring. If you have endometriosis on your fallopian tubes or ovaries, it can lead to fertility problems.

Endometriosis is most common on your ovaries, fallopian tubes and the tissues that hold your womb in place. You can also get it on or around other organs in your pelvis and abdomen (tummy), such as your vagina, bladder or bowel. Rarely, endometriosis can occur in other places such as your lungs or breast.”

For myself, my endometriosis, as they found during a laparotomy (basically a C-section) is currently (as far as I know) attached to the walls of my womb and my bowels. This diagnosis however, was a year ago, so it could, really, be anywhere by now.  This makes life, sometimes, very painful. I’m trying not to delve too deeply into the question of fertility, as I’d honestly, rather just avoid the potentially emotionally painful and life changing effect, that is infertility, of this stupid disease.

Symptoms differ from person to person, so I’m going to do some more plagiarism from the BUPA website. If you do have any of these symptoms, I would suggest going to get it checked out… However, there is no way of definitive diagnosis apart from laparoscopy (keyhole surgery) and there is no cure…

•    pain during sex

•    changes to your periods, such as heavy bleeding

•    extreme tiredness

•    depression

•    unexplained difficulties becoming pregnant

After my surgery, to remove an 18x14cm cyst, the gynaecologist tried to put me on Zoladex, which are painful injections, into your stomach, which inadvertedly freeze your ovaries, inducing early menopause. If you’re reading this, then you probably know me, and you know that me, with extra hormones, or hormone withdrawal would be an absolute nightmare. Even if I had have opted for this method, it is only a temporary solution, there is no cure for endometriosis, just different hormone therapies for pain management.

There’s definitely a lot more to write about the disease, but this is just a brief, brief outline, to raise a tiny bit of awareness, in my social circle.

"Write drunk, edit sober"

Q: "the need for pain, angst and suffering in every humans lives and the benefits resulting from these influences"

A: I’m not sure if it’s possible to fully explain the need for pain in the human existence. As a person we can live, we can love, we can cry and be sad and feel emotions, but true existential pain is a wonder. I say this because of personal experience, it’s not possible to feel this pain unless you undergo true torment. You can live through years and years of it, feeling the pain, and hiding it, and also hiding who you truly are. There are many scripts in Eastern Philosophy (Zen, Taoism, Buddhism) about the benefits of understanding your feelings, but in true sense, it’s not easy to process or comprehend these feelings of utter despair. It takes time, and understanding to do this. I believe that many people never understand who they truly are, living through a process of metaphorical clouds in front of their minds. 

How do you get to this understanding? You step back, release yourself from the delusions of the human mind, and it that sense society, commercialism and capitalism as a process. I say this because i believe that capitalism, especially, adds to our feeling of despair. How many female children have watched a Disney film, and subconsciously expected that to be the synopsis to real life. Falling in love with a ‘handsome prince’ (often a misogynistic, controlling man) and living happily ever after. Real life is our worlds children dying in wars that our capitalist society has subjected us to with no opinion, or say. In the bigger sense, the Western world has no idea about true suffering, even writing about it is truly ridiculous. I am sitting here on my laptop whilst children are living in poverty, and nobody remembers this. We throw it out of our minds like we would an empty crisp packet. The children in Syria, Afghanistan, parts of Africa are truly suffering, I don’t believe I can write about it fully. Nobody strives to help the war stricken countries. If we were in a perfect society we would be a world community, who would be taking in the forgotten children of these countries..but no.. We forget, because it’s convenient. In Britain, we have UKIP, the BNP to try and inform us as a society, through propaganda and media that these children are irrelevant. It’s BULLSHIT. How can anybody place value on a human life? (However, that may be another topic) The Western world suffers in such a different way to the third world, we mainly emotionally suffer, but will rarely actually ‘suffer’, in a third world respect. How can any of us believe that we suffer truly,  when we put into perspective the children, the women, the men, that are getting coerced into being a war criminal; being beaten or raped purely for being a vulnerable person: used as a war tool all around the world. So suffering is out.. We can only truly know true suffering when we take ourselves out of the mind frame of Capitalism, and place our souls truly into the third world.

So angst is different, every teenager in the world has experienced angst. A hearty mix of emotional whirlwinds, hatred and loathing at the world. Who hasn’t been there? My emotional angst contributed in a crazy time of weed smoking, drinking, climbing up lampposts in rollerblades, messing about in fields and walking around aimlessly.(Great times) Angst, is a series of emotions that every body should experience. As a former ‘emo’ kid, i know well enough about it. Let’s summarise the teenage ‘angsty’ feelings… ‘Everybody hates me’, ‘I’m not good enough’ ‘My friends don’t like me’ ‘The opposite sex hates me’ ‘I’m so ugly’ ‘I’m so geeky’  amongst other things. The thing is, as an adult, it’s not expected for you to feel these feelings, but i do at least, on a regular occasion. We’re expected to be more grown up than that and not long for things to be as easy, as when you were able to be ‘angsty’ for a reason. I’m so ANGSTY now, GOD, I feel like i’m 15 again, and you know what, that’s fucking OK. Because every time I am, I learn from it, I learn how to feel, and how to deal with my emotions, every single time I go through those thoughts. There’s times in every bodies lives where we can regress to the angst ridden teenager, and to regress to that time allows us to deal with where we’re at and take stock of our lives.

Suffering then, suffering makes us who we are. A human can never truly appreciate their happiness unless they have suffered. How can you feel the highs if you haven’t experienced the lows? Suffering is the entire basis of humanity, to be human is to suffer. Suffer living, suffer being alive every day. There is no meaning to life, we just have to strive to find the happiness that it gives to us. There is a reason why there are such cringe quotes such as ‘Live every day as if it’s your last’, because really it is, or it very well could be. You never know what will happen. Tomorrow you could suffer, so every day that you don’t, try to count as a blessing. It’s so hard to be ‘happy’ in the human mentality but to look into yourself and find some perspective is a start. I don’t believe that you can live a truly happy life unless you’ve suffered before to appreciate it. Suffering can come in many ways, and only the individual can count on the experience to change them, and they should try to learn from it if it’s possible.

In conclusion (to your posited question JB)..there is a need for pain, angst and suffering in every individuals life, and no matter how we experience it, whether we are from an upper class family in England or a poverty stricken child in a third world country, we can try to learn from these things and improve ourselves. If a person never feels pain or suffering then they won’t ever progress in life. This is progressing onto the meaning of life…but that’s a different story. X 

Ozbervations

I promised that I'd write a blog at least once a month to account for my feelings/ perusals/ adventures. The heat in Melbourne is that stifling however, that my brain is ceasing to work. When simple sentence structures are a problem writing isn't conducive. My memories are melting away...
I did make some random observations whilst in Byron Bay so I'll copy that down. I had just been reading 'The Myth of Sisyphus' so it's barely readable... JB, the things i do for you.

"This piece needs a focus but my mind is intangible, my writing irrelevant and all thoughts just a fragment of my perceptions on life; Australia - pretty much a hot Britain. Not to downplay its extensive, historical culture or even to make an educated judgement, however it lacks the colour, flavour and smells of other countries I've visited. (Mainly Asia...) It's very
Westernised, a fluid, easy transition from life in one country to the next. People are here to work and live making it a much different backpacking experience. It's harder to make friends because everybody is settled, or maybe that's just my flawed older character emerging, that doesn't want to be bothered with the rigmarole of being best friends with someone for a day to then never ever see them again. I may have grown up (debatable?) since my last expedition or maybe I found that piece of myself I was looking for. (Cliche)
Interesting (again debatable)Australian Observations then:
- Coke is much better from a fan, specifically a tall long can, rather than a short one. And I do mean 'ca cola thanks.
- The avocados are perfection. I could live off avocado forever.
- The coffee here is like gorgeous smack, sends you a bit loopy as soon as you take your first delicious sip.
- I am predisposed to want something that everybody else has, no matter the cost. Namely a nose piercing, a tattoo and to be adorned with pretty jewellery things whilst pulling off the beach chic surf girl look. Unfortunately for me, my hair will not be beautiful. I snapped my hair brush trying to untangle it on my first day in Byron Bay. Sigh. I shall always have a knotty, frizzy cave woman bush.
- I am told, by fairly reliable sources that the O-Zone layer is thinner here so it's much easier to burn. Leaving me with a beautiful English tan on my first few days.
- Australia has the BEST sand.
- Why would you only sell salted popcorn Australia? Whyyyyy?
- They also have the best breakfasts. I'm writing this in my new favourite cafe in Melbourne where you can get the best coffee and the best breakfast. Hell yeah I want an avocado smash, with feta and a poached egg on top. Hell yeah. You are divine. ( My new favourite cafe is attached to a library. It could possibly be my spiritual home.
- It is not cool when you're staying in a shitty hostel with no air conditioning in 45 degree heat for the creepy Frenchman sleeping in the bunk above you to get out of bed in the middle of the night and upon seeing that you are awake, come up to you, stroke your belly and reassure you that everything will be okay. Really not cool. On the same matter of the creepy French man, if you were to hypothetically say leave some knickers accidentally in your hostel room on the day of checking out (hastily packing, trying to make a quick escape), you would not expect the CFM to run after you and pass to you the said pair of knickers in the reception of the hostel, in front of around 30 other backpackers. This is just not a normal thing to do.
- Would you rather is the best game for getting to know people. I now know that my lovely friend Max would rather would rather be a girl with a penis than a boy with a vagina and that he would rather sleep with five ugly women than one beautiful one. Oh Max. I have also learnt that having being asked to make the choice I would prefer to be living in jail than on Mars. The conditions living on Mars are; you would be living with one alien, one Belgian, one American, one Chinese person and one dog. On Mars there is one sofa, one iPad, one butterfly and one pedicab. You can only return one month every year but after ten years you can go home forever. Which would you choose?
- Australian slang is bloody fantastic. No worries = no dramas. It's ok = too easy. Words are shortened. Bottl'o - bottle shop Avo - afternoon Povo - you're a bit skint. There's more...I just can't think currently. Ooooh also, a doona - duvet.
- There are no pints! You can have a pot (half) or a scooner which is more than a half but less than a pint. Crazy!
- Errrr and what's with 45 degree heat in a city? It's bloody ridiculous. My English self can't handle this. It's hotter than the desert in Jordan!!

That's the majority of lighthearted observations I can think of right now. (I hope that this has satiated your thirst for blogging for the time being JB) I could have written about what I've been up to but the answer is just generally nothing. Exploring, reading, playing cards. Finding my spiritual cafe home...

Lots of love,

Loz

Classification: unedited rant. Should have used a Thesaurus.

Are you allowed to detract yourself from
the sociological, patriarchal values of modern day? I find it difficult as a modern woman to do so; I don't want to get married, I don't want to have children, I don't want to get a house and settle down. My friends that are in that headspace; well good for you. I'm happy for you, it just doesn't work for me. When my dad died I decided that enough was enough. I wasn't going to follow ideological and social pressures. I decided that I am going to live my life for my dad, who didn't do enough living himself. God bless him. He worked his life to support a family and felt terribly stressed all of the time. Personally, I think that contributed to him dying, but I'm not a medical professional. Holistic all the way.
I am going to  travel around the entire world, I am going to have fun whilst doing it. I am not going to listen to people's opinions about what I should be doing ( those opinions which are wholeheartedly indoctrinated by society). I am going to intensely discover who I want to be. I don't see why there should be a time limit on that. I'm 25, I've seen a lot of the world, I've done what I want to do and I've had a fine time doing it. I don't want to listen to a doctrine, or political and sociological ideas that try to stifle my creative travelling liberation. I don't want people to ask me why I haven't got a career. I don't want people to ask me why I don't have a boyfriend and I definitely don't want people to ask me why I'm not married. This all may be 'I' in the first person, however it should be 'we' as a people. The people that agree.
I watched a very interesting Louis Theroux documentary about prison life. Prisoners are habitualised into their prison life, stuck in a microcosm of same sex society, just probably a bit more ruthless than life in Congleton! The same feelings go though for me, same as a criminal stuck behind bars. Society is ruthless, prison is a microcosm of that in a strange way. Are we institutionalised as a people? Yes. Are we indoctrinated as a people? Yes. Are we trapped within a patriarchal society controlled by a ruthless government- yes (very 1984). We're are as trapped by opinions and judgements as prisoners, but we're used to it, so nobody challenges it. (Challenge it!)
I don't think that people understand how repressed we are as a people. We've grown, since the 1900's obviously but why is there so much pressure to do well? Why is there so much pressure to have a career? When in history has this been the case? If you could provide for your family then why are you looked down on for working in a bar, supermarket, Mcdonalds. Why can't we just do what we want to do and not be questioned? I'm happy, why aren't you judgemental people? Please stop commenting on my life. 

Elephant Hills

Deep in the luscious rainforest of Khao Sok, Elephant Hills is a tropical tented paradise, submerged within the depth of the jungle. Arriving, we entered an idyll microcosm of jungle paradise. We walked through the leafy terrain with only our thoughts to occupy us. Crickets and birds chirped the words of the jungle. Admittedly our tent was luxurious, mosquito proof and an en-suite bathroom, "how can a tent be so beautiful" you think? But it was, it is. So we camp within the depths of the jungle and play in the hammocks that hang from the patio of new home. We leave the tent to go on our first excursion. Words aren't sufficient to explain the pleasure of our time here. We are transported to the elephant camp on an old army truck, we enter a surreal environment. Elephants are in their natural environment, close enough to touch, to feel and to stroke. A mahout looks after an elephant at all times, the elephants are raised with the mahouts. The bond is easily observed, a man and an elephant work as a singular form. We see a baby elephant, not even a year old. Our guide 'No. 1" makes jokes and our experience is very pleasurable. We laugh with him, as he plays with the elephants, humanising them. They respond to his affection with pleasure. We prepare the meals for the elephants, chopping up plants for their afternoon lunch. We feed them, not minding the saliva that gets onto our faces and hands. The pleasure is worth the spit back. The elephants have a 'bath' much like the small child you see in the washing powder adverts who gets themselves muddier before sparky clean. The mahout guides us whilst we scrub the elephant gently and the hose her down. We learn that elephants are matriarchal (if only the world could learn from them?) The elephant kisses us with her trunk and we say goodbye, ready for our next jungle adventure. The world is a much more beautiful place when you take everything away and realise that things can be so simple and pure.

Arrival

30 hours travelling, 30 hours of severe bum numbness. 11 hours of inconsiderate people winding their chairs fully back on the plane. 10 minutes of frantically running a mile to the connecting next flight. 5 hours listening to The Weeknd and other various artists that remind me of home. 2 hours in between sleeps watching 'Wreck it Ralph'. 1 hour reading 'The Little Prince' (thanks Danny). 2 hours coercing mum into letting me rest my legs on her. A little amount of time being sad about leaving certain people. A large amount of time being nervous. A 2 hour thunderstorm, watching the rain pelt down, certainly sure of the end of the world with the ferocious angry god like claps of thunder and Zeuslike bolts of lightening.
Two hours drinking Singha, under a beautiful star filled sky. No amount of time spent realising that this is where I belong and my new home. Citronella fills the air to ward away those lady loving mosquitoes, I have a beer in my hand. It's warmer than I have been in the past six months. They are playing Incubus in the beach bar. My heart is slightly heavy but will be okay. Time for fun.

Leaving

The decision to leave your entire life behind is incomprehensive. You fall in love, you fall out of love. You have a working family, you don't. Friendships, life and loves are fickle so why not leave? People don't leave, you watch them, they get stuck, they stay the same. It's scary leaving everything to hope to be someone you aren't currently. You can write who you are. You can be who you are. I'm a scared little girl with nothing to write about.
Little Loz, first person. I don't want to be back in the same place, I want to travel, not just for myself but for my amazing dad too. Live the dream. He never got to. YOLO.

Regret

Regret is an interesting phenomenon. People are so quick to regret but not so quick to observe the beauty of mistakes. I use the word mistakes loosely as every mistake is an experience. As reference to Blake's poetry, it is experience that is the ether of life. Experience takes us from the little lamb to the roaring tiger. With this literal equation, how it is possible to live with regret? Regret is a painful burden that people need to be free from. Past mistakes should be obsolete. The past is the past is the past and the future is the future.
With this in mind, since I have moved on with my life and become the person that I want to be. I refuse to regret any of my past and love all of my mistakes. I'm going to travel, make myself me, live everything and love everyone.

YOLO

What's fun about fantasy?

“Not all who wander are lost” – J.R.R Tolkien

The previous post concentrates on the M20C (my new ‘cool abbreviation for the ‘mid twenties crisis’) and how our life experiences should be the focal point for any decisions made. The M20C is brought about by sociological pressures, creating not only an emotional crisis but sometimes also an existential one. How do we alleviate these pressures? How do I alleviate these pressures?

Fantasy texts are the answer; novels, films, tv programs. A genre dedicated to pure, unadulterated escapist pleasure. For me, the self doubt and self questions stop when I enter a world that is so unbelievable, it encompasses my whole self. The reversion to reality can be wholeheartedly depressing, when I’ve been so entranced in a happy bubble cloud of words. What more could I want, coming home from work on a bleak Manchester evening, than to curl up and immerse myself into a world of magic, knights and dragons.

Some people assume that these above points are all that fantasy texts are about, but there’s so much more. Key themes include illusion versus reality, good versus evil, relationships, and there’s always a flawed protagonist. Maybe I’m being contradictory, maybe I can see myself in these characters; the flaws in the protagonist are the key to the human condition and every person is part of that. Whether the hero be in Narnia, Middle Earth or Terre D’ Ange they struggle too. How many times have I read about an existential crisis in one of these texts and related to it? They are the key to my education, they live, take risks and experience life in ways only imaginable. Let’s re-evaluate, we can now call it an educated escapism, as we can relate to the hero. In fantasy, things usually work out well in the end, so this is what we can hope and strive for. The key point is ‘experience’. It’s the adventures, heartaches and downfalls that are exciting to read. It’s these things that make the hero eventually get where they want to be. I am the protagonist of my story. Ready for the adventures.

Mid twenties Crisis

“What would you like to do with your life?” How many times do my generation counterparts get asked this question and what is the correct answer? Life plans seem expected from older successful counterparts, yet surely in your twenties you are supposed to snatch upon the freedom of inexperience and live with a slight ounce of spontaneity. The conventional expectations that are imposed upon this generation by older society have now become flawed. The older, traditional life route would be to indoctrinate yourself into education from age four until twenty one, followed very closely by a jump into a career and then eventually marriage and babies. But this just isn’t possible any more. Life is expensive. University is expensive. Cultural recession makes it difficult to get a graduate job. For me, the thought of getting married and having a baby is so far off, it is as elusive as the philosophers stone. Hence then, the question positions the lack of answer and then instigates the “Whatthefuckamidoingwithmylife” mid twenties crisis.The Mid-twenties crisis; a phenomenon that my friends and I certainly weren’t expecting. The transitional period between student to adult is difficult and rarely smooth. A life faced with low income and high bills is not a pretty one. Another facet of your education begins; life education.Your twenties are supposed to be the time in your life where you make your mistakes and learn from your experiences. There are many things that make it tough. Heartbreak, housing issues, emotional displacement, job searches, but they’re supposed to be FUN. So I say let’s wrap up the crisis together, experience everything, grow from it, learn from it and then decide.

Bloody planning!

Planning, planning, planning. How can you plan for your life to change so intensely, dramatically and amazingly. If you've read the many emo previous blog posts you'll be able to recognise that this year has been a whirlwind, a torrent of negative emotions that have been impossible to control.
How do you recover from this? So many people don't. Never run away, never dwell, no regrets. That's the key. This little lady is going away, going away to find herself again and to be centred again.
Here's the plan...Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the Phillipines and Indonesia. If I'm good I'll charter it well... If I'm not too bad. First travel post in approximately 6 weeks.
Follow my journey, it's sure to be emotional! Xx

The winds of change always blow the wrong way, in the wrong fashion. With clarity brings release but this release is not necessarily a welcome one. Relationships are hard to withhold in times of grief and mine has unbearingly broken apart. Death is a transition but brings a new life for the grieving. With this new life changes in mentality are inevitable.
Love is a hard game to play bur the loss of a loved one is harder.

My summer plan

" we read to know that we are not alone" C.S Lewis

I didn't recall writing the last blog post. My dad died 6 days later. Unexpectedly yet inevitably. The cancer days are over and now we're cleaning up the aftermath. Grief, relief and constant emotional turbulence rule my days but slowly I'm wading through the inky water of sadness to find some kind of clarity. Doubtless this clarity will be hard won, the natural life questions that death brings haunt my every decision. Where am going?

Day a billion of the cancer epidemic.

I was going to try and write more but my busy-ness, and my total avoidance of the situation has made my efforts distribute into other areas of my life.

Dad's birthday party, I love him. He made a speech "happy 57th, hopefully i'll make it to 58" yay. Cancer is so harrowing, it's a subject that remains awkward. A third of the population get it but whenever I watch a cancer advert on TV with any of my friends that know I feel like pulling my hair out. Blah (drunk so can't be arsed to write anymore!) x

I would like to be as cool as her.

whoknowswhattowriteabout.com

In the past year since I came back from travelling my brain has disintegrated into a tragic mush of nothingness. Personally I can't decide whether this is due to the avoidance of accepting my dads cancer 'issue' or whether I'm just turning stupid.

So here goes, my reattempt at engaging my brain into something less monotonous than my own current life. Loz, think!

If I were to publish this to a social networking site or expecting anybody to read this then I would probably write what the public wanted; an insight into the current economic crisis, my favourite celebrity crush yadayadah. Instead I'll use this for my own catharsis.

I, Laura Jean Fiddes, personally have a great life. I've got a good job, good friends, a lovely home and people who love me. So why can't I be happy? Why am I screaming, punching pillows, having urges to push children over constantly? Well my dad has cancer, a horrible issue to talk about and one that I'm likely to blame for anything that goes wrong in my life. I know that there are resolute selfish feelings that go with this, which I feel constantly guilty for but what do you do when you're stuck in the same place, in somewhere that you don't want to be. What if you're stuck as a person that you don't want to be? You stay because you love them and you don't want them to feel like you don't. So my important question to the medium of the internet is how can you be happy if you're trapped? And how can you stop feeling trapped and make yourself happy?

There is no resolution to this blog, there is no point to this blog entry, but if anybody reads this that has been or is going through the feelings that I'm going through then maybe my inane ramblings may help but probably not.

Idyllic cow.

Bulbous.

Palm Paradiso.

Let's start with a bit of E.E Cummings...

"but from this endless end
of briefer each our bliss--
where seeing eyes go blind
(where lips forget to kiss)
where everything's nothing
--arise,my soul;and sing"

My brain has ceased to work for a while, every though and recollection of my trip has been skewiffed and splattered by my unceasingly complicated life. I realise that I am sounding like I have regressed to emo and such but no, I am fatally realistic. But either way, I shall continue to brief you on my time travelling. Bear in mind that up until a month ago everything was fantastic. I felt free, level headed and clear. I established a clarity that I thought impossible. I'm still having fun but a rather dead-weight suffocating guilty fun which is less pleasurable than the real thing...
I'll continue from Palolem -
We travelled to a little place in Karnataka called Gokarna. We stayed on 'Om beach' which is named for the shape of the coast line around the beach It's fairly self explanatory :) It's very serene, we spent two happy days there chilling out on the beautiful sands... we stayed in very basic accomodation, I could liken it to a prison cell but it was very cheap and I guess that it counts towards the proper traveller experience. Every experience in life counts, even if one of those is staying in a lizard infested hovel. Sunbathing was difficult in Karnataka, I encountered the eagle eyed Indian men for the first time on an Indian beach and needless to say it wasn't very enjoyable, so getting a tan was out of the question (5 weeks later and I'm back to my pale old self!) It was nice but there wasn't much there, no social scene, no nice food to eat so we left pretty sharpish after a couple of days.
The next notable place was Fort Cochin in Kerala. After a ten hour train journey from Mangalore to Ernakulem we took a rickshaw to the much quieter Fort Cochin. Our time there was fraught with highs and lows. We entered our homestay and realised that we were living a life of luxury, TV, the first hot shower since leaving England, a balcony and a big double bed that was incredibly comfortable. Lovely times, nice and relaxing! Our main issue with Fort Cochin was that we couldn't find anywhere nice to eat. We had lots of bad meals which was fairly distressing as it was around Christmas time. Christmas day was awful, it was lovely to speak to our family and friends on skype but they regaled us with tales of presents and yummy food which made me incredibly jealous and slightly disheartened with the lack of scrumptious food available. My Christmas day food diary will enlighten you on the strength of my food envy. For lunch we shared a tuna sandwich and a fruit salad in a gorgeous little art cafe which was good. I love tuna and fruit so we were doing well but for our Christmas dinner we tried to go to a restaurant for a nice meal. It wasn't great to say the least. I ordered vegetarian stuffed peppers, yet I received a raw pepper halved with plain cold boiled rice on the top. Needless to say in India it's fairly unwise to eat raw salad so my Christmas dinner meal consisted of a few spoonfuls of cold rice. We left abruptly and went to the shop to get a packet of Lays each and some chocolate biscuits. Yum! It didn't quite compare to the yummy dinner you would have all been having. Christmas without family and friends is very difficult and very saddening, I'd mentally prepared myself for the homesickness but I didn't quite do it well enough. Christmas day made me miss everyone that I love more than anything. I wish wholeheartedly that I could have flown back and been with my family on Christmas Day. I still don't know what they got for Christmas. Oh I should also mention that Christmas Day was spent sober, those of you who know me know how hellish this is!!!
So we cheered ourselves up by going to the backwaters...it was beautiful and idyllic. We spent the day on a wooden river boat crusing up and down the beautiful lakes of India. We ate lunch - a veg thali off a banana leaf. Completely authentic Indian food. The Poppadums were AHMAYZING. The best ever! It was such a nice day!
The saddening thing was, when we got back from the backwater trip I found out my dad had been rushed into hospital, he was in a critical condition for two weeks. Without saying too much about it he's still very ill and for the past month I've been waiting for information. I might have to come back to Manchester, he's doing well but it could be bad news so it's plagued the rest of my trip with worry and guilt about not going back straight away. All I want to do is go home and give my family one big cuddle.

Anyway, although sad the journey continued. We travelled to Varkala by train...although the train ride was short(ish) the day was very bad. We ended up travelling for twelve hours when the journey should have taken four. Argh! That's India for you! Luckily, due to our misfortune we met three lovely Australian girls; Ella, Ellie and Tahli. The meeting of new people released our mind from constant worry and we managed to have a fun New Years Eve- a lack of sobriety was a welcome release.

So we came to the end of our time in India with a mixture of happiness and sadness in our hearts. The places and beaches that we encountered were some of the best in the world. A country that is a mixture of idyllic pleasure and unwelcome carnage. An overpopulated empire with a highly spiritual hidden layer. A mixture of cultures, religions and spirituality, India is a gift to all that go there. I managed to discover what needed to be uncovered and unearth some realities and truths about myself that otherwise wouldn't have been found. Miraculous..!

Love xxxxxxx

Palolem.

So Palolem; Palolem is an idyllic yet touristic paradise. The sea is blue and warm like a bath, the sand is soft and gets stuck between your toes. The atmosphere is that of a festival: people you've just met treat you like you've known them forever, you can drink with them, smoke with them or in our case discuss the Jewish religion in depth.
As I have already mentioned we met two Israeli people named Maor and Michelle at the beginning of our time in Palolem. They, as our neighbours introduced us to the lively social scene of the town. I've come back (out of Palolem) with a slight Israeli style accent, the trick is to roll the 'r' in your throat, which sounds like you're coughing up phlegm but in a sexy way.
So we were introduced to Eda, Rama and Slava to name a few along with Maor and Michelle we found that they were all incredibly friendly and all exceptionally stoned. They taught me two things; you can roll an unpatriotic spliff (the how I don't know- it's a spliff with a paper coming out of it like a flag, you then burn the flag voila- the defiance of patrioism) and that the Israeli song 'Disco Disco Partizani' is Aymayzing. In my opinion it's the soundtrack to three weeks in Palolem.
We stayed there for so long because of everything that we experienced. Our typical routine being breakfast, swim, sunbathe, dinner and then alcohol (or alcohol throughout the day whilst doing all of the other things!) We both learnt how to relax in a way we never have before, all of the stresses from my previous life disintegrated with the sound of the ocean and the rays of the sun. I have honestly never felt so good.
We stayed in a rickety old beach hut with no hot water, frequent power cuts and many visits from various amphibians/ cockroaches. It was liberating, we had no mirror apart from a tiny compact so body image for the both of us managed to be less precedent than usual.
The owner of our beach hut was never seen, instead, Niall a 15 year old 'badass' took care of us. He called me darling and constantly stole cigarettes. He was nice though, and funny. Dil - one of the boys who worked for the other huts became our friend, he called me sister and brought me flowers that he stolen from a garden. Very cute. There was also Karnataka, the little old man in the shop and 'Papaya, banana, coconut' man. All lovely, all very accepting of our British ways.
We have come out of Palolem as a typical traveller does. Tanned, wearing lots of jewellery (sandalwood especially and trinkets bought off a girl on the beach named Singhitta), henna on our wrists and ankles and a little bit more in touch with ourselves.
Palolem is definitely my favourite place that I have been to so far in my life. So I carry on with my journey with a fond sadness, ready for new experiences but sad to leave this amazing place.

लीर्निंग कर्वे

This is what I have discovered whilst in India;

1. Be prepared for people to stare at you- constantly. Prepare to feel like a celebrity, prepare for large groups of little children and middle class families to ask for pictures with you. Prepare for young teenage boys to try to take a picture with you whilst you're in a bikini.
2. Boys cannot handle hard mattresses.
3. Cows will approach you whereever you are. Keep an eye out for angry cows when you are relaxing on the beach. Three will be upon you before you know it.
4. Mosquitoes love eating.
5. Hebrew to English translated jokes just aren't funny.
6. Reptiles love beach huts. Frogs and lizards especially.
7. Generally, Indian people are quite small.
8. You will get hassled continuously by numerous people. If you say a ridiculously low price they will generally go away.

9. If you are invited into a yoga teachers bedroom do not go. If you go into the bedroom you will be forced to answer a questionnaire in silence about your philosophies of life. If you do happen to do this avoid the yoga teacher in question for the rest of your trip.

10. Avoid dogs.

11. If you are a meat eater expect to see your dinner wandering the streets, cows, pigs and chickens live an organic free life - eating anything they can find anywhere they can find it.

12. You will get fed up of Indian food after a week. This is a dire circumstance.

13. Taking public transport is like going on an Alton Towers rollercoaster without the safety apparatus.

14. I have always been able to roll cigarettes.

15. Indian cigarettes hurt your body like no others.

16. Indian beer makes your stomach go a little bit funny.

17. Power cuts are always going to happen when you're trying to do something important. Shaving your legs is difficult in the dark.

18. Indian people love fireworks. Far too much.

19. You are never too old for Pokemon or Mario. (There is now a pokemon called Finneon much to my amusement. My strongest Pokemon is level 37 and I have four gym badges)

20. When you feel a little bit sad there's nothing better than ringing your family and friends for a few brief words.

Goan Delight

I haven't posted in a while as I have turned into a lazy slob in Goa. It is literally paradise, the sun is always shining, it's so hot and the people are so nice. We arrived in Goa around a week and a half ago and began in a little place called Colva, it was nice but not really our scene- Indian families and middle aged Brits on tour. Pretty dull, our one bright spark in the light (apart from the heat, beach and everything!) was a lovely beach hut restaurant called Domnicks. I ate literally the best tuna of my life, Finn was incredibly jealous and I was incredibly happy and full of fish. We ate there for nearly every meal, trying a variety of seafood. One particularly memorable moment was sharing a very large Pomfret, very tasty and very fresh. Not as good as the tuna though! There's not much else in Colva so we left after four days and took a bus to Margao and then another bus to Palolem.

Now I have already talked about the crazy Indian road system by taxi/ rickshaw but the Indian road system by bus in different entirely. The journey from Colva to Margao was an eye opener, the bus from Margoa to Palolem was absolutely terrifying. Picture this; we get on the bus and put our heavy backpacks in the front with the driver, so far so good. Whilst waiting for the bus to leave we notice the bus conductor getting weed from the bus to deal on the side. So we're in a bus/ drug dealers lair. Strange. We waited for a good while for the entire bus to fill up, and then we began our epic journey to Palolem. Indian buses try to fit as many people on as possible. If you think you've been on a busy bus from your magic bus experience then you are mistaken. Every time we stopped they let more people on the bus. It was three to some seats, Finn had a very large mans crotch shoved in his face for the majority of the journey as there was literally no space for it to go anywhere else. So business aside, this packed bus starts to go at around 80 mph, tilting to the side every time it turned a corner, I was praying, I thought that this bus drive would be the end of me. On the upside the bus driver decided to play some banging Bollywood tunes blaring continuously out of the speakers (probably to cover up the peoples screams). Altogether fun, altogether terrifying!

We arrived in Palolem relatively unscathed- that was over a week ago. We're still here. I find it difficult to describe the wonders of Palolem. It is a beautiful beach, golden sands, palm trees and everything else that you'd expect. I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe listening to Bob Marley, whilst mosquitoes buzz around looking for blood. (they don't seem to have any of mine yet) Palolem is perfect, we're staying in a rickety beach hut that birds and coconuts seem to flock to when we're trying to sleep. I've never heard birds chirp so loud, they like to run across the straw and be a noisy as possible. There's also the pigs that just wander around like they own the place munching on any left over food, crisps packets etc that they can find. There's so many cute little piglets around, it's very strange! The hut has a shower that has four dribbles of icy cold water trickling out of it and nowhere for the water/dirt to go, therefore we have a little sandpit at the bottom of our bathroom. This probably sounds pretty shit, but it has the same atmosphere as a festival. Everybody is so nice and friendly, we're all in the same boat after all. It's like having your own tent pitched for you at a beach style Glastonbury. We've sat most nights with our neighbours, a couple from Israel, Maor and Michelle. They are very friendly and we've learnt a lot about their life and their religion. Israel sounds like a beautifully frightening country.

I hope this description helps you imagine our time, I would try to describe what we've been doing but it'd be one sentence- sitting in the sun all day, drinking at night, and this is all we've been doing in this beautiful, relaxing place in Paradise. I will try to update soon, you know when we've actually done something :) love to you all xxxx

Maharashtra madness

Mumbai is as harrowing as watching 'Boys don't Cry' repeatedly, beggars line the streets, rabid dogs roam and physically disabled people are rife. It is a strange experience. It is dirty and smelly BUT the overwhelming friendliness of the people that situate here makes up for every bad point that I can think of.

We arrived at the Anjali Inn hostel after a long flight. It's nice, clean and has air conditioning; a jewel in the dim surburbs of Andheri. Room rates aren't cheap but it's worth it. The sweltering heat leaves a constant desire for AC. We spent the first days trying to get used to the Indian culture, as a woman I'm constantly stared at which at first freaked me out, I didn't want to leave the hostel and tried to make the best of what I thought was a bad situation. I still felt bad on the second day but I decided to make the most of my time here and we set out on a mission to Juhu beach in a tuk-tuk - one of the scariest inventions known to man.

I'll take some time out from my dim reiteration of what I have been doing to explain the Indian road system... There is NO system. Instead of traffic lights there are little men with whistles standing in the middle of the road pointing and whistling. There are no lanes, and from what I can make out absolutely no rules whilst driving apart from one: you must beep incessently at every single thing on the road. I have been in both Tuk Tuk and taxi now and after each journey ends you emerge with a sweltering headache from the pollution of the city and the constant beep sound which I think now emerges in my sleep.

As you can imagine, with these road rules and in basically a three wheeled motorbike car with no seatbelts, this was a slightly precarious journey to the beach. Needless to say when we actually got there I realised that I wasn't ready for the SHEER volumes of people that were just, hanging out. I had a bit of a freak out (again) and refused to get out of the tuk tuk. I definitely annoyed Finn, but I'm pretty sure he's over it now!

Yesterday we set out into Mumbai city. I was filled with nervous anxiety. If the city was anything like the suburbs then I didn't want to be there. We went with Jon, our new friend which helped. Two men are better than one for protection from the volumes of Indian men with their big moustaches. We took a taxi ride to Mumbai, it took a long time and it was very very very hot and humid- headaches and sweat all round. As we approached Mumbai the view was different. It looked clean(ish), grand and immense. We took the taxi to 'The Gateway of India' and it was here my opinion changed. We were wandering round the crowds of people when different groups of Indian people kept coming up to us and wanting us to be in pictures with them. They were all so friendly, and so grateful to us that it stopped the awkwardness and became heartwarmingly cute. I dread to think how many pictures of us will be in Indian homes as 'a picture with the white people'. The kids were incredibly cute, I think I have fallen in love with Indian children, I'd like to adopt one eventually. They are absolutely adorable.

After this extreme action, we decided to take a tour to Elephanta Island. We bought our tickets and got on an old rickety boat. The journey was uneventful, my fear of getting kidnapped by Somalian pirates unneeded. When we arrived at the island my fears of India overtook me, masses of people, stray dogs and wild monkeys. After walking through the jetty I realised that the dogs were far too hot to be bothering anyone and most were asleep, and that if they were going to attack anything it would be the numerous goats that were just wandering around eating corn on the cob. (It's India, anything can happen!)

We went to look at the statues in the caves on the island, they were of the Hindu God Shiva in many different forms, very interesting and beautiful. I'd definitely recommend it to anybody. Nothing much else has happened. India is getting more wonderful by the day, and my idea of luxury is constantly changing. I'm hungry now (not for curry) so bye computer world! x

Goodbye my loves.

So, phase two of my life begins. I have left my family and my friends, ready to begin an adventure with my favourite man. I cried on the train, I never realised it would be such an emotional upheaval to leave a loved life behind. I hope to explore new possibilities and create memories that will last a lifetime, so when I'm on my death bed I'll think about the fun times that I've had.

I arrived at Bristol early, I picked up my bags and struggled through the ticket machines, they are small, I with two rucksacks am large, like getting a worm through a needle head. After my initial bravery, facing the women's toilets in the train station nearly knocking out an old woman with my giant rucksack child, I went out to face the world and to try to get the bus to Glastonbury. (tip to fellow travellers, don't ever try to smoke whilst carrying two rucksacks; it's a sure fire way to a collapsed lung.)

I finally got on the bus (after about an hour, misdirected by a horrible lady and helped my a lovely man!) and looked through my little daysack. HORROR, I couldn't find my glasses- cue a panic (a panic for Loz is like a whirlwind emotional breakdown for normal people.) I rang my mum, my sister, my dad, the home phone to no avail. The glasses were missing! The thought of being blind for a year wasn't/ is never enthralling. Sad times for little Lozzie. If you are reading this and have never worn glasses then you have never felt the pain of not being able to find your glasses because you can't see your glasses then listen to me it's AWFUL.

The upside to my long emotional breakdown and travelling story is that I found my glasses in my big rucksack. I have no idea how they got there, I swear a magical elf switched them in the night. My mind has no recollection of packing them in that bag, it just doesn't seem sane. I have also finished my goodbyes and I can carry on with my journey. I can start my big adventure soon. It doesn't make anything easier, but knowing that my friends and parents are happy for me is like a balm on my sad soul.

I have just arrived back home from Glastonbury carnival, a majestical, marvellous, overwhelmingly insane experience. A sensory decadence; basically after today I feel mashed. Today has been mental but goodbyes are nearly over, this is the start of phase two - I have to enjoy it. Welcome to my adventure.