How Do You Know When It’s Time To Take A Break?

If you’re reading this blog post hoping to find the answer to this question, you might want to look away now. Unfortunately, it’s a question I don’t have the answer to yet.  I haven’t had a week off work since Christmas, and the last couple of weeks have been a struggle as a result.  Perhaps…

Mid-Year Goals Review

As we edge closer to the middle of the year, I thought it was about time I sat back and reviewed my 2021 goals to see how they are progressing.  Mid-year is a good time to reflect on your goals and to check whether we need to make any significant changes to them as we…

The Law of Attraction

This post was originally published on 27th May 2019 and updated on 20th June 2021. Have you ever felt an overwhelming desire to go somewhere or do something you’ve never done before? I’m not talking about a desire to go somewhere just because it looks nice or because it’s different to somewhere you would ordinarily…

Old Fashioned Romance with a Modern Day Twist

This post was originally published on 9th June 2019 and updated on 30th May 2021. I love being single, but that doesn’t stop me from looking forward to being in love again. Although I have to admit, and if you have read some of my earlier blog posts, you may have already worked out, I’m…

Achieving Goals in 2021

When I sat down and set my goals for 2021, I also booked slot’s in my diary to ensure I reviewed each goal quarterly. Whilst I’m pretty good at setting goals, I’m not very good at reviewing them. I have a habit of rocking up at the end of December and writing a year-end review…

Olhos de Água and Praia da Falesia

As we eagerly await Boris Johnson’s announcement tomorrow as he lays out the UK’s ‘Road Map’ out of lockdown, I thought I would take another look back at my solo trip to Portugal. Fingers crossed BoJo’s plans see us being able to travel again before the year is out. This post was originally published on…

Albufeira

As the snow is currently falling here in the UK, and we’re still unable to go on any new adventures, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane, looking back on a solo trip I took to Portugal in February 2019. Fingers crossed we won’t have to wait too long before we can all…

Setting Goals in 2021

Happy New Year folks! I hope you all had lovely Christmasses and New Years celebrations even if they weren’t the same as they perhaps would be in normal circumstances.  I want to start this week’s post by asking you a simple question. Have you set yourself any goals, aims or resolutions this year?  Over the…

Friendship

This post was originally published on 6th October 2018 and updated on 9th August 2020. I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately and what it means to me. I don’t have a large circle of friends, more pockets of friends whom I’ve met at different stages in my life. There are those I’ve known…

What is Your Life Mission?

What is a life mission? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life mission lately. I’ve been engrossed in Richard N. Bolles manual for job hunters and career changers, ‘What Color is Your Parachute?’. Richard is famed for his ‘flower exercise’, where he takes the reader through a number of exercises which gets…

Crash and Burn

Why is it that I always crash and burn by the time my annual leave arrives? Over time, I’ve come to realise that if I don’t take a significant break from work every 12 weeks, I struggle to function. Yet, despite knowing that, I still end up feeling burnt out by the time my leave…

The Wombles of Wimbledon

With my neighbourhood starting to feel like it’s part of Eastenders, I was grateful to get out to the outskirts of the city yesterday to enjoy some much needed peace and quiet. Over the last couple of weekends, a number if things have got me questioning, for the first time in nearly five years, whether…

Goa, Mumbai, London – Days 14 to 16

This blog post is a particularly special one for me. Not only does it bring me to the end of my diary reflecting back on my first trip to Asia, and more specifically to India, it’s also time to celebrate, as this is my 100th blog post since the journey of The Mindful Musings of…

Goa – Day 13

Another night, another overnight train adventure Before arriving in Goa, it was time to embark on another overnight train journey. We were slightly better prepared for this one, and travelled in much more comfortable clothes. Our taxis also managed to pull up right next to the station, so there would be no walking across the…

Mumbai – Day 12

Day 12 was Chu and Eric’s last day with us. They had been the most wonderful company throughout the trip. They had so many interesting stories to tell, but were also keen to learn from each of us and to hear about our experiences too. They had become our ‘India’ mum and dad for many…

Mumbai – Day 11

Bleary eyed, we arrived into Mumbai on the overnight train, 12 hours after leaving Falna. Hot, sweaty, and still wearing clothes from the day before, we jumped into our awaiting taxi’s, and headed into Central Mumbai, where we would be staying at the Hotel Royal Castle. Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), is India’s largest city…

Life after a Global Pandemic

With some countries across the world starting to loosen their lockdown restrictions, I’ve been starting to think about what life might be like post pandemic. Has this lockdown really gone on for long enough for people to make permanent changes to their everyday lives? How easy will it be for us to just slip back into ‘normal’ life? The…

Overnight Train to Mumbai – Day 10

A date with a Palm Reader… Day 10, and we woke up to another beautiful day in Udaipur. With only 5 days until I would be back in London, it felt like the end of the trip was getting ever closer. With this having been the longest trip I had taken so far, I wasn’t…

Udaipur – Day 9

It’s been difficult to start writing about India again with a pandemic hanging over us like a lead weight. So far there have been over 3,605 deaths in the UK, and we face social distancing measures. Meanwhile, the Indian government have taken a much stricter approach, by imposing a 21 day lockdown throughout the entire country,…

Udaipur – Day 8

Tensions Rising Day 8 – New Years Eve. What should’ve been a fantastic end to 2019, instead, marked the day that cracks started to show within our group. I guess when you have 14 people travelling together for a considerable period of time, with varying amounts of sleep, sickness, and enjoyment, it’s only a matter…

Pushkar – Day 7

Day 7 in India started with a squinty eyed 5am wake up call. It was time to layer up and head out to our awaiting tuk tuks, which would be driving us through the quiet back streets of Pushkar to the base of Ratnagiri Hill, whereby Savitri Temple sits at its peak. We would be…

Lost and Found in India

Hello Annual Leave, What an absolute pleasure it is to see you! 2020 has been a funny old year so far, so it’s nice to have 5 days off work, catching up with sleep, life admin and making plans for the next couple of months. After spending much of last year planning and prepping for…

Pushkar – Day 6

Before I arrived in India, two of the places I was most looking forward to visiting were Pushkar and Udaipur. When I booked the trip, I hadn’t heard of either of them before, but the more I read about them, the more I was looking forward to visiting them. I was sad to be leaving…

Valentines

This post was originally published on 14th February 2019 and reposted on 14th February 2020. Happy Valentines to you my lovely followers ❤️ Whether you’ve been celebrating today with your partners, your friends, or by yourself, I hope you’ve been kind to yourself today. This is my first single valentines for a couple of years….