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Sunday 30 September 2012

Goodbye September...and Goodbye Saturn


**A little disclaimer: If all things astrological leave you rolling your eyes and mumbling about ‘hippy, new-age, folksy nonsense’ then it’s probably best to stop reading at this point and come back for the next entry as this one will be full of astrological shenanigans!

I’ve always been quite interested in things like horoscopes, even though I take them with a fairly large pinch of salt. My horoscope is usually the first thing I read in a magazine but do I really think they’re accurate? Not at all. Nine times out of ten the little comments are so general that anyone could apply them to what’s going on in their life at that moment and lo and behold your horoscope is spookily on target!

So, I’ve heard about astrology (I’m a Leo-lady: so that’ll be bossy and stubborn but with really good hair!) and the Chinese zodiac (the year of the…um…pig. Of all the animals I could have been – tiger, dragon etc – I got the pig. ) and I’ve even had a look at runes and tarot cards but I’d never heard of the Saturn return.

The what?

My thoughts exactly when it was first mentioned at work by my friend Jen. It was around this time last year that Saturn first popped up in conversation. Apparently (and for a much better explanation and all things generally Saturn-related take a look at http://saturnsisters.com/), it takes Saturn 29.5 years to orbit around the sun and so just before your 30th birthday Saturn is coming right back to where he was when you were born. Unfortunately, Saturn’s early birthday presents aren’t the greatest and having just about survived my own Saturn Return I think I can safely say that Saturn is the bringer of some seriously tough love.

Your particular Saturn lesson depends on the zodiac sign Saturn was in when you were born – Libra for me, which meant that from December 2011 until early October 2012 I was going the learn all about criticism. Yup that was going to be the main theme of my Saturn Return: criticism. Apparently, this was going to be a transformative 10 months in which my life would be turned upside down and I would be a stronger, happier person at the end of it, if I paid attention to what Saturn was trying to tell me.

Yeah, right.
Saturn Return.
Criticism.

How much could happen in 10 months?

Ummmmm….

In early December 2011 I split up with my long-term boyfriend.

From Jan – May I hit the roughest patch I’ve ever had in my career.

Some old, long-term friendships started to fall apart around the same time.

And was there criticism?

You better believe it.

Family, friends, colleagues, vague acquaintances. Suddenly it felt as if everyone had a problem with some aspect of my personality. When things were at their worst in March and April I felt like starting a deli-counter style ticketing system: ‘Please take a number and then wait your turn to tell Lauren exactly what you think of her.’

So what to do with all this criticism? Well, pre-Saturn my tried and tested mode of dealing with criticism was to ignore it and in true Leo-style plough on stubbornly with whatever I was doing.

But it sounded like Saturn wasn’t going to let me get away with that.

So I decided to try and separate the critical wheat from the chaff. What was useful criticism and what wasn’t? Turns out there was quite a bit of useful stuff, mainly involving the need to develop a more positive attitude and stop automatically seeing the negative in every situation.

And, of course, there were a few bits and pieces that I won’t be changing anytime soon (sorry you don’t like my hair, mum, but I’m not going back to blonde!).

Anyway, I did my best to pay attention to whatever Saturn was trying to say and the upshot of all this is that now, just a few days before my Saturn Return comes to an end, things are pretty good.

I got back together with my boyfriend and we’ve just moved in to a lovely apartment together.

In mid-September I was promoted at work.

And looking back, being single for a while and living in a flat-share means I’ve made lots of lovely new friends.

So I guess there was something to all the Saturn Return stuff in the end – though I can’t say I’m particularly sorry to see it finish! That’s me free from Saturn for the next 29.5 yearsJ

Well, almost…

Saturn trundles off into Scorpio on 5th October so if you have any last-minute snarks or criticisms to throw at me, you’ve only got 5 days left to do it!

And if you were born between August 25th 1983 and November 17th 1985, good luck – you’re next in line for a visit from everyone’s favourite planet!




Sunday 9 September 2012

Welcome to the Dark Side


A lot of things have happened this year and 2012 has been full of changes for me. I’ll probably do a proper stock take of everything at the end of the year but today I thought I’d write about one of the more frivolous changes this year: my hair (yep, it’s a frivolous post today – I blame the hot, sunny and downright cheerful weather!).

I’d been stuck in a hair-rut for, oh, quite a few years! At the ripe old age of 13 I decided that blondes had more fun and so began 15 years of highlighting my natural mousey locks ever-increasing shades of platinum. The cuts have changed (everything from an ill-advised bob to the ubiquitous ‘Rachel’ haircut in the mid-90s*) but the colour has by and large remained the same.

Until this February, when, in a fit of post-break-up pique, I did this:



I didn’t put too much thought into having it done. I decided I wanted a change and so I switched from blonde to red. And I loved it. Dark red on top with magenta tips. It was a big, bold colour and people couldn’t help but comment on it. Everyone (except my mum, who just doesn’t understand why I would want to be anything but blonde) liked it and for the first time in my life strangers would compliment me on my hair.

But there was a downside. Red hair dye is the hardest colour to keep in your hair and it fades super-fast so every six weeks I was back in the hairdresser’s chair to have my roots touched up and my bright magenta ends brought back to life. It didn’t seem to matter which colour care regime I tried (and I tried a lot, from the eye-wateringly expensive Aveda Colour Conserve range to the more purse friendly Avalon Organics), nothing stopped the fade from bright red to bleached ginger.

Red hair also runs. Pillows, duvet covers, towels and clothes all ended up covered with spots and splodges of red. The final straw came when I went for a run and came back looking like an extra in a bad horror movie with streaks of red running down my face and neck (and I wondered why fellow runners were giving me such strange looks!).

So, yesterday, I decided to go for something a bit more natural. Or at least that was the plan. I told my hairdresser that I wanted to try being a brunette, something a bit darker than my natural colour.  Turns out that while red may be one of the fastest colours to fade; it’s also one of the hardest to get rid of completely. The solution: a two-stage process. For the next six weeks, I’ll be rocking this look:



Yes, I’ve gone to the dark side and my hair is currently pretty much the same colour as a plum. It’s a very dark, slightly gothic and fairly dramatic colour. It’s also taking some getting used to but I like it. I’ve a sinking feeling that it will fade pretty fast too and in six week’s time I’ll be sporting a purplish-reddish collage! The next step will be to add a lighter, chocolate-y brown into the mix to try and get a more brunette look.

I mentioned to my friends this week that I was going to dye my hair again and get rid of the red. One friend - Jen - commented that she hoped the change in hair colour wouldn’t change my personality. This made me think: this year I’ve been through the colour spectrum: blonde, red and soon-to-be brunette via plum!
Are the stereotypes true? Does my personality change to fit in with the clichés about each hair colour? Did I have more fun as a blonde? Was I more sweet and innocent with lighter hair? Was I feistier as a redhead? Will I be more intelligent and mysterious as a brunette? (I’ve no idea what the clichés are about plum-haired women!).

Hmmmmm…I think I can safely say that none of the clichés fit. My personality has been pretty much the same with each colour. I was still super-sarcastic as a blonde and definitely had introspective, shy moments as a redhead. I’m fairly sure my IQ won’t suddenly improve with the addition of some brunette dye. I’ve been thinking about hair colour from a different perspective: I want to find a colour that matches my personality – a colour that adapts to me rather than the other way round.

Have I found it? Almost. Red was definitely a better fit for my personality than blonde ever was. Purple is certainly going to be fun for the next six weeks but it’s a bit too gothic to become a permanent fixture. Which leaves the brunette spectrum. Chestnut? Chocolate? Mahogany? I think my perfect colour just might be in there somewhere!

*I didn’t actually ever have a ‘Rachel’ haircut. I did ask my hairdresser for it when I was about 15 but, thinking about the mullet disaster I ended up with, I can only assume that said hairdresser had never seen Friends!



Sunday 2 September 2012

Pixie Power


This morning I went for a run. 30 minutes. 3.01 miles.

Nothing too interesting there you might think. Lots of people run.  And I’m sure lots of these people got up this morning and ran faster and for longer than me. But what really struck me this morning was how much I enjoyed my run. If you’d told me this time last year that I would run a 10k (and actually make it to the finish line!) and end up enjoying running in the process I probably would have decided you were delusional.

Prior to January this year, running and I were not friends. Sure, I would hit the treadmill at the gym but it always felt like a necessary evil.

Then at the start of 2012, one of my colleagues – Jen (follow her running adventures at the excellent http://www.2itchyfeet.com/) - suggested a few of us sign up for the inaugural 10k Town and Gown here in Cambridge. Jen – a super-fit and super-motivated lady - had already been bitten by the running bug in a big way. Normally I would have given the 10k suggestion a polite ‘thanks but no thanks’ but this year was different. I was going through a particularly rough break-up. I had just moved to a new house and was back in a flat-share for the first time in two years. I was burying myself in work and not really doing much else. Maybe I should give this running suggestion a try. So, much to my own surprise, I said yes and signed up for my first 10k. This would be the longest distance I had run since…umm…ever.

I printed out a 10k training schedule for beginners and off I went, running by myself along the Cam. The first few runs felt brutal. I really wasn’t used to running outside and it was a very different beast to running on the treadmill – there are no yappy dogs chasing you at the gym for one thing! I was out of breath after 15 minutes of fairly gentle running. I would go back home and my flatmates would take one look at my beetroot coloured face and decide I was about to collapse. Running continuously for 10k seemed unlikely and severely embarrassing myself in front of my colleagues looked to be pretty much a given.

But…gradually…week-by-week and run-by-run…I got better. A little bit farther each time. A little bit stronger. Until finally, not long before the day of the race I found that elusive ‘runner’s high’. That point when running doesn’t feel like a slog, when you feel light on your feet and full of energy, when you just keep going even though you’ve finished your training schedule for that day. My mind was clear. I was less stressed. I had caught the running bug! I ran a practice 10k the week before the race and completed it in 58 minutes. Certainly not the fastest time ever but if I could do that on the day I would be very happy.

Sadly, the universe had other plans.

On race day it was, to use the vernacular, absolutely pissing it down. It was a cold, wet and miserable April morning and when my phone rang just as I was pulling on my jacket I jumped at it, hoping that it would be the race organiser calling to let me know that the whole thing was cancelled. It wasn’t. It was my colleague and fellow runner Sara confirming that it was still all systems go and we were meeting as planned.

Urgh.

I think the rain put a lot of runners off and it was a sparsely attended race (not that I have much to compare it to but there really weren’t a lot of people). The six of us stood huddled under umbrellas for a good 30 minutes before the race started. In those 30 minutes there was nowhere to go and nothing to do apart from get progressively colder and wetter.

The race started and off we went. Large parts of the course had turned into muddy ditches and you had no choice but to slow down and squelch around them. The rain pelted down in sheets for all 10 kilometres and at around the 7k mark I was hit by calf cramp. I kept going and stumbled over the finishing line in a very poor 1hour 12minutes. I was slower than all my colleagues. Now, I know that somebody has to come last, but why did it have to be me?!*

I was disappointed for several weeks afterwards. It seemed that all the training had been a waste of time. And, to be honest, I really hadn’t enjoyed the race. It was wet, it was miserable and for large chunks of it I was running by myself, I couldn’t see anyone in front of me or (rather more depressingly) behind me.

Then I tried to see the positive side of things. Maybe the actual day of the race hadn’t been great. But all the training that had gone before it hadn’t been so bad – apart from those first few runs where I thought my lungs would explode!

So I kept running.

I even signed up for another race. On September 16th this year, along with 5 of my colleagues, I’ll be taking part in the Chariots of Fire relay race in Cambridge. We’re calling ourselves the Pixies and we’ll each be running 1.7 miles so this is more about speed than endurance. I’ve been training hard and even though I know I won’t be the fastest (I think Jen pretty much has a lock on that one!), I really hope I won’t be the slowest.

After the relay is over…who knows? I’m pretty sure that I’m going to sign up for another 10k. I’d like to improve my time and have a better overall race experience. But whatever happens, I’ll definitely keep running!

So, having read all that (and if you’ve made it to the end – well done!), why not take a look at our sponsorship page:
and give some pennies (or pounds) to the Pixies! Any donations would be much appreciated. Thank you!


*I wasn’t last overall (before you start thinking I’m an incredibly poor runner). There were runners who came in behind me. To be fair, most of them were septuagenarians but still, I wasn’t the slowest overall!





Saturday 1 September 2012

(Not-So) New Year's Resolutions


Having taken months to actually set up this blog, it seems apt that I finally got it up and running on 1st September. I’ve never lost the feeling that September is ‘back-to-school’ month; a time for fresh starts, general optimism and a ‘can-do’ attitude. I remember approaching each new school year with the idea that it would be my best year ever. I would be organized, I would work hard at all my subjects (even maths), I would get up in time for breakfast in the morning, and I would stop avoiding P.E.  Of course, these resolutions usually lasted around a month and by October normal service had been resumed: my dad was doing my maths homework (thanks dad!), breakfast was a slice of toast hastily eaten as I legged it to the bus, and I was happily forging my dad’s signature on a series of increasingly inventive excuse notes (Dear Mrs. McIvor, Please excuse Lauren from today’s P.E. lesson. She has bubonic plague but should be fully recovered in time for her music lesson later in the afternoon).

Fast forward several (let’s not think about just how many years it’s been since I left school!) years and I’m using September rather than January to make some (Not So) New Year Resolutions.  This year, I’m even writing them down:
-I will complete NaNoWriMo* this year
-I will actually polish up whatever I finish for NaNo and maybe even let some people read it
-I will have a better work/life balance (currently I’m tending towards the workaholic end of the spectrum)
-I will finally learn how to do a shoulder stand in yoga

*That’s National Novel Writing Month. This November I’ll be trying to write a novel (50,000 words is the minimum I’m aiming for) in 30 days.

So there you have it, my grown-up ‘back-to-school’ resolutions. Will I stick to them? Ask me again in October!

Birth of a blog



Hello and welcome to my blog, which has been a shockingly long time in the making, due to some serious procrastination on my part. But as Sam tells C.J. in The West Wing:

“Let's forget the fact that you're coming a little late to the party and embrace the fact that you showed up at all.”

First I spent several months wondering just what the whole thing should be about. I needed a theme – but what? I could blog about writing and maybe it would be a good way to break my writer’s block (scarily present for the past 7 months!). Or maybe a blog about folk music would inspire me to practise my harp a bit more and seek out some new groups to play with.
What about a frivolous blog about hair, beauty and make-up? It might be fun to write reviews about all the products I try in my ongoing quest for shiny, voluminous hair; dewy, spot-free skin and sharp, defined cheekbones.
Maybe sport. Over the past two years I’ve turned into a yoga bunny and been bitten by the running bug.
I was also tempted to blog about relationships. In the past year I’ve experienced breaking up, making up, coupledom, singledom, beingonabreakdom, good dates, bad dates, comedy dates. Definitely plenty there to blog about.

Then a week or so ago I decided that I just couldn’t decide. The theme of my blog would be themelessness. This really will be a bit of everything. 

It will be somewhat random, fairly left field, hopefully entertaining and definitely quintessentially quirky.