I’m back.

I can’t even remember when was the last time I posted anything here, although a quick look at the posts tells me it was almost a month ago.

Given the fact that I was writing around three times a week, I feel like I owe you all an explanation… Possibly I really don’t, but let’s be transparent and all that. Now it all seems far away, I’m OK telling you all about it.

If I remember correctly, that last post was scheduled. On that same day, after being a couple of days off sick, I found out my role was being made redundant. If it has never happened to you, trust me, it’s not a nice feeling. I’m not going to discuss all the details here, but any redundancy has a consultation period which, in my case, lasted for about two weeks or so. That meant I was off work during that period, not really knowing what was going to happen.

I told my brother straight away, since we share a flat, but I decided not to tell the rest of my family, because I didn’t want to worry them, at least until I knew the result myself. For two weeks, all I pretty much had in my mind was my future, what I was going to do, whether I would end up jobless, or if I would stay in the company. On top of that, my cold came back (it never really left), so I was down and sick for quite a lot of that time.

Something I have to add here… My friends are awesome. As soon as people found out, I was inundated with messages and texts, and positive energy. Guys, I really appreciate all the support and encouragement (you know who you are!)

Since my family didn’t know, and the redundancy was the only thing in my mind at the time, every time I sat in front of the computer, I couldn’t write anything at all. I felt like writing about something else was lying to you and to myself, because that wasn’t what I wanted or needed to talk about. I tried a couple of posts, a couple of times, but they didn’t come out right. So I waited.

Finally, I was offered a role in marketing in my same company, and after some discussions and a lot of headaches on my side (was this what I wanted to do?), I decided to accept it. I went back to work last week, on Monday, and it was weird. I still didn’t feel like writing here because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it all. Everything was the same, only everything was different. It feels very confusing, not on a normal conscious level, because I know what my role is and have a relatively clear idea of what I have to do; it feels confusing in a level that I cannot really explain. Everyone has been lovely, and they all have told me they’re very happy I’m back. I am happy to be back, and this is a new opportunity to expand my knowledge and get new skills, but it still feels weird. It might be like a new pair of shoes and I just need to wear them in, we’ll see.

During those two weeks I was off, I mostly socialised (not that much though, because I was sick), shopped (terrible for my wallet), ate (terrible for my health and weight) and watched TV (even worse!), which means that I feel very out of shape at the moment… Whenever I feel down, or whenever I’m stressed, or bored, I eat. Two weeks at home does that to you. Since I wasn’t feeling very optimistic, my creativity was in an all time low, so I didn’t even use that time to make stuff. Such a waste, I know!

One thing I did do, and one that I’m very proud of, is I started training to be a relief manager at a Ronald McDonald’s house. These are houses offering accommodation to families who have children in hospital. I still have to go again to finish my training, and then I’ll be able to start volunteering over there.

I’ve been back at work for one week already, and this week I’m finally starting to work on my new tasks, rather than just finishing previous projects. It’s only Monday, but hopefully this week will feel less weird and more me.I’ll let you know how it goes!

On another note, here are some things to look out for…

• I still have to change the look of the website. A friend is redesigning a logo for me, and I need to create some pages and format stuff before I can safely do anything to it. I’m pretty sure I’ll break everything when I get to it, so you will have to bear with me for a bit! You’ll see the new layout when it’s done, I hope you like it.
• I’ve been baking… Unfortunately, most of it have been failures… I will share some photos with you, and let you know about the one thing that came out really, really good.
• You will be happy to know that I’ve started running again, yay! I’m taking part in MoRunning 2014. I’m only doing 5k in Battersea this year, as I don’t trust my knees enough to run 10k in Greenwich. I ran twice last week and it wasn’t terrible… Hopefully race day will be great.
• This Friday, Halloween Jack will be performing at Spice of Life, W1D 5NA this Friday (more details here). You heard them, you know you love them, so why don’t see them live? I’ll probably be around, camera on one hand and beer on the other (multitasking, people!)
• I’m trying to go out with a group of girls I know from Facebook. Someone thought it would be a great idea to create a closed group to have a lot of girls to go out and do fun stuff, and I joined. This week there are drinks on a Thursday and a birthday on a Saturday. Thursday might not be possible, because of a work event that I’m not sure I have to attend, but I’ll be there on Saturday! Hopefully I’ll make lots of new friends – I need people to go out with.
• We’re doing a book club at work. We read The Shock Of The Fall last month, and we’re reading one of my favourite books, Anansi Boys in November, and the famous Gone Girl in December. I’m thinking about writing book reviews in here, would you be interested at all?
• I wasn’t sure whether to take part in NaNoWriMo this year, because of lack of inspiration. I didn’t know if starting a new novel from scratch or if continuing the novel I’ve been working on for the past few years. After a chat today with my friend Chris (hey, Joda!), I’ve decided to give my existing novel a try. I decided last year that if I didn’t finish it in November, I would forget about it forever, and it was feeling that way until earlier. Nothing like someone being excited about your project to make you feel really up for it. I’m three days late, which means I need to write c.5,000 words to catch up… What do you think?

Even if I’ll be busy writing a novel, I’ll try to update here as soon as possible, but expect the main topics to be about NaNoWriMo, or about how stressed I am because I’m behind my word count, or requests for help to get my characters out of different situations. You’ve been warned!

Ah, it feels good to be back.