What a whirlwind week I have just had! I spent the last 8 days in Sicily; a trip that I have had to keep secret from family for months. To explain why we need to go back to the very beginning.
Category: Travel
My Weekend in London + Strategies That Helped Me To Manage Chronic Pain
One of the biggest difficulties that we face living with chronic illness is that our health can be unpredictable. Though I’ve seen better days and improvements with my health this year, I’ve also gone through long periods of feeling exhausted, flu-like and just downright awful. And, at times, it has really gotten me down. It makes it hard to plan anything in advance because I never know how I am going to feel.
Travelling is something that I personally enjoy. Most recently I have visited Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Barbados. It has to be said that none of these trips were easy. Travelling with fibromyalgia is difficult. Having a variable health condition creates a host of challenges when you are away from home.
Travelling is something I am determined to do, however. And, though I had to give it up for a year when I was at my sickest, I came to the conclusion that if I waited until I was well to travel… Well, I’d be missing out on many exciting opportunities and would be letting life pass me by.
Back in January I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and happened to see that Ryanair (a budget airline) had a sale on. Knowing that some hard things were coming up in my life– which I intend to write about when I am ready to– I decided I wanted something to look forward to.
I spontaneously messaged my friend and within the hour she, my husband and I were booked to go to Copenhagen. My pals love travelling and in the end 12 of us booked to go. I thought I would share some photos with you and chat about what we got up to during our long weekend in Copenhagen.
Today I am doing something a little bit different and reaching out to you and asking you to complete my first ever reader survey. It’s in my nature to always strive to do the best that I possibly can with all that I do and blogging is no exception. I love writing this blog and I try to make it a helpful and enjoyable read for you. I want it to be the best I can possible make it.
Although I always have ideas milling around in my head for February Stars, it is really important to me that I continue to create content that you enjoy and benefit from. I’d therefore love to get your feedback on what you like reading about and more importantly– what you don’t. It doesn’t matter how long you have been a reader, I value all of your feedback.
I’ve put together a survey so that I can find out exactly what kinds of things you like/don’t like about February Stars. The results are totally anonymous and I would really appreciate your honest answers. Thank you in advance for your input and I look forward to seeing your responses. If you have any problems viewing the survey below, you can also find it here (following this link may be the best option if you are on a mobile device).
I recently spent the weekend in Amsterdam celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday. It was such a fun weekend and I was so pleased that I was able to go. A citybreak was a completely different ballgame to the relaxing holiday I had in Barbados and I did wonder about how I would cope given my fibromyalgia and current level of fitness. However, I approached it with the same attitude of “just going for it”. As it turns out I did good and my body mostly kept its act together. I did have to rest a lot but this enabled me to do all of the things I wanted to.
Accommodation
My husband and I stayed at the Westcord Fashion hotel, which is a nice, trendy, modern hotel. It wasn’t too far from the airport and was easily accessible by public transport. We actually chose to take a taxi to the hotel though as we arrived quite late at night and I couldn’t face hanging around waiting on trains and trams when I was needing my bed!
The rooms were nice but also caused some hilarity. If you are staying here, definitely make sure you are very comfortable with whoever you are staying with. Not only does the bathroom have a glass door, there are lots of mirrors in the room and literally every single one gives a view of the bathroom!
The Westcord fashion hotel is located on the outskirts of town but it doesn’t take long to get into the centre of Amsterdam via trams, which run very regularly.
You may recall a while back that I posted about booking a trip to Barbados. It came round really quickly and I jetted off for some time in the sun a couple of weeks ago, along with my husband and two friends. We decided to go on a whim, after spotting a deal on Holiday Pirates and I’m kind of glad that I didn’t over think it. If I’d stopped to think about the long-haul flight and the heat, I probably would have talked myself out of going.
Photographing An Abandoned Fever Hospital- Part 2
If you missed Part 1, you can view it here. Today I am sharing more photographs from this past weekend, when I explored an abandoned fever hospital. I thought it might also be interesting to share how I approached photographing these buildings. If you have no photographic knowledge, this probably won’t make a whole lot of sense to you. However, if you are interested in learning more about photography so that you can learn to capture images like these, please leave a comment and let me know. I think it’s worth saying, though, that photography is subjective and how I choose to shoot is simply my way of doing things.
This was the first time in months that I had chosen to shoot with my DLSR camera. I’ve really struggled to go out with this camera due to my health and how heavy it is. However, I was determined to use it on this occasion because I knew I would potentially need a fast lens. A fast lens is one that can stop down to a wide aperture and therefore let in more light. I knew the inside of the buildings would potentially be really dark and gloomy and therefore having a fast lens would be a big advantage for getting the shots I wanted to capture. Stylistically, I also love the shallow depth of field that comes with shooting at wide apertures. I shot all of the images with a canon 35mm f/2 lens, which is my absolute favourite lens.
I shot in manual mode and my settings varied depending on the light and what I was shooting. My approach to shooting is that I typically set my aperture first. My ISO and shutter speed are then decided upon dependent on the light. I typically try to keep my ISO as low as possible, but ensure that I have at least a minimum shutter speed of 1/125. My hands aren’t the steadiest and this helps to prevent any blurring from camera shake.
I consciously made the decision to slightly underexpose my images. I wanted to create eerie, gloomy images and knew exactly how I was going to post-process them. I knew that deliberately underexposing would help me to achieve that look.
The aperture I chose– which determines depth of field– depended on what I was shooting. For the outside shots of the buildings, where I wanted to capture more detail, I chose an aperture of between f/5.6 to f/6.3. Depth of field is also influenced by the distance you are from the subject and, as I was stood quite far from the building, these apertures enabled me to capture the detail of the buildings whilst leaving some of the foliage in the foreground out of focus.
Photographing An Abandoned Fever Hospital- Part 1
If you follow me on Pinterest, you might have an inkling that I love photographs of abandoned buildings– seeing as I have a whole board dedicated to the subject on there. It is something I really like and the creepier the place, the better. There’s just something really fascinating about the forgotten, derelict places of the past. There is an abandoned fever hospital a short drive from where I live and I’ve been meaning to go and photograph this place for years. Life has just always gotten in the way. But this weekend, I finally managed to go and photograph it. It’s the first time in months that I have shot using my DSLR, as I have been favouring the use of my mirrorless camera due to its much lighter weight.
There isn’t a whole lot of be found online regarding the history of this place. I believe it was originally used as an isolation hospital to treat patients suffering with diseases such as diphtheria, scarlet fever and meningitis in the early 1900’s. After closure, it had various alternative uses– as a children’s home, a home for the elderly and as a hotel. Unfortunately, I have no idea as to what the timeline for those uses is. What’s obvious, though, is that these are long forgotten buildings that have been left to become completely derelict. The roofs have come down in places, the floors are rotten and rooms are littered with all sorts of trash and debris. Creepily, there are lots of old children’s shoes and toys scattered around the place– hinting to its history. There is definitely an eerie feeling to this place and I wanted to capture that in my photographs. As I took a number of photos I have decided to split this into two posts, you will find the link to Part 2 down below where you can see the rest of my photographs. I will also talk more about how I photographed this abandoned fever hospital.
Last month I took a little trip to the west coast of Scotland. It was a staycation that we took to break away from the day-to-day monotony that comes with recovering from chronic illness. It was something positive to look forward to and it turned out to be just what I needed as it helped to give me a bit of a boost. When we were away, we stayed at an amazing hot tub lodge and I quite happily wouldn’t have even left the place. However, I do love to explore new places and so we took a short trip out each day. First to Inveraray Castle and then to Inveraray Jail the following day.
Initially I had dismissed the idea of going to the jail. Having been to Alcatraz I just wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this to quite the same degree. However, we were told that it was a really great place to visit and I have to say I’m glad we went in the end. As it turns out, it was really unfair of me to have formed an opinion before I even went as it was really good!
When you purchase your ticket you are handed a headset for the audio tour. As you make your way through the prison at your own pace you press play at certain points to be informed of the jail’s history. As you listen to the audio tour you are taken back in time and experience what it was like for prisoners in this 19th century prison, which housed both men, woman and even children.
The tour starts with an exhibit about the gruesome forms of punishment that were used in the days prior to courts and prisons. There are even thumbscrews hanging for you to try if you dare!
On a dull and dreary day during my recent trip to the west coast of Scotland, I visited Inveraray Castle. As the name suggests, Inveraray Castle is located in the town of Inveraray on the shore of Loch Fyne. If there are any Downton Abbey fans reading this, you might recognise this as the fictional Duneagle Castle from the 2012 Christmas special.
It is an impressive looking mansion that is home to the Duke of Argyll. Once you have paid your entrance fee you are free to explore both inside and outside of the castle. There were many impressive rooms within the castle, such as the extravagant dining hall. My personal favourite though was the armoury hall. An array of weapons literally lined the walls. The armoury hall has a ceiling that is huge– 21 metres in height– and is the tallest ceiling in Scotland apparantly. Arranged in displays were pole-arms, axes, swords and muskets. Can you imagine living in times where these were actually used?!
The gardens cover 16 acres, two acres of which are formal lawns and flower beds– the rest being park and woodland. Be sure to stay away from the stone that is said to be cursed if you ever visit! I think you’ll agree that we aren’t needing any bad luck!!
It was an enjoyable trip and though we only stayed for around an hour or so, we managed to see all of the castle. Although there is free access to wheelchair users, the castle itself has very limited disabled access. To explore all of the castle you need to able to manage stairs, which is a shame.
After our visit, we had a pub lunch and then I had a much needed nap before spending most of the rest of the evening chilling in the hot tub at our lodge. I so need a hot tub in my life!!!
Travelling can be very difficult for people who are suffering from Fibromyalgia. For me, plane travel, in particular, is incredibly draining and leaves me feeling awful.
As we relaxed in our Hollywood apartment on our second last evening, Ross asked me what I would like to do on our final day in LA. I figured it would probably be a good idea to spend the last day chilling out and relaxing. Ross had other ideas. He reminded me that I had made the comment “I will stick to Disneyland” after my day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. He knows me too well and knew fine well I was wishing I was well enough to go to Disney in Anaheim. When he suggested visiting Disneyland my face lit up but my rational brain reminded me that it wouldn’t be a good idea so I said no. Ross took to google and looked up Disney’s disability policies and managed to convince me that I would be okay. I’ll admit that it did not take much to convince me! I was like a hyper 5 year old on Christmas Day on the car ride there. I love Disneyland!
Although the Griffith Observatory wasn’t originally on my list of places I wanted to visit, we were able to see it from our accommodation and curiosity got the better of me. On a gloriously sunny day, Ross and I spent a couple of hours exploring the observatory. There are many cool and fascinating exhibits inside and I was also taken with the building itself and enjoyed photographing it. The views of LA from here were spectacular and the front of the building also offered views across to the Hollywood sign.