ALPHABLOG: C IS FOR (THE MONSTER THAT IS) CANCER.

On Thursday morning, I received the news from home that we all knew had been coming - the news that my wonderful Auntie Jan had passed away that morning after a very short battle with pancreatic cancer. It all happened so quickly - we were all sitting round the dining room table together on January 1st, seeing in the New Year and clinking glasses to a wonderful year ahead after how hard 2014 had been for our family. She wasn't feeling well, but none of us expected what was to come. In just four short months her health deteriorated rapidly, and all I can say is thank God I went home to see her in March.

It hasn't really sunk in yet, I don't think. I can't help but feel detached. Deeply, deeply sad but in a way so far removed from the reality of what has happened.

Maybe for now I've run out of tears, after so many nights of crying myself to sleep at how unfair it was that this terrible thing was happening to my wonderful Auntie Jan, with her doctors and loved ones completely powerless to do a thing about it, other than pray.

It is astounding how many people are affected by cancer in its many forms. It seems like everybody knows somebody who has, or has had, cancer.

If you've been reading my blog for a while you will know that early last year my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, which completely rocked our lives. He had a successful operation to remove his lung and the cancer, and I am thankful every single day that I still have my dad in my life, and that he is healthy and well.

It is a ruthless monster of a disease, a disease that doesn't discriminate about age, gender or the lifestyle a person leads.

I just hope one day in the very near future a cure can be found.

ALPHABLOG: B IS FOR BLOGGING

It would be crazy of me to write about anything other than 'blogging' as the topic for the second instalment of my 'Alphablog' series. 'A is for Anxiety' was the first in this series of posts in which I write about a topic relative to my life for every letter of the alphabet.

I have been blogging for years, and The Blonde is by no means my first blog, only the first blog that I have really put my everything into! Extremely cliche, I know, but it really is my space on the Internet to write about whatever I want to write about, and I couldn't be more pleased with how far I have come with it.

THE STORY OF MY BLOG
I started The Blonde on Sunday 21st July, 2013, twelve days before I boarded a plane to begin a new chapter of my life in Doha, Qatar. As I explain in my very first post, I started this blog so that my family and friends could keep up to date with my adventures in the desert. Almost two years on, it has certainly been serving its purpose, and it gives me the biggest rush of pride and happiness when my family and friends tell me that they love reading my blog. Their continual support for me and my blog has been amazing.

Particularly in the past year, since I began sharing my blog outside of the comfort of my family and friends and promoting my blog on social media,  my readership has expanded to so many countries around the world. It is an amazing feeling to receive an email from somebody I have never met, from a country I have never visited (and even countries that I have!) saying that they read and enjoy my blog.

Going back to that very first post that I wrote, I also said that I wanted to document my life here in Doha so that anyone looking to move to the Middle East could read about what life is like here from the perspective of somebody who has made the move themselves. I have received so many lovely emails from people who are looking to move to Doha and have stumbled across my blog, and said that it has helped them to really get a feel for the country or put them at ease about their move. It really makes my day to hear that!

When I was first offered my job out here, I tried looking online and only found one or two Doha blogs, which I know helped to reassure me enormously, and it was great to see snippets of the country that I would soon be calling 'home'. Now, there are so many great Doha blogs written by lovely expat bloggers - many of whom I have now had the pleasure to meet! - that give such a good insight into life here in this tiny Middle Eastern city, and I feel so happy to be a part of this ever growing expat blogging community.

Not only do I feel a sense of pride in how my blog is received by other people, but I feel a sense of pride for myself, for the time, energy and money that I have invested to bring my hobby to life. And it really is a hobby. For some, their blog is their job, and that is amazing. What a dream for your hobby to become your source of income. For me, I maintain and write my blog on top of a full time job which is demanding both inside and outside of the office, a second blog, as well as a relationship that means the world to me, family and friends across the globe that I want to always be in touch with, and a social life here in Doha with my friends....sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day for everything, and very often it is my blogging hobby that falls by the wayside. But that's okay.

(This is where most of my blogging takes place - love these beautiful sheets from Kylie Minogue's bedding range! My canvas says 'When I fall in love / It will be forever', because I'm a hopeless romantic!)

BLOGGING - MY WAY
Whilst I try my best to, I don't put pressure on myself to post regularly - the most regular I aim for is my weekly Doha Diaries posts, and anyone who follows my blog will know that they are never on time!! Some people thrive on working to a blogging schedule (I salute you and your epic organisation!) but that just wouldn't work for me at all, so I blog when it is the right time for me to blog, and don't beat myself up if I just can't find the time to put fingers to keyboard.

Similarly, I don't put pressure on myself to carve out a genre for my blog. I call it a 'lifestyle' blog, because it incorporates all elements of my life, from the way I spend my days, to the books I read, to the friendships I have, the date nights I go on,  to the makeup I wear, to my travels, to the food I eat (lots of that!) I write about whatever I want to write about, because at the end of the day, it is my blog, and I and I alone control its content. I have had people try to dictate to me about my blog in the past, only to be met with the very firm resolution that I will not change my style of writing for anybody. There are hundreds of thousands of bloggers in the world, and room for each and every one of them. I won't be the first Doha blogger to write about my experience with a hotel/spa/restaurant in this tiny city, and I certainly won't be the last - but that won't stop me writing about it, and why should it? The same goes across all genres of blogging. My favourite beauty bloggers are always writing about the same products, or the same PR event, and it doesn't make their blog any less of their own work - I for one enjoy reading more than one opinion about something.

I am very protective over my blog due to all of the hard work that I put in to it, as any blogger will understand, and as would anybody who has ever invested a lot of themselves into something. Inevitably, putting content out on to the Internet for the world to see is going to lead people to form opinions, positively or negatively, and that's more than okay. It's life. I take the constructive criticism on board, and embrace the positive feedback, but dismiss anything destructive. As with all elements of my life, I don't want or need negativity through my blog.

BLOGLOVIN'
Blogging for me, is a very positive thing, and by and large only good things come out of it. Blogging is my escape - it is a chance to unwind, switch off, learn about new people, discover new places in the world, and read about the latest beauty products, usually curled up in bed with a cup of tea in hand. Blogs are informative, interesting and inspiring - Matt and I are planning a trip to the Maldives this year, and right now one of my favourite bloggers Rose (aka The Londoner) is teasing her readers with post after post (after post, after post!) about her holiday at one particular Maldives resort - now I have a little insight into what to look for in a resort, all thanks to a blog I love reading. No tedious trawling through Trip Advisor for me!

I am completely addicted to beauty blogs (Buy Now, Blog Later being the absolute Bible.)
I think the days of celebrity endorsements being the key to product sales are long gone, and beauty bloggers are the new experts. I touched upon this in my Marketing dissertation for my Masters (way back in 2010, can't believe it was that long ago!) and it's amazing to see just how influential bloggers have become. I have rushed out to purchase products completely off the back of reviews I have read on blogs (Oribe dry texturising spray, I am looking at you), and I'm nowhere near alone in this. It is no wonder that bloggers are able to generate an income from their blogs, with some companies paying thousands upon thousands of pounds for a product mention/review/video from a high profile blogger.

THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY
I am a small fish in a big pond, but my blogging journey so far has certainly not been without it's fair share of opportunities. I have been invited to some brilliant events, been gifted some amazing products, and dined at some lovely restaurants, all off the back of my little space on the Internet. Of course that is a great feeling - but it isn't what blogging is all about, not by a long shot, at least for me.

WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL BLOG?
For me, my blog is successful because it is something I've built from scratch, and something that brings me happiness and pride. It is successful every time my mum texts me to tell me she loved my most recent post, or when my dad mails me to say he's enjoyed a post but spotted a spelling mistake (he wants it to be the best that it can be, too!) It is successful when I receive an email from someone I've never met telling me they enjoy reading my blog, or that they are looking forward to their upcoming move to Doha because it looks like quite a fun place to live. It is successful because I have the continual support of my family, friends, and my boyfriend - despite the fact that to this day he still doesn't 'get' blogging ("Why do you want to read about what someone you don't know gets up to in a day?!") - and that drives me to continue with my little hobby called blogging :)

ALPHABLOG: A IS FOR ANXIETY

This post is the first of a new series of posts I will be writing, under the title of 'Alphablog' - each post in the series will centre around a word beginning with the next letter of the alphabet, with that word being something that means a lot to me, or is a part of my life in some way. I hope you enjoy them!

I'm kicking off the series with 'A is for Anxiety' (let's get the serious stuff out of the way first, shall we?!)

I have wanted to write a post on this topic for quite a while. Anxiety is an issue that I often see talked about on blogs these days, and I think it's great that people finally feel that they can open up about it on social media. I am genuinely astounded by how many people are affected by anxiety on a daily basis, so I wanted to share my experience with it too.

I am a self-confessed worrier. I worry about everything under the sun - my family and friends, about their health, about work, about what people think of me, other people's feelings, about the random old man I see sitting alone in the cinema...(why is he alone? What has happened to his wife?! And then I will be consumed with worrying about him for hours afterwards!)

My mind can go into over-drive worrying, often about things that are absolutely nothing to do with me, or things that are completely out of my control, and that can't be healthy.

Work is the big one. I worry about work all the time, and often wake up in a panic in the middle of the night to check my phone to make sure I haven't missed anything. I will dwell for ages on things that are absolutely beyond my control, and feel like I am personally responsible for everything even when I'm obviously not.

Some days, I will wake up with the feeling of anxiety, for reasons I just can't put my finger on. I just have 'anxious days', and I can go about my day for hours feeling anxious about something but nothing in particular, and it's a horrible feeling.

Recently, I was laying in bed thinking about nothing at all, and I became very anxious out of the blue - my breathing became erratic and I started to experience heart palpitations, the usual systems of my anxiety, but triggered by nothing specific.

Other days, I experience anxiety because of social situations. Whenever I open up to people about my social anxiety they don't tend to believe me or are really surprised, and say that I appear really confident, but believe me when I say I am not! I appear confident because I have told myself that I can't go through life being terrified of social situations, but that doesn't mean I didn't spend the whole run up to that moment thinking of a million excuses not to be there. Even with things I love doing, and do weekly, I will feel anxious about doing it all day and then love it when I do it, like tennis or nights out with friends.

With the gym, I am so anxious at the idea of going when it's busy, and always prefer to go late at night when I know nobody will be in there. If I am running on the treadmill alone in an empty gym, and somebody comes in to work out, my heart-rate shoots up and I find it hard to breathe, and always end up finishing my workout early so that I can get out of there. I have even been known to walk into the gym in the evening and walk straight back out when I've seen that there are other people in there. I realise how crazy that sounds!

My housemates and I recently signed up to a 5k fun run, and I was so anxious about it, almost every day in the build up to the race, and felt a huge amount of relief when the event was postponed.

On another occasion, I attempted a beginners Salsa class at my apartment block. As there was a limited number of men in the class, the girls were split in to two groups - one group watched whilst the other group danced. I was gripped with panic about being watched by the other half of the group and couldn't concentrate at all on the dancing, so when it was time for us to swap and for me to join the watching group, I grabbed my things and ran out of the class! I was mortified, but I was so uncomfortable, anxious and out of my depth that I just had to remove myself from the situation.

It's a tricky one as exercise is proven to be amazing for relieving stress and anxiety, so it is frustrating when I am gripped by the fear of taking part in it.

Symptoms of anxiety include disturbed sleep - almost everyone who is close to me can vouch for the fact that I am a terrible sleeper. I have night terrors, and wake up most nights shouting about something or panicking that somebody is in the room.

Anxiety at it's worst leads to panic attacks. To memory, I have only experienced panic attacks twice in my life, and hope not to experience one again. Once last year - again, for no real reason. I had been feeling particularly anxious all day, was completely restless, my heart was pounding and I couldn't stop worrying - in the evening I had a dinner with friends and my mum, and all through dinner I felt so emotional and wanted to cry. When we left and I was in the car home, I began panicking to the point where I couldn't breathe. To this day I still don't know what triggered it. The second was on my recent flight from Doha to the UK when we hit some turbulence. Even after we were clear of it and other passengers had gone back to sleep and the air hostesses were going about their business as usual, I was sat in my seat convinced the plane was going down, I was crying, my heart pounding out of my chest and my breathing all over the place. I think the guy behind me thought I was a bit mad!

I'm lucky that I am not somebody who suffers from panic attacks regularly, or potentially at their full capacity. What I experienced was bad enough, so I can only imagine how it feels for people who's lives are consumed by panic attacks.

I have never been to see a doctor about my anxiety, but there are a few things that I do to try to help myself:

EXERCISE
I discovered Pilates, with a fantastic instructor who is completely approachable and put me at complete ease during my first class. I will still always hide at the back of the class, but it is one hour a week where I can completely switch off from all of my worries, whilst getting an amazing work out at the same time! I haven't actually been to this class for about a month now but writing this has reminded me how much I love it and that I must start going again!

BREATHING
There is nothing quite like taking a deep breath and counting to ten, to slow your heart beat down.

MEDITATION
There are some really good apps available for taking time out to meditate to. I use the Headspace and Sleep Easy apps most often.

TALK
I have found that talking about anxiety helps to normalise it. Reading blog posts by other bloggers on the issue has also helped to reassure me that I'm not alone.

I would urge anybody feeling symptoms of anxiety to try the above :)

That concludes my first instalment of my 'Alphablog' series - I promise the next one won't be nearly as heavy going! I always think it's important for readers to know a bit about the person behind the blog, so I am looking forward to working on this series of posts so that you can get to know a bit more about me, as well as my week by week life in the Middle East.

I hope you'll join me for the next one!