February round-up

How was your shortest month? Here's my February highlights.

Feb 1st - 7th
I kicked off the month with my good friend Jess, setting the world to rights and drinking medicinal amounts of wine in Firebug, Leicester. I hadn’t seen her in far too long and a thorough catch up was needed. We covered most topics including mutual friends who were now married (frightening) or had kids (more frightening - how are any of us from school possibly old enough to deal with this?), horror films, general life and her new Doctorate. She is super clever and I am very proud of her.

My family of cacti have been spruced up and after many years in their own pots, have moved in together. They all came from the Eden Project at various times, and moved home with me in December last year. I like my succulents to be well-travelled. Their new residence is a not-terribly-old casserole dish from Whitemoors Antiques Centre which was the princely sum of £2.00.

Top left - Brian, Lord Bucketon. Top right - Gary. Bottom right - Rufus.

 Feb 7th - 14th
The month brought lots of video games and pizza with my boyfriend – he lives in London so we are roughly 100 miles apart most of the time. It hasn’t always been this way, but we are currently doing the long distance thing which means jaunts to London or Leicester, and trawling the shops for decade-old PS2 games and treats from the old fashioned sweetie shop.

I finally found a record which had been hiding in a safe place for a long time – it’s one of my treasures and I’m super pleased to have rediscovered it. For the benefit of the tape, it's a 12" vinyl copy of Manic Street Preachers single You Love Us, released on Heavenly in 1991. I've probably played it twice, and I mostly Gollum over it. It's reminded me I have tickets coming for a gig in May and I think it's close enough now to get officially excited.

My preciousss.

Feb 14th - 21st
I’ve walked a lot in February – at the time of writing, my Fitbit One says 84.34 miles (135.73 km), and this is a bit below my normal monthly average. I’m not a huge exercise fan, but I would walk 500 miles. Ahem. I've taken photos from my walks before, which you can see here. Bonus features from walks this month include discovering some brilliant road names, finding beautiful spring flowers and hearing a skylark singing just outside the city.

What's your favourite Leicestershire street name?

Feb 21st - 29th
The month is rounded off with a trip to the capital to spend the weekend doing fun stuff. We’re visiting the Magical Lantern illuminations at Chiswick House and I am SO EXCITED for it. I absolutely love gardens and ones filled with beautiful Chinese lanterns in the dark sounds amazing.

It's a leap year! I love leap years. This one is especially brilliant because it means I am one extra day away from turning 30 next year. Thirty has always sounded worryingly grown up, but as I fully endorse the Peter Pan message, I won't grow up; it's a trap.