Simple Sunday - Life "Cleanse" and Over Thinking.

This weekend has been about staying in and get rid of all schedules for a small moment. The last few weekends have been pretty packed full of travel and visiting friends and family. I was honestly starting to forget what my flat looked like in the daytime. However, dull gloomy mornings in autumn are a definite bonus for me. I think I actually prefer the darker mornings over a bright summer start to the day. Not sure what that says about me.
So here's to the peaceful weekends! The weekends where it's acceptable to sleep till midday, lie on the sofa and watch rom coms or cheery happy movies that don't require any mental effort. Then maybe make a favourite dinner, catch up on your saturday programs in the evening and maybe if you have the energy go for a wander around town and buy that dress you've been eyeing up for a while. Hey, it's nearly payday, right?

Last weekend I was a no show on here as I was down in Glasgow visiting some friends. Seeing friends you don't hang out with very often is always an interesting experience. You sort of build up a humour and way of talking with people you see regularly, and when in the company of others it can come across completely different. I'm making it sound like something bad happened and I assure you that's not the case.
I just sometimes wonder what kind of impression we leave on people once we've left. We only experience maybe one or two nights of each others company every year and I wonder if opinions change afterwards.
I'm perhaps being too cynical about this and even as I'm typing, I'm wondering if I should even keep it in.
I will.

And with that lovely thought, I'm off to enjoy the blissful comfort of the sofa and perhaps eat a generous bowl of ice cream!

Beautiful Moos, Barbed Wire and Quadcopters.

A little photo update of what I got up to this weekend whilst I was back home.
When I was a lot younger I don't think I truly appreciated where I grew up. At that age I was constantly annoyed that living in the country meant having to travel ten minutes in the car to reach my friends. I was never the go outside and play type, more the sit in my bedroom on Bebo type (when that was still a thing) I can't say that's changed very much if I'm to be completely honest. Except the Bebo part. R.I.P Bebo.
However, I now actually take the initiative to wander outside my bedroom when I have no plans. For those that do this daily, I commend you. I'm forever an internet loner.
I lived a few miles away from civilisation and the nearest points of interest to me were two trout farms and a church. Still, if you fancy a walk it's great, and if you fancy an even longer walk head up the road to Loudoun Hill. It's fairly near.

I really loved taking photos of the barbed wire fences. I don't understand why though, and by the time I got back I had loads and no explanation to offer my mum. I think it's just because it looked pretty?!

A beautiful moo. They kept staring at me as I was walking past. When you're by yourself that can be quite scary. Cows are pretty big, I often forget that! If one wanted to take me down, I wouldn't stand a chance in hell; a thought that crossed my mind several times on my walk.

Trying to take a selfie in strong wind is difficult. Note the teary eyes and combover. By the time I got home I think I'd cried all my make up off.

 This was fun. Steve and I went over towards Loudoun Hill and took the quadcopter out for a fly. Steve currently has about 4 of these in various shapes and sizes. He often shows me all his footage when he gets back (seriously, he goes out flying almost daily) but I had never been out and about with him whilst he was actually flying.
You know those scientists you see in films where they're standing in the middle of a field somewhere trying to track down a signal from an alien spacecraft, or pick up a frequency for some nearby satellite station? Well Steve kind of looks like one of those. Googles on, weird remote controller, standing in a field looking up and the little device is speaking telling him coordinates and altitudes. It was so funny to watch.
He asked me to hold the controller for a few minutes, a rare trust that must be gained with Steve and tech. I think I did a good job not to drop it.

 

Simple Sundays - Back to the Country.

This weekend I was visiting my parents. I always say I'm going 'home' when I head back to my mums, but the reality is that I've not lived there for about 5 years now. There's something about your parents house that will always be 'home' isn't there? It's where you grew up, and it's where you experience that feeling. You know the one, it's comfortable and safe. I don't think I'm going to grow out of saying that anytime soon.
I have some photos I'm going to post tomorrow as I'm just in the door and am too tired to be editing anything.
This weekend was really fun though. I went into Braehead with my mum on Saturday to go shopping for ski clothes for me. I've been saving up for a while, as I really wanted to buy myself a nice ski jacket for my holiday in January. I wore my mums last year and it was just a bit too big for me. I had only planned on getting the jacket, but by the end of the day I had a jacket, ski trousers and a shiny new helmet. All kitted out and ready to go! I then found a £20 note on the side of the street and took my mum out for some lunch! A good day indeed.
Today I went for a lovely walk through the country, took some photos and hopped back in the car to drive back up to Dundee!

Apologies for the brief post. I'll make it up another day!

Simple Sundays - Life update.

I really love Sundays because they are the only day of the week where I actually get a chance to relax. I think posting on Sundays might be a good idea. More likely than not, I'll have some free time to sit down and write about anything that's happened this week.
I've posted twice today, but this was mainly because I was too tired to write up anything when I got in last night. Ideally I would have liked to post that yesterday. However, lucky you gets two posts today!

I thought it might be nice to do a quick life update, like what I used to do on here a few years back. Since then I've graduated and have been working at an app company as their lead designer. My first year in a full time job was maybe a bit different from most peoples experience. We struggled to get an office so work involved signing in on Skype every morning for a catch up. It was a difficult way to work and did ultimately take an impact on my mentality. Nothing too serious, just some bouts of sadness or cabin fever. I'm quite a sociable person and rely a lot on my peers, so having no one around me for a while and no outlet or routine was a struggle. I think this was because I had been constantly surrounded by people for 4 years whilst I was at Uni, and the contrast between that environment to living alone and a new job was distressing.
Luckily I have some pretty amazing friends who I could talk to and they helped to pull me out of that when it got to be too much. This July we managed to eventually move into a space and since then it's been much better. After a year of working from home, getting back into the routine of waking up earlier and leaving the house actually improved my work and rekindled my love for design again. It was slowly sucking the passion out of creating for me, and I'm glad to have found that again.

I've also been living alone, like I mentioned earlier, and that's been a new experience for me too. Since my time at uni I've lived in a flat with 6, 5, 8 and finally 2 others in different years. Each year had it's pros and cons, but I think living in my own space has been far more exciting. Apart from all the negatives I've spoke about already, there are huge cons to having your own place. I don't think I'd go back to sharing again if given the choice!

There have been so many other exciting things that have happened, but I think trying to fit anything else in at the moment might be information overload! Right now I feel like I'm in a much better place than I was last year, and that's why I felt I could talk about it openly on here. This blog was always an outlet for me in the past, and as previously stated in another post, I'm really looking forward to having that again.
Hence post galore! and perhaps an overuse of the word post in this post.

I had an adventure of my own on Friday which was a new experience for me and something I'm planning to write about soon, but for now enjoy my foody day out from yesterday and my tiny little bald patch in the picture above! I bought that jumper yesterday and I think I'm in love with it already.
AUTUMN IS HERE.

SYGN - thats not ketchup.

I went up to Edinburgh to see my friend Fiona for an afternoon of shopping and food. The latter being more important to us!

In the morning it was absolutely pouring down but it managed to clear up by mid afternoon, which was a nice surprise as we left the restaurant. 

Speaking of restaurants (not subtle), we went into a place called Sygn. This place was pretty ace, and was the highlight of the day. We had both never been before so it was a nice surprise inside. There was an american vibe with lots of vintage looking signs and awesome visual design on the menu's. The windows had this weird bottle display which I never got a good photo of, and inside they had an old school popcorn machine that made the place smell amazing.

In the end we were spoilt for choice so we ordered two burgers and had half of each. We chose chorizo & pork and the cajun chicken with a sharing side of halloumi. This was a good call. The place does mainly pizza, hotdogs, salads and nachos, but their portions and food are great. 

I think in the end the cocktail we chose was the 'Flying V', containing Tanqueray gin with cherry and violet liqueure, lemon and an absinthe rinse. It tasted a bit like liquorice. 

They also had a variety of sauces, one of which was definitely not ketchup but a rather spicy chilli sauce. I realised this too late, don't make my mistake!

The ranch was beautiful. 

Food talk over!

I would love to go back there actually and I know Fiona will be going back because she lives near. Lucky. 

After that we were pretty full and I decided to head back at around five so I was home in time for Doctor Who. I have my priorities!