May Profile - THE SINGER

May's monthly profile is here - and it's a really good one.

This year, I am interviewing a range of creative, enthusiastic and dedicated professionals, passionate about their respective areas of expertise and willing to share the love for their subject with you all.

I hope that these interviews will be inspiring, helpful for those wishing to pursue similar careers, and most importantly, an interesting and insightful read.

This month, I had a chat with the amazing Rebecca Hawley, member of uber-cool electro pop band Stealing Sheep. Photography by Mike Massaro.

T H E  S I N G E R 

Stealing Sheep - from left to right: Lucy Mercer, Becky Hawley, Emily Lansley

City Guide to Bristol

Last year I shared a City Guide to Copenhagen on The Secret Life of Maggie May, and it seemed to go down well with you lot. Why then, I thought to myself, stop with Copenhagen? Why not write guides to several of my favourite cities?

I've got a fair few up my sleeve to share with you, but there was hardly any contest as to which one to feature first: Bristol. 

Vibrant, eclectic, loud, and colourful, it's one of England's treasures - a city which is so different to all the others, has a great vibe and is full of things to do. Here are just a few of my recommendations for things to do and places to visit.

Happiness

A year has passed since I published that post. 

And how do I feel one year on? Pretty damn good {Note – I am writing this whilst sat in my garden in the sunshine, so my view may be slightly skewed at present}.

I haven’t had any relapses – touch wood – although I do still get affected by my anxiety now and then. It’s strange, as while I had always been aware of my risk of becoming depressed again, and felt like I recognised the symptoms and signs quite well, my diagnosis of anxiety really took me by surprise. I won’t bang on about it again now as I wrote about it here, but I still find it odd that it’s the symptoms of anxiety which tend to rear their ugly head in my day to day life as opposed to low mood.

I feel like my experience taught me a lot though. Having engaged with cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT, I have been able to recognise patterns of behaviour and triggers which I wouldn’t have been aware of before. I still don’t get it right every time {who does?!} but at least I know now that I am taking notice of my mental health before big problems arise.

So what have I learnt this past year?

That you should say yes to things – for example, invites to social events, or opportunities which would normally pass you by – but at the same time, you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you want some introverted time to yourself. Meeting up with friends for dinner and drinks is lovely {especially if you’ve got a bunch as great as mine!} but if you want an evening on the sofa with a pizza and boxset instead, that’s totally fine too. It’s all about balance – we still exercise when we don’t quite feel up to it, and are then glad afterwards that we pushed ourselves to do it. But would you still force yourself on a run if you’d pulled a muscle and it was aching? No, because we listen to what our body’s telling us – and we should listen to what our mind is telling us too.

Confessional

Confession time! {Probably not the sort of title you'd expect to see on The Secret Life of Maggie May} Here is a list of 10 things you probably didn't know about me.

I decided to write this post because I personally love reading this sort of thing on blogs; maybe because I am inherently nosy? But I reckon everyone is to some extent - human curiosity and all that...

Also, it's quite fun to shock and surprise people from time to time {although I'll admit, I'm not wild enough to have done anything terribly shocking} Let's see if any of my truths come as news to you!

The Wedding Diaries - Don't Panic

Just over 5 months to go until our wedding.

Oh my God!

If I’m perfectly honest, very little progress has been made since my last Wedding Diaries entry. We didn’t practice baking the wedding cake over Easter, we haven’t got around to deciding on the timeline for the wedding, and I still need to sort out some tealights. Ahhh!

But it’s fine, we still have time – as Mr MM says, now we’ve got just the right amount of wedding panic that it’s driving us to get cracking. Right? Right.

Last weekend we went to choose Mr MM’s suit, which was a really fun day. We had a little lunch date first {something we realised we hadn’t actually done in ages} and then spent the next few hours combing through the shop and choosing a variety of different suits, jackets and waistcoats for him to try on. We had visited them a few months before, but we ended up starting again from scratch this time. The girls were absolutely brilliant, suggesting colour combinations which would complement our flowers, and fabrics we might not have initially considered. I personally had a great time, lounging around on a leather sofa, drinking coffee and pointing at the suits I wanted Mr MM to try! A couple of hours later, and we’d chosen his suit, picked out the waistcoats for his ushers, and paid the deposit. A few more jobs done!

It's getting to the point where I’m starting to book in a lot of the major appointments for the big day; dress fittings, hair and make-up trials, my hen do, suit fittings – I know it sounds silly, but it makes it all seem very real! A letter arrived for us this week that was addressed to future me {spoiler – I’m not really called Maggie May} and it was so odd to see my new name there in black and white.

Probably the most exciting update to share with you all is that we have booked our honeymoon. We’re off two days after the wedding {!} and we’re going to…