Curiously Charis

In November I wrote about learning how to balance my new independent lifestyle, where I made the most of living alone, with my need for some more consistency and healthy habits. Back in November I had a complete different set of problems to now though! I remember going out, having too many drinks and spending too much time hungover and not always being safe with getting home etc and realising I needed to slow things down and care for myself. Now, even with all the bars and pubs shut and a whole new quiet lifestyle, it's even more important to care for yourself. If living away from your friends and family made if difficult for people to know how you're really doing before, having a quarantine and travel ban and strict rules about where you can go and who you can see makes it so much harder. In November I wrote : "I think people tend to think that if you're not telling them you're struggling with something then you are fine, so maybe don't always wa

Those of you who have been stuck in lockdown and traipsing round every corner of the Avenues like me, will no doubt have come across St Ninians Walk. Running between Ella Street and Victoria Avenue, down the side of the railway line, next to the old Jewish cemetery, they are a group of individually designed houses that stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to the Victorian and Edwardian redbricks in the surrounding area. I let my bored lockdown imagination run away with me about the potential occupants of these ultra-modern houses, and wondered whether Hull might have its own community of vampires. Enjoy! St Ninians Walk  It had been a bit of a task trying to get the council to approve the planning permission. They kept asking all kinds of questions, like, ‘Why do you want your houses built next to a cemetery?’ And ‘Why do the metal fences need to be so high and the windows blacked out?’ But this was the perfect location. We didn’t want to live anywhere accessible

I've been pretty upfront about my complete lack of dating experience. Relationship experience - tonnes of it. Dating experience - almost zero. I think when I was in sixth form I went on a kind of date. In the spur of the moment a guy took me for pizza after classes and then we played pool at the pub. Back in the days when a 17 year old didn't need ID to get served! But that was 15 years ago. It didn't really feel like the dates I'd seen on TV on like Friends or Sex and the City. They'd get dressed up and go to a fancy restaurant, the guy might bring flowers. I've still not been on anything like one of those dates as a singleton! Having been happily single for a few months, I've felt a bit more open to try dating recently, but then the lockdown came. (Don't even ask me about how I'm feeling about definitely being single until a vaccine comes along because I will actually cry....) I haven't fancied bothering with virtual dating since