May Life Lately

May has been... weirdly quiet! Considering how busy our months are it's been quite nice to have a quiet one. 

I've also disconnected myself from social media quite a lot this month, with the Twitter, Instagram and Facebook apps all deleted from my phone currently, which has been really nice but has made this blog post harder than usual to write seeing as I usually look through my Instagram to remind me what I've done all month! It's been nice to disconnect a bit though and I've been having my phone turned off a lot more and spent more time reading instead of mindlessly scrolling through other people's highlights!

But it hasn't been a completely quiet month! Here's what I've been doing this month...

What I've been doing

The two biggest things that happened this month happened two days in a row! On the Sunday I ran my 6th half marathon. It was hot and sweaty and gross and I've been injured throughout pretty much all of my training and I completely fell of a cliff at mile 12 and I was dying by the time I got to that uphill finish, but I did it! I'm looking forward to working on my injuries and coming back (hopefully!) with a PB at my next race in October.

But more excitingly, I GOT MY WEDDING DRESS! I am planning a proper blog post on everything I learned wedding dress shopping, and I can't say a lot because I'm keeping everything between myself, my maid of honour and my Mum, but the whole thing was much more emotional than I expected (I cried the entire night afterwards I was so overwhelmed by the enormity of the decision) and I'm so excited and thrilled and nervous and trying to field every question and I HATE having to keep it from Phil, but obviously I am so so happy and excited!

We've been so lucky with the weather over the two Bank Holidays this month that Phil and I went full British cliche and instantly went to Homebase and bought garden furniture and ate every meal outside and abandoned our responsibilities and got sunburned at a beer festival and went to the pub and stroked all the dogs and it's just been the best.

 So we've had a couple of exciting parkrun milestones in the Crowley-Cantillon household! This month Phil hit a huge milestone in running his 100 parkrun! I'm so glad I've been getting him up and dragging him out of the house on a Saturday morning for four years! parkrun is such a huge part of our lives - I can't imagine starting a weekend at home any other way (we even do it whenever we're away in the UK if we can find one nearby!) and I'm so glad Phil loves it as much as I do!

So as well as Phil running his 100th parkrun, my 100 parkruns tshirt came this month! I ran my 100th parkrun back in July but there's been a huge wait on tshirts so I was thrilled to find mine was finally available! I even got to debut it last weekend!

I also had the best time volunteering at parkrun as always the day before my race. I love cheering on the runners, I made friends with a lovely slobbery dog called Winston and I helped out a little boy with his Duke of Edinburgh award!

And finally, I've had some brilliant times with my favourite people this month. Vintage fairs and ice cream with Riven, and a gym class and health dinner and Diet Coke with two of my bridesmaids which was a welcome but very different change to the nights we had as teenager, and dinner at one of my favourite places with my new friend, Ali. I'm so lucky to have so many awesome ladies in my life.

Where I've been
We've spent the bank holiday just gone with both of our families which has been lovely! Last Saturday we went to a party to celebrate my Auntie and Uncle's 40th wedding anniversary and on Sunday we went out with Phil's family. It's made me so excited to have everyone in the same room at our wedding!

What I've been reading
Some excellent books this month! 

• The Hours
• The Wonder
• Fire Sermon
• Marlena
• The Heart's Invisible Furies

My favourites were The Hours and Marlena, and The Heart's Invisible Furies, which I absolutely adored.

What I've been watching
Only one trip to the cinema this month to see Deadpool 2,  and at home we've watched All The President's Men, The Fog and we re-watched Rogue Nation in preparation for the new Mission Impossible film.

We are also getting quite into Westworld, and The Handmaid's Tale is back for our daily dose of "oh wow this is really depressing and a bit too close to home."

What I've been reading online
Cooking on a Bootstrap - The Only Way is Ethics?
The Pool - On Loneliness
Shortlist - How movies cast ugly characters
NY Times - How an Italian disco hit because Liverpool's Champion's League anthem


What I've been excited for
Ooh lots to look forward to in June! Phil and I are going looking for his suit for the wedding next weekend and we're going to go out for afternoon tea afterwards which I'm really looking forward to! We also have the wedding of one of Phil's oldest friends this month, and my first trip to Centre Parcs at the end of the month!

I have lots of blog post ideas (including that wedding dress shopping one!) to get written this month so I'm hoping to be back soon!

Charlotte x