Reasons to be cheerful #3: 10 nice things I've seen/heard/watched this week

notes on truly being yourself, some wonderful *comfortable* trousers, a trench with a SAILOR COLLAR and some books to read with the seasons...

Hello, hello and happy Sunday evening to you! (or Monday morning, depending on where you are and when you’re reading)! I hope you’ve all had a calm weekend, been able to squeeze in a pocket of time for something lovely (which nowadays I count as anything from making porridge from scratch (why did nobody tell me that using water and milk and doing it slowly meant I had Pret’s equivalent on my own stove?!), reading a chapter of a new book, to spending an afternoon mooching around town).

I am currently on my way home from the dreamiest weekend in Bristol (on a train, no less! My favourite place to write to you from!). It’s somewhere I visited for the first time 6 years ago (albeit only for an evening) and a place that I truly only scratched the surface of. Mike and I had been thinking about booking a little weekend away a while ago now, and I am so glad we had the chance to return here. I could have easily spent a week soaking everything up; from the food, shops, culture and music. It truly is a city with multitudes and there are definitely not enough meals in a day to sample half of everything I wanted to- the food! THE FOOD! It’s buzzy, champions independents like nowhere else I’ve been (an absolute joy and also incredibly dangerous for my bank balance) whilst also having a true sense of community, which feels like magic. We went bowling last night, and although we both commented on the amount of students that were heading out as we were walking home, we both agreed (in a way that made us sound positively like pensioners), that it was ‘invigorating’ seeing all of the young people just having a lovely time- which was, I admit, a very cool thing to say out loud.

And, on the topic of ‘cool’, I've thought a lot about the word itself this week. Not in a hugely profound way (getting philosophical about the word cool feels a bit like laying into the word ‘dude’ doesn’t it?). But it’s something I say it all the time (must remember to use more sparingly), degrade myself by saying I'm not cool enough (which kind of reeks of Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday energy)- but after attending a couple of events this week which left me questioning my sense of self a bit (with a lot of ‘oh GOD what am I doing here?!’ moments), I’ve tried to remember how many meanings one word like this can have. It’s a funny concept which truly means something different to everyone, and there really isn’t a right or wrong answer to what one person can think it is. Maybe this is all a bit silly and obvious, but sometimes I think we need reminding of that. After all, the coolest thing really, is just being yourself.

So! In the spirit of that- here are a few cool (to me, and hopefully you!!), cheerful things I have thought about, seen or enjoyed this week which hope might make for some cosy Sunday evening reading. Have a wonderful week ahead!