The first day of 2015 involved a fantastic day in London for Sam's birthday. Being born on New Years Day can sometimes be a bit of a pain and birthday celebrations often have to battle with tiredness and a sore head from the night before. This year I was determined that Sam would not miss out on having a "normal" birthday so we had a tame NYE celebration, got an early train to London, went shopping, ate great food, drank mulled wine, watched the parade, and saw a show. Twas lubbly.
January was also the month that I created TRIOF and on the 27th I posted my first post titled: My First Time...
February:
Feb was a quiet month; I started writing my first few blog posts and tried to find my "voice" when writing - turns out sarcasm freely flows through to the keyboard, this month marked my anniversary with Sam - we celebrated with a picnic on the floor of our flat (the year before we had a sunset picnic on the beach near our NZ flat), and I remember feeling a longing to pack up my suitcase and jump on the first flight to anywhere at this point in 2015.
I also wrote my most viewed blog post to date which was titled: My Style Icon: Diane Keaton.
March:
To counteract these 'itchy feet' feelings that I was having, I decided that I would use my weekends in March to explore my surroundings a little more; I took Sam to Norwich for the first time and we explored 'The Lanes' (I wrote about it here: One of Those Perfect Weekends), I went for fantastic spring time walks to the coast and in the forest, I searched for treasures in local vintage and antique shops, I viewed wedding venues with my mother and sister (for my sister - not myself!), and at the end of the month I was taken to Birmingham to see McBusted perform and I wrote a post about how I didn't care that they weren't the "coolest" band around because I had a bloody fun time.
April:
I continued to use my weekends to explore my local area and fell in love again with Suffolk instead of mildly resenting it because it wasn't New Zealand. I wrote a post titled: A Tribute to my Home County: Living in Suffolk.
May:
May marked the start of what was to be a busy summer in 2015 and I remember feeling a sense of excitement for all the upcoming adventures that I had planned - I even wrote a Summer Bucket List. The month started with a trip to Liverpool in which we visited the city on a dark and stormy afternoon and took solace in art galleries and museums. The 23rd May was to be a corker as Sam and I had tickets to Radio 1's Big Weekend gig in Norwich - this day will always be the day that I saw Snoop Dogg perform to a packed crowd in a Norwich City football shirt.
June:
June saw Sam and I visit our neighbouring countries in the UK. The month started with a trip to Wales for a beautiful wedding, followed by a fantastic holiday to Scotland which was probably my highlight of 2015.
July:
In July I wrote one of my favourite blog posts so far. The inspiration came after witnessing some ignorant comments on a FB post that concerned my friend and the great work that he was doing for the GPA (Gay Police Association). The post looked at why we still need pride events and I was humbled by the feedback, the post was titled: I'm not homophobic but...why we still need pride events.
Sam and I also visited London again in July, on a scorching summer day, to watch Wimbledon on the big screen in Kings Cross.
August:
August was an extremely busy month and I absolutely loved it. The month began with a camping trip in Brighton to celebrate Pride - the weather was beautiful, my friends were in the parade, we sat at a restaurant on the beach and met up with friends that we hadn't seen for over a year, I got covered in glitter, I danced...I also expereinced one of THE worst hangovers that I'd ever had which would lead to a major decision that I was to make a month later.
Mid- August saw me hop on a plane with Sam and her family to a beautiful villa in Spain to celebrate her mum's 50th birthday. Lazy days were spent by the pool or at the beach which provided some much needed respite from a busy summertime. Upon our return to the UK we visited London again (can you tell it's one of my favourite cities?!) to be tourists, have nice food, drink some cocktails, and watch a show.
Late August involved a trip to the North to celebrate yet another Pride, in Manchester. This was to be one of my favourites prides that I'd ever experienced.
I also made the decision to seriously start giving writing a go as a potential career path in August. It had been something that I had wanted to do since childhood and I have always kept journals, written silly little short stories, blogged, obsessively read, and generally been fascinated with words. Up until this point I always had an excuse (e.g. uni, travelling) to never fully go for it but, in reality, I think that I lacked the confidence and always saw it is as something of a silly dream - never to be taken seriously.
In August I responded to a tweet that a local magazine called IP1 Zine had posted and shortly after that I began to write for them. I absolutely loved it. I only write short articles and interviews about start ups and indies in Ipswich but it brings me so much pleasure. Since then I have written for a number of various different sites and have also started taking on paid work which is just fantastic.
September:
On the first of the month I made the decision that I was going to be giving up alcohol for an entire year. I had wanted to do this for a number of years but I felt that it was something unobtainable - how could I possibly continue in my twenties without drinking alcohol?!
September was also to be the start of a difficult few months for myself and I felt that I needed a little break from writing on the blog regularly - I was feeling slightly overwhelmed with a number of things and needed a little down time.
October:
I turned 28 in October and had one of my favourite meals that I'd ever had in the UK with my family. My mum also took me to the zoo for my 28th birthday because why the hell not?!
I continued writing for various websites and continued to post blog posts. October was looking to be a quiet month but then my girlfriend and best friend's surprised with a trip to London and I had one of the best weekends that I'd had in a long time.
I hadn't spent time with my friends for a while and their company really was chicken-soup-for-the-soul.
November:
November began with feeling a little bit low again but things started to improve as the weeks went on. I began picking up more writing gigs and took on a very exciting, long-term and paid, freelance position (all will be revealed soon) and things began looking up. November was to be a month of high highs and some low lows.
December:
I feared that December was to continue in the same manner and I had never felt so un- Christmassy in my life. I usually love all things festive and will whack out the Christmas cd as soon as December 1st hits. Last year, Sam and I bought a real Christmas tree and took great pleasure in decorating it in our flat. This year did not look to be the same.
Halfway through December however I thought that enough was enough - I had to get out of this funk. I needed a change and so I thought I'd start with my appearance. I took the plunge in mid- December and had my hair cut really short - it might seem drastic but I felt fantastic after it and this is where things started to look up.
I started to see things in a more positive light again and really enjoyed (and am still enjoying) my time off work over Christmas to spend time with family and friends and to take a little down time to indulge in the things that I really enjoy. I've eaten far too much, exercised far too little, become so engrossed in books again, watched umpteen Christmas films, and am starting to feel like Ruth again.
2016:
Firstly I just want to say a thank you to anyone that visits my little blog. I sincerely appreciate it if you have ever taken the time to read my ramblings on here. I have some big plans for 2016 so watch this space!
Hello and welcome to This Ruth Is On Fire, a UK blog which is a haven for random thoughts and sarcastic observations.
I'm also into books, clothes and visiting places too.
