I get so many lovely messages and emails about how I’ve helped people see the positives of stoma owning, which honestly makes me cry every single time.
Because when I had my own surgery I didn’t feel confident or positive at all.
I felt deflated and defeated - I was at all times happy to be alive - I really felt privileged in that respect, but at the same time I was broken and sad.
So hearing that I have been instrumental in someone finding comfort and confidence in themselves is something I really treasure.
People often ask me what I did to change how I felt. Well, firstly it helps to be married to Chris, and no, I’m not sharing him, but he is probably 99% of the reason I feel so comfortable in my skin.
He treats me like a queen, he lifts me up and gives me the confidence to be me. He has always, since the moment I met him celebrated all my positives and achievements.
(He is realistic and down to earth though, he did say the other day when I was trying to think of a job to get that I’m “pretty unemployable” because by my own admission ~ I don’t want anything that involves people, maths or the alphabet 😂).
But the other part of it is lived experience.
It just hasn’t been what I thought it would be.
Having a colostomy for me has been far easier and more convenient than having a broken rectum ever was.
Obviously mine had a cancerous tumour up it, but even people with a perfectly healthy one have problems sometimes.
A few friends have been telling me all their gory stories of problematic bottoms lately and I have to be honest, I do not miss having one! Even a healthy one!!
I have been smugly listening to the stories, enjoying the schadenfreude of their unfortunate bottom incidents.
Give me a stoma bag any day!! :)
Before I had a stoma I thought the idea of one was horrifyingly awful, having now got one I do believe it’s absolutely the way forward. 10 out of 10, would recommend!
(Obvs not the cancer bit, just the efficiency and simplicity of colostomy bag owning).
I don’t miss the cold sweat of needing to find a toilet nowwwwwwww!!
If I have a bag leak I could technically sort it out anywhere. I just need a bin to dispose of it in.
How can you make yourself feel more comfortable and confident?
Well it starts with your inner dialogue. Don’t let it tear you down. Never give it the airtime to.
The best advice I ever heard was “never speak to yourself in a way that you wouldn’t accept from other people “.
If you had a friend who said shitty things about you or to you, you’d rightly avoid them.
Well if you wouldn’t allow them to say it - then definitely don’t say it about yourself.
Treat yourself with kindness and compassion, and focus on the positive aspects of you. You’re the only one of you on the planet, how incredible is that!
Pstttt, if you do have ‘friends’ who say shitty things about you or who are shitty to you, sack them and find new ones.
Dress how you want, do as you please. Life is so ridiculously short, don’t let the weight of other people’s expectations dictate how you live it.
Top from Ralph Lauren, Trousers from M&S,Shoes from Tod’s.
Dress from Monsoon, Shoes from Jeagar
I had to laugh last week, people often say how well I dress, and for the most part I do, it’s deliberate, I try very hard. I am a try hard by nature.
But within 15 minutes of each other the soles fell off these shoes, while I was out and about. It was ridiculous, like something out of a sitcom.
These shoes lived in our Spain house for many years so I can only assume the heat there affected the integrity of the glue. But walking along leaving the soles behind wasn’t something I ever expected).
Dress however you feel happiest. Clothes can have a transformative effect.
If you feel good, you look good and vice versa.
Dress from Scamp & Dude (they have a sale on at the moment) Shoes from Gina.
Sam, Milly and Zak came up to stay for the weekend as they were heading off to our Spain house for a holiday.
As you can see Sam was delighted to have his photo taken with me! 😂
Do you ever just wish your children were dinky all over again. (I do).
Dress from Ralph Lauren, Shoes from Hermes.
I booked us into a local farm that has a sunflower and wild flower experience this time of year. I’d really recommend it, it’s such a beautiful place to be.
Zak and I picked the sunflowers, but when it came to the wild flower bouquets, Milly and I left it to the boys, they were far better at it. Theirs were absolutely gorgeous.
Zak picked some and decorated his ears with them, and was delighted when quite a few people said how cute he looked. He did, he looked heartbreakingly beautiful.
He’s a little blonde haired, blue eyed angel. And with the added flowers, oh my goodness he’s just perfect. 😍
The house was very well dressed from all of the flowers we had picked. I was very impressed by the bouquets Chris, Sam and Zak made.
When Zak arrived he wanted to surprise/scare me with his clown costume, he wore it to his last day of school before the holidays. I had mentioned on FaceTime that I was scared of clowns. He thought that was funny.
So he asked Milly if they could stop on the way so he could change into it.
Which he did. I think I might have over acted the scared part as he seemed quite distressed that he had actually scared me.
I should have been an actress! Hahah
Anyway, to make him laugh I asked him if he wanted to wear one of the costumes I still have from when my boys were little.
I have Aladar from Disney’s Dinosaurs, and Bear from Bear in the Big Blue House.
He didn’t fancy either of them, so I said shall I put one on and he felt that was the best idea…
The costumes are aged 5-6 years…
I was pissing myself laughing putting it on. Until I realised it was wedged on me. Literally stuck solid.
I had to ring Chris and ask him to bring a pair of scissors to cut me out. But he actually managed to get it off me by pulling it off in the end. I was covered in sweat and red marks from being so stuck in it. But it was very very funny.
I make a very cute T rex 🦖😂
On the Sunday we all went to watch a charity polo match at the club we belong to. We took a picnic, and my mum and dad came too. It was a gloriously sunny day. It couldn’t have been better.
Matt and Kim and the twins came too, and Kim’s mum.
Zak picked flowers in the morning to take as gifts for Meg and Bel. Which was adorable.
They couldn’t have cared less where they were because they played in the car the entire time. We could have quite easily just parked on the driveway and they’d have been happy.
But the rest of us enjoyed the matches.
Dress from Ralph Lauren, Shoes from Hermes.
A picnic is one of my favourite things.
Then, the next day Sam and all flew off to Spain, and our house was deathly quiet and empty. My least favourite thing.
A house like ours needs noise and chaos, or maybe it’s just that I do.
Top and trousers from M&S, Shoes from Hermes.
Top from Jigsaw, Shorts from Tesco
I’d spent a few days tidying up and putting the house back together after guests coming to stay. But then the quiet became too much and I thought sod it, let’s take the car out for a drive.
I have two cars, and since Chris bought me the Fiat 500 I have barely used the other one. The Fiat is so good. It’s so roomy on the inside and tiny to park (much needed as I am a terrible driver).
So I decided to go for a drive to take the other one for a run, and catch up with a friend who lives 70 minutes away.
I am a nervous driver, and haven’t driven the route much, so I was in a stress head about that.
It was only when I got to Bury St Edmunds that I realised I hadn’t actually let my friend know I was coming…
Doh!
I quickly messaged him to say I was in the area if he was free for a cuppa.
While I waited to hear back I did a bit of shopping, and had a hot chocolate. But I didn’t get any response so I had to go home again.
He finally saw my message once he’d finished in a meeting, but I was nearly home by then.
Moral of the story, tell the person you are going off to visit, that you are coming. Hahaha.
Dress from Nobody’s Child, Shoes from Chloe.
Still, it was a lovely drive out in the countryside.
While I was at the sunflower place in Writtle I noticed an advert saying they do yoga and other activities there. Which I thought seemed like a very nice idea. So I booked in and I was not disappointed.
It was heaven. It wasn’t exactly sunrise at it starts at 8.30am.
But it was cloudy, and then the sun broke through the clouds and it felt like sunrise.
Sunflowers, sunshine and yoga are good for the soul.
Again, 10 out of 10, would and have recommended.
I’m a very odd fish. I know who I am and happy with it.
I’m very sociable and extremely unsociable all at the same time. I can make friends literally anywhere, and I invariably do.
But at the same time I fear social interaction, so make sense of that if you can, because I can’t.
Anyway, I decided to invite over some of the new friends I made whilst co-volunteering with them at the food bank.
So I made a lunch and set up a table scape in the she shed.
Top from Ralph Lauren, Trousers from M&S
I made a really nice lunch, catering for everyone’s needs, a couple of vegetarians and a vegan. I made sure there was no cross contamination. And no risk of food poisoning (my anxiety really does make for a delightfully restful time of it).
Anyway, I knew Chris was working from home and I planned to plate him up a salad. His usual week day lunch at the office.
But he said he wouldn’t have time for a knife and fork meal, and that really stumped me because my only focus was on getting lunch for my friends right. So I boiled him some eggs and scrabbled around the fridge for something for him. In hindsight I feel I really excelled myself! Hahaha
The eggs, some week old carrot batons and a bottle of salad cream…the meal of champions!
It was such a lovely afternoon! Apart from Chris’s lunch error. We had a lovely time. It was great to have people over.
My friend Kara mentioned at lunch that her boyfriend had gone to a near by nature reserve. And she really did mean near by, as it’s only 2 miles up the road from my house as it happens, I had never heard of it before.
So once Chris and I had finished dinner…yes, I fed him properly, we set off to find this new little oasis of tranquility.
If you live near here the Phyllis Curry nature reserve is well worth a visit.
My mum and dad went this week, and they were only there 2 minutes and they saw a Kingfisher!
Saturday we decided to have a chilled out morning. And then headed into London for a late lunch and a trip to Selfridges cinema.
It’s a great little intimate place, the chairs are comfy and it’s tiny so it never feels really crowded. And there were just 8 people in there for this showing, so it was even better!
We had lunch in Aubaine in Selfridges, which very conveniently happens to be in the shoe department…what a stroke of luck. I popped into Aquazurra, just for a look see.
And in all honesty, absolutely fingers crossed gods honour, I was only intending to try these shoes on again for size and see if they suited me, and Chris’s opinion on them.
Well clearly he loved them too as he bought them for me.
I was just going to get the details of them and put them on my Christmas list.
I really think I will get a lot of wear out of them…I’m not delusional, I mean, not a lot of wear, but definitely a bit. They’re not for trotting to Tesco in, but they will look fabulous with navy or black or white dresses for events and evenings out.
And then we went to see Deadpool and Wolverine. Which was really very good, fun, witty, quick and sassy. It’s everything you want from a Deadpool.
Shirt from Boden, Jeans from M&S, Shoes from Chanel.
The Shoes…
It was a fabulous day out. And something for everyone. Shoes for me, cinema for him. Food for both. Everyone’s a winner.
Sunday was bloody brilliant! I’d sent Kim an advert I’d seen for a local Alpaca farm in Great Tey, that was offering small group bookings to play with the piglets and other assorted animals.
She managed to get a booking and I tagged Chris and I onto it.
It was meant to be fun for the girls, but I think Kim and I had more fun than any of us.
Top from Ralph Lauren, Jeans from M&S, Shoes from Dior.
I was crying laughing, it was the best hour I’ve spent in a long time anyway, but I was killing myself laughing with Kim.
The lady doing our tour hadn’t even finished her sentence that if you bend down the goats get on your back…I turned around and Kim was on all fours with a goat on her back.
The woman literally hadn’t even finished saying the words - and Kim was down like a lightning bolt. Goat ready!
We then spent the rest of the time trying to entice goats onto us.
Have you ever seen a more desperate sight, than grown women trying to entice goats on themselves hahahah
But I feel we all thrived that day…
Chris and Kev 🫶🏼
Then it was back to ours for lunch.
I kept it simple, I roasted a couple of chickens and a gammon, I made some salads, dressings and dips.
Erin made her extremely delicious prize winning roast potatoes.
I’d made a surprise for Kim, I don’t cook much, but I do do a few things well.
I have perfected tzatziki, and I am a champion at trifle.
Look at her!! You could drown in that!
It was the best day.
Farm, fam, food. What more could you want in life.
Trifle;
Bowl from Emma Bridgwater
2 packets of trifle sponge
2 tins of fruit cocktail (drained)
2 packets of jelly
1 large carton of Ambrosia custard
1 large tub of double cream
2 punnets of strawberries
(Or hundreds and thousands)
The reason it’s so big is because Emma Bridgwater made such a ridiculously large bowl for it. I tried doing a single measure one in it before, but it didn’t even fill the bottom of the bowl as there is a big dip to start with.
And anyway, there’s no such thing as too much trifle!
It went down a treat. 🥰
More adventures are up coming. I love that I get to have them.
Is a stoma the best thing in the world? I happen to like mine a lot, but some people rightly dislike theirs immensely, and I can totally understand that point of view. I do consider myself a bit weird for liking it.
But are they the worst thing in the world?
Well, no, not even the worst ones, because we get to stay here because of them, and I really really really love living.
And the people we love love us living just as much, if not more. Xx
Keep well, stay safe, much love xx
Quick update;
Just been to my plastic surgeon for a follow up appointment for the skin cancer biopsy results.
The fabulous news is although it was skin cancer, it was a very basic, entry level one, so it’s not a problem.
The one on my leg he got great margins on and that won’t need any further treatment.
Unfortunately the one on my chest does need a little something extra, just to get rid of it all.
Still not a problem, still a very basic skin cancer. But will need some cryogenic treatment and maybe some chemo cream after that.
Still easy to sort out, but just a bit gutting as they had both healed so well and now it means a bigger scar. But in the grand scheme of things, all very positive.
I’ve had 4 friends get in touch to say they have had skin things checked because they saw my post, all of whom have BCC too. 70s babies did get a lot of sun damage back then.
Check your skin, not just for moles, but for anything that looks a bit odd.
