The last time I posted on this website was July 2019.
SO much has happened since then so today’s post is going to fill in a few gaps, ready to be expanded on later.
I guess I’ve been off the radar for a number of reasons. I got married in August 2019 to my wonderful husband Tim. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary a few weeks ago – not with the spa break that I was originally hoping for due to Covid – but with a dinner out and a cocktail or two.
Our honeymoon was in Lanzarote at the end of September and a bit of October 2019. Looking back, we were so fortunate to be able to have our wedding and honeymoon as normal. We planned it all so last minute it would definitely have been more ‘normal’ to wait until 2020 to have our wedding. Thank goodness we didn’t! My heart truly goes out to couples doing their wedding planning this year. What a nightmare.
I’m taking the focus of this website away from exclusively harp content. I want to share more aspects of my life on here, so let’s start now.
I was delighted to discover I was pregnant on January 17th 2020. I spent the next few weeks reading every pregnancy book I could get my hands on, getting really excited with my family and friends and just preparing myself for this monumental change that was coming to Tim and me. Unfortunately my pregnancy ended with a miscarriage at just over nine weeks.
Miscarriage – as I’m sure lots of you know – is one of the most devastating things a person can go through. It’s not something that leaves you and the pain doesn’t heal. It has softened with time though, and as what would have been my due date approaches, I can see clearly that if a baby is in our future, it will come along when the time is right. Lockdown isn’t the best time to go through a pregnancy. I may share our Trying to Conceive (TTC) journey a bit more on here as it may be of help and comfort to other women trying to start a family. No one talks about miscarriage, which is crazy as it is so common and utterly traumatising for those who experience it.
So I spent late February and early March going through and recovering from that. I cancelled a few bits of work to allow me to recover properly, only to be immediately thrust into lockdown. As a self-employed musician, I was devastated again to find my diary for the year suddenly empty, with no income for the foreseeable future.
Quite a few of my students happily transitioned to online teaching, which, along with the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, has meant that Tim and I have sort-of been able to stay afloat financially. Tim has been setting up our garage gym for his personal training business, ready to see clients privately here in York.
My Yoga Teacher Training has also been put on pause, hopefully to resume this September, although like everything else, it’s not set in stone.
This post makes it sound like this year has been just awful, but there have been so many wonderful moments too:
- Tim and I have been able to spend way more time together than we ever thought we would, and we still like each other, yay!
- We are settled in our new house so it’s been really cosy and private being in lockdown together.
- I’ve realised that, when I go back to gigging regularly, I’m going to say no to gigs that are more than 50 miles away. I don’t want to do that much driving any more. I’ve been so happy having a quieter, calmer pace of life and that is something I want to take with me into the future.
I’d love to hear from you, what aspects of lockdown will you be taking with you once (and if) restrictions are lifted?