I feel like it’s been an absolute age since my last proper ‘catch up’ on here, so I’m gonna change that whilst I eat my chicken noodle soup.  Writing is better with food, right?  Here goes the return of the Lily diaries.  I do believe the last one was in September.  Eesh.  I realised that since I take my camera and/or phone pretty much everywhere I have quite a few photos that are yet to grace the blog, so here you go.  Ft. lots of blue skies for a nice change!
To be honest it feels like ages since I’ve felt ‘caught up’ on life, never mind blogging.  My weeks have got progressively busier since September as my uni work has got progressively harder, so all in all that adds up to a very long to-do list.  Which is a good thing – I like to have lots of stuff lined up – just means that I literally never feel like I’m even halfway through said to do list. Howeverrr I’ve learned to not stress and just live in a perennially ‘unfinished’ mindset so it’s ok.  Just plugging along doing my best and winging it.  That’s what we’re all doing, isn’t it?  I actually wrote a whole post about winging it almost exactly a year ago.  Still feel exactly the same of course. 🙂
Right now I’m just counting down the days until exams are over and done with when I’ll *hopefully* be able to catch up a little – although it’s scary how quickly my first year has whizzed by too!  You should have seen the shock on my face when I got 90% on a maths assignment I thought I’d done absolutely bloody awful on last week.  Pure shock, I tell you.  I’m also getting to grips with just how much of university level education is about academic faff (referencing, mathematical communication, presentation, etc etc etc) as opposed to just understanding the content.  My Open University experience has been a learning curve in many ways, that’s for sure.
Uni work aside, I’ve had some rather lovely days and nights out and about in the last month or so too, so obviously they haven’t gone undocumented.  Lancashire and Cumbria have looked pretty fine!
I got a little carried away with the OMG IT’S SUMMER weather a couple of weekends ago and decided to jump (read: climb down the ladder) into a lake.  Spontaneity and that.  Still can’t get over our luck that the one day we planned a Lake District trip was the one day the sun shone non-stop.  I know the sun never stops shining (and hydrogen fusion doesn’t just pause for a couple of hours lol) but you know what I mean.  The weather was in our favour!!!  For once!!!  Miracles do happen.
This jetty’s been on the blog god knows how many times and I have photos of me there going back to 2002, but I don’t think I’ll ever get bored.  My favourite spot forever.  (Monk Coniston, if anyone’s interested).  Perfect place to park up, bring a picnic or a flask, and just chill out around the lake shore or on the jetty for a couple of hours.  Freezing your nips off in the lake optional, not really recommended, but fun.
It’s pretty obvious that I’m gonna take a bajillion photos on a sunny day in the Lakes, but I’m always keeping an eye out for interesting shots wherever I am too.  These were taken around Southport, Lytham and Blackpool.  Can’t beat the coast!  (Except when it’s windy and sand gets in your lens, that is). I keep asking my mum or dad to pull over so I can jump out the car to take a photo – gotta do it for the ‘gram!
Speaking of Instagram, I thought about adding my two cents to the bot-related hoo ha that went down over the weekend, before realising that A) we’re sick of hearing about it now, and B) my thoughts can be summarised as ‘bot users are cheaters and should apologise for faking their way to the top’.  Pretty sure they wouldn’t like it if their doctors had faked their qualifications, so I don’t know how they think it’s ok to fake their ‘qualifications’ as an influencer either.  Ugh.  Anyway I shan’t rant because you’re probably bored of that one.  I’ll politely ask if you wouldn’t mind giving me a follow on the old IG instead. 🙂  No bots for this gal!
As well as heading to the coast I’ve also been to Manchester a bunch of times over the last month too, one of which for a much needed catchup with my fave bloggy gal pals Erin and Ellie.  We lunched at Rosylee, walked off lunch and took a bunch of photos (obvs) and hunted down tea and cake at Richmond Tea Rooms.  And omg the size of that chunk of red velvet cake.  Bloody glad I didn’t need to run for my train afterwards, put it that way.
OK now I feel satisfied that I’m a little better caught up. Â Feel free to fill me in on yours if you fancy. 🙂
lily kate x
follow me on bloglovin | twitter | instagram | youtube | facebook | linkedIn | email me
4 Comments
Max
25th April 2017 at 8:19 pmIt is great that your work filled year has gone by so quickly and so well. I have been feeling a bit down. You might laugh. I get very anxious about good weather. It reminds me so much about time passing and not being any further towards my life goals than before. But then I have to remind myself to enjoy the time I have now and to make the season I am in the one I like the best. It is important to hang out on that sunny jetty and look at the blue skies.
lily kate
2nd May 2017 at 12:12 amI really can’t believe it’s gone so quickly! So true that it’s important to enjoy the current moment and hang out on the sunny jetty. Way too easy to get caught up in the bigger picture and forget the current moment!
Lucy
7th May 2017 at 9:53 pmI was definitely drawn in by the red velvet cake and wow, didn’t disappoint! Congrats on your 90% that’s insanely good! I can’t believe how quickly the time is going either, I’m now 8 months into my PhD, what the hell?! I feel like I deff haven’t got 8 months worth of work under my belt pahaha xxx
Lucy @ La Lingua
lily kate
11th May 2017 at 7:49 amI wish I could have that red velvet cake for breakfast right now! It’s actually freaking me out how quickly time is passing haha – I need this month before exams to slow down, but I can’t wait for summer at the same time. I’m sure you’re doing great with your PhD!