Curiously Charis

Hull. The word itself is a mix of 'hell' and 'dull'. It doesn't have a great reputation does it?! When I made the choice to move to Hull, it was kind of with a gun to my head. My boyfriend had decided his future was in Hull, so I'd decided to take on a job here and we'd moved to Beverley a year or so previously. When we broke up last August, I was kind of stuck. My job was in Hull, I didn't really want to move back to boring Goole, I didn't want to commute, and I didn't like any of the homes in Beverley that were in my price range. Moving to Hull was the pragmatic option - I would be close to work, wouldn't have to commute, could afford a place of my own on my single wage. On September 9th I took on a six-month contract and decided that by the time it rolled around to March 9th I could hand in my notice and move absolutely anywhere I wanted in the world. Well. Obviously as it turned out March 9th was NOT the time I could star...

I didn't set any new year's resolutions this year (or the last few years to be honest!) But I wanted January to get off to a healthy start both mentally and physically. I find exercise helps my mental health and so I can understand why the charity MIND advocates RED January - which stands for Run Every Day - as a great fundraiser for them. Instead of running every day I made a commitment to exercise every day, but at the end of the month I'm sad to say I didn't achieve it! Sadly I missed two days - sorry! (One for a massage (day 10), one because I was at work until 8pm (day 21)). My completed calendar! Some days I did just do Youtube yoga, walking or weights at home though - I didn't do hardcore cardio every day! I was too sore for that! January is always a rubbish month for me - partly because I like having something to look forward to and Christmas is a great distraction. When January came around with not a lot to look forward to and a whole year ...

Like a lot of things in my life, I did Veganuary just for the experience. I wondered what it was like to be a vegan and what kind of sacrifices you might have to make to live a cruelty-free lifestyle for a month - turns out it's actually pretty easy! It has been a learning curve though.  I knew vegans didn't eat meat, fish, eggs or diary, but I didn't realise all the things vegans couldn't eat - for example honey. I slipped up and accidentally ate some sweets with bees wax in before realising my mistake. I did vegetarian January last year and found that ok. I was vegetarian for eight years previously though. Crazily enough I actually found Veganuary a lot easier for several reasons! There has been a huge explosion in vegan foods available in supermarkets and in cafes, fast food outlets and restaurants - I haven't really wanted for much! The difference just between the choices this year and last year is unbelievable. Vegan KFC - FTW! I'...

Birds sing high up in the green branches, which sway slightly in the breeze. A blanket of delicate white flowers covers the ground, as the warm spring sun shines down. It’s hard to believe this was the site where over one million jews were put to their deaths in gas chambers, through starvation, from disease or exhaustion. This was what I learnt when I headed on a trip to Auschwitz organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust , for a feature with pupils from the Selby area while I was working as a reporter for the Goole and Selby Times. The start of the experience was a seminar at the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds, where around 200 students and teachers gathered to find out more about the roots of the Holocaust and explore difficult issues surrounding it. We were asked to remember one important fact: the Holocaust was 6 million seperate murders of individual people who were Jewish. At the seminar, we heard the testimony of Steven Frank , a Holocaust survivor originally from ...

All Hull City Council employees got an email a couple of weeks ago asking if they wanted to be an election assistant, and I'd always wanted to do a count so I jumped at the chance! I had expected a chunk of expenses to come through this month, but they will be coming in in January instead, so I am a bit short on Christmas cash - and at £15 an hour I thought the election was a good money making opportunity for me! I've always been really interested in politics and wanted to be part of the action. I wasn't really sure what to expect at all or how the night would go. Sugar to get me through the night! Here's what I learnt! - You arrive at 9.15pm and the count starts with postal votes at 10pm, then at 10.15pm our polling booth votes came in. You count all the voting slips to ensure they match the numbers given by the polling station, checked by the person next to you, then after they've all been verified you start to count the individual parties. This didn...

When you live with other people, there's always someone around who knows whether you're eating and sleeping or how you're doing after a tough day. But when you're living by yourself I think it's easy to fall into bad habits. If you're new to living alone it's normal at first to really live out that independence and eat when you want, sleep when you want - have cake for breakfast or nap at 3pm... drink until 2am on a weeknight... Kind of like being a fresher at uni! But it's probably not great to do that in the long term... nor when you're 32. It's still nice to have your independence and to make choices that other people don't need to agree with, but sometimes those choices can become a bit too unhealthy for your own standards of wellbeing. See more at @lauraheartlines I feel like I've been socialising a lot and drinking far too much lately, and I know I need to cut it down. It's great to be sociable and I've b...

Holidaying with another person or another group of people is not without its pitfalls. You don't always agree on when or even where to go, budgets aren't always equal and not all accommodation is to everyone's tastes. Then when you get there, you all have to agree on your itinerary, where you want to eat, what time to get out/go to bed and when to nap (you all know you like a holiday nap!) and it's sometimes a bit frustrating having to compromise all the time. It's always good fun though and I've only had a very few holidays I haven't really enjoyed for various different reasons... but I have always wondered what it might like to go solo, and have a trip entirely on your own terms. I've written previously about how I'm giving relationships a rest and enjoying some time to myself. But I don't want to miss out on travelling just because I'm not currently with anyone. I have wanted to visit Iceland for a few years now but h...