February: Dogs, Valentines And Being An Influencer

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I don’t quite know where to begin with my usual monthly reflections. February felt like a weird month. I spent so much of it feeling tired and energyless. I felt stuck in first gear. The tiredness dissipated towards the end of the month, but as I pulled together my monthly ‘Look Back’, you’d never know it was a bit of an effort, although it probably does explain some of the zombie feelings!

I packed a lot into February. There were plenty of new opportunities, experiences and fun things to do. Maybe after a slow and peaceful January, I hopped, skipped and jumped into February with a few too many plans, and somewhere along the line, I forgot to create some time for myself.

Here’s a look back at February.

New Experiences In February

February was a month of experiencing new things and meeting new people.

I started the month by meeting two new dogs, Stella and Holly, from Borrow My Doggy, and their lovely humans Maria and Liz.

Early in the month, I ticked another thing off my list of things I want to do this year that I’ve never done before! I used to be sceptical of reiki healing, but after my Mum attuned to levels 1 and 2, she has used reiki, over the years, to heal me when I’ve picked up an injury or been ill. I’d never, however, had a full-body reiki treatment. That was about to change after meeting the lovely Emma from Heart To Head when I went to a Sound Bath in January. I will write a full review of the experience in another blog post, but it was a wonderful experience. I will definitely be adding reiki to my ‘wellbeing toolkit’.

February was also a month of new experiences to enjoy with my boyfriend. He had never been to the theatre, but after watching the BBC Drama Noughts & Crosses during lockdown, we went to see the stage show at The Rose Theatre, Thankfully, he loved the experience, and the production was fantastic. The following night, we headed to NYEAT, a steak & seafood restaurant in Wimbledon, for an early Valentine’s meal. It was a lovely evening with delicious mocktails and some of the best food I’ve ever had! We’ll definitely be heading back at some point, as we didn’t experiment too much with the seafood. I’m dying to go back to try their lobster!

Celebrating Valentines with a smoking cocktail at NYEATS in Wimbledon, February 2023

Professional Development and Work Stuff

I signed up for professional development galore in February and worked on some exciting work projects.

I was invited to do a branding photoshoot for a client who needed some new photos for her website. Check out some of my favourite shots from my client shoot here.

I had a new client approach me via Instagram in February. They wanted some product descriptions and email workflows, on a project basis, and some social media content for him as a longer-term piece. It was my first enquiry from Instagram, from outside of my existing network!

I’ve been lurking in the Being Freelance community for the best part of 2 years, but a lot of the community stuff was on Facebook, which I rarely use. This year, the brilliant Steve Folland, the mastermind behind Being Freelance, has moved the community onto Circle. And although you now have to pay to be part of the community, I’m delighted it’s moved away from Facebook.

I’ve gone from being a lurker to an active part of the community, and it’s bloody brilliant! Last month, I attended a Q&A about ‘Ditching Hourly Rates’, joined a Tea Brief and had a lovely one-to-one chat with Steve himself, went to my first ever virtual coworking sesh, AND jumped onto a Live Q&A with Andrew & Pete! Phew! That’s a lot of professional development squeezed into one month, but that doesn’t include all the stuff I do in Club WorkJoy and a Denise Duffield-Thomas money-manifesting course I’ve been tuning into over the last month! Oh, and there was a face-to-face planning day for one of my clients, too!

Other Fun Things I Got Up To In February

I caught up with my friend James for a cheeky curry in London in February which was fab! James is one of my oldest friends, and it’s always good to catch up and eat yummy food in my fave city.

I received another exciting DM in my inbox in February inviting me to the launch of a fab new venue in Kingston called FuseBox! It felt pretty cool to be a ‘local influencer’ for the evening! FuseBox is the new home for Creative Youth – a group of young creatives in Kingston. It will be a place for local young people to show their creativity through traditional art, photography, singing, and acting. You can find out more about my visit to FuseBox here.

February was a month spent hiking in preparation for tackling the National 3 Peaks Challenge in September. I began the month with a circular walk from Kingston to Ham. A walk around the edge of Richmond Park got me working up a sweat mid-month. And the month ended with the Box Hill Hiking route, which was my most challenging walk yet! I also managed to get back out with my walking group for a nice walk from Newlands Corner.