Cambodia and Vietnam – reflections on my trip
Let me start by saying that I had an amazing trip. I am, however, glad to be home! I felt the difference of being a year older than last year, I felt the impact of having ‘stuff’ going on at home and needing to stay connected, and I also discovered that the format of this…
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Vietnam part 5 – Hanoi
My Hanoi stay has been in two parts, with a trip to Halong Bay in the middle (see my previous post here). I arrived into Noi Bai airport after a slightly delayed (which it seems they *all* are) 1-hour flight from Da Nang, and it then took me almost twice as long to locate my…
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Vietnam part 4 – Halong Bay
A trip out to Halong Bay was pretty much a non-negotiable on this trip. Sandwiched into my Hanoi stay, I booked myself onto a 2-day / 1-night cruise and decided that this would be my ‘treat’ to self… so booked myself a suite with its own terrace. Sounds good, no? Well, I have to tell…
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Massage!
This post may seem like a bit of a diversion from my set of blog posts on my travels in Vietnam, but bear with me! Today, after a heavy morning of sightseeing (about which more in the next post), I went for a massage on the recommendation of a fellow traveller. And it got me…
Vietnam part 3 – Hoi An
I had intended to treat Hoi An as ‘downtime’, booking a hotel outside the city centre with its own beach. It hasn’t quite worked out like that, although having settled bedside the pool on Thursday morning it was really difficult to move my bum and go exploring! My plan for the beach on Friday afternoon…
Vietnam part 2 – Hue
When is your first day in Hoi An not your first day in Hoi An? When you decide to book a full day tour to Hue! This was a deliberate decision to keep the pace up before allowing myself to settle into the more relaxed rhythm of my beachside hotel, but after a late arrival…
Vietnam part 1 – Ho Chi Minh City
It’s a shame that my first impression of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was the international arrivals hall of its airport! Immigration was slow and the luggage slower… not helped by the baggage carousel belt stopping at least three times when items got stuck 😩 Nevertheless, I was finally united with my taxi transfer, and…
Cambodia – part 2
The second part of my mini-tour of Cambodia was to Siem Riep. We did a minibus transfer that took the best part of the day, with several comfort stops and lunch at a community-run silk farm – fascinating. We arrived at our hotel at around 5pm – a really lovely hotel, with a fabulous pool,…
Cambodia part 1
Last year, when I blogged about what turned out to be an amazing trip to Thailand, I decided to set an intention to escape from the misery of the UK winter to visit this part of the world again. And next on my list to visit was Cambodia and Vietnam… So, last Sunday, I boarded…
Can you help me?
Reader, I can hardly believe it myself, but 50ShadesofBrave hits its 10 year anniversary in a matter of weeks! The blog itself was conceived as a record of my commitment to mark my 50th year with a series of challenges – you can read about the inspiration (and to be honest the ‘necessity’) of that…
Bingo board 2025 – successes and failures
You may remember my post last year about my scheme to motivate myself during 2024 via a bingo board of goals and challenges (https://50shadesofbrave.blog/2024/11/19/my-2024-bingo-challenge/). It was an activity that led to plenty of action and a degree of reflection, so I decided to repeat it for 2025. If you’re looking for a TL:DR for this…
Sofia
Over the last few years, a couple of my girlfriends and I have marked the run up to Christmas with a craft workshop and lunch / dinner out. We’ve made several pieces of Christmas pottery, and last year a bauble wreath. When we talked about what to do this year, and considered the cost of…
Poetry
Today is National Poetry Day 2025. As a fervent poetry-lover, it seems remiss to me that poetry should be celebrated in this way on only one day of the year. I’d definitely be up for National Poetry Week, or even Month, if we have to limit it at all. I’ve loved poetry since I was…
Today’s the day
This is something of a misleading title for my post, as will become clear. For it would seem that *every* day is ‘the day’ of something… Let me explain. This post, and others that may follow, has been inspired by the findings of my dear friend Helena Holrick (www.helpingyoushine.com), who has recently shared her discovery…
On being kinder to oneself…
Over the past year I have worked hard to shed weight and improve my fitness, a by product of which has been finding that upon unpacking my summer clothes from their storage bags, many (most?) were now too big. It’s not a bad problem to have… but it does necessitate some action. My choices as…
Perfectly imperfect
Sometimes things happen for a reason. Sometimes an accident can be fortuitous. Sometimes the universe aligns in funny ways… Like when your son smashes a pasta bowl from your favourite set. And that makes you sad… And then you see an advert for a Kintsugi workshop. And ‘try a new craft’ is also on your…
A first! (Or a 1075th)
Way back in January, when I was approaching 2025 with a fresh face and a fresh set of motivational challenges and goals for the year, I allowed myself to be suggestible. My wonderful PT, Michelle, was the culprit… suggesting to me that maybe by April I might be up for a charity 5k ‘fun run’.*…
Thailand – Part 4 Reflections on my trip
It’s already over a month since I got back from Thailand. Not so long as to have forgotten the details of my trip, but long enough to have settled back into the routine of daily life and processed some of my learnings. Let’s start at the beginning. This was not my first solo trip -…
Thailand – Part 3 Phuket
Phuket was actually the starting point for this whole trip. It was a crumb of temptation from some friends who had booked 3 weeks in a villa in Nai Harn, and who suggested I could join them since they had a spare bedroom, that started the cogs turning and led to flights being booked. It…
Thailand- Part 2 Chiang Mai
The end of week 1 in Thailand saw me hop an internal flight north to Chiang Mai. Just a short 1 hour 15 took me to a completely different landscape and vibe. I arrived at my hotel mid afternoon- was very pleased with my choice of accommodation, which was a little oasis in the corner…
Thailand – Part 1 Bangkok
Where do I start? I suppose it would have to be with the jet lag! An ‘overnight’ flight from Heathrow to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi, where the clock said it was morning but my body thought it was 2am… When we landed in Bangkok, local time was 6pm and by the time I made it…
Brave vs bravado
Where did January go? How can a month be at the same time the longest month ever, and over in a flash? As during most Januarys, I spent some of my time wishing my life away and longing for lighter, sunnier, longer days and some of my time planning and visioning what I wanted life…
My 2024 bingo challenge
New Year resolutions just don’t do it for me. I gave up on them years ago, on the basis that they are so often short-lived and prone to early failure! I much prefer the idea of setting a series of goals or challenges that have some longevity and can offer some positive feelings of achievement.…
Let’s twist again!
Just over two years ago now, I wrote in my post Stick or Twist? about making changes in life when you felt decisions weren’t serving you, and in particular about my own decision to jump out of a job I wasn’t enjoying. This post is something of a follow up to that, as I have…
Fluting!
I spent yesterday in beautiful, sunny Eton. That in itself would have fed my soul – the stunning buildings in quaint streets, the quirky independent shops behind traditional facades, the dabbling ducks and majestic boats along the River Thames… you get the picture. I spent most of the day indoors, however, exercising my brain, lungs…
Parlez-vous français?
I have just returned from a week in Nantes, a city lodged between the Loire valley and Brittany, which is twinned with my home town of Cardiff. It was the return leg of a linguistic exchange for adults from the two cities, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The exchange is organised annually by…
Fire and Ice
Do you remember where you were on Tuesday 6th February 2024 between 6:30 and 8:30 pm? Here in Wales, the wind was at gale force and the rain was torrential. So, like most sensible people you would probably have been curled up in your warm living room in front of the TV with a glass…
A short reflection on family after two bereavements
Within the past 3 weeks, I have lost two aunts. But more importantly, my Mum has lost both of her elder sisters leaving her as the eldest surviving of her siblings with her younger brother (who lives in Eire). My Mum and her eldest sister didn’t see a lot of each other; this sister lived…
Reflections on Jordan
I’ve been back home just over a week after my adventure in Jordan. It’s bloody cold here (around 22 degrees colder than on our final days at the Dead Sea and Madaba) and the news from neighbouring countries of the Middle East makes me glad to be home – not because I felt in any…
Jordan part 4 – Dead Sea and Madaba
So my free day in Petra was one of self-care – a swim, reading beside the pool, a walk, a museum and some retail therapy. The following morning we were en route by 8, north towards the Dead Sea area. We drove through breathtaking scenery – winding roads through rocky mountains with a view over…
Jordan part 3 – Petra
Unfortunately for me, my head torch came in handy as overnight I developed a rather unpredictable stomach and spent the next day somewhere between fragile and nauseous. I remained undeterred from the programme, however, as this was Petra day – one of the highlights of the trip! We had a winding 2 hour journey from…
Jordan part 2 – Wadi Rum
Leaving the noise and traffic of Amman behind, we journeyed south on the Desert Highway (not dark, no cool wind in my hair…) almost as far as the tip of the Red Sea and sandwiched between Israel on the one side and Saudi Arabia on the other. We were headed for Wadi Rum – a…
Jordan part 1 – Amman
My first night was not the best for sleep – I was beyond tired but slept fitfully, awoken by the 5am call to prayer and then dozing until 9 before I decided to get up and get breakfast. Which was interesting. I remember Moroccan breakfasts being a surprise, and this was similar with omelette, falafel,…
A new adventure!
I hadn’t intended to go months on end without posting nor for this to turn into a travel blog, however here we are and I’m off adventuring again! I am currently sitting in a trendy coffee bar in downtown Amman, Jordan. I’m joining a tour with intrepidtravel.com (same people I went to Morocco with) this…
Reflections on Madeira
If you read my previous post, 50 shades of wobbly, you will know that my solo trip to Madeira almost didn’t happen as I got an attack of freezing cold feet in the airport departure lounge! But I made it, and I’m home feeling glad that I went and feeling that I’ve learned a few…
50 shades of wobbly!
It is sometimes quite a task living up to the ‘brave’ nomenclature that I write under and seem to have been labelled with. The word itself carries a weight of expectation … much of which I put on myself… but I also feel some sense of duty to live up to being ‘brave’ given how…
A short reflection on pain
Please indulge me for a moment while I unload… I am currently in pain. In fact, I have been in almost constant pain probably for over a year now. If I wasn’t sure what ‘chronic pain’ meant… I am now! I have had on/off lower back pain for quite a few years, including a period…
Playing small
On Sunday evening I watched a video reel. It was a video reel of the funeral of a musician friend who I had played in youth orchestras with, lost touch with, and reconnected with a couple of years ago. She died of cancer earlier this year at the age of 55. I was aware of…
Elimination diet
I have recently been working with a holistic therapist in an attempt to reduce both my anxiety levels and the joint pain I have been suffering quite badly with. Visits to mainstream medics and specialists seem to have got me nowhere fast, so ‘alternative’ seemed like a reasonable way forward. To accompany some hands-on therapy…
Do I look SHINY to you?!
I have recently come to the end of a series of coaching sessions with Helena Holrick. Helena is someone I connected with some while back via Facebook, and her posts pop up on my feed every now and then. My reaction when they did pop up would often be a longing s-i-g-h, as I wondered…
What did I do?
Yesterday, after a long and tiring day at work I was really in the mood for just flopping on the sofa and watching some mindless tv with glass of wine in hand. Instead, I attended an online networking event for coaches, with three sessions of ‘speed networking’ followed by a speaker. The speaker was William…
Mental health awareness
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) 2022. As usual, I’ve dutifully shared this information on my social media profiles, and made suitably supportive noises. I know I did the same last year, and the year before, and probably the year before that. But I have to confess to feeling that being ‘aware’ is very possibly…
Being sociable
Don’t get me wrong, I have amazing friends … I’m pretty sure I’ve introduced some of them to you as co-adventurers in my 2016 challenges, and life-saviours when the trials and tribulations of separation/ divorce/ single-parenting have ambushed me. Nevertheless, I’m totally up for meeting new, like-minded people and believe that what I call the…
Morocco – Part 6 reflections and takeaways
During my trip to northern Morocco, I kept a log of things that ‘surprised’ me – about the country, the experience and also about myself… Here are some of the things I learned. Morocco is a heck of a lot bigger than I expected! I’m not sure I had really appreciated the scale of Africa,…
Morocco adventure – Part 5 How not to end a trip!
Another sunny day in Marrakesh and my plans were (unsurprisingly) to pack as much in to my last few hours as possible. I wanted to visit the Jardin Majorelle, created by/for Yves St Laurent, and pick up some last minute gifts in the medina. I had breakfast, and returned to my room to check out.…
Morocco adventure – Part 4 Tangier and Marrakesh
We left Chefchaouen by minibus at 10 am on Sunday for the 3 hour journey to Tangier. Amazing landscapes of rugged, rocky mountains punctuated by big dams and reservoirs, eventually gave way to more and more cultivated and manicured land. After a brief supermarket stop, we enjoyed a picnic lunch overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, with…
Morocco adventure – Part 3 Chefchaouen
A leisurely start today before we headed to Fes bus station for the 4 hour journey to Chefchaouen. There had been some debate over whether we were going to be travelling by bus (when I hear this term I think the number 58 to Pontprennau) or coach (think National Express or Megabus). Our tour guide,…
Morocco adventure – Part 2 Moulay Idriss to Fes
Being woken at 4:30am by the first call to prayer of the day is something that is destined to be an eternal memory of this trip. But after continuing to doze until 7, and enjoying a hearty Moroccan breakfast, my first full day in Morocco began. First stop, Volubilis. For those of you who, like…
Morocco adventure – Part 1 Adventurous misadventures!
I’m glad to report that I am writing this from my hotel room in Fes, Morocco. As detailed in my previous post, Walking the walk, I was to embark on a solo adventure on Monday 4th April. Which I guess I did… but it didn’t quite go to plan from the off! Early start, taking…
Walking the walk
Brave. 50 shades of it, apparently. Up for challenges. Strong, confident, adventurous. Feel the fear, and do it anyway… All of these descriptions have been attributed to little old me since 2014 threw me the curveball of my husband leaving, and 2016 saw this blog start up as a document of all the ways in…
Stick or twist?
I have a strong memory from childhood of being taught that ‘giving up’ was a bad thing to do. The message I received was that once I committed to something, I should see it through… whether I liked it or not. It was ‘character building’ to stick at it (apparently) and conversely, showed an undesirable…
A message from the heart…
I had a message from my heart recently… It told me it had had enough of me pushing through its warning signs, and so gave me a much bigger signal that I needed to give myself a break. If you, like me, love the medical ‘fly-on-the-wall’ TV programmes on Channel 5 or ITV2, you might…
Roots, wings, and an empty nest
Life has made another quantum shift this week, as I officially became an ’empty nester’. This weekend, I moved my son into the University of Southampton. He has an amazing room in his hall of residence and I’m impressed that he made efforts to ‘chat’ with fellow freshers before he even arrived and seems to…
This is going to hurt…
Actually, that’s not what she said. But it did. Bristol, 5th May 2021. With a mixture of excitement and trepidation, I stood in the rain outside the back door. Mask on, hood up. A heavily tattooed young man was having a cigarette under a canopy. “I’ll let her know you’re waiting,” he said, and disappeared…
Dipping my toe in the water
The whole premise of this blog was to document the adventures of my 50th year. Clearly, adventure sat well with me and I have not lost my lust to try new things. And this was what prompted me to join a Facebook group called the Taffy Dippers and to begin to contemplate trying out wild…
Emerging from lockdown
Hello? Is anybody there? It has been 16 months since I last wrote a post… and we all know what happened in between. Who could have seen that coming?! Covid-19 has had a huge impact on everyone’s life, and for me it has signalled another point at which to assess where I am in life…
Struggling
Time marches on. It’s a year since I last posted, and 4 years since I started this blog. In that time I have established a new ‘life pattern’ – my house is almost completely renovated, I am well established in my job, my daughter is at Uni and my son in sixth form – both…
Kissing frogs in 2018
Where does the time go? In October I promised you multiple updates, and I am still to deliver on those I had planned… So, I decided New Year was a good time to write an update on one of the ‘developments’ of 2018. First, a few retrospective glances are required. September 2014 saw the break…
My belated 50th gift to myself
Two and a half years late is still better than never in my book. Especially when you’ve finally bought yourself something that’s been on your wishlist for about 8 years! 2012, British Flute Society convention, Manchester… British Flute Society 2014 convention, Warwick… Wonderful Winds Flute Day 2017, Devon… All of these events had in common…
Home sweet Home
Back in September 2017 I blogged about Being brave and (literally) moving on. The pictures that accompanied part 2 of that blog probably gave you the idea that the house we were moving into needed some work doing to it (possibly quite a large understatement right there!!!). I’m amazed that just over two weeks ago,…
Updates are available…
I can’t believe that it’s over 6 months since I last posted on this blog. It’s not that nothing has been happening… far from it! There is much to report. And after getting a couple of messages recently from blogger friends who were wondering whether I’d dropped off the face of the earth, I have decided…
Am I brave enough?
One of the most enjoyable things about blogging, apart from the writing itself, is discovering other interesting blogs and fantastic writers. One of those I follow and relate to most closely is Authentically 50 written by Janie Leeds, whose life experience on turning 50 and getting divorced mirrors (sometimes quite scarily!) my own. Recently, there…
Re-Ignite!
Challenge #18 back in May 2016 was to ‘Be a speaker at an event’ and that event was Ignite Cardiff. My talk then detailed the challenges I had accomplished between January and May, and a brief look at the things to come. I had always had it in mind that it would be amazing to…
Oversized baggage …
Last weekend, I ‘treated myself’ to a weekend away in beautiful West Wales – The village of Llansteffan with its 6th century church and ruined medieval castle lies on the Tywi estuary, and boasts views over the Gower peninsula to the east and Pembrokeshire coastline to the west. There too, you will find Hill House (www.hillhouseretreats.co.uk)…
Fun in the snow!
It can’t have escaped your notice… that pretty, but rather inconvenient ‘white stuff’ that arrived at our Cardiff doorstep last week… I’m not a great fan of snow, I’ll be honest. I am still traumatised by childhood skiing holidays (more like torture than fun), have never enjoyed being confined to barracks by the weather, and…
A night at the opera…
I’ve been to the opera before. Quite a few times actually. So why, I hear you ask, does this night at the opera warrant inclusion in the 50shadesofbrave blog? Well, dear reader, this was not just any old opera house… this was Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Google it, and the most likely tag line you…
Being brave and (literally) moving on – part 2
Saturday (30th September) It’s 5.30 a.m. and I’ve just got up and come downstairs in a strange new place. Home. To say it has been a stressful few days would be the understatement of the century. However well you can see the deadline looming, however ‘organised’ you think you are, packing up 13 years of…
A distraction from the moving countdown…
Since the divorce I’ve had to ’embrace’ the 9-5 culture, as the luxury of part-time / pocket-money jobs was no longer mine. I was fortunate to find a job that’s geographically quite close to where we currently live, and to find a very pleasant route to work that involves by-passing the traffic queues and instead…
Being brave and (literally) moving on – part 1
It’s very nearly three years since my ex-husband left the family home. From the point it became clear that this was permanent, one of my most fierce battles has been to maintain as much stability and as little material change for the children as I can muster. This has included hanging on to the family…
Versatile Blogger Award
I have been a little tardy in sharing this with you, for which I apologise… Whilst I was away on holiday a notice popped into my inbox that I had been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by the lovely Janie Leeds, whose blog Authentically 50 I follow, love and frequently engage with. In fact…
50shadesofbrave 