Dear Cat & Fi: The One after #26in26

Dear Cat & Fi,

Hello there…sooowa. Been a while since the last blog to you both. And I feel like I have a lot to live up to after my last blog. No, not the X Factor review. The one before that. With the playlist? That one. *thumbs up* The trouble is is that, whilst doing #26in26 was lovely, and I had lots of lovely feedback on it, I feel like I accidentally outdid myself and it now means that anything that automatically follows it is going to look well…underwhelming by comparison.

So instead of trying to match it or better it, just for once, I’m not even gonna bother. So there won’t be any playlists simultaneously featuring Soul II Soul, James, 5ive and Girls Aloud on this particular blog. Hell no. And there definitely won’t be any montage pictures of me as a bubba vs. me now acting like a pillock on a Tube to the O2. Hell to the N-O. In short, this blog is gonna suck a little bit, but I’m just gonna embrace the suckiness and go with the flow just for this week.

So. Part of the reason why it’s taken me so long to write another blog to you both is because I was having what-I-call ‘laptop issues’. Namely with installing the new Windows 10 operating system on my humble and beloved machine. I’d got the OK from Village (or namely, Mike via Village) to install it when I had the pop up message thingy appear at the end of July. But to say I struggled with it would be the underestimation of the century.

So on Friday night, when I came home, I thought, right, I’ll leave it on and installing overnight like Village suggested, so at least by the morning it’ll be finished and I can crack on with writing. Oh no. It was stuck at the same percentage of installation as I’d left it on overnight, and given I’d not had much sleep that night anyway, I just had a bit of a nervy-B and whinge to poor old Dad. Thankfully, Mike being the tech whizkid he is took it hand in yesterday for me and by evening it was returned to me with it all installed and all was right with the world again and I’m very grateful for his help. (Finley even helped him, bless him.)

And now that I have Windows 10 after that nightmare? Well (whispers it) it’s actually rather good. I wasn’t fond of the fact that Windows 8 had got rid of the old school Start Menu, so I’m pleased they’ve bought that back. I’m loving the iconography of it all as well, it’s much easier to navigate as well so yeah. I’d therefore recommend if you haven’t already installed it then DO IT as it is a VERY good operating system. Best one that Microsoft have done I’d say.

Moving onto slightly less tech-y news, I’ve decided to get myself on a health kick in the last couple of weeks. I guess over the last month or two I’ve had a look back at pictures of myself from recent times and realised I’m not in the best shape of my life and I wanna just eat a bit more sensibly and feel a bit better about myself again and just look a bit leaner and fitter. So I’m doing this in a couple of ways – one of which I’m going to blog about next week because I’m not starting it till tomorrow. The other is from planning my meals and just getting a lot more good stuff inside us.

Avocados have become my go-to health food thing. Namely because they’re so versatile and are also all good fats so it saves us having to use much oil or margarine in cooking for things, like these poached eggs on wholemeal toast I did for brunch last weekend. Looks lishous doesn’t it? I’m also eating a lot of fruit, a lot of seeds and nuts, quite a bit of fish and chicken as well. There’s another breakfast based recipe I’ve been working on involving blueberries, but it needs a bit more fine tuning before I post it here. That should be in the next couple of days, fingers crossed so watch this space.

I had a lovely birthday actually, both before and in the days after it, even with Mairi’s hod foot I had such a enjoyable, relaxing time with her and the niece and nephew on the actual day, I also went out for dinner with Mum and Dad that night so even though it wasn’t quite all bells and whistles I still had a pretty awesome day, and sometimes that’s even nicer just having that quality family time.

The weekend right before my birthday, some of my #MursArmy ladies Laura, Daisy, Siobhan and Vicky were in town for V Festival (Olly was headlining on the MTV stage on the Saturday) and they invited me out to dinner on the Friday and got me a really lovely birthday card, which was so much fun, and I don’t think I’ve laughed as much in a long time on a night out, and it was good to see them all again as it’d been a while since the tour ended – this is a ‘squad’ shot we all took of us together at their hotel bar after.

Me and some of my other friends in #MursArmy are all meeting up again soon for Olly’s signings he doing for his new book next month – more of which I’ll discuss in a future blog – so I can’t wait. It’s nice to know that even though we all live so far away, we have that connection and friendship between us all from a mutual interest or support of him and his music and that’s a beautiful thing indeed-y, and one of the things I love the most about being a fan.

So that’s kind of me up to speed for the last couple of weeks I guess. Cat – I’ll ring you a bit later tonight. Seen the new WhatsApp pics and can’t believe how much Indi is growing, clever girl for learning to crawl as well! Fi – thanks so much for my lovely email the other night, I’ll ring you too when I get a chance this week.

Until next week, in the words of Zippy, George and Bungle, I’m painting the whole world with a rainbow.

Luv-oo, Alex

x x