{Lately on Instagram}

It's funny how things can turn around so dramatically.  In just a matter of a few weeks, I have gone from feeling overwhelmingly anxious and low, kinda questioning as to whether it was the right time to come home or not, to skipping down the street and pirouetting around my bedroom, high on chunks of chocolate and yogic calm.  I guess that's the roller coaster life is at times.

In the past week, I have, as previously mentioned, returned once again to my yoga mat, which I am so thankful for, as it really has grounded me and helped to bring me out of my winter's funk in a big way!

I finally moved into an apartment a few weeks ago, over in Friedrichshain, sharing with a couple of guys from Munich, which I'm really loving.  It's just until the spring, but it's giving me four blissful months of settlement and plenty of time to seek out my own perfect apartment to lease for the year.  I cannot describe how grateful I am to all of the people who helped me out with somewhere to stay over the summer, but it has to be said, that sleeping on floors, sofas and spare beds, moving about from neighbourhood to neighbourhood every other week, with all my luggage, was starting to get tiring, especially once the weather turned.  Ideally, I would love to be in my own apartment right now, with Mr Pig back by my side, but I've come to accept that some things just take time and I need to be patient.  At the end of the day, the best things are worth the wait.

After two years of growing out the undercut I so ruthlessly shaved into the side of my head, I popped into a hair salon round the corner from home the other day and had them shave a brutally short triangular chunk out of the back of my mane.  It's hard to get a good shot of it on my own, but I think it looks cool and I'm really pleased with it.  I genuinely hate getting my hair cut and I shamefully only get a trim twice a year, but I have to say, it was quite refreshing to walk out with a fresh blunt cut, having finally shed all of those frazzled ends.  The next thing I want to do is get it coloured.  It's been two whole years and counting since I stopped dying my hair and whilst I'm impressed with my will power and the fact that it's now in relatively good condition, I'm just super bored with my mousy brown blandness.  I'm thinking it's time for an ombre grey wash!  New year, new hair!

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{Lately on Instagram}

So, I've been back home for three whole weeks, which seems like madness!  Why does time insist on going by so quickly!?  In truth though, some days I wish I'd stayed away.  Since I moved here in May, every month has shown me a different side to the city.  There have been great highs and spectacular lows.  Currently, we're in one of the lows and I'm trying to hold on to the scraps of positivity I manage to stumble across.

Berlin is currently in Christmas overload - Alexanderplatz is heaving with shoppers, there's a Christmas market or three in every neighbourhood and I can't go into any store in the vicinity, without there being a Christmas song playing.  It's making me feel like the Grinch.  I am just completely numb to the festivities.  No cheer resides in me whatsoever.  I tried to find some, I really did, I made the effort to go to a few of the markets recently with a friend, but alas, it was all in vain, as not even the carolers were able to revive my worn out soul.

There's so much going on in the city right now and yet, I feel no inclination to participate.  It would seem that I'm in a gloomy winter hole of my own creation.  If I'm honest though, I think a lot of my sadness has to do with my feelings of isolation.  My closest friends are all a country away and the people who I thought were my friends here in Berlin, have not exactly shown themselves to be great allies, essentially leaving me to wile away my days in great solitude.

I didn't mind my solitary state in the summer months, when the days were long and heated and I spent my time reading and eating pastries in the park, stretching out at yoga and cycling through the streets exploring.  Now though, I am filled with emptiness, that is tinged with hints of despair, constantly questioning as to whether or not I'd be better somewhere else, somewhere warm, but I know that's not the answer.

Oh winter, you are so expected and your effect on me is always the same and yet, it never seems to get any easier and I am never any better prepared!  Am I the only one feeling this blue?

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{Lately on Instagram}

Nearly four whole weeks have passed since I took a flight from England to France and now, I have just this weekend left, before I finally fly home to Berlin on Monday!  Sometimes, I honestly don't know where the time goes, I really don't!  This past year has really flown right by and yet, at the same time, January seems like forever ago!  Heck, even June seems like a lifetime ago!

I've really enjoyed the break though; seeing my friends, mère and Mr Pig.  Although, admittedly, I am now a fair few pounds heavier from all the bread eating, pastry baking and hibernating indoors in front of the fire, reading Vogue and various books.  Perhaps it's a good time to be heading home and getting back to my yoga classes, even though the thought of the looming Berlin winter fills me with dread.  I am definitely not a winter baby, at all!  In fact, nothing makes me more sleepy and miserable than watching the light fade during the afternoon.  Bring on spring, that's what I say!

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