The Good Thing About Rainy Days

On this island we are by nature sun lovers* because we live in Britain and we don’t see a lot of it. The tiniest ray of warm peeping out behind a cloud and we’re out in the garden with picnic blankets and pimms trying our best to photosynthesise like the little, overly-polite and personal-space loving pot plants that we are. I had the fortune to spend this weekend at a delightful friend’s wedding in Cheltenham and we had fun grilling the Texan’s about whether they ever got tired of the sun. Apparently people CAN tire of the sunshine. Could you believe that? After weeks of a pretty decent and unexpected bout of sunshine most unprecedented in April, the clouds found us again and the grey came back. Sky water decended and life went back to normal. 

*There are also people out there on this island who don’t enjoy sunshine. These people are possibly vampires. If you are one of these people and believe you are not a vampire, it would be advisable to consult your nearest doctor and book an appointment just to be sure. Especially if you have a fondness for red coloured foods and beverages. 

Last time I checked in, I was all set to move to London… so how is it I’m back in Cornwall already? Well, I did move to London and it’s been a chaotic couple of weeks of scrambling to catch up on my life. I spent the last two months pouring so much of my time into healing and self love and putting myself back together again after February's events and had a few trip ups along the way, that I pretty much let all of my real-life stuff pile on top of me so that it became a mountain and then some snow settled on it and then a yeti moved in and I figured it was time to start disassembling the mountain, giving the yeti his eviction notice and catch up on my work. I haven’t seen much of London beyond the cafe’s and my flat in Brixton but I’ve got a trial shift at the local Lido tomorrow for a sweet little part time job so fingers crossed I’ll be able to finance exiting the house again and partaking in you know, life stuff. 

Half of that time I’ve been travelling around the country on shoots and that involved a few trips back to Cornwall. Although I’m on the train back to the city now with the beautiful sounds of delightful mid noughties indie music serenading my ears, the view of the misty countryside is passing me by. I’m feeling incredibly serene and content with my lot and the teeny droplets of rain accumulating on the window and colourful boats swaying on the Tamar river remind me that even in the rain, the world just finds a whole other way to be beautiful. 

I have a confession. I don’t really mind the rain. 

Although the wind is a pain when you have long hair and nobody likes to be dripping all over the place and have their clothes cling to them, the sea side becomes a bleak and dreamy place. I’m the sort of person that finds austere and eeriness incredibly alluring and fascinating and dreary grey days by the sea are a private joy of mine. Especially if you’ve got a particularly good water & wind proof coat. 

E V E R Y D A Y   J O Y S 

Many people have been asking me ‘how I’m doing’. My life has changed hell of a lot in the last three months. My 5 and a half year relationship ended. Within a week of that I moved out of my cottage. I then quit my cushy little part time job on the Lizard. I moved to a place I never thought I’d move to. I got a tattoo. I rebranded my business & found a new second shooter (well, found a team actually! :P) and in that time carried on meeting with clients, carrying out shoots, spending quality time with my friends and trying to keep my stuff together. Losing ‘it’ wasn’t an option. Admittedly, there really were a few moments when I felt like I was falling back down the ladder and had to start over again but I can proudly say that 3 months down the line and I feel like I did pretty well out of the events and I’m much happier with my new life. I am healed. I’ve regained my independence and self confidence and the anxiety that I had been carrying around during the last 6 or so months of that relationship very quickly dissolved. I realised a lot of things about myself and how I had spent the last few years living in an unmanageable situation that had continually drained me and learned how to live in the present and enjoy the now. That discussion is for another day though. I’d really like to talk about relationships sometime but this post is about joy not pain. My point is, through many little adventures & making new friends & positive thinking - I got there. I’ve mostly stopped having bad dreams, and if I do, I can easily put them away in the cupboard or laugh at them. I have mastered the riddikkulus spell to my boggarts :P Mostly now, I am scrambling to catch up with my life and seize the new opportunities that are coming my way. 

This post is dedicated to the joys and wonderfully simple moments of the last 3 months. To the beginning of this new part of my life and the celebration of the small things that make this world a gosh darn beautiful place and make my world go round. It’s dedicated to the healing and wonderfulness and mingle of events big and little that have led to where I am now. Even in the rain, we can still have a really good time and make splendid memories. 

The way the sea and sky melt together when it’s foggy and raining 

Sitting on deckchairs on grassy cliffs last week overlooking the sea with wonderful company 

Ice creams at 9pm by the sea with great company, just because 


Being given flowers 

Doodles in my sketchbook

Getting a tattoo

This was one of my impulsive little moments. I had always fancied a tattoo and never felt like I could commit to a symbol to mark my body for fear I’d change my mind. I’ve always doodled moons all over my hands and arms whilst daydreaming and people kept asking if they were tattoos and said they looked rad. I decided in the end to just get my moon doodle as a tattoo and be done with it. I’ve had it over a month now and I’m really happy about it. I feel like it’s a part of my identity and it pushed me to tackle my squeamishness of needles. It was also a step in gaining a sense of ownership of my body and it really worked. It was a big confidence booster and I’m already thinking about the next one… something botanical perhaps. 

Road trips with great friends 

There has been quite a few road trips squashed into these last few months with wonderful people and many moments of singing as loud as we could along to the radio. I’ve clocked up the mileage on my car and also possibly expanded my vocal range a little. 

The incredible colours of the sky 

Sometimes the sky does things that makes my heart feel like it could burst. We had a real hazy weekend last weekend and one particular day there was a moment of driving home across the coast roads from Porthleven where I had to hold back tears because the moon & sky filled by heart with so much love and joy and humbleness to be aware of what’s around me and be able to take inspiration from it. 

Watching the sunset from Landsend 

Talking about making great memories - One evening, Jon and I impulsively decided to race over to the Enys Dodnan sea arch at Lands End to witness the sunset. We ran across the bumpy coast path and hopped over rocks until we made it in time and watched the sea birds soaring about the cliffs. I love having friends that appreciate the same small joys in life and finding peace in something as natural and simple as the sun sinking behind the horizon and bidding the world goodnight. The full moon rise was also truly something to behold. 

Playlists 

I know it sounds a bit silly, but I’m really into making playlists. I’ve also enjoyed making mix tapes with my friends and enjoying discovering new music again. I also replaced my poor Ukulele that I stepped on and upgraded this time to a beautiful tenor Uke. It cost me a small fortune but it sounds like tinkling hawaiian goodness and now I can sing the Moana soundtrack to my hearts content with an accompaniment. I’m also reliving my indie rock music obsession from my life circa 15-21 and I have no shame in that. 

The New Guardians of the Galaxy Film

Baby Groot. That is all 

Picnics on the beach 

Now that I get to spend my time hanging out with people who love the beach as much as I do, I’ve enjoyed a few dinners on the beach and even if I won’t get to keep doing this over the next few months, I certainly got them in while I had the chance. I love eating food outside, heck, I love doing everything outside :) Life is better in the fresh air. 

All the sights and smells of the city 

I haven’t had a chance to explore much of it, but so far my favourite thing about London is the plethora of smells. Just walking through the streets and my senses are bombarded. Popcorn, incense, burgers, Perfumes… it’s a wild ride! I’m also loving seeing so many tall buildings and crazy cool things on a regular basis. Oh, and being able to WALK to a supermarket or cinema. That is definitely a novelty. 

Being around people  

I recently learned that I’m an ENFP. I love being around people and need company to recharge and feel inspired. Although I can be on my own for a day or two, I find it draining and I have this intense love for people observing, conversation and sharing experiences that fills me with energy and passion for life. Being close to my friends and spending so much time around wonderful people these last few months has filled my little soul right back up to the brim with happy feels. Flat sharing is also great! I’m not one who would enjoy living on my own and despite thinking that I wasn’t the sort of person that enjoyed sharing a space, I actually think it does me a lot better and I thrive off communal living. 

Singing duets with my friends 

Getting caught in the rain and having to run for cover 

Sitting in the candlelight with new friends being goofballs and laughing so hard you just can’t cope 

Midnight philosophy conversations 

Watching friends exchange their vows and embark on a new journey together 

Long train journeys back and forth 

Trying vegetarian sausages for the first time and realising they’re actually not half bad

Making daisy chains in the garden 

Writing prose by the fireside in an old attic pub that is also a bookshop 

Whiling the hours away giggling with my friends on their sofa, talking about all manners of ridiculous things 

Misty days spent by the sea spotting unusual sea birds 

               Today was an especially misty day and we did spot a very unusual sea bird. I almost thought it was a puffin and lost my shitaki mushrooms but it didn’t have the brightly coloured beak and we didn’t get a good enough look to figure out exactly what it was. The herring gulls were harassing it and it was wide and clumsy as it tried hastily to avoid them. We spent the afternoon strolling about in Penzance - I’ve been here a lot recently and have very fond memories here - it’s a really underrated little town. 

It’s one of those places that’s a little run down and bleak and is still trying so desperately to retain its ‘pirate theme’. I love those sorts of tawdry and tired places though, the places that were once great tourist traps and now are faded and half forgotten. Penzance is a working class town and many shops are a little scruffy or woe-begone but there are also some true treasure troves and it’s position right on the sea really does make it one of my favourite towns in Cornwall. It has a beautiful promenade which in the winter is doused and clawed at by the waves. In the summer, there’s a sweet pop up cafe in an old ice cream van and you can sit in pastel coloured chairs over looking the ocean. You get a lot of seals in the bay and there’s a great view of St Michaels mount. Chapel street is probably the most interesting street and there’s some pretty neat architecture going on and stories behind it - I was given a mystical nighttime history tour once by my friend that lives here and it really was something. Some of my favourite spots here are ‘The Cornish Barn’ which is great for drinks or dining out - the interior design is really snazzy. The Front Room cafe is my go-to breakfast spot and has a lovely upstairs lounge where you can sit in a comfy sofa with your laptop, use the free wifi and get work done. We had lunch at the Cornish Hen deli cafe today and I really was spoiled. The quality was spot on.  My friend, Jon, also had lots of veggie options which was great too :) Cornwall is finding it hard to cotton onto the concept that not everyone eats meat and is ok with just a lazy and boring mushroom or cop-out stuffed pepper when they want to eat out.

Penzance also has a Baker Toms and a rad coffee van that serves REAL coffee. This can be hard to find down these parts sometimes. It’s also super close to Newlyn which has some really exciting spots such as the Newlyn Filmhouse (my favourite cinema in all of Cornwall - it's in an old fish packing warehouse!) and some of the best Christmas light displays in the county (not that we should be thinking about that yet). 

My favourite feature of penzance though is without a doubt the Jubilee Lido. I walk past this incredible art deco pool at every opportunity I can. I’ve never ever been in it and it’s my mission to go one day and float around in a giant inflatable. It’s the biggest art deco Lido in Britain and is filled with the sea water (but currently closed for post-winter-storm cleaning). It’ll be open again at the beginning of June and I’ve been told they host little events here like paddle boarding classes, yoga sessions and live music. Just behind the Lido are the battery rocks where swimmers can climb down steps directly in the sea and get their chilly, salt water work out. I’ve also been told stoners come here to, um, chill :P I like the battery rocks because of the sea birds and the exposure to the ocean. It’s my second favourite thing about this little sea town - that and the passenger ferry that takes you off to the nearby Islands! 

Wren Waterproof Jacket: C/O Lighthouse Clothing

I’d like give a big thank you to the folks at Lighthouse who very kindly gifted me with this beautiful yellow coat that kept me bone dry and cosy today when I was out in the rain and wind, being a typical cornish person and refusing to let the rain keep me indoors. Yellow is one of my favourite colours and I’m not a fan of big, heavy rain coats because I like to be comfy and move about a lot (you know, rock climbing and that sort of mischief). You can certainly spot me in the sea mist and despite being so lightweight, it’s absolutely water proof (tried and tested today). There’s nothing like a bright yellow coat to bring a little sunshine to a dreary day. 

Also a big fanks to my photography buddy Jon for helping me out with these portraits - days out are always more fun shared and he's tons better company than a remote shutter :D 

So here I am, back on the train to London town. Hopefully now I’ll get back into the swing of blogging again and I can start sharing some of my life up there. I can’t express enough how grateful I am for the every day effortlessly wonderful moments, the moments that fill up my little heart and let me look at rainy days not as something negative and sad but just a different perspective on the same world, a way to make different sorts of memories that have an altogether different kind of beauty. 

If life was sunny all the time, we’d never be able to see the world from anything other than the one perspective. What would inspire us and throw up storms to scare and astound us? I marvel at the storms. Sometimes it takes a little rain to refresh us, wash away the ick  and dust and let us feel woken and new and fresh again. 

This post was created in collaboration with Lighthouse clothing's  'Simple things that make you happy' campaign.