Tag Archives: long distance

Long Distance – The Last Leg

For those of you who have followed this story from the very beginning, I’m pleased to say that this will be the last long distance post I’ll have to write!

While its been a lot longer than we originally anticipated, Matthew will be home in less than a month! I’m not gonna lie, its a huge weight off my chest knowing when he’ll be back, and I’m so excited for that date to come around, but knowing how soon it is is making me super impatient!

Despite not being able to be together for Christmas, and missing his birthday next week, I’ve tried really hard to make sure that the two celebrations haven’t been forgotten, bombarding him with care packages: more Boomf goodies, as well as a box of Christmas goodies and a sneak peak at his birthday present – he’s not allowed to open that envelope yet though!

I, on the other hand, got my Christmas presents sent directly from the Disney Store – do I have the best boyfriend or what?

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Knowing that we’re coming to the end of this time apart is such a relief, and we’re already starting to plan all our little adventures for when he’s home! Stay tuned!

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Long Distance Disney

So out of this last month, there have been two key moments in Matthew and my relationship, both arguably as important as the other.

Last week, Matthew was finally given an official coming home date. I’d been waiting for that news since the moment he left, and while its not as soon as I’d like it to be (its actually quite a bit further away than we’d hoped), its a day that I can look forward to, and there’s a possibility that it may come a little sooner, so we’re just crossing all fingers and toes, and remembering that two more months is nothing to the five we’ve already made it through.

This date comes from the fact that he passed his first progress test, and has now moved on to the next stage of his training, which doesn’t rely on the weather as much as the first stage, so hopefully he’ll be able to fly through it. Pun intended.

Ok, next big bit of news..

We’ve booked to go to Walt Disney World! It was semi-planned, semi-spur of the moment, but I’m so happy we’ve done it and now we’ve got something else to look forward to next year. Matthew is a huge WDW fan, and has been desperate to go back, so as the end of the free dining plan offer loomed, it only really made sense logically..

We’ll be there from October 30th-November 13th, catching both Halloween and Christmas seasons, and staying at Coronado Springs! Matthew’s never stayed on Disney property before, and he’s already chosen his Magic Band colour and created a My Disney Experience wishlist longer than my arm.. Of course I’m super excited to get planning to make this the most magical trip for him, and we’re hopefully going to do Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party too!

Its not been an easy month, but whenever I find things hard, I just think about next year and all the great things that are to come, and how it will all be worth the wait.

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Long Distance Marshmallows

That’s right, its been another month, and I’ve got you hooked with that title, right? The story goes a little bit like this:

Not long after our last update, Matthew wasn’t feeling well and I wanted to do something to cheer him up. He’s got a thing for oatmeal and raisin cookies (a flaw I’m willing to overlook), but while I searched the internet for companies that would deliver cookies to New Zealand, cookie quality can vary from excellent to pretty poor, and instead of taking the risk of sending bad cookies, I decided instead to turn to Boomf. I’m a serious love of marshmallows, and ever since Boomf came on the scene a few years back I’ve been searching for a reason to place an order, and this seemed like the perfect time.

Turns out ordering marshmallows for someone else made me really want marshmallows too, so naturally I turned to Twitter to vent my feelings. I frequently tweet things without thinking about people actually reading them, but it turns out Matthew did. Yep, matching marshmallows!


As well as adorable like-mindedness, we’ve taken a pretty big step towards ultimate couple goals: a joint Pinterest board. Its a place for us to share ideas for all our future adventures; planning ahead makes the wait a little better. You might have also seen that I finally managed to put together a collection of our New Zealand memories in a little shadow box frame (post here!), which I love and I think I’ll be doing with many future trips!

Other than that, its been a fairly quiet month for the two of us. Between the time difference, Matthew’s flights and my work situation, we’ve not always been able to talk as much as we usually do; there’s been a lot of missing each other as a result.. But we’ve survived another month, and that’s another month closer to being back together!

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Three Months of Long Distance

Full story here

Hobbiton selfie

Each time I write one of these posts, I’m a little amazed that a whole month has past since the last, and that’s kinda cool. This month has obviously been a little different from the previous two; its been the best and the worst.

When I say the best, I am, of course, talking about my trip to New Zealand. It was a whole week of being together – the most amount of time we’ve ever been together – and it was perfect. We spent the first few days in Auckland, where we visited the zoo and sealife centre, ate an amazing curry and had a great night out at this little comedy club, before driving down to Rotorua, which was unfortunately where my jet lag really kicked in, so we ended up spending a lot of time watching tv in bed while I napped! We did get to do the luge though, which was a lot of fun and we got to see some stunning views of the area.

After Rotorua, we drove to Hamilton via a jet-boating experience in Taupo, and I finally got to see where Matthew is living and working which was pretty cool. He had to fly one day, which meant I got to have a lazy day of writing, reading magazines in bed and watching funny daytime TV, but we had the evening together so we went to watch Secret Life of Pets and had a Nandos – NB: New Zealand Nandos is not as good as UK Nandos! Monday was Hobbiton day, which was really awesome and I’ll be doing a separate post on that soon, and then Tuesday we headed back to Auckland for a penguin experience at the sealife centre (AMAZING), then spent the day walking around the docks and finished up at the Sky Tower to watch the sunset before driving to the airport. I won’t go into the details of that, but it wasn’t easy to say goodbye.

Since getting home, we’ve had to get back into our previous routine, which has honestly been harder to adjust to than the first time. With weather issues slightly hindering his training, its going to be a little longer until Matt is home, and that’s been difficult for me to get my head around, but I can’t change that so instead I just have to keep looking forward.

From the other side of the world, training for Matthew is really ramping up as he prepares for his first progress test; he’s moving on from the basics to more complex flights, introducing more techniques and more detailed planning, and despite weather recently, NZ is heading into Spring/Summer, so it will be better soon, and the more flights he completes, the closer he is to coming home.

Here’s to the next month flying by!*

*All puns intended.

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An NZ Update!

Hello lovely people!

I’m super jet-lagged and it’s about 5.30am but I just wanted to check in to let anyone who’s interested know that I am safely in New Zealand, yay!

Yesterday, which I think is still English Wednesday when this gets posted, was my first full day and Matthew took me to Auckland Zoo – you know how much I love zoos!

We got to see all the usual suspects – meerkats, giraffes, penguins etc – but also were lucky enough to see one of the red pandas, and also catch a glimpse of a kiwi, and I loved every second of it!

I’m still needing to nap to cope with the tiredness, but after a quick afternoon snooze we went out for dinner at this amazing Indian restaurant, then went to a comedy club for the night which, with the exception of one of the comedians, had me in stitches the whole time!


Tomorrow we’ll be doing some more fun stuff in Auckland, then driving down to Rotoroa, and although I won’t be updating you day to day on this trip (but there’s plenty of other posts going up daily!), I’ll might drop another update in a few days time!

Now I’m gonna try and go back to sleep..

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Not So Long Distance..

Read back on this story here


So you know how just over 2 months ago I was crazy enough to dive into a long distance relationship with a guy I’d only been on two dates with? Well that’s nothing compared to what I’ve done now..

Guys, I’m going to New Zealand. A week today.

Now I will admit that this wasn’t as spontaneous as I just made it sound; I booked the tickets a few weeks ago after weeks of pleading with my boss to give me the time off work, so it was a little bit orchestrated, but by my standards its way last minute! It will also be a relatively short trip (stupid work!) as despite being gone for 9 days, two days are lost in travelling, but a week is better than nothing, and I think if I had to go another two months my head might just explode! Eeeekk!

But a little closer to home, it really doesn’t feel like a whole month since I wrote the last instalment of this tale; the time has flown by!

As well as around 35 hours (yes, I did the math) of FaceTime and FaceTime audio – that’s just in the last month – we also had a cute little Whataspp movie date where we watched Mulan together, which was just something a little bit different and fun, plus its one of Matthew’s favourite Disney films!

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This month has been really difficult for me at times, but its been so much easier knowing that even from the other side of the world, Matthew is there for me through it all, and now I’m just so excited to be able to be there with him, even if just for a week.

Wish me luck guys!

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A Month of Long Distance

Read the first part of this story here

On the day my last post went live, Matthew asked me to officially be his girlfriend, making today a somewhat bittersweet one month anniversary; a month of being together, when we’ve spent the whole time apart.


Girlfriend – now that’s a job role I’m really good at. And trust me, its a lot easier saying ‘my boyfriend is working in New Zealand’ than ‘oh, I’m just waiting around for some guy I’ve been on two dates with’. That being said, I don’t think he was ever just some guy..

I can’t pretend for a second we’re like any other couple reaching their first month; instead of living in the moment, we’re looking forward to the day we don’t have 11,500 miles between us. In many ways though, we’re totally normal. I love hearing about his day and we keep each other up late texting and wind each other up.. I keep wanting to write that its easy but it isn’t. We miss each other every day and some days its a real struggle, but we’re still there for each other through it all and he never fails to make me smile, even when I’m letting the world get to me.

All I can say is thank god for technology. I can’t imagine doing this without it; I think Dear John would have been a much different story if Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum had Skype. Thank you Whatsapp, thank you FaceTime, thank you Snapchat. There’s not a day we don’t use at least one of these. We’ve got into a good routine now: I try and take more late shifts at work because morning here/evening there is when we generally get the most time, but we make all the time we can.

I actually feel like this first month has flown by, probably helped by spending two weeks in China to keep me distracted! We’re halfway to the halfway point – that sounds better than 3 months to go, right? What’s more important though is that we’re both in this for the long haul. A month ago I had no regrets, and that stands true today.

On a little side note, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented on the last post. I had so many kind words from people who have been through similar situations, and people supporting me and it means so much!

Three months to go!

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Second Date to Long Distance Relationship?

Having been single for well over a year now, I would never for a second claim myself to be a dating/relationship blogger, and I’m kinda way out of my comfort zone writing this, but here goes..


So its a classic 21st century romance: boy swipes girl, girl swipes boy, and both hope desperately that the other turns out to be normal, or at least as crazy as the other – as all the best couples are. I think it goes without saying: I’m the girl.

Now I’m not gonna go into a huge amount of detail, but we hit it off pretty much straight away, and within days of initial contact we had gone from talking for an hour to texting til 1am and it was clear that a date would be on the cards pretty soon, although I made him ask me properly of course! A date was set, and then we were hit with a bit of a rubbish bombshell: his work would be transferring him to New Zealand for 4 months..

Effective the following week.

Suddenly the prospect of a summer romance seemed way off the cards, and it seemed like the universe was totally against us, but I couldn’t deny the little voice in my head telling me that I shouldn’t be giving up hope just yet; I mean, I really liked him. With the first date proving a huge success, it seemed impossible at that point that we could go the next 4 months without seeing each other again, so I drove to meet him one more time before his flight. The thought of having to say goodbye was totally terrifying, but it completely dissolved the moment we saw each other, and instead I was filled with hope.

I don’t know how many people would transition from a second date to committing to 4 months of long distance without question, but I’ve always been one to jump into things feet first, and honestly I’m completely confident with the decision. The way I see it is that this is an amazing opportunity for him, and I truly want him to enjoy it to the fullest.


So here we are. Well, I’m here, and he’s there, and has been for almost a week now. Despite a bit of a tough transition, we’re slowly but surely getting into a routine and being able to FaceTime at the weekend was so nice!

Now this post isn’t just for storytelling purposes; its the beginning of something. I’m essentially going to be logging our experience: the highs and lows, how we cope, and the ways we stay connected despite 11,000+ miles and an 11 hour time difference, and if our story can help anyone else going through a similar situation then its gonna be worth it.

If you’ve ever done long distance, drop me a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

(Oh, and cos I know some of you will be dying to know, yes he loves Disney!)

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