Tag Archives: relationships

One Year

One year ago today, I posted what, at the time, was the most personal blog post I’d ever written. I put all my feelings about a boy into words, and sent it out for the world to see, which I had to do because the boy in question was on quite literally the other side of the world.

Its safe to say our relationship didn’t start off in the traditional way. He asked me to be his girlfriend via Whatsapp, and our third date was almost 3 months after the 2nd, and involved me flying out to New Zealand for a week to be with him. With the exception of that week, we spent the first 7 and a half months of our relationship over 11,000 miles apart, and had to battle with a 11-13 hour time difference.

Its felt as though the universe has been against us, but here we are, one year later, and the universe can keep throwing things at us because we’re going to be together for many more years to come. Matthew is so close to the end of his training, and it won’t be long until he’s in a job and we can really start to move forward with our life; a life where we don’t have to worry about the distance between us anymore.

I’m gonna get real with you guys for just a second.

I’d never put much thought into a perfect relationship, but I always knew that I just wanted to be happy, and thought that I would find it. After I ended my previous relationship, and before Matthew came into my life, I genuinely started to lose faith. I couldn’t understand why I could never get it right. Why, despite always striving to be a good person, happiness never seemed to last. Why, when I looked back, no relationship ever seemed quite right. I can’t tell you just how heartbreaking it felt to believe, even for a moment, that maybe I would never find happiness. Now I know why nothing felt right, and that is because I’ve found it now. I’ve found the guy that I can be 100% myself with, without secrets or censorship.

I really hate to sound cheesy or fake, but if any of those feelings sound familiar to you, I urge you not to give up hope. I can’t express how much my life has changed with this boy in it, and I want so many more happy years.

Happy anniversary, Matthew. I love you xxx

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5 Things I Did When I Was Single

Things I Did When I Was Single

While I’m very proud to say that I’m in a happy relationship, when I look back at the last few years, I’m very grateful for the time I was single. It was a time where, cliche as it sounds, I found myself as an individual, and I will always stand by the fact that I needed that time and that experience to make me happy in my current relationship.

Between my previous relationship and my new one, I had just over a year of time to enjoy being with myself, and there are some particular things that happened in that time that stand out as being most important for me.

Travelling alone

This is probably the biggest thing I have ever done to step out of my comfort zone, and I absolutely cannot recommend it enough. Go somewhere you’ve never been and always wanted to go, and make those memories that will always remind you how awesome and independent you can be.

Work work work

I threw all my free time into my blog and small businesses, and thrived off being a proper little #girlboss. As a result, I saw my blog grow and boom, and as well as making me happy, it gave me such a sense of achievement.

Became social

While some may not see spending lots of time on social media as a good thing, I loved it. I made new friends, became part of a community of some of the loveliest people ever and learned that friendships are love too.

Set my standards

This might sound cheesy, but being alone made me realise exactly what I wanted from a relationship, and how I wasn’t prepared to settle for less than what made me happy. Spoiler alert: this works and I found the guy who is everything I wanted and more.

I stopped doubting myself

I was always the person who needed approval in everything I did. I still am a little, but during my single time, I did what I wanted without having to worry about what another person thought, and now I’m more ok being my own person.

I’m not trying to preach the wonders of single life, and I’m not trying to say that doing these things are the key to future happiness, I just want to encourage you to find your happiness in whatever stage of life you find yourself in. Enjoy yourself!

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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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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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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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