Everyone needs a holiday, if only to get a little perspective on this thing we call life!

OK so my last post was quite some time ago, as you will see, my dears, I have been stuck I this crazy train of a life for a while and have been unable to gather thoughts of any sense.  I have been but a shadow of my self and am only now getting down to deciding who that shadow is again!
So August was my last entry, I was attempting to ‘win’ at this Philippine life, keep my head above water and, well, I lost!

After months, there was still no working visa, and no work even if it were to finally appear, The humidity and heat were making my boyfriend and I agitated, annoyed (ad annoying) and money issues were stressing the situation further, you can imagine we, naturally started adding relationship issues to the negativity that was our life!
We hadn’t managed to find places to go for peace, fun, interest…nothing! We were stuck, just the two of us and this big negative wedge!

In September we had a holiday to Vegas and upon leaving the Philippines, the feeling of a weight being lifted was immense! I immediately felt lighter, happier, and more like myself. As did the fella seemingly. We enjoyed our time and the whole thing really brought home how we can’t continue in this ‘life’ we had made. We agreed it was time to move on, brilliant!

That being said, we had slightly different paths, he wanted specific plans, I couldn’t afford, I wanted to go via the helpx route and we compromised, decided we were worth a shot at being together away from this place that had become a nightmare.

So I came to Australia, he to India and he was due to meet me here…Although time apart also gave us perspective on us. Although we care and had happy times ad could(and I believe will again one day) have more, we both needed to do some soul searching.
Sort out these issues we developed I ourselves but also with each other, we had bred the negativity so long the resentment and difficulties were too hard to ignore.

So sadly we have reduced our relationship. There is no label now but being free of that is good. This time should bring us back to being good people, versions of ourselves we like and are happy to be whilst getting to know each other again…new and improved versions and the who knows….

Maybe we will have experiences which will give us distance ad perspective enough to remember why we fell for each other and push us back together, I’d like to think so but, who knows, until we get that perspective from where we are now….
For now there has been a lot of change and revelations and just getting to grips with those is enough to be getting on with.

Time for some self discovery, I am after all doing this amazing thing called travel and doing it alone is both terrifying and exciting. One thing I know for sure is that I shall never be the same woman again!

So take that holiday, get that trip away booked, and take a moment to assess your life! Its so easy to get bogged down and trapped but you will ever be able to be truly happy unless you have been able to get a clear view….a bit of perspective and decide if your really living the life you want to.   Don’t live in the shadows, be sure to have life in your years, colour in your dreams and character to your person!

Kirst Vs Mosquito’s….Part one!

Mosquitos….Those sly little buggers just LOVE a taste of Kirst, always have, ever since i was small ive been feasted upon and aggrivated…I’d say outright singled out and bullied!

They forced me into outright war ove the last 9 weeks of living out in the Philippines, there have been many battles won and lost by both sides but STILL overall those little assbags are winning!

This is our battle so far: 

Them: Lets wait by her door and feast!

Me:  I shall repellant up very time i go out…

Them: OK, were going to have to venture in, its time to invade

Me: Here is the intense incense repellant…get out!

Them:  Fight it guys lets get through this and get her

Me: Fine, Things just got personal… here is the electric fly swatter…fry, FRYYYYYY!

Them: OK guys lets regroup and start some basic avoidance maneuvers, we’ll still get her, dont give up the sweet sweet Kirst nectar!

Me:  Fine i shall wear repellant all day and night, i will stink to high heaven!

Them: You forgot the soles of your feet

SOLES OF MY FEET GODDAMN!

I need to rethink this…Im losing the battle!  I even woke up both myself and my boyfriend the other night vigorously scrathing my ankle against him in my sleep, like literally just reached it over and started to rub it againt him…hard!  poor thing had no idea what was going on, neither did I to be honest!   It was quite confusing!

Anyone know any goood repellant/bite treatments I’d love to hear from you…help me…Help me win my war!

After some serious-ness…I give you heaven on …um…Philippine soil!

 

They call it samala cake….I call it magic!

Having gone to work with the fella yesterday I spent the day chilling with the Philippino guys on the course and over te last 7 weeks of the course we’ve beome…um….friends(?)…Well they talk to me which, out here, is as close to friends as it comes.

They often offer me food which I usually decline, you know on the basis that its pigs eyes or something like and to be honest I’m just not ready for THAT level of culture.

Last week I had leftover baking which we needed to get out of the house, my partner and i are big into fitness, we have one cheat day a week buut my willpower sucks, if its in the house i will eat it packman stylee!   Anyway so I sent the leftovers and the guys loved it…fabulous right?

Yep apart from then, they insisted i try their cake…Ive tried some rice cake before and it was slimy ans stodgy and not nice tasting, in all honestly I was offended that they dared to label something of the like ‘cake’ it was very misleading and I wont lie i was a little outraged!

Let me just say I am  massive food fan, cake in particular is my speciality and it rages me when its just not as describes…I wont even go into the time I was served ‘cheeseake’ in La Palma.   There wasn’t even a buttery biscuit base!!  Hellions!

So yesterday these Philippino lovelies all but forced me to accept some cake, upon inspection it was squidgy, sticky, stodgy and it had cheese, yes CHEESE on top!  I nibbled the corner whilst they all watched all mmmmm yes OK..actually was that? is it? did I….Did I like that???  More nibbles…I think I did, I do!  What a treat, once you get used to the consistency its actually rather tasty and somehow refreshing!  WHAT?  Yeh you heard…a refreshing sticky cake with cheese on top.

Therefore if you ever come out to the Philippines, try some Samala cake, its very local and available at all sorts of vendors from street to those in the malls and supermarkets, there are a few varieties so dont stop at the first hurdle, persevere and I assure you its worth it when you find ‘the one’!

Kirst Vs Philippines…My most serious ‘Kirst moment’/event as yet!

Now I’ve always thought the health and safety system in the UK is a little excessive…OK I admit I think some of it is outright ludicrous and actually had negative effect prohibiting the use of common sense both in the workplace and in every day life.

I mean if you trip over your own shoelace you can probably blame and sue the shoelace company for making laces which haven’t stayed tied, I expect the poor shoelace companies are having all sorts of issues trying to find fabrics they can use to adhere to regulations making sure people don’t trip over…OK I made this up and its a little OTT but you get the idea and I’m sure a lot of you feel the same,

So, upon coming to the Philippines I was expecting a nice break from all the rules and regulations and a little bit of common sense usage and for the most part this is as expected. Some cars just don’t have seatbelts (our jeep for instance, but it comes with a handlebar to hold on to), people ride motorbikes in sandals and shorts, the pavements are uneven, have many items which could be tripped up and down, have buses and cars parked sometimes 2/3 wide into the road and on the pavement forcing you to walk on the busy road and the amount of debris left lying around makes for an obstacle course wherever you go. This is the adventure we were expecting, the different life.

I must admit though I was not expecting the holes in the pavement, 2 by about 3 feet wide and down into the sewer below, at some parts the whole strip of pavement looks to be falling inwards. Some areas have been covered. When I say covered I mean a few bits of 2 x 4 which are rotted and breaking or some metal sheets which have bent in due to cars driving over them. Some are completely uncovered and this, my friends, is the type of hole of which I had an…um…’experience’.

So its dark, street lights?? don’t be silly! There are rubbish carts parked along the side of the curb and the road is busy. I pass between two rubbish carts to get to a bit of pavement…which incidentally is exactly where the hole is. You would have thought it was done on purpose, why in the world would you leave a walkway between carts to a hole in the pavement on a dark street where the carts are blocking out the light coming from car headlights???
So anyhow I am incredibly lucky. Being of scatty mind I often walk around in my own world hopping and skipping down the road and in this instance it saved me serious injury….possibly even my life!

As I hopped up onto the non existent bit of curb, I managed to jump into a 4 foot deep hole. I wont pretend I had any idea what was going on. In the brief moment of wonderment, you know where 2 seconds feels like 2 minutes, I had the strangest feeling, I remember thinking: am I falling? I feel like I’m falling, I can see the pavement coming towards my face…but…I’m upright…I’m upright, that’s not right, what is this magic??….I then heard my partner shouting if I was OK, looked around and realized, Ahhh I’m in a hole I know now and also FUCKING OUCH!

I apparently sprung right out and then stood doubled over y the hole…i wont lie it was the worst pain I’ve had for a long time. I had managed to smash my thigh on a big piece of jutted out concrete on the way down, jarring my hip and knee and causing both bruising and scratches…I had no idea how seriously I was hurt, if id actually damaged my knee or hip or both all I knew was I needed to catch my breath and also how glad I was it was night and there are few people there to see…Oh the embarrassment!

It sounds awful and it was, I was in a lot of pain and couldn’t walk properly for days but it was clear by the next morning that my hip and knee were sore but not damaged and the area of impact would indeed heal.

 

In retrospect I was very lucky for several reasons…

If I had stepped in just one foot, you can only imagine the damage, serious rib or even face planting damage, pulled or even dislocated hip joints, neck, broken arms etc…

If I had fallen a few days sooner after the monsoon the water would have been much higher, there would have been a very real risk of being washed away under the pavement and droning.

The particular hole had little debris in the bottom, upon inspection some of the others have metal spikes, juts of concrete and other ankle breaking or skin penetrating obstacles.

It was only a few days after this I developed my allergy from the previous post, I still don’t know what caused it, if it was indeed an allergy or something caught from the dirty water and grime in the bottom of the hole, my trainers stunk of faeces the next day! Urgh, whatever it was its taken quite some time to feel clean again and I can assure you I have well and truly learned my lesson!

Now I have my wits about me at all times out there in that there danger zone I now call home, although I’m sure Mrs Philippines still has a few painful surprises lined up for me.
Everywhere I go I see hazards, Live wires hanging down, so many stray animals, possible rabies carriers, mosquitoes galore, possibly malaria or dengue carriers and then just the general roads/driving style….watch this space!

 

 

I think….Yeh im pretty damn sure I’m allergic to the Philippines!

So i promised you a blog full of amusing swill and i give you sweet FA…Well my lovelies thats because i have been an utterly miserable cow lately due to my allergy to what I can only assume to be the actual Philippines!  Heres my story….

 

2 weeks ago i started to itch…you know just a little bit on my arm, thinking them bastard mossies got me again i thought nothing of it untill it started to spread over my hands and arms and become raised…HIVES!  Having never had them before, i wont lie, i was disgusted…Those things are not pretty and boy do they itch!

You know when you see a dog incessantly rubbing its ass on the carpet??  Well that was me and my arms/hands but unfortunately our floor is smooth so i had to rub myself on myself, and incidentally the roughest part of clothing is around the wastline and flies…Therefore i have literally been rubbing my groin/waist area with that look of complete euphoria ( you know the one, the fuck you parents and friends and anyone else who is telling me not to scratch for my own good…this feels too goddamn good and oh ohhhh yeeaaaaah)….Sadly this is always followed by the ouch…ouchy…what the fuck did i do that for shameful moment of knowing you’ve made it worse…BOOOO!

Anyway on top of this my face decided to join in the game and i awoke last week to find what i can only describe as a shaved chewbacca face looking back at me….complete with shaving rash!  Thats right my face was swolen, red and sore.  My eyes were half closed and the worst bit? my lips stung like a mothertrucker…eating was painful and that made me mad!

(see I’m not lying)

Food is a god given right goddamn and when it becomes less than enjoyable, I become waaaay less than enjoyable!  Team this with the fact my fella put me on a diet of fruit, veg and eggs to cut out anythhing i might be reacting to, well, i cant even find words to describe the utter misery.  At that moment I felt more connected to alot of the locals around here than i care to feel again…those poor people with limited food.  Oh yes and the fact they live in huts and its monsoon season…anyway, were talking about ME

For a week i surviived on this spartan food and it made little difference, i tried re-washing my clothes minus the new softner, i tried using different soaps and although the hives retreated and just became a regular rash and the face became human looking, i was still itchy and every day i awake looking like ive been beaten in the night!  

(getting there but still not a pretty sight to wake up to)

After a long put off trip to the local health centre and a chat with the dermatologist i have steriod antihistamines, new cream and new soap so…Fingers crossed i can be happy and creative again soon!   I did try to sit down and write some blogs but all i could think was itching!  itching scratchy itchy skin!

Just so you can see I’m not a monster….Here i am post workout, makeup free before this all began….

Ever get that feeling where you end up at a destination and wonder how the hell you got there?? … Welcome to my life!

A year ago I was sitting in my lovely 2 bed flat blogging about my new training as a fitness instructor and the leaving of my office job, I was branching out into self employment…..Now??? Well right now I am enjoying the aircon in my bedroom of a little house I rent in thee Philippines with my partner. I have no job, no money and am completely unsure of what’s next, by following my blog you will be taking the journey with me.

I promise there will be moments where you question my sanity, my IQ, and probably my decision making, but there will also be laughs, adventures and an insight into a different world. My world, firstly a little bit about me and then you can decide if you want to hear more….

My name, obviously, is Kirsty Jones, Kirst for short and if I were to describe myself…well lets just say I probably have a pretty warped view. I see myself as a respectable woman, independent, strong, a little scatty at times but generally in control of myself.
My friends use words like crazy, random, hilarious(i like this one), different, special(we all know what those means), clumsy, jammy, the list goes on but maybe your getting a picture already??

In reality I am a mixture of contradictions.
I am unbelievably accident prone, yet I am lucky! To some I am a nice and sweet girl, yet I am also known as incredibly scary when I rage, and I am sometimes called a bitch(usually whilst laughing), I can spend hours doing my hair and make-up followed by a week without even picking up the hairbrush, I can be completely wise and give fantastic advice or there are times I find it hard to make proper sentences.

Basically, I am all over the place, which makes for some pretty random adventures. Very rarely does anything happen to me on purpose, I very much ride the tide of life, completely oblivious to what adventure or mishap will come next. I embrace each and every experience, good and bad and I don’t sugar coat it. If I poop myself or flash the neighbours, you will know about it. For the record I haven”t yet pooped myself, but the flashing bit..well I have several stories for that later 😉