On the Sunny Side Up

It's normal for your heart to get broken over and over again as you grow up. Your innocent misunderstanding of the adult world means that adults will confuse you and your parents will let you down. Competition, fitting in and forming friendships are all natural processes in life that create community but also form cracks in your heart. School finishes, and you go on to college or the working world - suddenly you have to stand on your own two feet and fend for yourself. No-one is going to rescue you and life is hard. You either find yourself in a community that makes life a little easier or you find yourself competing against those who should be uniting with you. Disconnection sets in, and the loneliness of adult responsibility seeps through your mind, body and heart. It's a heavy feeling, walking around with this secret wish in your heart. The wish that someone would just give you a break. A break from having to drape this exacting cloak of resignation onto your shoulders every...

Day 1: Fly from London to Turkey. The flight over the pond is easy and painless - 4 hours from London to Istanbul, a short change over and then 1 hour to Izmir Adnan Menderes airpot. Honestly, the time spent waiting to board then waiting on the runway takes longer than the actual flight. 2:30 am and we get off at Izmir and start feeling the excitement - our feet are on Turkish soil, and they want to dance a dervish whirl. Pick up the car and drive to Bergama, our final destination. Bearing in mind that we have arrived at 2:30 in the morning, and pre-booked a car, the process should be over in 5 minutes. However. First we can't find the booking office. So we ask a helpful but slightly suspicious airport security officer. He looks at the address on the email and then regretfully but kndly informs us that to pick up our booked car we would have to travel 400km back in the direction we came...which to be honest is not ideal. Our options are either a bus service to central Izmir...

Tall, caramel skinned gentleman. Looks like you could feature in a Western or Desert Ranger adventure scene. You have that slightly swarthy, streetwise look to you. Where do you come from? Your map is sharing with you your next location. Could it be a secret underground MI5 meeting? Or are you after the treasure stollen by your tomb raiding nemesis? Nope. You've swapped it for the Metro News. Obviously preparing for covert missions requires up to date knowledge on low level scandal and the next piece of over inflated bad news.

My 50 minute commute to work requires at least 25 minutes tube journey. One day I stopped where I was sitting (luckily this didn't require a huge change in momentum...) and looked at the situation. What a strange and rather comical situation I find myself in. Same time and place every morning, sharing this cramped metal tube that is shooting through tunnels deep under ground like a futuristic mole colony with many of the same faces day after day. In this strange and slightly romantic way, our lives which up until now have been so separate, intersect quite physically, sharing the space and air we breathe. The intimacy of this shared personal routine is not dissimilar from sharing a bathroom sink with a partner or flatmate. Each doing their own teeth but sharing a most intimate ritual. My curiosity thus piqued about the not-so-strange strangers around me, I started to wonder about their life stories and about what more their was to them than just this face sitting across from me. I...

My boyfriend and I love doing things together, but I have noticed we tend to approach them in quite different ways. He likes to break down and analyse what he is going to do first and then does it, whereas I like a quick overview and then go into the experience hands first. This stood out for me in a recent conversation about essential oils! I have always loved smells and often let my nose lead me into an experience. When I cook, all ingredients must be sniffed at first and when I walk through a garden I can't pass a plant without running my hands through it and inhaling deeply (or in the case of the thorny rose, delicately shoving my shnoz into the bed of petals after a quick check for any winged competitors). After my experience I reflect and think about how it felt when I inhaled the scent. Was it fresh and uplifting and lemony? Was it warm and soothing like a cinnamon hug? Perhaps it smelled like earth after the rains have fallen, which is called petrichor and is a result of ...