I did say I would post in this experiment with the same content on my socials... well here we GO - this may pee some people off... Courtesy of ChatGPT = Fireworks impact on the planet (the unsexy bits no one puts on Instagram): • Air pollution Fireworks release fine particulate matter (PM2.5), heavy metals, and toxic gases. Air quality can spike dramatically for hours or days after major displays. • Heavy metals in the air Those pretty colours? Barium, strontium, copper, aluminium. They don’t vanish. They settle into soil, water, and lungs. • Water contamination Firework debris falls into rivers, lakes, oceans. Residue leaches into water systems and affects aquatic life. • Wildlife stress & harm Animals don’t understand “celebration.” Birds abandon nests. Pets panic. Wildlife gets disoriented, injured, or killed. • Microplastic fallout Casings, coatings, and fallout add to plastic pollution. Tiny bits. Everywhere. • Carbon footprint Manufacturing, transporting, and detonating fireworks = emissions for vibes. • Noise pollution Disrupts ecosystems, migratory patterns, and animal behaviour long after the boom stops. The uncomfortable truth bit: Fireworks aren’t the biggest environmental problem. But they’re one of the most unnecessary ones.

This month has been a ficken tough one Like… really tough. The amount of wobbles. The heightened anxiety. The uncomfortableness just sitting in my body. Waves of grief and sadness, then picking up and feeling alright again, then dipping again. It’s been one total rollercoaster. And I’m not even saying it’s been one big sh*t mess. It’s more like something has picked me up, shaken me, and everything that’s been pushed down for a long time is bubbling to the surface. I can see it in my skin. I can feel it in my gut. And weirdly, I’m taking that as a good sign. End of year stuff does this to me. (Here comes a tiny bit of woo.) It feels like some huge transformations are about to take place. I’ve had an epic year. I still have some epic days left this month. So many things are going swimmingly amazing… my home, my business, so much is good. And yet, there’s this thing I’ve pushed down for so long that it’s just erupting now. This time of year is always more raw for me. The festive period. Old memories. Childhood stuff. My dad passed away in 1998, around Christmas. I still have the memory of him on life support, visiting him, and then in January the machine was turned off and that was it. I know I buried a lot of that, but it always bubbles back up around now. And then there’s the choice I made to live in Bali, which I love, but it also comes with moments of loneliness. It all mixes together. So yesterday, I went to a Melukat water blessing with some friends. It wasn’t touristy at all. Very quiet. Very real. And I just knew… this is what I needed. We were wading through these rivers and got to a point where the guide said, “This stone represents the mother. This stone represents the father.” He said you go up to the stone and say whatever you need to say. Whatever you want to release. Apologise for. Forgive. You just talk. I went to the mother stone first. Gave love. Gave gratitude. Thanked my mum. Then I went to the father stone. I laid down in the river, put my hands on the rock, and I just felt this need to reconnect.

This morning, I finally opened up that message from my mum. Felt kinda bad it took me two days. We had spoken and I had messaged her… but the one message she really wanted me to read just sat there unopened. This morning I did it, and it made me smile, it made me cry, its made my heart melt, and then it made me want to share this little story. My mum lives in France and she absolutely LOVES Christmas cards. Like genuinely loves them like tea, it’s her thing. Every year she sits down and writes them to everyone. Old school teachers, childhood friends, people she’s known forever, people she probably hasn’t seen in years, and I’m talking 50+ years ago. She really puts heaps of love and thought into them, she even buys the paper kind in the summer. She has a old address book, who even has these any more. Every single year she asks me, “Where can I send your Christmas card?” And every year I have to explain (again) that Bali / Indonesia post is well… a thing. Sometimes you have to pay big tax on stuff coming in. We don’t get things delivered to our doors, we have to collect them from the post office, they assess the item, and then just decide how much money you should pay. I’ve literally paid tax on a card before, and also had to pay tax on my own birthday presents. Pfffttt. So she sends me e-cards instead. Now I’ll be totes honest, like duh… e-cards aren’t really my thing. I’m not sat there buzzing AF like “oh my giddy aunt YES AN E-CARD”. But… I still open it. Even though, sorry Mum, it took me two days. Every time it HITS… Because she always tries to put something in there that feels like me. There’s usually a dog on it. This time there were cats, two of them, still fluffy hey, and that made me chuckle. Then she always follows it up with messages like “Did you get your card?” “Did you see it?” “Did it come through?” like she’s excitedly waiting for that little confirmation that it landed. (I have not had that message yet, so I will message to say thank you first)

Yesterday felt like a really BIG day for me, in ways that might look small from the outside but felt huge in my body. I’ve lived in this house for almost a year now. Almost a full year. And until yesterday, I’d never had people round properly. No housewarming. No open house. No “come over and hang out.” And the reason for that has mostly been Nami. If you know, you know. Living with a dog who’s had trauma means everything becomes a calculation. Who comes in. How they move. Where she is. Where I am. What happens if this goes wrong. What happens if that triggers her. So without really meaning to, I’d kept myself pretty isolated. It felt safer that way. Quieter. Controlled. But recently, something shifted. I’ve been decorating, retouching bits of the house, making it feel more like home. And with that came this quiet nudge of, I don’t actually want to live like this forever. I don’t want to keep shrinking my life to keep everything perfectly contained. So a couple of weeks ago, I said to my friends, on this day, I’m doing an open house. Come round if you want. No pressure. Just… come. I planned it properly. I made Nami a safe space. Not an emergency space, but a proper “you’re okay here” space. Blanket. Familiar smells. Options. An exit if needed. And then yesterday came. I was anxious. Not just about Nami either. I realised I was anxious about hosting in general. I hadn’t done it in so long. Having people in my space again felt weirdly vulnerable. But honestly? It went so much better than my brain had predicted. The weather actually helped. It wasn’t raining, but it wasn’t blazing hot either. So Fluffy Nami stayed outside in the garden on a triple leash setup. She still had space to wander. She had her blanket. She could see everything. She barked and growled a few times when people arrived, because, well… she’s fearful, and was like who are these strange people entering my space. And then she settled. She watched. She spectated. She even had a little nap, cute AF…

lost a day, or lost my entire grip on time… because something is not adding up. So my gardener has come every Sunday at 8am for the last 12 months. Same time. Same routine. Same “good morning” while I’m half-alive. This morning, I’m having a lie-in, minding my own business, when Nami starts doing her “Mum, someone’s at the door” alert. I drag myself up, open the door… and there he is. My gardener. Smiling. Tools in hand. Ready to go. I’m stood there like, “hmm… you’re a day early. You come on Sunday.” And he just shakes his head. No. Now, to be fair, he’s Indonesian and I’m English and my Indonesian is… well… let’s call it creative, so we may be deeply lost in translation here. But still. I’m stood there questioning everything. Have I slept for 48 hours? Is it secretly Sunday? Did Bali bend time again? Did I slip into another timeline without permission? We still haven’t got to the bottom of it. I’m just sat here with my coffee trying to figure out what the hell day it actually is. Honestly… send help. Or caffeine. Or both.