Growing up, I was pasta obsessed. My order of choice at every restaurant no matter what country we were holidaying in was carbonara, I’d eat plain penne with ketchup as an after school snack and every Monday would look forward to my dad’s famous bolognese which he still makes on Monday’s to this day. I had a brief but devastating split from pasta during my ballet days at 18 and again during a trial and error gluten free stage in my mid twenties but am happy to say pasta is a huge part of my life again and gone are the carbonara and bolognese days. I feel like there’s a bit of pretentious posh ..read more

Here are the last 5 books I’ve read. I’m finding I’m reading about a book a week at the moment. I’m just in the habit of reading in the morning, at night and as I work for myself, I even sneak in some afternoon reading sometimes especially if it’s sunny. I don’t actually feel guilty for reading a lot but I know some people do. I think it’s because I feel like I’m almost doing so many good things when I read; I’m resting, I’m taking care of my mind, I’m usually learning something and I’m getting inspired and using my imagination. Also I just love it! I feel so at peace when I’m reading. So if ..read more

illustration: Pinterest How Social Media Is Changing Us with Jane Clapp - Liberated Being Podcast This episode has had the biggest impact on my life. Ironically I was using social media a lot less naturally and stumbled across this episode by chance. It’s quite an intense listen with some quite extreme views but I’m really glad I listened to it and agree with a lot of it. I don’t think social media is a good place for all of us and perhaps not at certain times in our lives. It’s become such a constant which I think is the problem. Our worlds revolve around it and it’s almost impossible to ru ..read more

The great thing about Pilates is that you just need yourself and a soft surface to get started. There’s tons of routines on my Youtube and in my Virtual Studio which don’t require any equipment but there are also some wonderful classes that do. The small equipment we use on the mat can really enhance, support and add a wonderful extra challenge to your Pilates. The Virtual Studio will have a whole section of classes which incorporate these different pieces of equipment so I wanted to collate a little list of things you might want to add to your mini at home Pilates kit as you move forwards in ..read more

photo credits: Good Reads Thank goodness for books and the release of so many goodies in 2021. I think one of my most favourite things is even just the thought of a book, you know when you have a stack of books to look forward to! Well some of my favourite authors have new releases this year and there’s also some debuts which I can’t wait for so wanted to share with you my highly anticipated books of 2021 so you can look forward to them too and add some to your wish lists. First to mention is The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr, his first novel and named one of the “Black Male Writers of our tim ..read more

I wanted to share one of my current favourite recipes with you. I’ve been having this Butternut Squash Risotto once a week for a few months now and look forward to it every week. One thing I love about making this is the ritual; the slow ladle by ladle process of making risotto really helps me unwind from the day and be present in the kitchen. Ingredients - serves 4 1 small butternut squash - peeled and cut into cubes 1 tbsp olive oil Black pepper and sea salt 1 tsp dried sage 1 onion - chopped 2 garlic - crushed 200g risotto rice 500ml vegetable stock 50g goats cheese Handful rocket Method Fi ..read more

I was a bookworm growing up; you’d always find me curled up with a book and I’d get through about 4 books in a week during the summer holidays. When I hit my twenties, adult life kind of went on fast forward in terms of my career, my relationships and of course in comes social media and distractions, distractions, distractions. It wasn’t until I turned 27 when I really stopped and thought lets pause this rollercoaster and get back to things I love; well it kind of took a mini breakdown to stop the rollercoaster but here we are. One thing that definitely took a backseat during my early twentie ..read more

I was diagnosed with GAD, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, almost 2 years ago now after experiencing a severe and out of the blue prolonged episode of anxiety, depression and OCD. Getting a diagnosis isn’t helpful for everyone but for me it explained a lot. It explained why I always felt more on edge than my friends when we were in a cab home from a nightclub, it explained why I slept with the hallway light on until I was 16, it explained why I can’t relax until I know a loved one has arrived safely at a destination. Guys I used to be scared of birds, cats, halloween, the dark, even some episodes ..read more

Hey there, I am back on the blog and what better way to kick things off then with a little round up of some of my favourite reads recently. I know lots of you love reading just as much as I do and I love hearing your current favourites too so I thought this would be a nice place to start with a little book club where I recommend some of recent reads and then I tell you which book I am about to read so that maybe we can read it at the same time and compare notes. Let's jump right in... Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens I feel like I was a little late to the party with this one but oh my go ..read more

It’s Mental Health Awareness week. What happens when you do all the right things like exercise, eat well, spend time outdoors, sleep for 8 hours, take time offline but still suffer. What happens if everything in your life is going well, but you wake up one day and your world has turned upside just because of the power of your mind. I never thought I’d struggle with mental health. The best thing I know I can do to raise awareness and help others is to share my own experience of what happened to me this year. I always thought recovery was a word only used when describing someone getting bet ..read more