Well, I trust that those of you that had the Bank Holiday off yesterday, enjoyed your day and managed to make the most of the good weather.

Had a really strange day yesterday, never ended up getting dressed, spent the whole day in my dressing gown, something I have not done in. . . . . . . well, to be honest, ever.

Can,t really explain why either, just didn’t feel liking getting dressed, had an amazingly chilled day just taking the day as it came.

It was, however, a surprisingly productive day and much was achieved, which is a bit ironic I guess as those days where I set out with purposeful intention seldom prove as fruitful.

Finally, I have sent notice to my landlords, informing them of my intention to quit the house 3rd July, (a month later than I was hoping for but that’s procrastination at work for you) and their response has been brilliant and they will be sorry to see me go.

I thanked them for everything they have given me. This place has been my home for the last 5 years and, initially when they let me move in , they knew nothing about me and disappeared off to Brazil a couple of weeks after that, where they still are to this day. ( They hold teaching positions at a Brazilian University and plan to stay there for a while, though come back to the UK a couple of times each year).

They took a gamble on me and in the process gave me a very stable and safe place in which to both begin and complete my transition. That is something that I will always be grateful to them for.

Life has been good to me that way. When I have need things in order to move forward, life has provided them to me and I genuinely believe it will continue to do so as I move on to the next chapter.

The next couple of months will now be extremely busy. There is still a lot to sort out and finalise and then there is the prospect of de-cluttering my life and reducing it down to as few cardboard boxes as possible to put into storage.

Strangely, I am quite excited by this bit. It will be interesting to see just how much of the stuff I have acquired over the past couple of years are actual real necessities, just nice to haves or emotional props. I suspect that there will be very few of the first items, a fair few of the second items and an embarrassing amount of the third.

De-cluttering I guess, is a great place to start, a chance to strip out all those things that add neither benefit or value to the essence of who I am. It is too easy I think, to somehow link your sense of who you are to what you own. The two have no bearing on each other. You can own everything you thought you desired, end up with a house jammed full of stuff and still feel totally empty inside of yourself. Trust me, I’ve been there.

From the outset, I have always said that I do not know where this journey goes, ends up or the time-frame involved. These aspects do not bother me, they are just steps on the way. The journey itself is about the discovery of who I am and what I really believe in.

In the short periods of time that I have been able to undertake small sections of this journey, I have already begun to understand that this will include the idea of simplification, that currently, life for me is too complicated.

Since I left my job in November 2018, things have not quite gone as I thought, and almost certainly that will continue to be the case. However, just beginning the process, handing in my notice, putting my intention out there, has already begun to change how I view myself and given me the first pieces of the jigsaw of what I would like my life to look like going forward.

There is a long way to go, but I am in no hurry. I am headed in the right direction, even if currently I seem to have a tendency to wonder off the path ahead. Sometimes it is the side roads of life that bring us the greatest rewards, but for many of us we have neither the time or the inclination to turn of the main highway of our lives and explore the possibilities offered by those untravelled roads.

I hope you all have super weeks, that happiness finds you at unexpected moments and lifts your day. Take a gamble one night driving home from work, turn down a road you never go down, one you pass by everyday. Who knows where it might lead you!

Love and hugs

Els xx