Woody Wonders

In just under a year's time I'll be running my 13th marathon.   It's been a few years since my last one and I'd already been thinking about the possibility of doing another one when the opportunity was handed to me on a plate. I was scrolling mindlessly on my phone when up popped the  'Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon' .  Many of you may already know his story through either being rugby fans or being impacted in some way by MND. I didn't need to read anything else, I was doing it and that was that.  The reason I didn't need to know anything else about it, and to give you some context, is that I lost my own sister to motor neurone disease.  The opportunity to be part of a race dedicated to raising awareness and funds for MND is going to be both epic and emotional. The bottom of my world fell out when my sister told me her diagnosis, because there is no cure; MND kills a third of people within a year and more than half within two years of diagnosis.  I lost my ...

Tomorrow sees the start of 'Mental Health Awareness Week' (9-15 May) with this year's theme being loneliness. Throughout my blog, I'm going to use the terms 'mind health' , 'mindfulness' and such words.  Personally, I don't like the term 'mental health' .  When my grandad was alive, he went through a period of depression and back in those days, 'mental health' had very negative connotations around it.  Of course, we have come a very long way since then but it's still a term I'm not fully comfortable with. I'm not going going to talk about loneliness per se but I am going to touch on how important it is to feel part of something. In my role as a PA, you belong everywhere yet nowhere, you feel on the periphery yet central, you're part of everything yet nothing.  When you have a very different role to everyone else, it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you are not part of the team.  You couldn't be m...

Why hello there and welcome to Amazing April - strap yourselves as we enter Q2 of 2022!! Throughout Q1 we set the foundations, tone and theme of what we wanted our year to look like.  We made a few adjustments, did some resets along the way and set up our systems and routines.   In Q2, we're going to go a little bit deeper into those goals and put some more context around them. Take a moment to think about the goals, habits and routines you have put in place ... do you know WHY you are doing them?  Yes, yes, of course you do, don't you?   Let's look at an example of one of my health goals: "Incorporate daily stretching into my routine" That's all well and good but WHY do I want to do that? It will help me become more flexible - nah, not good enough It will help prevent tight muscles - hmm, keep going "Incorporating daily stretching into my routine will help prevent tight muscles, allowing me to run more freely and ultimately will stop me being in excruc...

I'm a bit late with my blog this month as me and the lovely Mr Bob have had a mini-break in France.  I have to admit that I was looking forward to the trip with a mixture of both excitement and apprehension. It had been 26 months since we last stepped foot on French soil and the world is now a very different place.  We were unsure of what to expect, what documents we did or didn't need and how the French would now look upon us.  Let's be honest, the UK hasn't exactly put itself in a great light with Europe, or the rest of the world for that matter, over the last few years. I'm very pleased to say that everything went smoothly, we weren't thrown into jail for putting a cross in the wrong place on our forms and the French people were as welcoming as ever.  I suppose it does help that I can speak enough French to get by and not have to resort to shouting 'CHIPS' at the top of my voice - there's a story there, but I'll save it for another time. Anywa...

Remember in my January blog when we spoke about how important it was to ease yourself into the year and not put yourself under pressure?  Well, I was talking with a friend recently and she was feeling a bit down on herself because she was feeling a bit out of control with life and not able to do some of the things she'd planned to do during January.  "Hey, don't worry" I told her, "let's make February the new January"! It's ok if things didn't quite go to plan for you in January, that was exactly the point I was trying to make in my previous blog.  January is about testing the water, starting to think about what you want to do over the course of the next few months but maybe not putting them into action yet. So, now is the perfect time during February to up the ante a little bit, let's take a few more baby steps so we are ready to emerge all guns blazing ready for the start of Spring in March. Let's do some reflection on January: What di...

  ... although let's be honest, it's usually not that joyful!  It's cold, dark, and a very, very long time to the next payday!! You know my thoughts on New Year resolutions by now, I'm not a great fan despite the fact that I absolutely love planning, organising, goals, targets etc etc.  However, it's simply not a good time of year to put pressure on ourselves.  Every year we think that something magical is going to happen on the 1st January and we'll morph into super motivated human beings.  I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being realistic and whilst it's brilliant to have the goal of changing something in your life for the better, you need to go about it in the right way. Instead of charging into the new year like a bull in a china shop, use January and February to re-group so that you are ready to emerge in Spring, along with all the other new shoots and things in nature that have been resting and recuperating.  Don't be too complacent though, th...

I'm late with publishing my blog this week as I had to prioritise other things this weekend, which leads me quite nicely into this week's topics.  First of all, I'd like to tie up the Xmas side of things and then talk a little bit about New Year. A couple of weeks ago I spoke about the build up to Xmas and how easy it is to become overwhelmed at this time of year.  You can only do your best and can only focus on one thing at a time.  What really helps me is keeping some element of routine in my life.  They act like a safety net when I'm feeling like I'm in the midst of chaos.  It's very easy to forget about our usual routines at Xmas and, to some extent, that can be quite freeing.  The downside is that we can end up in a whirlwind of moving from one thing to the next without any purpose.  In my case, the one thing I do without fail is to stick to my exercise routine.  I may choose to do 10 mins yoga instead of a 10k run but for me, exercise is the...