The website has crashed again, part of this blog appears to be missing. I’m so gutted. I hope you get to read it if they restore it.
We’re back from our latest adventure. We only booked it a couple of weeks ago, we saw there was a bank holiday coming up and thought let’s maximise our time.
For reasons unclear in the build up to the break away, either through excitement or stress (sometimes my brain confuses the two) my bowels decided to go on a go slow, like really slow.
Painfully so. I tried all the usual methods for unblocking a blocked bowel but nothing worked.
I wore dresses prior to going away because I find it helps to allow for free flow, and I knew I’d be taking jeans to wear while I was away. Ireland is beautiful, but prone to rain and winds. So dresses weren’t going to be particularly suitable.
Dress from Tesco, Shoes from Hermes, bag from Balenciaga.
I did everything I could think of to help my blocked up body, but nothing was working.
I get excited about things and my body goes into a frenzy. And within that it could mean I have high output, or no output. It never just behaves itself.
It’s so annoying. I tried to put it out of my mind, but as time went on I get more and more uncomfortable.
I hoped it wouldn’t decide to release itself on the flight, so I was grateful that didn’t happen. But it not happening did make me feel sluggish and urgh.
I’ve done a few things differently this trip, I’ve planned ahead (for the things I can control).
I bought myself some travel pillows from a company called Snooze. We go away a lot, and I find that pillows in hotels can be hit and miss on the scale of acceptable to absolutely unacceptable.
So I took control and bought and brought my own. Even if the hotel has perfectly good pillows I still don’t like sleeping on them. My travel pillows are dreamy. And only ever had my face and head touching them.
Okay, so it might sound like I’m getting a tad Howard Hugh’s-ish, but I like what I like, simple as that. If I can do something that might help me sleep a bit better while I’m in strange surroundings then I’m going to do it.
I would recommend them, they cost me quite a bit, but they are really good and definitely value for money.
I couldn’t control my brutal constipation, but at least I could rest well, knowing I didn’t have to sleep on a used pillow, with the ghosts of guests past on them.
My hernias were incredibly uncomfortable, my belly was swollen and solid, I felt utterly awful.
Dress from Tesco, Shoes from Gucci
I’m never going to have a flat stomach ever again. I accept that, but sadly society doesn’t care why your tummy protrudes, it just judges on looks.
I try and disguise my belly as best I can. With loose clothes or belted dresses ~ that accentuate my figure, whilst still disguising my bag and belly.
It’s hard for anyone to find confidence in your body and skin sometimes, but add in a stoma, two hernias, hormonal changes due to an oophorectomy…and savage constipation and you have yourself a fine pot belly.
When I look in the mirror, and feel a bit disappointed by what I see, I remind myself of what my body went through, the trauma it endured, both physically and psychologically, and I feel so much brighter about what I look like.
See yourself through kind eyes.
It’s amazing what our bodies have enabled us to achieve. All bodies.
I’m still here, I’m getting to have adventures and experiences. I’m literally living the dream.
I’ll take this body over no body any day of the week. Life is short, live it boldly. :)
Sitting in the airport waiting for our flight, off on our adventure. I have flown to far off lands once or twice every month since January. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to (We do carbon offsets for all our flights, as we are aware we use air travel a lot).
I know all to well what not being well Pre diagnosis looked like. I didn’t fly anywhere for the eight years prior. I had lost my confidence, I was too fearful of accidents. I feared them at ground level, so I definitely didn’t want to risk them at 40 thousand feet!
I’m grateful my life was saved, and I’m grateful my stoma bag allows me to live a good life.
We arrived very late on Friday night, so it was off to bed straight away ready for the full day ahead.
We didn’t really have a plan, so when Chris said “what do you want to do”…”I said I’d really like to go to The Giant’s Causeway”. To which Chris said okay…and made it happen. :)
Well, we landed in Shannon in the Republic of Ireland, and the giant’s causeway is in Northern Ireland, it’s far.
But what is life for if not adventures and road trips?
Jumper from N. Peal, Jeans from Tesco, Shoes from Gucci
We spent the morning looking round the town of Ennis, which is lovely, and then headed off to NI.
This is our route for the weekend. Yes, we know we drove past many and various other airports that are far closer to The Giant’s Causeway, but as we didn’t have any intention to go until I suggested it it wasn’t something we could have planned for.
Starting in Ennis, on to Dublin, up through NI, past Belfast (a very flying visit past the famous Harlan and Wolf docks), up to the causeway.
It was such a lovely drive. Ireland is a very special place. As we got closer to the causeway we saw a sign saying pre booking advised.
Well, seeing as we didn’t know we were going there until a couple of hours before we definitely didn’t think to book. Especially as it’s just the edge of the land, we hadn’t given any thought to it being a tourist destination in that sense. We didn’t think there’d be restrictions on numbers.
Anyway once we arrived, we got in the queue for the car park, and realised very quickly they were only allowing pre booked ticket holders in…you have never seen a man use a booking site as fast as my man booked those tickets! He is my hero for a lot of reasons, but this was definitely one of them.
Coat from Holland Cooper, I bought this coat for this weekend, and I’m so glad that I did. It was perfect for the weather we had.
Look how happy I am to be here. :)
Keep scrolling down and the rest of the blog should come up. Xx
If you never take any other piece of advice from me ever again, please do take up my recommendation for visiting Ireland, it’s spectacular, and although I didn’t spend very long in Northern Ireland, it was beautiful too. The Giant’s Causeway is a must. I hate the term bucket list, but I’d add it to your ‘fuck it let’s do it’ list for sure.
Honestly the photos don’t do it justice, it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Rugged coastline, rough seas, heaven, absolute heaven. If I ever get the chance I’d have a house overlooking a rough sea, it’s magical and mesmerising.
We left there very content, and very pleased with ourselves for making it there before closing time, and getting tickets to go in.
It’s a very pleasant walk from the car park down to the causeway. But for those even unfitter than us (if that even exists?) there is a bus service up and down the hill.
We walked down, and caught the bus back up.
We then drove back to the republic to stay in a place called Moville, which Chris had discovered his ancestors lived, it was lovely to see where his great grandmother was from.
Then it was onwards for our coast drive back down to Sligo, our mid way stop point.
Top from Ralph Lauren, Jeans from Tesco (I have 3 pairs of white), Shoes from Gucci.
We decided to do the coast road, we did this for 2 hours until we realised that we had only gone about 20 miles from where we had stayed the night before. The coast road follows all the knobbly fingers of the coastline. Which means you don’t get very far at all if you follow it wholly.
It’s spectacular. It’s such a great drive. We stopped regularly to take in the scenery. You can’t help but fall in love with Ireland.
We drove from Moville to Sligo mostly on the Wild Atlantic Way. Again, I’d recommend a tour of the area. It’s dreamy. Ireland is quite magical. It’s beautiful to look at, the people are wonderful and welcoming, and the place is spotless. The care and attention people pay to their own properties is incredible, and admirable, but the roads too are immaculate, not a pot hole in sight. It was like a dream.
Ireland is far more advanced in the area of alcohol free drinks availability. It’s much like the rest of mainland Europe, and understands that some people don’t drink. There is an abundance of alcohol free substitutes.
Sometimes in England if you ask for 0.0 beers they look at you like you have two heads or something. It’s very hit and miss with what’s on offer. Sometimes it’s just a Fruit Shoot or a sticky mocktail, sometimes they’ll have Becks Blue (in my opinion the worst alcohol free beer on the market), and very occasionally there will be something actually drinkable like Heineken 0.
We have a long way to go here. But Ireland and mainland Europe are worlds ahead of us in the non drinkers game. We were able to order some in every bar, restaurant and hotel we visited.
Sligo was an absolute delight. Chris found a fantastic restaurant that I would recommend ~ EALA BHÁN. It’s a must!!
The food was delicious, really really really good . They had alcohol free Prosecco as well as 0.0 beers.
Dress from Jigsaw, Shoes from Hermes, Bag from Balenciaga.
We celebrated our 30th anniversary of the day we met, whilst in Sligo. We started exclusively dating within a week of meeting, and have been inseparable ever since. I like him, he likes me, it’s worked out pretty well really. And they said it wouldn’t last…in fact not only did some actually say that, some hoped it wouldn’t too! Well, sorry, not sorry, but it’s probably going to go the distance. Hahahahah. (who knows, they might even be reading this right now). 👋🏼
If I have room in my bags I will pack clothes that I just use to go to breakfast in. Which came in handy this trip as we treated ourselves to massages and facials at the hotel spa before we left for the drive to Galway.
After just over a 1000 miles drive, in a manual car, Chris really needed the massage, and I don’t like to miss out on things, so I had one too. ;)
Top from N. Peal, Jeans from Tesco
I hadn’t thought about flying home when packing to go on the trip, and foolishly left off a dress to come home in. I have never flown in these jeans before, I wouldn’t do it again and I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone else. The risk of leaks is just far too high. But I had no choice.
(I did have a bit of a dilemma before we flew back. All UK airports had been hit by an air traffic control system glitch. Which caused widespread chaos and cancellations, I still don’t know how we got lucky and got home. But I’m very grateful that we did. My dilemma? I needed to change the bag I’d been wearing all day before the flight, to give me the best possible chance not to have a mishap mid flight. But, if I did that and our plane was cancelled I wouldn’t then have enough bags with me to last until the next available flight which would have been Thursday.
Everything was so up in the air (if you’ll pardon the pun), it was getting closer and closer to our flight time and it was still showing up as scheduled. So I took a leap of faith and changed my bag. It paid off as it turned out. So many friends have contacted me to say their flights are cancelled and they are stranded. Hopefully they will get back soon).
More than anything this trip highlighted the need for stoma products to be available to buy in shops, without a prescription. I appreciate some people will never need or want to buy any. But some people really do. It makes no sense for shops not to carry spares for people like me. People with stomas shouldn’t have to worry about availability of supplies. The emergency ones wouldn’t necessarily be the ones you’d usually use, but in an emergency situation, beggars can’t be choosers. :)
Galway is such a pretty town, a definite jewel in Ireland’s crown. A must see.
We bought beautiful souvenirs from one of the many wool shops. I bought Chris a beautiful Aran knitted blanket in his family’s traditional pattern (he has Coyne heritage in his bloodline). I’m not entirely sure if the blankets had different patterns on them, but it’s gorgeous anyway.
Chris had another 0.0 Guinness, and I had a hot chocolate with the most delicious Irish cream on top, it was worth coming for that alone!!
Then it was off to the airport for a nerve wracking wait for the plane to arrive…and more importantly - depart. Which it actually did, and what’s more it got us home earlier than expected. Ryanair get a lot of criticism, some justified, and some not. On this occasion they did amazingly well getting back here with all the chaos ensuing around us.
I decided to go big or go home, and bought these at the airport in Ireland.
Once home I embarked on ‘Operation Unclog’.
I think 3/4 of a bag of prunes was just what the situation called for…and all I can say is, thank god for my colostomy bag! ;)
Being home meant I have access to my entire wardrobe again, and I have been in dresses ever since.
I can’t see me putting tight jeans on any time in the near future. I’m going to go easy on myself and give my body a chance to empty out. Dresses are the best possible choice for that. Well, that and nighties, but as I have things to be getting on with this week I’d better stick to day clothes.
Dress from Primark, Shoes from Christian Dior
I hope you are well. Take care. Xx