The most observant of my regular readers might have noticed my absence for a few weeks. While my lack of writing wasn’t exactly intentional it was very much needed. This time it didn’t come about from emotional turmoil, more sheer exhaustion.

After a busy period with work, trying to blog more often and everything else that is involved with this crazy thing they call modern life I found myself feeling more and more run down and I was getting pretty horrendous headaches and dizzy spells a lot. This culminated one Saturday lunchtime with what D likes to call “Charlotte’s little sleep on the kitchen floor” where I managed to collapse and have to spend the rest of the Saturday in A&E getting poked prodded and generally tested to make sure nothing was amiss. Joking aside, D was actually pretty fantastic. Despite having worked all night before and having been awake more than 30 hours me managed to keep me laughing in hospital while we waited. It seems that when you go to A&E you spend quite a lot of time waiting for things to happen while various health professionals busily work around you. I am so grateful for the help and attention I received and I spent most of my time sitting, wondering at the audacity of the current goverment and their attitudes towards NHS staff.

Anyway, to cut a long story short they couldn’t find anything majorly wrong with me. However, everyone concerned told me I needed to stop running myself down, give myself time to rest and recharge my batteries and stop racing about trying to do everything. I think that’s true of a lot of people. We try so hard all the time, to be Superwoman (or Superman?) at work, keep up with hobbies, exercise regimes, running a home and trying to maintain an active social life (while not neglecting your family and friends); sometimes you just need to give yourself a break. Sometimes you just need to give yourself time to physically and mentally rest, to stop putting so much pressure on yourself to do everything.

So, that’s what I have been trying to do. I’ve been staying at work late less often, huddling on the sofa reading, listening to records with D and generally trying to do the exact opposite of haring about. But obviousy I have missed blogging and I actually have a lot of recipes to share over the next few weeks.

Anyway, I think really what I wanted to get across in this post was, your general health and wellbeing is far more important than trying to live up to your own perception of what a perfect person gets up to in their lives. There are only so many hours in the day, be kinder to yourself. Make time to curl up on the sofa watching a much loved tv boxset, go on walks in the countryside and give yourself time to rest. (Or however you like to relax, I don’t actually think my experience makes me some sort of relaxation oracle).

I actually feel so refreshed now and I have so many ideas to share with you all. Christmas is coming together nicely. I don’t care if my and D’s idea of what a pretty Chrstiams tree or what good Christmas week activities aren’t intagram perfect or make anybody jealous, but I will feel pretty excellent if even one person out there reads this and thinks “yes I do need a break”, or “I think I’ll stop stressing so much about x, y, z. I might just go and ready Harry Potter in the bath tonight”.

Also, one final point, the male paramedic thought I was only about 17 or 18 when we were in the ambulance the other week, so I can’t have aged that badly(!)