MY EDINBURGH RECOMMENDATIONS | IN COLLABORATION WITH EDINBURGH BUS TOURS

To bring you something a bit different, with very little mention of mental health(!), I’ve teamed up with Edinburgh Bus Tours to bring to you this piece about my greatest recommendations for a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland…

When I was younger, if I was going to visit somewhere, my first ‘must-see’ was the stores! If I spotted a River Island or New Look then who cared about a huge castle or an impressive cathedral?! However, now that I’m thirty-one, I’m finding that when I go on a trip these days, I’m more interested in seeing the sights because I recognise that I can’t see them back home; so booking a tour route (there are a number to choose from – or you can purchase a ticket that allows you to do any/all of them!) with Edinburgh Bus Tours seemed like an obvious way to do this on my trip.

I chose the Majestic tour because it included some city sights and a costal one (The Royal Yacht Britannia on Leith coast) – I like the Coast in terms of photographs, but I’m a ‘city girl’ at heart! And this tour seemed to be the best of both worlds! The variety of the tours; their mix of theme and their different routes around Edinburgh really provide a brilliant opportunity for absolutely anyone’s preferences to be catered to.

COME WITH ME TO… LEEDS! | IN COLLABORATION WITH RADISSON BLU

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

So, the other week was a bit hectic, wasn’t it?! I don’t know if it showed – I really hope it did – but I put a lot of effort into creating the content that was published every day for Mental Health Awareness Week (if you missed it, the re-cap about each day is here: RE-CAP | MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK: DAY SEVEN | I'm NOT Disordered (imnotdisordered.co.uk)). With the amount of time and effort in mind, I had the brilliant idea of treating myself after it and having visited – and loved – Leeds before, I began trawling through booking.com for hotels and then National Rail for train price; and the trip kind of snowballed from there…

My first consideration in travelling:

The first thing I really considered as the plans and arrangements and bookings were starting to take shape, was my mental health. You know when you’re in the habit of doing something to the point where even when you don’t need to do it anymore, you continue to? This was like that. I mean, my mental health has been so stable for what feels like forever now, and that stability feels pretty concrete; but I still feel the need to think about how a certain plan or event etc will impact it.  

I think a huge reason for this is because I’ve now seen what it looks like when I don’t think about my mental health. When I don’t carefully consider what decisions would be best for it. It’s kind of like with my medication too… I’ve seen how terrible the hallucinations get without it and that makes me really reluctant to ever have the dose decreased or for it to completely stop. Of course, this is mostly a good, positive thing and is a huge reason I’m safe.

EVERYTHING YOU DESERVE | THREE DAYS AT THE LAKE DISTRICT WITH MY BESTFRIEND

So, me and one of my best friends; Georgie, went to the Lake District for a little three-day holiday and when talking about the trip – both before it and during it(!) – the comment ‘it’s deserved’ was often used…

I don’t want this post to be too heavy and intense, but I think it’s important that I put things into perspective in terms of the concept of someone being deserving and my journey with that mindset because my first real memory of thinking about someone being deserving of something, was very obviously and probably understandably, when I was fifteen and the abuse began in 2006.

Deserving pain…

From Day One of the abuse, I hated him. I hated him with an anger so hot and so powerful that I always worried I would end up punching him in the face – or worse! I believed he deserved pain – I mean, if he thought he had the right to hurt my body, why shouldn’t he feel that same pain?! Why should he be exempt from it? Why should he get away with hurting someone else and then suffer no consequences?!

THREE LESSONS I’VE LEARNT FROM MY GOD CHILDREN | MY TRIP TO SEE THEM IN EDINBURGH

I’m forever grateful for the fact that I was so late to my A Level History class that the only empty seat left in the classroom was beside Ellie! Sitting beside her, I didn’t ever imagine we’d be best-friends thirteen years later and that she’d be Mum to my three incredible Godchildren!

Due to work and school opportunities, Ellie and her husband moved the family to a town just outside of Edinburgh and with the UK lockdown pretty much immediately following their move, I’ve not been able to visit until now! And the trip to see them all was my inspiration for this post…

You should always appreciate time spent with loved ones

The initial lockdown regulations meant that I couldn’t see my oldest God Son (Jonas) for his Tenth Birthday so I sent presents and was sent a photo of him with his gifts and the biggest, cheesiest smile on his face! As happy as I was to know he had liked his presents (a Lego Sports Car & American Candy!), losing the ability to see him was really triggering of my memories around being in the psychiatric hospital over 100 miles away for two and a half years. Being in the hospital for so long meant that I missed out on the majority of Jonas’ life aged 2 - 4, and being in and out of hospitals for the last six years has meant that I’ve missed out on some milestones for my God Daughter; Emmy (yes I named my cat after my God Daughter!), and my youngest God Son, Kasper. 

MY TOP FIVE PLACES TO VISIT ON THE LNER ROUTE | IN COLLABORATION WITH LNER | AD

I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m collaborating with London North Eastern Railway (LNER) on a series of posts in the run-up to a complimentary first-class trip on June 15^th. 

Here’s my five favourite places (in no particular order) from the LNER route!

1.    Edinburgh

Things to see and do:

Edinburgh Castle – learn about its fascinating, vibrant and grisly history, ensuring you visit the Scottish Crown Jewels while you’re there. Opening hours: 9:30am – 6pm, tickets: adults = £19.50, Concession = £11.50, Children (5-15) = £10.50, free for children under 5

National Museum of Scotland – not only can you explore the exhibits and displays but there’s also an incredible panoramic view of the city from the Museum’s rooftop terrace. Opening hours: 10am – 5pm, free admission, donations welcome

Christmas Market – crepes and waffles, glass baubles and decorations; Edinburgh Christmas Market is visited by thousands of shoppers a year

Shopping – Princes Street for all of your high street stores from Superdrug to Apple to Primark, for luxury shopping; Multrees Walk

CELEBRATING TWELVE YEARS WITH LAUREN | MY VISIT TO COLDSTREAM

If you didn’t see my last post, then you may have missed the reason that last weekend was special to me. April 20^th is twelve years since the abuse I suffered, ended. 2007 was also the year that I first met Lauren Dewar. We’ve been best-friends now for twelve years. And I decided that she was one of the few people I wanted to spend such a significant and important day with. Some people might be surprised that I wanted to spend the day with anyone; like I should have taken the day to myself to think about things but twelve years ago, April 20^th was probably the loneliest day of my life. Telling my abusers’ ‘boss’ what he had done and being called a ‘manipulative liar’ resulted in me feeling like I had no one in my corner. Like there was literally no one in the world on my side. So of course, I wanted to spend the anniversary with one of the people I love the most in the world.