newly browned hair and being a house mouse

Well it has taken me much longer to post again than I thought it would. The inevitable Post Holiday Blues have been more like deep navy and although I new I couldn't get away without a good dose of them, they've been hangning around that much longer than I expected. As has the jet lag. Simply feeling half a day or so behind, like we did when we got to London, is one thing, but this has been something else entirely. There's not been much sleeping for more than 4 hours straight, and instead it's lots of 1 or 2 hour naps when I try to go to bed at a normal time, followed by bright eyed alertness until around 7 or 8 am, and no amount of staying up hours later/going to bed earlier/forcing normal hours/ignoring normal hours etc seems to even touch it. I can't wait to sleep more than 5 hours in the 24, all in a row, and ideally when it's nighttime!

I also haven't wanted to burst what I have been referring to (to John, and the cat) as my travel bubble; I just don't want holiday times to be over. Which I am sure is contributing to my endless jet lag. It's time, definitely time, to pop it! Deep breath.

But before I dive in and edit all my travel photos, I want to update things a bit with what I've been up to since I got back. (And because I'm nervous about getting on to the travel stuff because I'm convinced I'll leave something out. Ridiculous, really.) You might have seen on my instagram or facebook that I have gone back to my natural hair colour. Well, almost – it's actually a shade or so darker than my natural one, or at least I think so – it's been a long, long time! I'd been toying with the idea for a few months about growing everything out, and even getting a couple of subtle blonde-ish highlights eventually, so that my hair was more or less natural dark blonde. Seeing it grow out after the bleaching has been nice in some ways – the shine! the softness! – and I'm just over always having to be doing the regrowth. It's funny, after all these years of preferring very artificial hair colours, to find myself liking au naturale, but we all change and progress... I'd let my hair fade before and during the holiday and it was looking pretty unlovely by the time I got back, so I was very relieved to get it sorted. I must say I am LOVING it like this. I'm hoping that the maintenance will be pretty low as I grow back some long dark blonde/mousey brown locks.

I've not really done much else at all, other than continuing to tackle the laundry, tidy up the house, and watch lots of TV. Discovering a bunch of episodes of the Mighty Boosh on iView was pretty good. The laundry basket isn't empty yet, but it does fit under the bed again, and we've had a break from the rain so the bulk of it's done, and all the unpacking and putting away of suitcases and all that is done too. One thing we found, and I'm sure lots of people have the same when they go on a long-ish holiday after ages of not going away for more than a few days at the most for ages, is how much stuff we have at home that we don't want or need. It's just clutter! That's what the not exactly exciting photo on the right is all about. (Plus I didn't want a giant my-face pic, especially not one from the bad side of the iPhone camera that makes my eyeliner look all wobbly. I promise it wasn't! It's been quite a nice break from taking photos of myself!) We've started to tackle this clutter, and are determined to get it massively down by the end of May (deadlines are helpful, even when just made up). Yesterday we did this bookshelf, the unit the TV lives on, the CD collection, the storage space under the house, and the bit of cupboard where we keep our bed linen because it had a lamp I love but got broken years ago and I'd evidently hoped would heal itself if I left it untouched in a bag for long enough. Obviously the book shelf isn't pretty-fied yet, but about two thirds of what was on it is gone, and it feels so good! It's not the funnest Sunday activity but it is so hugely satisfying. There's more to go, but making a start has made it all seem far more manageable.

One thing I am chuffed about is finding out I am one of the Kidspot Voices of 2014 Top 40 Beauty and Lifestyle bloggers. I made it to the Top 5 last year, which was nice. Blogging can be such an insular thing to do and it's definitely nice to have this kind of acknowledgement from your peers. They've accidentally kept my picture from last year, too, so I should send them a new one – the red haired one I sent obviously got waylaid somewhere along the way but that's probably for the best seeing as that's no longer relevant either! I've been busting to replace my profile pics anyway so I should get onto that. One with brown hair, but maybe not wearing a comfy old tee shirt, as I am in the one above.