I’m being challenged to relax and as per my previous post about relaxation, I don’t find this easy. So in order to help I have ben searching for some new ways to calm and slow down. Here a few new hobbies for you, a few I have tried, a few I may well give go.

1: Pom pom making. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen some Pom, Poms popping up over the last week. I didn’t even know how to make them until a week ago and now I can’t stop. Buy a load of wool, stick on a film, sit down and make a Pom, Pom. I’m currently making a MASSIVE one, to use as a cushion. Its really bloody therapeutic, who knew? Christmas is going to be sad for everyone this year, receiving my Pom Poms as gifts! Gutted for them.

2: Sketching, again, if you’re a Facebooker or Instagrammer, you will have noticed I have started sketching faces. I just use a biro pen or a pencil and I copy a face from a magazine (with a bit of artistic license). It gives me focus and I can’t put it down.

3: Playing cards. Granted I’m not amazingly good and I don’t play any big, serious card games, but a very easy, calm game of cards, is great. In the game you are focused on that and nothing else, its social and has a bit of light competition.

4: Writing poetry. I have always wrote poetry. Its a great way to explain how you feel without being explicit or obvious. You can use creative language to warm a situation, to lighten it, but explain. It can be beautiful and very cathartic. I also love a rhyming word (I don’t know why, I just do)

5: Putting my make up on. I love this. I find it so therapeutic. Obviously it’s not so much fun when i have my girls clambering over me while I do it, but if I get time to indulge in contouring and decorating my face, its great. If I’m given too much time I may make myself up to look like a drag queen though, just a warning.

6: Similarly to putting my make up on, facepainting is fabulous. My wonderful friend Carrie Doyle, agreed with this one and tells me I should look forward to lots of Facepainting photos on Facebook from her over the next month. I love it, I’m always doing my girls faces and my own, obviously. Not necessarily any reason for it either, just because I want to. I loved doing the kids faces for Halloween.

7: Nature walks. This is a fairly obvious one I guess, but how many of us actually do it? I give money to the The Wildlife Trust every month, in the UK and so have FREE access to some amazing nature reserves and I have only just started to make use of this privilege. It’s wonderful. Phone switched off and look at nature. Birds, bees, flowers, trees, totally beautiful and majorly relaxing. I took the girls last time and we picked leaves, came home and made a picture. Amazing fun and it taught them lots too.

8: Photography. I adore photography. My amazing friend Kayleigh Pope is a fabulous photographer and I love her work. I take photos of EVERYTHING and I’m now on the hunt for a ‘proper’ camera, not just my ropey old I-phone. Photography helps me look at the world through rose tinted spectacles. I see beauty everywhere and snapping it helps me capture that beauty, so I can relive it.

9:  Extreme ironing. Yep, apparently this is a thing! I’m not saying its actually going to relax you, but it may distract your wandering mind and sort out the washing! Extreme Ironing not fully sure ill try this one as i rarely get it out in the house, so hanging from a mountain whilst doing it is unlikely.

10: Start a blog! I love writing, I love connecting with people and working out anything thats going on by helping others too, its fab. Perhaps one day I will look back and it will all make perfect sense, but if not at least you can laugh at my mistakes and go on this journey with me. There are lots of FREE platforms, like WordPress to start your own blog, go for it and share with me what you have written.